The Starfighter Invitation

47 player vs environment

"Do you think they could have been Type Fours?" I asked. "Been, um, Ah Ma Ani?"

"That’s the extra-tall species?" Silent paused, a vague outline in the dark. "Ceiling’s are high enough. I didn’t notice how many fingers the Ah Ma Ani had."

That seemed a non sequitur until I remembered the glove he’d found.

"They looked so gentle and slow-moving," I said, remembering those I’d seen on Mars. "Hard to imagine them fighting anyone."

"Unless the Cycogs start filling in detail, we don’t know what really happened to our system," Nina said. "It would advantage them to present The Synergis as a peacemaking force among warring Bios."

"Perhaps it is an ark, and the tall ones come to us for help," Arlen suggested.

"Or it’s all made up," I said, with a faint sigh. Deciding how I felt about The Synergis wasn’t made any easier by the Cycogs' games with truth.

"Ready to move on?" Silent asked.

A touch reluctantly, I collected my sled. The last four levels had been near-lightless, and we’d had to navigate by touch, blocks of shadow, and the fact that the layout of each floor seemed to repeat. The crossing had been uneventful, but achingly tense, and we’d celebrated a return to dim light by pausing in a bare side room, pulling the sliding door closed and just breathing for a while.

"This floor doesn’t look residential," Nina said, as we resumed our slow-and-silent progress down endless hallways.

"Fewer doors," Silent agreed. "Wider corridors, as well. Ceremonial? Administrative?" He paused to peer through the nearest open doorway. "Tidier, too. Less floating chaff."

"There is a window," Imoenne noted, and we turned to the half-open door she floated before.

Inside, a portion of floor glowed faintly. I’d assumed it was a lighted platform, but as I craned to see past the others, something flickered beyond. We pried the door open, and peered down into a vast echoing space. A distant central sphere looked deceptively small, but was likely larger than the ship that brought us to The Wreck. Between it and us were two sets of rings of some dark purplish substance, oscillating lazily. When the rings came near each other, there were flickers, some sort of electrical arcing.

"The engine room?" Nina said. "Possibly the control room is beyond."

"No bridges," I said. The rings might be moving slowly, but it didn’t look at all safe to fly through them.

Silent pressed as close to the window as his helmet would allow, craning to see more of the area immediately around us. "I can see several probable access points. Judging from their spacing, we want to look for a right turn off our current corridor."

Rather than move off immediately, we lingered at the window searching for details. The slow revolution of the rings didn’t change, but the arcing wasn’t conveniently conforming to a pattern we could avoid.

"Speed might be our only option," Silent said. "Dash through the first set, pause, dash through the second set. Hope we don’t get unlucky."

"Or we could find a control system to shut it down," Nina suggested.

"Turning off the power altogether might do bad things," I said.

Silent rapped on the thick stuff of the window, then pushed himself gently away from it. "We can debate after finding the nearest opening, or control panel, or other interesting development. I’ve asked Amelia to check around, see if anyone’s had any Challenges shielding against electricity rather than whatever goes into those blaster bolts. But we need to push on."

We moved as quickly as we dared, and were fortunate to almost immediately be presented with a massive floor hatch coloured a livid purple shade, with lines of striped black and red on either side.

"Danger: Keep Out?" I suggested.

"A control panel on either side of the room," Silent observed. "Probably simultaneous activation as a safety precaution."

"I will help with this one," Arlen volunteered, swimming right. "The largest of the buttons?"

Silent hesitated. "Sensible people would make the largest button the emergency close," he said. "Try the next largest, the one to its right. On three."

I followed Imoenne and Nina in pushing away from the hatch to float in the corners of the room, shields up. Silent counted, and the button press produced a stuttering sound, which might once have been a warning claxon to accompany the slow lifting of the hatch.

After so much gloom, the glare of the engine room set my eyes stinging. The window we’d been looking through must have been polarised.

"Stay back until our eyes adjust," Nina warned. "And we’re sure no arcing comes through the hatch."

"Which do you think would be better for the crossing—having the Renba at a distance, or have them resting on us?" I asked.

This debate gave our eyes plenty of time to adjust, and when the pause produced no play of electricity through the opening, we edged closer and looked down again.

I felt sick. We’d avoided trouble by running careful and quiet, which was not a strategy for lightning. Somehow we would have to pass the three outer rings, and the three inner rings, all of them rotating independently, with no visible pivot points. They were around a half a metre thick, and the rings within the sets passed within a foot of each other, with the electrical sparking appearing wherever all three rings currently intersected.

"Give it five minutes' observation?" Silent suggested. "We can’t risk this without a better idea of the patterns."

