Above the planet in the licensing station, Ari'Va's eyes zipped between hundreds of hovering holo feeds of each team and exam locations. Her six fingers danced in the air, swiping from one feed to another.
"Confirming telemetry… Group one is off the ground. Team white, four miners from the Ophis Belt, just left the ground. Team yellow is scraping the atmosphere to slingshot—risky move, but could pay off greatly. Team orange is attempting a vertical burn andddd…. they just lost a stabilizer fin. Oof."
She flicked to the next column of feeds.
"Group two. Team bronze is threading through the canyon of broken satellites. Team green is drafting each other's plasma wake… a clever strategy actually. Team black is approaching the upper layer of clouds.
The third column of feeds moved in front of her.
"Group three—"
She froze stiff for a moment.
On one of the larger holo-feeds, a battered ship barrelled into a sea of icy rocks of the planet's ring. Ari'Va's pupils tightened.
"Team red, led by Sylas, they…" She rubbed her eyes.
"They've—" She muttered out
The numbers on her feed were spiked far higher than any of the other teams. A stress gauge of the ship reaching into the red and holding it.
"They've already left the troposphere… unbelievable." She aired out in awe.
"They're… they're out. They're out of atmosphere and entering the inner ring. I—how is that even possible?"
Inside the ship, the little orange-furred pilot, who was barely taller than the flight chair mind you, was completely locked in.
He weaved between one icy rock to another. Micro-impacts from smaller debris pinged the outer ship and sounded like rain on a window. Finn's knuckles were white as could be as he death-gripped the arms of his seat. He didn't speak, crap he couldn't. He was scared shitless. He didn't even blink once since they took flight. In the seat next to him, Nara kept a straight face the whole time trying to seem unfazed, but that only lasted until the third corkscrew where she let out a small yelp and proceeded to death grip her seat just like Finn.
"Who knew the little fuzzy guy could fly a starship like—" She began to say before then covering her hand over her mouth.
The color began to drain from her face.
"Like—mmf—like—"
She turned away and swallowed whatever came up, her eyes watering. Finn managed to unstick his head from the seat and looked over to her as she fought against her body to projectile vomit everywhere.
"Try breathing through your nose. It kinda helps keep it down." He offered weakly.
Nara nodded and began to do so. After breathing for a few seconds, she glanced over to him for a moment.
"Th–thanks…" She muttered out embarrassedly.
At the central command area, Sylas stood with his arms crossed and gaze fixed through the front glass. He was truly unfazed by it all, as if he was an overgrown adult riding a kiddie ride. A huge chunk of ice blocked their flight path and he didn't even bat an eye to it.
"Left two degrees. Rise three." He said calmly, not looking at their little fuzzy orange pilot so much as speaking to the ship.
Back at the licensing station, Ari'Va finally found her voice, barely that is.
"Group Three lead is… still Sylas' team, team red. They're about to clear the ring interior and slingshot off an outer cluster. I'm getting… I'm getting mainframe estimates…"
She pulled a string of light down and spread it with her palm.
"All D-class starships on this course are capped at roughly point-zero-five the speed of light under ideal conditions. These rigs haven't seen real maintenance in tens of stellar cycles. Even so, at their current acceleration curve, Sylas' team should reach the moonbase in a little less than one minute."
The crowd of other green workers began to clammer amongst one another at the amazing time they were making.
In the middle of the room sat Astra in her large chair.
Her four red eyes observed Sylas intently.
"Group four." She stated calmly.
Ari'Va jumped slightly.
"Right! Group four."
She swept her hand and another set of feeds appeared.
"Team purple composed of the thalorian siblings has the nose here. Right on their tail—"
She leaned in.
"—is a tight cluster of the other three. We've got team grey with the human and two other elves in second. The third and fourth team's banking wider for a high arc… that'll either pay off or cost them twenty seconds on the transfer."
Astra didn't care for much of what she said beside one thing. And that was the human…
Kaito.
Her facial expression didn't change, but something lit up in the second set of eyes as she watched their feed.
"Let's see how you make it through this… Kaito the human." She muttered to herself.
Kaito's team ship blasted through the upper stratosphere. The turbulence tossed the ship like a toy, but everyone inside was surprisingly calm.
"The purple team of thalorians got the lead." Rikona said, as she analyzed the green radar screen in front of her seat.
"And the other two teams are right on our tail."
No sooner had she said that than the clouds outside thinned into tiny veils then vanished completely.
Kaito's jaw slackened as the sky morphed into a vast sea of shimmering white. Icy debris filled every corner of the viewport.
"What's all of this…?" He muttered, eyes wide with awe and a tiny pinch of panic.
"We're passing through the planet's ring." Zeek began to explain from the pilot seat in front. "It's made up of broken rocks, ice, shattered moons, and sometimes. Gravity holds it all in a loop like it's some cosmic graveyard."
