Chapter 2
Arrivals
For a moment that stretched into infinity, there was nothing. Then came the light.
It wasn't a sudden flash, but a slow, gentle bleed, like dawn breaking on a world of pure white. Sound followed—a low, pervasive hum that seemed to vibrate in his very bones. Then came sensation: the feeling of cool, solid ground beneath his back and a faint, sterile scent, like recycled air in a clinic.
Jax's eyes snapped open.
The first thing he saw was a ceiling. It was impossibly high, a mosaic of white metallic panels and glowing light strips that crisscrossed in a complex, geometric pattern, eventually vanishing into a hazy distance. He was lying on his back, not in the comfortable confines of his Sleeper pod, but on a smooth, slightly cool plinth. He sat up, his movements feeling both strangely sluggish and perfectly responsive. He looked down at his hands, turning them over. They were his hands, but at the same time, not. They were cleaner, unblemished by the small nicks and calluses of his real life, like an idealized, high-resolution render of himself.
He wore a simple, gray, one-piece jumpsuit. It was coarse and functional, the same uniform he saw on the man getting to his feet on the plinth next to him, and the woman on the other side, who was staring at her own hands with the same look of detached wonder.
They were in a hall. That was the only word for it, though it felt inadequate. It was a space so vast it could have swallowed a fleet of starships. Rows upon rows of the integration plinths he had just woken up on stretched out in every direction, thousands of them, each one depositing a dazed-looking person in a gray jumpsuit into this new reality. The air was filled with the murmur of a thousand confused voices, a rising tide of questions and exclamations in a dozen different languages.
Towering, slender droids with featureless, polished heads glided silently between the rows, their movements smooth and economical. They carried no weapons, only slender batons that glowed with a soft, blue light. When a player became too loud or tried to climb onto a plinth, a droid would approach, tap them gently with the baton, and utter a single, monotone phrase in a universal trade language.
"Pioneer, proceed to the central concourse. Orderly conduct is required."
This wasn't an adventure. This was an airport terminal on a galactic scale. It was Ellis Island for the digital age.
Jax swung his legs off the plinth, his feet hitting the floor with a solid thud. He felt… real. He could feel the slight grain of the metal floor through the thin soles of his jumpsuit's boots. He took a deep breath, and the sterile air filled his lungs. For a moment, the sheer fidelity of the simulation was staggering. This wasn't a game projected onto his senses; it felt like his consciousness had been scooped out of his skull and poured into a new vessel in a new place.
He saw the chaos beginning to bubble around him. Some players were shouting, trying to form groups. Others were running, testing the limits of their new bodies, a few attempting to jump with comical, floaty leaps in the station's lower-than-Earth gravity. One player near him was frantically swiping the air in front of his face.
"Where's the UI?" the man yelled to no one in particular. "How do I open my inventory? System! Menu!"
He got no response. There was no system. There was no menu. There was only the hall, the crowd, and the droids.
Jax, the former logistics coordinator, felt a grim, familiar feeling settle in his stomach. This was a system, just a different kind. And a system could be understood. While others shouted, he watched. He saw how the droids subtly, patiently, herded the flow of new arrivals in one general direction. He noticed that the glowing light strips on the ceiling weren't random; they formed faint, broad arrows, all pointing toward a massive opening at the far end of the hall.
He ignored the panicked player still searching for a non-existent menu. He pulled his gray jumpsuit straight, took a steadying breath, and began to walk. Not running, not shouting, but moving with quiet purpose, letting the current of confused humanity carry him as he followed the silent guidance of the lights above. He was just one more gray uniform in a sea of thousands, but unlike most of them, he was already working the problem. The game had already begun.
The massive doorway at the end of the arrivals hall was not a gate to adventure, but a bottleneck into oppressive order. As Jax passed through it, the chaotic murmur of thousands of confused voices was replaced by the soft, sterile hiss of industrial-grade ventilation and the rhythmic, percussive thump-thump of digital approvals being stamped somewhere unseen. The air here smelled different—less like recycled air and more like ozone and quiet desperation.
He was in another hall, this one somehow even bigger than the last, but organized with brutal efficiency. The space was dominated by a grid of glowing queue-lines projected directly onto the floor, forming hundreds of identical, snaking paths. Each path led to a row of brightly lit, white-walled booths that stretched into the distance. It was the galactic equivalent of a customs checkpoint, and every single new arrival was being funneled into a line.