"There could be lot going on in that room that we just can’t see," Nina said.

Silent detached a used oxygen canister from his sled, waited for an opportune moment, and then threw. The canister sailed directly through the gap in the first set of rings, veered abruptly right, and shot off toward the outer rings once again. It struck one, made a small frizzling sound, and bounced back to the region between the two ring sets, losing momentum enough that it began to drift.

"If we didn’t have a vat of magic goo waiting for us, I wouldn’t advocate going anywhere into that," Silent said. "I’m sure it’s not healthy, but I’d guess that we’re not looking at immediate fatality unless we hit a ring. But to be sure, we’d best send one person first as a scout."

"Draw lots for that," Nina said.

Brief consultation produced a random number generator buried in the [Group] menu. "Lowest goes first," Silent said, and promptly rolled a ninety-eight. I rolled a three.

"I’ll leave my Renba here," I said, keeping myself brisk because I was scared. I positioned my sled, but waited out a cycle of the rings while I decided what to do about sharp turns. "Count me down so that one is just before the rings would clear in front of us."

"Good luck," Silent said, sounding stifled, probably because he’d thought he’d be taking this risk himself.

[[Try not to embarrass me,]] Dio added.

I pulled a face, but smiled at the same time, because the words had been a transparent ploy to distract me. Reminding myself that I’d wanted to be first to unlock a puzzle, for all that I’d never bargained on a millions-strong audience for my attempts, I narrowed my focus to the simple act. Five, four, three, two, Go.

There was no need for split-second timing: the rings moved slowly, and the gaps were wide. I zipped easily through the opening with no trouble, and then slowed to a crawl, bracing myself for whatever had caused that change in direction, my eyes narrowed almost to the point where I couldn’t see. I wanted to feel, react to my internal reads, and not confuse myself with the dizzying cycle all around me.

Something grabbed me by the spine and pulled. I juiced the impellers, doing my best to slow, to not be pushed back to the rings and zapped. It seemed to work. It was like swimming against a current, but I could keep my speed down and once I had that under control, I pushed toward the central point between the sets of rings. Here, the current seemed to be absent, so I paused, wondering whether to repeat Silent’s manoeuvre of throwing an old oxygen canister.

"We need to know how the Renba react to this stuff," I said, calling it to me as the gap above me rotated into position.

The same swerve. So Renba weren’t immune to the current, though my silver bird recovered more quickly than I had managed, and zoomed down to rest on the top of my helmet. I turned my attention back to the lower ring set, and sent my Renba ahead.

"The drag past the second ring looks stronger," Nina said, after my bird had veered sharply left, then corrected and dropped to become a mote against the hull of the sphere below.

I nodded, a pointless gesture in my suit, and then made some small adjustments in position so that I would be exactly centred over one of the points where the three rings crossed and gaped. Three. Two. One.

The sled bucked beneath me, the current seeming to try to pull me off it, and I braced hard against the footrests, trying to turn because there didn’t seem time to slow. For a moment it seemed I would fly directly into the rings. Far closer than was comfortable, I angled into a parallel route, my whole bodied tensed against the prospect of a game-ending zap. Then my curve pointed me down, and I shot toward the central sphere.

"The current doesn’t try to turn you a second time?" Silent asked, mental voice bringing a breathlessness that matched my own.

I didn’t answer immediately, slowing just short of the inner sphere. The thing was larger than I’d realised: maybe a hundred metres in diameter. I rotated to stare back up at the space I’d just crossed, my head spinning either from the display, the effects of the current, or perhaps just the sheer realisation of size, of all the layers around us.

"Kaz?"

"Sorry. It feels like, once you’re in it, that the current doesn’t let go of you if you move back toward the rings. Moving down, it weakens until I couldn’t feel it at the midpoint of each stage. Slowing worked for the first set, but for the second it was more steering into a skid, because slowing would take too long."

Orienting back toward the inner sphere, I called my Renba to me, settling it on my helmet, then said: "I’ll look about for an entrance." I didn’t want to watch the others make the trip.

"Just don’t open anything," Nina replied.

I didn’t respond, since I had no impulse to go poking my nose inside alone. By the time I’d done a single circle around the sphere, Arlen and Imoenne were both down, and we gathered by one of the hatches I’d discovered on my trip.

"Three teams in the area immediately above," Silent said, after he and Nina had joined the cluster. "They’re racing to find an entry point."

"They’ll still need to get through the rings," Nina said. "Let’s not rush our own entry."

Hares and tortoises, and there was still no choice but to be tortoise. It had served us well so far, but we were very brisk in our survey of the next sphere.

"This, it is as if we are back at the outer hull again," Arlen said. "But the shields that provide a cover have been stripped away."

