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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NZmIq4-pNkP3bF3CG5nwkBvYd_J6IB2YP1GdlbzeKt0/edit?usp=drivesdk
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The first thing Alex did after looking at his status sheet was adjust his preferences so that it would no longer show his Class benefits, unawarded kills, and merit every time he pulled it up. He could easily pull that information forth when he desired, and it just didn’t help him to have his status sheet lengthened to include it. He also indicated that he wanted all the skills and spells to be alphabetized within their various groupings.
He then looked again and smiled. Good. That’s better.
Alex took a moment to look at his dadao in his Inventory and winced, finding it as it had been, cracked in half with pieces splintered off along that lateral crack.
Quite honestly, Natasha had done an amazing job collecting all the pieces, and he would have to remember to thank her again for it. Maybe, when I have it fixed, I can show her what she made possible?
Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.
True, he wasn’t absolutely sure that his Life Manipulation would let him repair this much, but it wasn’t too different from what he’d done for Natasha’s spear.
He remained hopeful.
But that would have to be later. He needed to find his duty station and check in with the others.
With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet, feeling his clothing slide across his skin with too much ease.
He frowned and glanced down, only then being reminded of the full body suit. Right.
Of course his clothing moved differently atop that than over his own skin, but since he could feel through it as if it was his own skin, it made things feel different… odd?
I suppose I’ll get used to it.
He brought one knee up to his chest, then the other before twisting right and left to loosen himself up a bit.
Alright. Let’s do this.
As he opened his quarter’s door, the chair and mirror pulled back into the wall, and the room was left in a ready state for his return.
Each magically enacted action was a little pamphlet fluttering in his new Spherical Sense, too advanced for him to pick up more than the barest edges of their workings, but there nonetheless.
He frowned at that. No… it isn’t that I can’t read the contents, it’s that my Sense skill isn’t advanced enough to pick out the pieces.
The closest analogy he could think of was if the text on a page was too small for his eyes to easily pick out. His inability wasn’t a question of his reading ability.
So, work on the sense. Got it.
He sighed. He really hoped that he hadn’t hampered his growth by combining so many skills. He didn’t think so, and the result seemed like exactly what he was hoping for, even if it was a bit… limited in range at the moment.
He was also aware that with so much weight on the skill, it would be more difficult to advance, even if the benefits would be greater.
Alex paused. How did he know that? Oh, right, Runa— His brain hitched and rubbed at his temple. Gah! Right, don’t think about it, not for another few days.
Returning his mind to the skill, he had to admit that the limited range was likely a good, clear path of advancement.
I’ll want to focus on fidelity too. It’s one thing to know that there is a chair behind me, but to know exactly where will let me be more precise in my actions and reactions.
It was decided. He would expand its range and fidelity in sensing power.
With a smile and a nod, he turned and made his way down the corridor.
It was an interesting, short walk. While nothing was specifically different between this hall and the hall leading to his quarters from the central storage room, he was in a bit better headspace, and it seemed that wearing the cuffs let him be a bit more in tune with the ship as a whole.
On the surface, the corridors were simple metal, with the panel seams only barely noticeable. His shoes made walking on the smooth metal easy, the cadence of that magic, a soft accompaniment to his steps.
Grip, release. Grip, release. Grip, release. And so on.
Honestly, it was far more than simply that, but ‘grip’ and ‘release’ were good overarching titles for the bundles of magic that were acting.
Honestly, it was a bit of a surprise that the ‘release’ was its own set of magic. He’d somewhat assumed that either the magic would always be active, or it would simply be a gripping magic that let go when not required.
Instead, it seemed that they helped provide counterforces to his steps, allowing for surer footing even when what the shoe was gripping into should have caused him to slip irrespective of perfect adhesion.
Now that he considered it, that made sense. Even mundane shoes could ‘grip’ on poor footing, that grip wasn’t always the issue. It was often that the surface itself couldn’t provide good footing, even when the sand or gravel or grit or whatever stuck to the shoe and didn’t come off.