A protocol droid, this one a dull silver color with a designation stenciled on its chest—WSE-PROC-33B—pointed at Jax with a featureless metal finger. "Pioneer, queue seven-alpha. Have your wrist-implant ready for scanning."
Jax nodded, falling into the designated line. He was now officially a number in a queue, a data point to be processed. The wait was long. It gave him time to observe, his old professional instinct kicking in. He watched the players ahead of him as they reached the booths. There was no friendly NPC to greet them, just an automated terminal and a datapad that emerged from a slot in the wall.
Some players blazed through the process, tapping the datapad with confidence and moving on. Others were more hesitant, spending long minutes staring at the options. One man, several places ahead of Jax, let out a frustrated groan and slammed the datapad on the counter. His terminal immediately flashed a bright, angry red.
"Vocational profile mismatch," a robotic voice stated from the booth. "Inconsistencies detected. Proceed to recalibration queue nine-delta for reprocessing. Next."
The man sputtered in protest as a security droid escorted him away towards a distant, much slower-moving line. Jax made a mental note: The choices matter. The system is checking for consistency.
Finally, it was his turn. "Next," the terminal in front of him chirped.
He stepped into the white, sterile booth. The air was cold. "Pioneer, present your wrist," the terminal commanded.
A small scanner extended from the wall. Jax held up his wrist, and a beam of red light played over his skin. The scanner beeped. "Pioneer 7,434,221 confirmed. Welcome to the Waypoint Station Epsilon Pioneer Program."
A datapad, thin and cool to the touch, slid out of a slot. "Complete all fields," the terminal instructed. "Inaccuracies will result in processing delays."
Jax picked it up. The screen glowed to life, displaying a document that looked unnervingly like a government form.
[ PLANETARY ORIGIN AFFIDAVIT ]
A list of dozens of star systems and planets appeared. Jax recognized some from the pre-launch hype. Tarkus IV, advertised for its mineral wealth. The Meridian Expanse, for its uncharted dangers. He scrolled past them. He knew these places would be swarming, a chaotic rush for resources and dominance. He was looking for the opposite. Near the bottom of the list, under a sub-header labeled [Post-Industrial Territories], he found what he was looking for.
Ka'a Hoku:A former deep-space mining colony in the Outer Rim. Primary exports ceased thirty standard years ago. Low population, minimal infrastructure. Caution: Lingering industrial contaminants reported in some sectors.
It was perfect. Obscure, forgotten, undesirable. A place for an observer, not a conqueror. He selected it.
The next page loaded. [ PRIOR VOCATIONAL RECORD ]
Another list appeared, this one of jobs. 'Corporate Security,' 'Heavy Machinery Operator,' 'Field Scientist,' 'Mercenary.' These were the obvious starting classes. Jax scanned for something different. His eyes landed on a choice that made his lips curve into a wry smile: 'Logistics and Acquisitions Archivist.' It sounded soul-crushingly dull. It was also the closest thing to his real job. It implied a familiarity with manifests, shipping routes, and data—information. He selected it, betting that the system would see the synergy with his previous choice of a former mining colony.
The final page was titled [ COGNITIVE ACUITY ASSESSMENT ]. It wasn't a questionnaire, but a simple logic puzzle. A series of complex, interlocking geometric patterns appeared, with one piece missing. Below were ten possible pieces, only one of which would fit perfectly. It was a test of spatial reasoning and pattern recognition. To Jax, who had spent years mentally untangling the three-dimensional spaghetti of drone flight paths, it was second nature. He identified the correct piece in under five seconds and tapped it.
The screen flashed: [ PROCESSING… ]
He held his breath.
[ PROFILE APPROVED ]
A slot on the terminal slid open, dispensing a thin, plastic card—a 'Pioneer Identification Credential'—and a small, metallic cylinder the size of his thumb.
"Your processing is complete," the terminal stated flatly. "Your Pioneer credential, starting stipend, and utility tool have been dispensed. Proceed to Departure Bay Gamma-7 for transport assignment to Ka'a Hoku. Next."
