The Starfighter Invitation

44 friendly competition

[[[[Welcome to the System Challenge.]]]]

"Thanks, dude."

"Poggers!"

"This is gonna be so sick!"

Our carefully laid plans had not factored in two other groups also hanging back until the main rush had departed. Ten people crowded ahead of us, blotting out the spectacular view of The Wreck, and I couldn’t decide whether the more excitable of our immediate set of rivals were as young and brash as they seemed.

[[[[Do you wish for further explanation before commencing the Challenge?]]]]

"Nah, man, we’re good," said the tallest of the loud team’s players. "Heard it all already."

[[[[Then your sleds are available in Bay Three. Remember to set the follow distance for your Renba.]]]]

A timely reminder that the stakes in this game involved more than just losing a Challenge in a very public manner. That all this, the virtual stars, could be taken away.

"Wish me luck, Dio."

[[Good luck.]] Dio’s voice held a faint note of sympathy, as if te could readily guess my thoughts. Te probably could.

Before Bay Three came a line of doors opening into a massive vat of Soup. Having an EVA suit pattern was a prerequisite for the System Challenge, and I was glad not to have to put mine on manually, since along with little stores of water and nutrient broth, the thing came with a catheter. There were times I wished the main quest line skipped all this realism.

Like the majority of the other groups, we’d obeyed some heavy-handed hints from our Cycogs and chosen matching cosmetic overlays to make it easier to identify us as a team. We’d briefly flirted with homages to Star Trek, or perhaps an N7 uniform—and I’d privately thought of my Core Unit logo—but had ended up in dark blue with clusters of white stars down one side, from helmet to boots.

"We look like a bobsled team," Silent said, over our party voice channel.

"We are magnifique," Arlen said, leading our way into Bay Three—a low-roofed airlock with twenty sleds lined up all along one wall, all facing a currently closed hatch. "But what do these others mean for our arrangements?" he added, with a bob of his helmet toward a tangle of people suited up in black and red geometrics, or white with the outline of blue angel wings on the back.

"Go slow, adjust as necessary," Nina said. "And hope we get down before anyone—"

All ten opposing party members stopped selecting sleds and pivoted to stare at us.

"Too late," I said.

"One of you is really Nina Stella?" asked one of the excitable group in red and black. "I don’t know whether to sledge or ask for an autograph."

That made Silent laugh. "Just get to the Core before we do, man," he said, even though we’d planned on holding our tongues. "Good luck all."

"But which one is she?" the guy—ExtinctionPlus—said.

He’d spoken more to his team than us, so it wasn’t too awkward to ignore the question and go to select our sleds—which were nothing more than a rack of spare air packs attached to an impeller, with handlebar controls, and adjustable footrests. The footrests didn’t make much sense to me until I realised that riders could brace against them, and prevent the end of the sled from flailing free.

The second team watched without comment as we examined our rides. Keeping communication on a private link was the same strategy we’d chosen to adopt, but it felt eerie and hostile thanks to the reflective helmets. I was glad Silent had wished everyone good luck—and then had to turn my attention to a flood of guild messages, since it had been news to them too.

The sled bays were airlocks, and once we were all ready the whole place decompressed. Arlen began to hum the Star Wars theme as the outer hatch split horizontally, and slowly opened out into a vista of sparkling lights, and the endless curve of The Wreck. We’d seen it in detail during the explorations of the earlier teams, but it still deserved a pause for awe at the sheer size of the thing. A ten kilometre diameter. The tallest building in the world wasn’t even a full kilometre.

"Let’s aim dead centre until we see what these others do," Nina suggested.

"We can go quickly, and then stop short—it will make them want to rush, and then they will pass us!" Arlen said, sounding like he was enjoying our complications immensely.

We did that.

Would floating through space ever get old? Would I one day drift in a star-studded abyss, indifferent? If so, it would have to be far in the future, for despite getting in as much practice as I could manage, it was impossible to not keep gaping in every direction. Outside of atmosphere, the Great Rift was so clear and distinct. Clouds in space. And because that was part of our own galaxy, it had become something I could actually visit. What would it look like from the inside?

But soon The Wreck consumed all attention. In the ten minutes of rapid travel between the transport and the damaged space station—it surely couldn’t be a ship—I kept finding new details that I hadn’t noticed in previous surveys. You could easily fit all the skyscrapers of Manhattan into the gaping rent in its flank, and the number of possible entry points seemed countless. If we couldn’t find an external airlock, where would we even start in searching for an internal one?

The initial rush of teams from this third wave of Challengers had descended as cautiously as possible down the impact crater. Inevitably, someone grew impatient, collided with a floating piece of debris, and sent it hurtling toward another team, who shielded themselves and continued the chain reaction. Most of the teams had been hugging the edges of the crater, and retreated hastily into the nearest side-passage, so the casualty count was relatively low. But still injuries, and at least one death. It was disconcerting to meet a Renba travelling in the opposite direction.

The debris field began well above the actual crater, so we would have had to slow anyway, but coming to a full stop worked just as Arlen had hoped, with both our immediate rival teams scudding past us. They were travelling at slight angles that made it clear where they intended to enter the crater.

"Let them get past the lip, and then we’ll head down," Nina said.

"Some return already," Imoenne noted.

A full team, one player apparently unconscious, and two more without their sleds, were helping each other slowly back. If these made it to the transport or staging satellite, they could recover and try again.

After they had passed, we descended to the section of The Wreck’s hull overhanging the exposed transport tube, only to face the complexities of keeping hold of our sleds while trying to walk with magnetic boots. Fortunately each segment of the outer hull was easily large enough for all five of us to float above without coming close to knocking into each other, and so we managed to reorient ourselves without ignominious disaster. Then we surveyed the seemingly featureless curve of identical segments stretching away from the lip of the impact crater.

