It took Heath six jumps to break. Six jumps in eight days, all undampened, two through the smallest gates he’d ever seen. The narrower metaphysical tunnel made the sickness and discomfort far worse than the already unbearable standard set in their travel to date.

  They reached Zyzyx, the last major hub before the Hummingbird Cluster, and Heath called for a day onshore. Jenny Mae and Copperfield would look for any cargo they could pick up for some quick creds, but he and Emerald had a far more important mission. One which they were dragging Ekaterina along on, just in case she was tempted by anything else back on the Loon.

  The bank they entered was impressive, imported marble covered the floor, veined with a bright blue metal Heath couldn’t identify. Local wood paneled the walls, aside from the wide windows, with an incredible view of the ice-covered fields beyond. They crystal trees out on the plains glimmered in the cool light of the sun like the surface of a frosted ocean.

  “Are we sure this place will even have anything? It’s so small.” Heath’s impression was not shared by their resident noble, who had scoffed at the entire settlement as a doomed backwater. At his glare, she attempted a correction. “I mean, very nice view.” It would do for now.

  “This is a seeded planet. And there’s a rank three dungeon out at the edge of the system. They’ll have it.” Emerald had let some things slip that implied Zyzyx had once been one of their regular ports of call, and the unerring way they navigated to the bank only made it more apparent.

  When the next teller became available, Heath walked up to the sturdy wooden desk, only to find the top was inlaid with a display of glass that was blinking too fast for him to read any of the information. A swipe of the teller’s hand cleared the magitech display, after which he looked at Heath with the kind of smile only someone who spent their days in customer service could manage.

  “How can I help you?”

  “I need to purchase some argo crystals. One point one two five grams please.”

  “Very well. Whole or powdered?”

  “Whole.”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  The classer in front of Heath went back to his display, tapping in some unknown rhythm and reading the responding lights faster than Heath could register their appearance. He would have to ask Jenny Mae if her class could do something similar.

  After months of scrimping, saving, and smuggling, they had finally earned enough for another upgrade. He had wanted to save for more. At the rate he’d been going, if he had held out for a year without major purchases, he could have added enough quantum storage for them to start taking some real cargo jobs.

  But this trip had worn his willpower down to a nub. The jumps had been horrible up to this point, but he could tolerate them. There was always enough time in between to forget just how bad they were, along with some time to recover on a planet or station.

  Not so this trip. After suffering through a long jump, just three hours after the previous one, Heath had declared they were done. His crew would have cheered if any of them had confidence in keeping their lunch down.

  “Best I can do is one point one seven five.” The teller said. The screen in front of him had frozen on a series of graphs and lists, but at the top, conveniently rotated for Heath to read, the proposed exchange blinked.

  He pursed his lips at the extra cost but agreed. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  With a flex of his [Personal Bank] skill, he was back to being almost penniless, with just a digital receipt to show for the trouble.

  “We’ll deliver to your ship at the end of business today.”

  Heath nodded and left, waiting until they were well away from the official building before saying anything.

  “That was a lot easier than getting chased across a station.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “More expensive too,” Emerald grunted. “Official brokers always are, but it’s better than trying to find some backroom deal in a hurry.”

  “I’ve seen the same amount be given out as tips for the servants at a party among the high nobles.”

  Heath wasn’t touching that comment from his aristocrat with a ten-foot pole. Knowing that there were levels of wealth he couldn’t entirely grasp was one thing. Having it shoved in his face was another, attempt at bonding or no.

  “None of that out here,” he finally said, when the silence grew too long.

  “Yes, it’s quite fascinating. Some of the systems in the Core are so packed with high level Classers that you wouldn’t be able to even find argo in small enough dominations to be counted in grams. Not when one rank six dungeon delve will give literal tons of the stuff.”

  It was a vision into a world Heath usually consigned to stories.

  “That’s a long way off. Let’s focus on making it through a rank one dungeon intact.”

  “Let’s focus on getting through the next jump intact,” Emerald added.

  Adding the argo to the ship matrix was a private affair. Even the greenest of Spacers was aware of the fact. And for Ekaterina, a firm request to vacate the bridge was enough to get the point across.

  When the access panel melted away, Heath was surprised at what he saw.

  “Loon, it looks different from last time, what happened?” The change was subtle. Without his class instincts, Heath might not have noticed. But each of the thin channels was brighter, stronger in some ineffable way, than it had been when he added the speed boost to the ship’s capabilities.