"Matryoshka," Imoenne murmured.

"Here’s hoping we don’t have to follow the same sequence," Silent said, examining the control panel for the hatch I’d chosen.

"The core’s in and to the left," I said. "Not direct centre. I don’t think there’s a lan trigger to this door, just buttons."

"Shields up," Nina said. "At this stage, we’d better expect traps and attacks at every point."

We all shielded, and spread out away from the door, with Nina taking point. Her strength meant she had the best chance to survive any bolts, explosions, or other developments. But the hatch slid open without drama, introducing a different problem.

"We’re never going to fit all of us and our sleds in that," Silent said.

I doubted the rounded chamber—another airlock—would fit all of us even without our sleds, and said so.

After a moment’s pause, Nina said: "Three of us will go in with one sled. The other two can follow with the rest."

Even that was going to prove a tight squeeze. I stayed outside with Imoenne, and all of the sleds, since Silent decided after he, Nina and Arlen had wriggled down together that they’d be better off with room to manoeuvre.

"Airlock’s going through a cycling routine," Silent said over the group channel, a moment later.

"Let’s anchor all but one to the hull here," I suggested to Imoenne. "We can collect them when we head back."

In response she made a slight gesture upward, and I looked across the dizzy vista of rings to see several tiny figures floating around the hatch where we’d entered. As I watched, one launched downward, shot through the outer rings, and successfully corrected course to float in between the two layers.

"Speed becomes necessary," I said into the party channel.

"Come through," Nina replied. "There’s no immediate threat."

We pressed buttons, but had to wait through a double cycling process, achingly slow, and all I could do was watch as the tiny cluster of figures moved one by one into the middle of the rings, and then two together started down.

My hope that this paired journey would be undone by the sharp current of the second set of rings died as they controlled their arc expertly, and then reoriented. Toward us.

"Inside!" Imoenne said, urgently.

I’d been so focussed on the approaching team that I hadn’t noticed the airlock finish its cycle. I gripped the edge and hauled myself forward, Imoenne following with eel-like grace, and we watched in silence as the hatch shut the view of the approaching team away.

Nina, who must have been watching on our own stream, said: "We’ll jam open this airlock, and any others we encounter, but we can’t count on keeping the other teams out for long."

"Even so, let’s stick to our quiet and careful approach as much as we can," Silent added. "I don’t like the look of this place."

That was encouraging, and I immediately checked our group’s stream, but it only seemed to show corridor, dim after the brightness of the rings, but better-lit than the rest of The Wreck.

"The proportions, they have changed," Arlen said, as the inner hatch finally opened. "We have gone from too large to cramped."

Wide enough for only two side-by-side, and tall enough for me and Nina to float upright, but not for Silent, Arlen or Imoenne, who angled themselves with legs drawn up to compensate. It gave the area a claustrophobic feel.

"Atmosphere is a different mix," Nina informed us. "More oxygen, and high humidity."

I wondered if that was the reason the walls looked faintly moist. "Decoration, too," I observed, my eyes struggling with an Escher-esque black and white pattern that transitioned from simple diamond shapes near the floor to a disturbing claw-like tangle scratching at the ceiling. "Cheery."

"Tempting as it is to split into two groups, I think we’d best travel in a clump," Nina said. "Two on shielding duty at the front, and two taking turns in the rear. Leveret, can you bring the sled along?"

I nodded, glad somehow that this spared me from touching the walls. Everyone else, consciously or not, avoided the patterned wall, and hauled themselves along using the floor or ceiling.

No convenient straight corridor presented a way to our target. Instead, everything curved, worm trails through an apple. We tried to move lightly, peering through open doors, gingerly testing any closed ones, finding the area was dominated by spaces that looked to me to be laboratory rather than living quarters. There was hardly any floating debris.

"Definitely feels like a spaceship inside a space station," Silent said, observing what appeared to be a wall of sleeping pods, each with a padded base and clear doors. "Inhabited by people shorter than human. Or…square."

"Could it be they curl up, like cats?" Arlen suggested.

"Debate later," Nina said, sounding worried. "This corridor seems to be taking us away from our goal."

"I don’t understand the logic of this ship layout," Silent said, tense minutes later. "Did these people meander everywhere?"

"Possibly there’s a level above or below us that’s more direct," Nina said. "We should have examined the area around the airlock in more detail."

We pushed on, trying to increase our speed without completely sacrificing stealth, all too aware of the progress of two rival teams, which Amelia reported as ignoring each other in favour of searching out airlocks of their own. We were no longer alone in the central sphere.

"If this comes down to whoever was lucky enough to open the closest airlock, I shall be very sad," I told Dio.