"Sooo pretty, huh?" Valentina butted in, her voice flat and unimpressed, rolling her eyes.
She looked out the window to see the other two teams closing in.
"Hey Zeek, you trying to coast us to third place? The other two teams are getting too damn close. Push this piece of shit tin can, now."
Zeek's pompadour bobbed dramatically with every single movement of the ship. He threw a big thumbs up over his shoulder, grinning wide like a kid behind the wheel of a stolen car.
"Don't trip on it Val baby, you know I got this!" He said with a wink.
He turned back around and gently caressed the console, voice dropping to a strange seductive murmur.
"C'mon baby, let's make some magic happen for ol' Zeek…"
He punched the thrusters and dipped the ship into the field of icy debris without hesitation.
"Wait wha—!" Kaito began, but it was already too late.
The ship blitzed through the oncoming chunks of ice, weaving left, banking right, diving under a colossal chunk. He whipped the ship as if he actually stole.
Behind them, one of the trailing ships wasn't so lucky.
BOOOM!!
The team's ship slammed head-first into an iceberg-sized chunk of ice.
Kaito's face paled slightly as he stared back at the cloud of ship and icy debris.
"They didn't make it…" He whispered to himself.
Zeek's voice was annoyingly cheery.
"Welp! One less to worry about."
Valentina sighed hard.
"Freakin' psychopath…"
They sped forward, now only seconds behind the thalorian ship. Kaito's attention was drawn back to the race as they corkscrewed past more ice.
"He's flying like that… in a beat-up D-class starship?" He mumbled.
Rikona smirked and looked over to him.
"He's not just some junkyard pilot, y'know. Zeek used to race in pro tournaments all across the Viridion galaxy. People bet fortunes just to watch him race and drift through asteroid belts."
"All over the galaxy? That sounds so cool…" Kaito mumbled in admiration, his eyes trailing back to the pilot seat only to catch something looming in the distance.
Something huge.
He stood up from his chair and shouted.
"Zeek! Look out!"
It wasn't just debris, it was a chunk of ice easily the size of a city.
Rikona's mouth dropped open beside him.
"It's… it's so big…"
Zeek didn't bat an eye though, he even chuckled.
"Big? I've taken down plenty bigger than this back in my pit days." He said with a cocky chuckle.
Kaito blinked.
"Wait… you've destroyed asteroids bigger than this before?"
Zeek frowned and looked over his shoulder.
"Asteroids? Who was talking about that?"
Kaito and Rikona both froze mid-breath.
"Eh…?" They aired out in unison.
Valentina groaned.
"Stop being a weird freak and be a pilot for once in your life! Shoot the damn thing!"
Zeek's neon-blue irises pulsed as he locked onto the approaching mass.
[Target locked] The ship's AI blared.
Zeek grinned.
"Time to add another to my list."
He pressed the fire button… but nothing happened.
A red error code came across the screen.
[Error: Cannon power cable malfunction]
"Ahhh… right. The cannon interface cables. Shit! Still had those half-disconnected from when I was—" He muttered.
"You didn't finish fixing them?!" Valentina barked, halfway out of her chair.
Zeek whipped his head around.
"Well I didn't think we'd need to shoot space."
Valentina scoffed.
"You never finish anything. But don't worry... only a woman knows how to please a woman."
Rikona blinked.
"Wait, what does that mean—"
"Don't worry about it." Kaito butted in quickly.
The thalorian ship ahead of them slowed down to get behind their ship.
Zeek's brows lifted as he watched them. Valentina unbuckled herself from her seat.
"Point me to the suits. I'm going out there."
Kaito's eyes widened.
"Wait… is she going to do a spacewalk?!"
Rikona turned to him slightly confused.
"What's a spacewalk?"
Kaito looked over to her.
"It's when you exit the ship in full gear and move outside in open space. Even elite star travelers avoid it unless they absolutely have to. One wrong move and you're dust. Or even worse… drifting and lost forever."
Rikona's eyes widened slightly as she looked over to Valentina who was already slipping into her suit.
"That sounds terrifying, but so… cool."
Valentina zipped up her grey and black suit. She tapped the button on the collar and with a soft hiss, a transparent visor unfolded over her head. It encased her head in a clear dome that flickered with orange lines as the internal HUD booted up.
Zeek glanced back from the pilot seat.
"Airlock's cleared, Val-baby. Doors opening now."
A metallic groan echoed through the entire ship as the rusty twin airlock doors began slowly unlatched from one another.
Valentina stood at the entrance, her hand gripping the rail. She looked back over her shoulder.
"Pull me right back in after, got it?"
Zeek spun his chair and threw up a flamboyant thumbs up, his pompadour flopping dramatically.