Jax took the items, his mind racing. He hadn't chosen a class or assigned stat points. He had filled out a form. He hadn't created a character; he had been processed. The game hadn't even started, and already it had forced him to think, to plan, to be the person he wanted to be. He clutched the cold plastic of the ID card and stepped out of the booth, melting back into the river of gray jumpsuits, a new destination locked in his mind.
With his destination confirmed, a sense of purpose settled over Jax. He was no longer just being herded; he was navigating. He followed the glowing floor signs towards the station's transit sector, the corridors gradually changing from the pristine white of the processing wing to the scuffed, utilitarian gray of a high-traffic hub. The air itself changed, losing its sterile, ozonic tang and taking on the scent of circulated air, hot metal, and something that might have been spilled starship fuel.
He arrived at a bustling mag-lev platform. A sleek, silent train hissed to a stop, and Jax joined the throng of players stepping aboard. Through the transparent plasteel of the carriage walls, he got his first true sense of Waypoint Station Epsilon's scale. The train shot through a cavernous interior void, a hollow world of its own. He saw colossal docking rings holding unimaginably large capital ships, swarms of cargo drones moving like metallic insects, and other transit trains gliding on different levels, all part of a vast, interconnected circulatory system.
The train docked at the main Departure Concourse, and the doors opened to a wall of sound and light. This was the station's heart. Massive holographic boards displayed departure times for dozens of worlds, each accompanied by flashy, enticing advertisements.
GATE ALPHA-1 — TARKUS IV — FINAL BOARDING
GATE BETA-9 — XYLO — NOW BOARDING
Hundreds, if not thousands, of players crowded around these primary gates. Jax saw large groups forming up, some already using projected icons to unfurl the banners of newly-formed guilds. The air hummed with the excited energy of a thousand different journeys beginning at once, a stark contrast to the quiet anxiety of the processing wing.
His destination, Ka'a Hoku, was nowhere to be seen on the main boards. Just as he'd planned.
He found a small, secondary directory terminal flickering in a corner. He scanned his new ID card, and a single line of text appeared: The Vagrant — Departure Bay Gamma-7. An arrow pointed him away from the main concourse, down a narrower, less-traveled service corridor.
The difference was immediate. The noise of the crowd faded behind him, replaced by the low hum of the station's deeper machinery. The lighting was dimmer here, the floor plates occasionally scuffed or stained. He passed by empty docking clamps and cargo bays marked with designations for logistics corporations he'd never heard of. This was the station's backstage.
Departure Bay Gamma-7 wasn't a gate. It was a glorified docking clamp, tucked away at the end of the corridor. A single, flickering yellow light illuminated the space. And there, moored to the station by magnetic umbilicals, was his ride.
The Vagrant. The name was fitting. It was a small, beat-up freighter of a design Jax didn't recognize, its hull patched in a dozen places and stained with the rust-colored dust of some forgotten moon. It looked less like a ship and more like a stubborn tool that refused to be thrown away. It was perfect.
Leaning against the ship's entry ramp was a Twi'lek. His skin was the color of a dusty blue sky, his lekku head-tails scarred and worn at the tips. He wore a grease-stained pilot's vest over a threadbare jumpsuit and looked at the approaching Jax with an expression of profound indifference.
"You the Ka'a Hoku run?" the Twi'lek grunted, his voice a low rumble.
Jax nodded. "That's me."
"Credential."
Jax held out the plastic card. The pilot waved a handheld scanner over it, which beeped in confirmation. He grunted again, gesturing with his head towards the ship's dark interior.
"Get on. We leave when the light's green. Don't touch anything."
Jax glanced around. He wasn't the only passenger. A quiet Bothan with alert, twitching ears stood in the shadows near the landing gear, and a human woman with a cascade of cybernetic wiring around one eye watched him silently before turning her gaze back to the corridor. They were loners, just like him. They had all chosen the path of most resistance.
He gave a slight nod to the Twi'lek and walked up the ramp. The moment his feet left the polished floor of the station and hit the gritty, worn metal of the ship's deck, he felt a profound shift. The air inside smelled of ozone, oil, and years of recycled life support. It was the first authentic thing he had experienced since waking up.
He was leaving the sterile tutorial behind. The real galaxy awaited.