[[An element of chance is always present,]] Dio replied. [[Are you enjoying yourself?]]

I hesitated, wondering if being honest would disqualify me from the Starfighter Invitation I wasn’t sure I believed in or even wanted.

"I’d enjoy exploring an abandoned space station more if there weren’t things leaping out at us. And if we were working with the other teams, not worried they’ll gank us. I like the idea of winning, but not the danger, and I don’t really enjoy the concept of Renba. Can they even open airlocks? How do they get us out of The Wreck?"

[[In this particular case, we would assist them. System Challenges are meant to involve risk, but we try not to make them unfair.]]

Not entirely reassured, I turned my attention back to the path ahead as a distinctive door came into view around the curve: solidly built, but with a small window. Another airlock.

"I think there’s a hatch above it," Nina said, relief clear in her voice. "The faintest square outline, do you see?"

"Possibly. I’m trying not to be obvious." Silent swam up to the door and paused, rotating gently. "When we go through it, we alert the other teams. And one of them’s right near their airlock."

"But we can’t hang about here indefinitely." I considered the sled I was toting, and added: "How’s everyone’s oxygen levels?"

We killed some time, making a small performance out of swapping out oxygen packs while debating making our entry into the hatch a frantic rush, or a casual move that would make it seem less important. This would likely be the final sprint, and we all knew it.

"I do not think this is an airlock," Imoenne said, her helmet pressed closed to the small window of the door. "That is not the outer hatch."

"Have a look while I float around the ceiling here, trying to find a way to open this," Silent suggested.

Although the door was as heavy-duty as the airlock hatches, Imoenne was immediately proved correct when the inner door opened without any cycling. Beyond was a small room with a number of seats all facing in one direction, separated by an aisle down the centre. Nina studied the control panel before the front-most seats, then said: "Either some kind of more elaborate transport than the lifts, or…"

"Life pod? Escape shuttle?" Arlen attempted to sit down in the absence of gravity, but then sprang up, and caught himself before he hit the ceiling. "But, no, it is in, not out that we need. Have we found a way to open our hidden door?"

"I see a probable latch," Silent answered. "Gather out here and I’ll trigger it and we’ll try for a casual exit, stage left. Then, well, speed as seems advisable."

A rogue giggle tried to escape me as I attempted to casually manoeuvre the sled through a hatch in the ceiling. I was following on Silent’s heels, and tucked myself immediately out of the way, and then caught my breath. We had found our open space.

It looked like a good third of the circular ship was one vast chamber, cut about with odd crystalline structures, both jagged yet organic, vanishing into gloom. Around the base of the ragged shafts were lumps of glistening goo, like partially melted ice cream. The whole thing brought to mind melting ice caverns, or old spider web. I shivered.

"The core might actually be up here," Silent said, sounding tense. "With the sled, we could go all-out straight to it. Though we might hit some of this stuff on the way."

"It’s not clear that the core’s on this level, or the one below," Nina replied. "Let’s avoid touching anything until we have a better understanding of the place."

Nina and I took a handle of the sled each, and Imoenne and Arlen clasped midway along the central shaft, with Silent snagging the end, and we started off at a gentle impulse: an awkward clump, but moving without the need to bound off surfaces. But avoiding touching made it impossible to sprint.

"Creepy as fuck," I muttered, surveying the moist-looking crystal. "But at least it doesn’t look like it’s reacting to us."

"Not yet," Nina said.

"Sci-fi horror movie rules, guys," Silent said. "No splitting up, no sticking fingers into interesting goo piles, no leaning over fascinating examples of alien fauna."

"Avoid eggs," I added, then said: "I swear that nearest pillar-spike-thing is getting brighter."

"Another team incoming," Silent said, tersely.

I could hear them, faintly: a thump, echoing through the dome, then hints of voices. Sound seemed to reflect off the goop, making it hard to guess direction.

"Increasing speed," Nina said. "Stay compact."

We shifted from the equivalent of a slow walk to a jog, steering toward the clearest spaces, even though that wasn’t the most direct route. The other team, to our left, let out an excited shout—not because they’d found the core, but because they’d spotted us.

"Incoming," Silent said.

"Perhaps if the bulk of us hold them here, and one slips away to find the core?" Arlen suggested, as Nina decided on a push forward, slipping between two narrow sections of jutting crystal-ice.

"Horror movie rules," Silent reminded us. "Get down toward that patch of floor, quick as we can."

We angled sharply to the nearest relatively clear section of metal, and anchored ourselves to the floor with our boots. As Nina and Arlen put up a double layer of shields, I caught sight of two sleds heading toward us.

Our lead was officially lost.