Before he could get sucked into the ‘pamphlets’ of the shoes’ magic, he focused outward, noticing similar magics in the floor. The very metal was modifying itself at each step to give him greater grip, but only because he was recognized as allowed in this corridor.
He grinned at that. So, intruders will have poor footing unless they bring along magic or equipment to negate that.
He frowned at a parallel thought, speaking it aloud, “And if we need to go on other ships, we might face the same.”
There was also the lighting. He couldn’t actually tell with his eyes, but his sense told him that the lighting was only in a bubble around him, projected outward so it touched everything in his line of sight, thus making it look like the whole ship was fully illuminated.
“How is that more efficient than just keeping the whole thing well lit?” And then he understood. It was another security feature. Any who shouldn’t be in various sections of the ship would have no light.
No… it’s more than that. He strained his Spherical Sense, trying to pick up the miniscule magical signatures all around him. Thankfully, the fact that the magic existed across every surface meant that he was actually seeing it from basically every angle all at once, even with his limited range, and that let him read a bit more easily.
At this point, his Speed Reading kicked in, and he was able to start picking the various pamphlets apart even as he moved forward. Light bouncing along other vectors is actively absorbed. Even someone right behind me wouldn’t be able to see the light that is making everything clear to me.
He frowned. Would it even absorb light from other sources? It seemed so. That would be quite a hindrance to the unwelcome.
In truth, his mind held trainings and knowledge of these various ship-board features, but experiencing them first hand was so much more impactful and noteworthy.
The walk was barely thirty feet from his quarters to his station, and he fully credited his Speed Reading for being able to glean even as much as he had in such a short span.
He’d investigated as much as he had time for at the moment and would have to return to learn more, later.
Another non-descript door opened, letting him into a twelve-foot square room that was just eight feet tall. In the center rested a single seat that looked a bit like a padded throne and a bit like a launch seat from NASA rockets… at least what little he’d seen of those.
He looked around and frowned. “I thought my station would be near others…”
His training seemed to contain a ‘bridge’ setup.
With a shrug, he sat down, letting out a surprised exhale. He had been correct. This ship was a masterful feat of engineering. This seat was by far the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in.
As soon as he was comfortable, his cuffs blinked twice and webbing grew from the chair to lock him in place in a manner that was more like the warm embrace of a beloved family member than the constriction of a straightjacket.
A moment later, he was offered two options: Bridge Mode or Immersive Flight.
A grin grew across his lips. There it is.
He selected Bridge Mode.
The room around him vanished, and suddenly, there were others seated on a bridge that reminded him of many different sci-fi shows.
Only Grant and Natasha were there on the bridge, but he could see stations for everyone else as well.
“Hey! Welcome.” Grant called from the back of the room. “Do you like the distributed system? No singular point for enemy weapons to target and take out the entire crew.”
Alex pulled power from his throat as he chuckled. “And magical interfaces to keep us in communication. Nice.”
“Exactly.” Grant hesitated a moment before asking. “Are you okay?”
Alex sighed. “I’ll… I’ll be okay.”
Natasha gave him a small smile and a nod. “The others will be here in about half an hour. Take a look at your other view and come back when you’re done.” She gave him a serious look. “Please don’t move the ship yet, though, alright?”
He gave a small smile in return. “Alright.”
As soon as he had the thought, a small prompt opened, asking if he wanted to switch to the Immersive Flight view.
He said yes, and the ship vanished around him.
Alex’s eyes widened.
He was floating in space, all on his own, with nothing close at hand.
He thought that he would have a moment of panic, but even before he realized what had happened, he found that he just felt… awe.
He was somehow plugged into the ship in such a way as to feel like he was the ship.
It was then that he recalled his training on another aspect of the suit. It gave him feedback from the ship’s exterior sensors as if it were his own skin. He could see through them as well, able to take in information in every direction all at once.