"C'mon, Val baby, you know I'd never leave you stranded in the cold, dark, soul-crushing vacuum of space if I ever had the chance. We go waaaaaaay back."
She opened her mouth to say something, but—
Thud.
The inner doors sealed behind her before she could even respond.
"Now…" Zeek mumbled, eyes scanning the panel.
"Where in the stars is that damn eject button…"
Back in the licensing station, Ari'Va's eyes and voice was shaky
"Ma'am, you should take a look at the grey team…"
Astra didn't respond at first. Her focus was on the central monitor, where Sylas, Finn, and Nara were already on the rocky moonbase with their glowing red flag in Finn's hands. It wasn't the fastest capture ever recorded in licensing history, but it was close.
But something in Ari'Va's voice finally pulled her attention away.
"An examinee…" Ari'Va gulped.
"She's outside of their ship."
Astra's bottom set of eyes shimmered. The main monitor shifted. Static appeared then cleared up to show Valentina crawling across the hull of the ship as icy debris zipped past her.
Ari'Va's eyes widened.
"What is she doing…?" She whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
Outside of the ship, Valentina's boots locked magnetically onto the ship's exterior plating with each step until she reached the top of the ship. She faced ahead to the enormous wall of ice.
She raised her revolver. It was black and bronze with a sleek futuristic looking cylinder and glowing carvings into the barrel.
She exhaled.
Orange colored essence sparkled around her like a thousand fireflies beginning to light up. The cylinder of the revolver began to spin on its own, faster and faster, until it was just a blur of orange light.
She aimed forward.
"Scream out… Echo."
A beam of pure orange essence blasted out. Even in the void, the beam seemed to scream through the silence.
BOOOOOOM!
It eviscerated the city size chunk of ice, turning it to dust in a blink.
But it didn't stop there.
It carved a tunnel through the entire width of the planetary ring, a glowing golden path of vaporized ice and debris stretching from their ship straight toward the moon like a runway.
Inside the ship, Kaito's eyes were glued to the front window, jaw damn near to the floor.
The debris in their way was gone.
All of it.
He blinked his CPI scanner activated in his eyes.
Valentina: 1,200,000 CPI
"…Woah." He breathed out.
"So that 700,000 my scanner read when I first saw her… that was just her base CPI? This chick is insane…"
Valentina's voice echoed through the ship's intercom casually.
"You should be clear now. I'm walking back. Get ready to open the door."
Zeek practically bounced in his seat.
"Aye okay, Val baby! Nice stuff!" He beamed out.
Back at the licensing station, a small crowd of workers had formed behind Ari'Va's chair.
None said a single word. Ari'Va wasn't any better, her jaw was dropped.
On the moonbase, Finn pulled the team's red flag free from its socket. The moment he did, a loud ping confirmed their time. But just as he turned to return to the ship, a blinding flash lit the sky above him.
He looked up toward the planet in the distance to see the golden blast from Valentina's attack was still fading.
"Kaito…" He whispered, eyes narrowing with concern.
"Hey, Cook!" Nara called over the comms.
She stood by the moonbase door, arms crossed, impatiently tapping her boot.
"Stop stargazing and bring the flag back! I'm ready to go fight this guardian already, and the other teams are catching up!"
Finn gave a deliberate nod.
"Yeah… On my way back now. Get ready to open the door." He said.
After several teams from other groups snagged their flags and headed back toward the checkpoint, Kaito's team ship descended onto the moonbase.
The landing was rough, rough enough to kick a puff of dust across the viewport. The ship's AI pinged then spoke through the intercom in a calm, robotic voice:
"Gravity: 0.17g
Atmosphere: negligible
External temperature: -180°C
Terrain: rocky, cratered.
Visibility low due to sediment particulate in lower orbit. Caution advised."
Outside the front window, the moon resembled Earth's… if someone had cranked the dial on spooky to ten. At the center of the moonbase, their grey was there.
Valentina pulled her gloves tighter and turned toward Kaito.
"You ready?"
"Yeah… almost!" He grunted out like he was in the middle of weightlifting.
Everyone turned to see him hopping in circles on one foot, his other leg trapped in the upper half of his suit. Somehow his helmet was around his ankle.
"…How?" Rikona asked.
"Don't ask!" He grunted out.
Rikona's lips twitched before she blurted out.
"Can I… Can I suit up and go with Valentina instead?"
Everyone froze. All eyes locked on her, Kaito's as well. Even the ship made a soft ping, as if it was shocked too.
Zeek tilted his head, squinting.
"Huh? Why you tryna swap out?"
Rikona fidgeted, rubbing her arm.
"I—I've never… actually worn a suit before. Never been in real space either and… I just thought… maybe… you know, f-for research purposes it would be better if I experienced it firsthand and the way Kaito explained it made it sound—"
Her rapid-fire explanation came to a halt as Valentina walked up beside her, handing her a folded black and grey suit with a small smirk.