  “I have several hypotheses. All Classers face the dual paths of growth, depth given by unceasing dedication to Skills and breadth from a commitment to the Class itself. I believe the same forking destiny has been made available. Without the shackles of a dull, lifeless existence, I too can experience independent growth.

  “Slower than one of your ilk, but I can improve upon myself. The truest mark of a life well-lived. For new capabilities I need the argo, to anchor and crystalize around. But within each, I can strive for my utmost. Breaking past such barriers as might once have felled me, and into the unknown.”

  “So you’re saying…” Heath had gotten a bit lost in the soliloquy, but it sounded good.

  “I have been diligent, and my top speed is now point three three percent faster than it was when we first made the upgrade.”

  Heath’s eyes went wide, and he just managed to keep the curses inside, not wanting to disappoint the Loon after they shared the news. But he was more and more often seeing Emerald’s point. A ship that could grow by itself was not just a curiosity. It was a godsdamned gold mine. Noble Houses and the richest merchants and mercenaries would all rip each other to shreds for a ship that could eventually surpass anything else in the known universe.

  “How about we keep that between us for now?”

  “Very well Heath. I trust your judgment. Now let us place the next upgrade and ride into our glorious future!”

  Once again, his class instincts took over and he placed the tiny crystals into the matrix. Each locked in with a little jolt to his soul, improving his connection to the loon and expanding the glowing lines that represented what the ship was capable of.

  “I can already feel the seeds of my new growth. I thank you for this gift, Heath, and will endeavor to be worthy of it.”

  “Hey, none of that. We’re a team. And a family. Besides, this one is mostly a gift for the rest of us.”

  Heath was sweating, the simple act having taken more out of him than expected. But the smile on his face was genuine. It was small progress, but it was something he could see and feel. He couldn’t wait for what came next.

  “Attention crew. Takeoff scheduled for two hours. Time to jump, 21 hours and 15 minutes.”

  ***********

  The Trellis system was well-named. Having been seeded centuries before, when the first explorers arrived, they found not a planet ready for habitation, or dungeons ready to exploit, but a solar-system sized jungle, thriving in the vacuum of space. It would have been abandoned if that jungle wasn’t made of money. There were four dungeons hidden in the depths, which regularly spewed out monsters that were a prime source of the aetherized argo that drove Class advancement.

  Some more powerful Classers would fight through the vegetation to delve the dungeons directly, but for the rest, fighting through the vines and harvesting anything they found was enough for a more-than-comfortable lifestyle. Even some of the plants themselves were often in demand for alchemical purposes, and there were local ‘gardening’ guilds that took advantage of the fact.

  As such, while full colonization was both impossible and not profitable, a handful of settlement ships existed on the periphery. The lack of a stable orbit– at least one that wouldn’t be overrun by vicious vine monsters in days – wasn't enough to deter the people on the frontier from making a living.

  “It’s incredible.”

  Heath nodded at Jenny Mae’s awed exhalation. The main view screen on the bridge was covered in plant life, while they hovered near the entry gate to the system. Another reason the system hadn’t been fully tamed, the gates were spread out and hard to travel between.

  Studies had been done, the jungle itself wasn’t sentient. But tell that to any Spacer that made trips through the Trellis. It was a nonstop war to keep the gates clear. Monsters and the vegetation itself set on an unceasing quest to reclaim the system from foreign incursion.

  Local officials had sent the Wandering Loon a flight path the second they were through the gate, and had made Heath very aware that any deviation would be seen as hostile by the local authorities.

  As they swung away from the active battleground, they had a minute to relax and breathe. And revel in the lack of nausea or blinding headache from the smoothest jump of the Loon’s second life.

  “Still time to turn back, kid.” Even Emerald was a bit cowed by the view in front of them. The wilderness stamped onto space in an utterly incomprehensible snarl.

  “Not a kid. And there’s no way we’re turning back now. That’s an extra three months' travel, and we’ll be paying a penalty for late delivery on the jobs we picked up. The Loon has the course plotted and the extra speed boost. We’ll be fine.”

  “Famous last words.”

  “It’s an adventure, old-timer,” Copperfield laughed. “Some of us aren’t creaking on our death beds yet.”

  That got him a rude gesture before the Loon’s calm tones washed in. There would be no casual stops in the Trellis. This whole system was beyond them. For the moment. But he could imagine coming back after a few delves, leveled up and ready to do some real exploring.

  “Time to jump, 28 hours and 30 minutes.”

  The view rotated as the Loon embarked on their scheduled path. Skirting the edges of the system and dodging the ever-encroaching vines, they would reach the next gate in just over a day. Perfectly on schedule.