He felt the mental load, and then he felt it immediately lessen as his skills and Attributes kicked into place.
Still, the connection was only going one way, his skill taking in the ship sensor data and helping him process it. Moreover, he felt his new attribute, Basic Cognition - Magical bearing much of the load as well.
Since he wasn’t supposed to move the ship, he decided to see what his new Spherical Sense would do if plugged into the ship through his cuffs.
The process was incredibly intuitive, even if he couldn’t have described how he did it. Still, a moment later, he felt it click into place and he groaned.
The ship’s lattice of magic accepted the imprint of the skill and amplified it a hundred fold, giving him an external view of the ship’s surroundings out to four hundred feet.
On one side that seemed like a lot, but if he was going very fast at all, it would actually be rather little.
Still, he could feel the currents of power moving through the vacuum all around him, and his ‘training’ as a Helmsman told him that he could use those currents to help the ship maneuver, and if he didn’t keep them in mind, he would be fighting them to make the vessel do as he wanted.
There was also a surprising amount of minute debris in the vacuum. Thankfully, it was all small enough that he knew the passive shields and armor would shrug it off without issue.
Unfortunately, running the skill through the ship actually amplified the ‘fidelity’ issue. He’d notice things smaller than his fist, but only in the sense that he’d know something was there.
Even person sized objects would just appear as blobs to this sense.
No matter, he would learn.
As he got a sense for the ship, he realized that he—as the ship—was not built for speed and maneuverability. Sure, it wasn’t a tugboat in any sense, but it also wasn’t a sleek fighter or lithe gunboat.
It was heavy, and the magical material that made up its frame could only mitigate so much of that. Levi-steel, huh?
That made sense, he supposed. That frame was actually his main means of maneuverability. He would funnel mana into the material in various ways to change its relative gravity, effectively causing various parts of the ship to fall as he wished. Since he could control very minute portions of the frame at different times, he actually had a lot of flexibility in what he could do.
Beyond that, the refined levi-stone core provided the bulk of forward thrust, and it was also responsible for warping space around the ship.
At the very edge of his imparted training was the knowledge that it also paired with… something else to allow for jumps, but that was more in the Navigator’s realm than his.
So, we can warp around or move at slower speeds, and we can’t be warping while we’re charging for a jump. Good to know.
Paging through the safer portions of his new memories, he found that warp was not limited to the speed of light as it might have been before integration.
In fact, warp was generally used for achieving any speed exceeding that velocity and could usually only be done in a relatively straight line.
He desperately wanted to try moving the ship.
At the moment, he felt like he was purposely keeping perfectly still when he simply wanted to run—or even just scratch his nose—but he took Natasha’s request to heart.
He heard John’s voice, then. “Alright, it looks like we’re all here.”
Alex switched his view back to the bridge, finding himself seated in his chair at the simulated duty station once more. Natasha was seated near at hand, and he got the sense that she was in whatever her secondary view was.
A moment later, she seemed to shift back, and turned her chair as he did the same.
Everyone was there, even the medic. The non-Initiates were quite obvious in that they were only wearing their coveralls.
Pilar gave a little wave. “Alright, so we’re all here. We should make sure you remember the newer faces.”
She gestured, and the blonde woman gave a little wave. “Bev, Innominate Medical Officer.”
Another woman gave a tightlipped smile and nod. She was on the shorter side and seemed of hispanic descent, though the features were slightly different than Alex might have expected with such a description. “Audry, Resource Extraction and Reclamation."
A dark-skinned man gave a brilliant smile and crisp wave. “Juba, External Assault.”
The others went from there.
“Pilar, Weapons.”
“Lenka, Shields.”
“Alex, Helmsman.”
“John, Engineer and Mechanic.”
“Natasha, Sensors.”
“Grant, Internal Security.”
“Kaylee, Structural.”