"You wanna do it because it looks fun, nothing wrong with that, genius. Here." She said with a smirk.
Rikona looked at the suit in her hands and gave a tiny smile.
"…Thank you."
Valentina turned toward Kaito.
"You got a problem with that, round ear?"
Kaito, who was now fully stuck in his suit that was inside out now, with his arms through the leg holes and the helmet dangling from his belt.
"Not at all. I actually think it's a good experience!"
Rikona's entire body perked up at that, her short, pointy ears flapping slightly. She turned her face away quickly. Valentina caught sight of her, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, well. I guess all it takes to bring you outta your shell is that round-ear brat over there, huh?" She whispered teasingly, just loud enough for only them to hear.
Rikona's face shot red immediately.
"Eh—?? N-n-n-nononononononono!! It's not like that, Val! I swear!"
Valentina chuckled, turning back toward the ramp.
"You know reacting like that doesn't help your case, right?"
"I know! It's just…" She glanced shyly at Kaito who had somehow tripped while fighting his suit and was now rolling across the floor.
"He's… pretty cool, you know?"
Valentina looked back at him and chuckled.
"…I guess round ear isn't so bad after all." She muttered.
They both suited up and Rikona followed Valentina down the ship's ramp. Her footsteps were clumsy at first as she fought the low gravity, but she kept pace.
Valentina's voice crackled through the comms.
"Zeek. Where's the flag? I don't see it."
Zeek leaned forward in the cockpit.
"Rikona's tablet says it's behind that big ol' boulder near the middle of the base. Should be wedged near a crater with a few others."
"Copy." Valentina replied.
They bounded forward across the grey land kicking up dust with every hop. The haze made everything feel like a dream. Finally, they spotted the row of color-coded flags ahead.
Valentina motioned toward them. Rikona nodded and bounced ahead.
She landed beside the grey flag and gripped the pole of it.
"Got it!" She called out triumphantly as she unlodged it from its slot.
And then—
BOOOOOOM!!
Explosions erupted all around them.
The ground shook.
Dust flew in every direction, blanketing everything in a dense grey fog.
Inside the ship, Kaito stared out the window shocked.
"What's going on!?"
The ship lurched violently, throwing Zeek to the floor.
The ship's AI spoke over the intercom.
"Warning: Significant damage sustained to left engine. Impact detected. Status: hostile projectile."
Kaito's eyes widened.
"An attack…? But who—"
Through the thick cloud of dust, he saw his answer.
A ship was landing on the far side of the base. Its ramp dropped and out hopped the same female thalorian, bouncing toward the cluster of flags. She grabbed her team's purple flag and turned to leave.
But before heading back to the ship, she stopped.
Her helmet tilted slightly.
Even from this distance and through the dust, Kaito felt her eyes on him.
"…Them?" He muttered.
The AI voice rang again.
"Alert: Suit oxygen line #2 has been severed. Oxygen levels critical. User at risk."
"No no no…" Kaito turned.
"That's Valentina!"
Out in the haze, Rikona screamed out.
"Valentina? Where are you!?"
She couldn't see anything. Dust surrounded everything around her.
"Valen—"
"…Ri…kona…"
The voice was weak, barely able to be heard in her helmet's speakers.
She turned to look for her, but didn't see anything… Until she looked up.
Valentina was upside down, drifting higher and higher into the sky. She had a long crack in her helmet and her suit was scorched, one side torn open.
"VALENTINA!!" Rikona screamed.
She launched off the ground, using a floating piece of debris as a springboard.
Then another.
Then another.
When she reached her, Valentina's body was limp, floating like a leaf in the wind.
"I… can't… breathe…" Valentina rasped.
Rikona reached for the emergency O2 line on her own suit, but her fingers grasped nothing.
"No… no no no, I left my bag on the ship." She whispered in a panic.
She wrapped her arms around Valentina, trying to pull her down.
But she couldn't.
She was barely tall enough to pass the ride requirement at amusement parks, and in low gravity her strength was basically zero.
She kicked. She twisted. She screamed.
But nothing worked.
They were rising, floating helplessly toward the endless black above.
"Come on! Move!" Rikona shouted to herself.
"Do something! Don't just float there! Help her!!"
Tears streamed down her cheeks and fogged her visor.
Valentina's hazy eyes fluttered.
"Val… stay with me!! You have to stay awake!" Rikona screamed at her.
Valentina's lips moved, but no words came. Her hand twitched once.
And then… it stopped.
Rikona's voice cracked.
"No… Don't… don't do this…"
She slammed her forehead against Valentina's suit, full blown sobbing now.
"Don't die. Please… don't leave me alone again…"