"Here’s the small row of holes noted by the previous teams," Silent said, settling himself at one edge of our first segment. "They tried lan insertion, much as we unlocked the final stage of the gauntlet series, so we won’t bother trying that unless we spot some difference. If you find anything, try not to point to it or reach to pull the handle or whatever. We don’t want to open this one, just locate a distinct feature that the other segments don’t have and move on. I’ve highlighted segments as targets here, and then at the true location."

"Let’s travel side-by-side for maximum coverage while not necessarily looking like we’re searching," I said.

"Since the stream view is external, they won’t know precisely what we see," Silent said. "But once we spot something, it’s going to be difficult to not draw the entire audience’s attention to it."

Nina shrugged, the movement barely visible through her suit. "We can only try. Take an image of any potential latches, and we’ll discuss them."

I walked, an exercise in concentration when every step required a pull to free my boot, an adjustment of balance, and then controlling the moment the magnetism caught my foot again. I’d reversed my sled so that I was backing it ahead of me, and felt like Frankenstein’s monster herding a recalcitrant space shopping trolley. Shuck, wobble, CLOMP.

The pitted, metallic grey of The Wreck made the search far from simple. I hadn’t heard an official age for the thing, but if it belonged to a pre-Synergis species, it had been out here for virtual centuries, and showed it. Score marks, curious black splotches, and countless minute pits gave the hull as much variation as the surface of the moon.

My initial optimism faded as we passed over the first two of Silent’s target sections without finding anything. We went on for two more, than turned, and came back over the sections running to our initial line’s right, which would make it clear we were searching the area particularly, but it couldn’t be helped. When nothing stood out, we repeated the run over the sections running to our initial line’s left.

"This one, it is different," Imoenne said, in her breathy murmur.

"How do you mean?" Nina asked.

"The sound, it is a different quality."

"Ah, she is right!" Arlen twice lifted his foot and put it down. "A lighter note."

I hadn’t heard any variation, but I was barely hearing the noise we made at all. What sound there was had to be travelling to us through our suits, rather than the vacuum surrounding us, and was far too muted for me to make out subtleties.

"That so?" Silent said. "All right—let’s finish moving across it, then cross the next one and return. Eyes peeled."

We clomped a further segment away, then paused to confer.

"Either we’re missing some difference, it’s the wrong segment, or perhaps the line of holes that all of them have will act differently if it’s an airlock?" I said.

"Amelia says there’s two teams that are heading up to check out what we’re doing," Silent said. "We’ve maybe ten minutes before they reach the hull."

"We could move down as if we hadn’t found anything, and return when they’ve lost interest," Nina mused. "But perhaps we should simply shift to our true target area, and see if there’s a different sounding segment. If there is, and there’s no obvious mechanism, we can try lan insertion in the holes and, if that fails, change to Plan B."

"Sounds the best option. Let’s go." Silent reversed his sled, and we zipped quickly away from the crater, following his projected line for placement of the vertical transport corridors—presuming whoever built The Wreck had evenly spaced the things.

"It’s tempting to try to blast in," Nina mused, as we once again began a laborious clomp across a patch of hull. "A sure way to fail, but the target I’ve painted on us makes it hard to restrain our pace."

"We’ll balance that out with strength, wit and, apparently, an ear for music," Silent said, with a little chuckle.

"If we don’t find anything, we will at least have confused everyone watching us," I said, managing to keep my tone light, but starting to wonder what we’d do if teams caught up to us out here.

We concentrated on searching, and this time it was on the first return trip that Imoenne said: "Here."

"One of the teams is nearing the rim of the crater," Silent warned.

"Let’s try lan insertion first," Nina said. "And survey the area in close detail if that fails."

"Advisable to not stand upon it, if we are opening," Arlen suggested, and we hastily moved off our hoped-for door.

"I’ll do the insertion," I said, glad I could at least contribute speedy lan manipulation. I created a comb of the same type we’d used in the gauntlet series, first shaping it above the series of holes, and then pushing it downward.

Nothing.

I could hear the tiny sighs of disappointment over our private connection, but Imoenne held up a hand before I could release the lan insertion.

"There is a new vibration," she said.

"The mechanism could be barely running, if it is at all." Silent bent, and put his hand on the panel we were trying to open. "I can feel something. Seems to be getting stronger."

"If it’s an airlock, it’d have to vent the air before opening I guess." I glanced back toward the crater. "Let’s hope it vents quickly, or we’re just going to be opening this door for someone else’s benefit."

I could feel the vibrations now, and then a series of clanks, slow at first, but then increasing in volume and pace until it felt like someone was hammering on the hull, trying to get out.

"Ominous as fuck," Silent said, and then rocked backward as the target section launched upward and slammed back against the hull opposite to us. Beneath, a far less scarred door slid quietly back to reveal a spacious opening with another set of doors on the far side.

"In, quick," Nina said, kneeling and grabbing for a handhold to haul herself downward. "We have to get down and figure out how to close it again."

This was not so easy, since we had to manoeuvre our sleds with their precious supplies inside as well, and while we all could fit with room for a couple more, it wasn’t something to try quickly. Arlen proved particularly helpful, moving like an eel and then reaching to pull and position the rest of us.

"Let’s hope this closes it," Nina said, punching buttons even as Silent and Arlen pulled me last through the hatch.

"Wait! Wait! Get the Renba in!" I said, speaking out loud in my panic.

The door was already closing. I frantically hit my [Call Renba] command, then gulped and swallowed until I saw the flash of silver zip through the rapidly narrowing gap. With the effortless speed and manoeuvrability of hummingbirds, the other four followed, the last dropping through bare moments before the airlock shut out the stars.