Alex had a sinking feeling. Oh, no… We have no command officer—as requested—but we also don’t have a Navigator… Great.
Grant seemed to be taking charge of the meeting, as he spoke next. “Can we each give a brief overview from our duty station?”
Audry shrugged. “Sure thing. Resource Extraction and Reclamation, we have a full complement of mining and recovery drones in the event we have any time near a worthy target, or if we have a destroyed enemy and time to harvest."
Juba’s voice was soothing, clearly belying the violence he could bring to bear. “External Assault is ready to board hostile vessels or enter uncertain environments. I have my own exo-armor primed and ready, and with a squad of assault drones to back me up, I’m ready and waiting.” After a moment’s hesitation, he appended, “I also have authorization to wake some of our hibernating troops in the event of an emergency.”
Pilar smiled and gave a nod before speaking her bit. “Weapons are getting a small retrofit to better mesh with my magics. We’ll be ready for combat in less than an hour.”
Lenka nodded. “Shields, point defenses, and internal security measures are similarly recalibrating to my specifications. An hour should be enough for me as well.”
Alex gave a sheepish smile, momentarily uncertain, but as he started to speak, he felt his mind track with his provided training, even pulling up information from his station. “Helm is ready for immediate departure. It would be a six month trip at maximum warp to reach Dorgon and complete the mission… which is well outside our one-month timeline. As such, our lack of a Navigator will need to be rectified in one way or another. I see the systems in here, and I am pretty sure that I can jump us, but it won’t be as efficient nor precise without a dedicated officer.”
That got a few frustrated mutters, but it wasn’t unexpected.
John drew their attention next. “My skills and abilities are also iterating through the ship systems. Unfortunately, my work will be a bit more hands-on. I expect to take various systems offline for an hour or so each over the next week before all the upgrades are completed.”
Alex frowned. “Will it be worth it?”
The man nodded in return. “Absolutely. Not only will each updated system be a bit better, but when we arrive, we’ll get a larger weight of contribution for turning in a more enhanced ship.”
That got appreciative nods.
Natasha cleared her throat. “Sensors are fully integrated, and my Detect Trove has found something of note on the far side of the system. I think it might be worth a look before our first jump.”
Alex grinned. “Hey, that will give me a chance to test things out in relative safety. Any idea what it is?”
“No, but I would bet that our friends,”—she gestured at Audry and Juba—“will have some work to do once we get there.”
“Can you send me the coordinates?”
She gestured, and Alex suddenly knew where it was, relative to them. “Yeah… I think I can get there in an hour. I could be faster, but slower will provide me an opportunity to test various things.”
Grant grunted. “No issue on my side. Internal Security is meshing well with Lenka’s proposed upgrades, and I’m working on a few things myself.” He then grinned widely. “By the way, as Internal Security Officer, I’m implementing a required minimum of one hour of training every day for everyone, so long as the situation allows. We need to be better than we are now upon arrival, and if we don’t train, we’ll be worse.”
They all easily agreed.
Kaylee then smiled. “I’ll take a day or so to be done, but when I am?” Her smile turned to a triumphant grin. “This ship will be my base.”
That got a round of cheers, even from the non-Initiates. Kaylee’s abilities with her base would be able to improve and positively affect the totality of their month in space. Sure, the benefits would leave when she did, so it wouldn’t directly affect their rewards, but until then? They were sure that her efforts would be a boon.
Finally, Bev spoke up. “Medical is ready to attend to any issue that might crop up. I am also equipped to do a full physical and physiological retrofit of any who is below Imperial Standard.” She glanced down as if a bit embarrassed. “I will send a private message to those of you whose profile indicates physical imperfections that I can remove for enhanced mission readiness.”
And that was that.
Alex smiled. “Alright, then. I’ll get us underway, and see what I can find out about the jump system. My training covered some of it, but I’ll need to brush up. The rest of you, figure out next steps?”
There was a round of agreement, and they all set to it.