WSP 056

  City in the Sky

  Between Ikyu and the moon there was a lot of empty space. At this particular moment, the sun was intensely shining down on all this space such that, if there were anyone in the intervening spaces, they would not be able to see the stars without specifically blocking out the sunlight. The great orb of fire that held the solar system together was simply too intense for the distant, tiny pinpricks to make any difference. As far as any hypothetical observer was concerned, there was only the sun, the moon, and Ikyu. Were conditions different, Qi and Penthar may have shone their dim reflected light upon the scene, but as it happened they were relatively close to the sun on this day, drowned by its light.

  This particular alignment wasn’t that unusual in the solar system. Penther was always close to the sun from Ikyu’s perspective, and Qi would line up with this situation at least once during its significantly longer trek across the sky. The fact that the alignment was happening at the moment history shifted was pure happenstance, though the conspiracy theorists would say otherwise forever after this moment. Were the planets themselves to weigh in on the event, they would treat it like just another Tuesday.

  But on this normal cosmic Tuesday, the hypothetical observer sitting between Ikyu and the moon would notice flashes of light. Beams of carefully controlled energy blinking on and off from the surface of Ikyu. Large Orange bursts of Color in response from the surface of the moon.

  An entire conversation was taking place in the void between the worlds.

  I am about to trigger the start sequence, Benefactor signaled.

  This is so exciting! Wanderlust signaled back.

  Focus, our timing has to be exact.

  I have a sectioned off part of my mind counting the nanoseconds.

  Accounting for the delay?

  Of course accounting for the delay, that’s a lot more than a nanosecond!

  Just making sure, they would be quite upset if we had to delay a few days due to a miscalculation in the setup.

  Yes, I know, I know. Just so you know, it’s 33.382743233 seconds from now.

  Now being when you sent the message or I received it?

  Look, I didn’t set up a timing for the sending of that message, I have a timing for the sending of the real one.

  I have no choice but to trust you and further conversation is pointless. I await the signal.

  The conversation stopped. For a few moments, space was once again empty and without activity.

  This did not last long.

  Wanderlust lit all of her facets as brightly as she could manage. The signal propagated through space at the speed of light, taking roughly 1.3 seconds to hit the facets of Benefactor. The timing was exact, as Wanderlust had promised. The cubic Purple Crystalline One flashed immediately upon receiving the signal, releasing a highly focused beam of light at a very particular spot on the sky—a spot where a rather large Orange crystal currently sat, just barely under the size to become its own independent Crystalline One.

  This particular Orange crystal was shaped somewhat like a hemisphere, with a singular flat face pointed right at Ikyu and two faces chopped off on either end. Benefactor’s laser hit the central flat face. The majority of the energy was shunted into the two other faces, shooting off lasers in two separate directions. However, some of the energy was not sent along; the rest was bounced along the inside of the Orange crystal using the same techniques that kept the light of a sunfire stone contained within it. Instead of containing the light permanently, small amounts of it were allowed to leak out at the edges of the crystal.

  Since Benefactor was throwing a truly stupendous amount of energy into the laser, a “small amount” of leakage made the entire crystal light up like a newborn star. For a moment, there was the sun, Ikyu, the moon, and a fourth brilliant artificial object.

  Then there was a fifth. And a sixth. And a seventh. Dozens more. The light of the laser left one Orange crystal and traveled to another one, lightning it up before being redirected to yet another crystal. A ring of brilliant lights appeared all around Ikyu in line with the orbital plane of the moon, for that was where Wanderlust had launched these objects from a few days before.

  This was the exact moment they had all moved into position. Even with all Wanderlust’s experience, she’d still needed to account for unexpected variables and drift, which was why the crystals were somewhat large. They did not need to be that size to shine like beacons, they needed to be that large so the lasers had some margin of error as they flew from crystal to crystal.

  The whole of Ikyu saw the sky give birth to a line of stars visible even in the daytime. The show only lasted for a few seconds—Benefactor herself had only shot the laser for a tiny fraction of a second. Most had no idea what the line in the sky meant. Many considered it a portent of the end times. Others were considered crazy for ever claiming such a thing could occur. Still others thought it was a sign of fortune, a signal that the heavens approved of them.

  There were a select few on Ikyu who were waiting for it.

  “That’s the signal!” Vaughan called. “TEN!”

  Margaret and Jeh were already in their Skyseeds. Rather than waiting for the countdown to continue, they immediately started slowly lifting their respective craft upward. Jeh was in her furs, rather than a suit, and Margaret was completely wrapped up in her sunburn preventing suit, complete with the shaded goggles.

  “NINE!”

  The two ships barely left the ground before they started rearranging their positions, dragging large chains across the ground.

  “EIGHT!”

  The ships stopped directly overtop two red X shaped marks painted on the flat, stone ground.

  “SEVEN!”

  The pilots used Orange to straighten out the chains,checking to make sure they were fully attached to the Skyseeds.

  “SIX!”

  Jeh and Margaret glanced at each other. With their free hand, they gave each other a thumbs up—everything was working.

  “FIVE!”

  The two Skyseeds moved upward and forward, stopping two Skyseed lengths above the ground. The chains hung below the ships, loose.

  “FOUR!”

  The ships moved upward extremely slowly, with no rushed motions or jerked movements. They could not afford a mistake.

  “THREE!”

  The chains went taut. Both Skyseeds were completely level with each other, holding perfectly still in the air, glittering with the perfect amount of Orange power.

  “TWO!”

  The chains led all the way down to the Crystal Control Module, which was resting on top of some plast bricks. Each chain was wrapped around the Module and attached to it at four locations, ensuring a very tight grip.

  “ONE!”

  Jeh and Margaret glanced at each other. This was the moment. They had to lift this thing off the ground at the same time with the same relative force, making sure it hit absolutely nothing and remained level. This was, bizarrely, the most stressful part of the mission. In space, they would have a lot more freedom to work with. Here, the gravity and the ground were their worst enemies.

  They nodded.

  “ZERO!”

  Both of them ticked their drives up just a tiny amount. Even though they had practiced this dozens of times before, their nerves were still through the roof. A slightly misaligned drive could ruin this, driving one of the Module’s corners into the plast brick, making their ascent far more dangerous. The real Module was below them this time, and they didn’t want it bumping anything with any level of force. Not only was there concern of opening up a breach of some kind, this was the Crystal Control module with all kinds of highly delicate crystal devices inside it.

  But their worries, at this phase, were unfounded. At a snail’s pace, the two Skyseeds rose into the air, dragging the Module with them. The Module itself also had a large net attached to its bottom, filled with high quality ropes, tools, and a handful of arcane devices. Most of which they probably wouldn’t need up there, but everyone wanted contingency plans for this, so there were a lot of extra tools.

  This made the Module rather heavy, though with the engineering and theory advancements the Wizard Space Program had made, it was only about as heavy as a single Moonshot, so two pilots had more than enough will and crystal power between them to pull it off.

  Normally, at this point, Jeh would kick the drive up and start going into the air faster. Not today—they wanted to be far above the ground before they did that. So they rose centimeters at a time, slowly but surely moving away from the crowd’s cheers. Jeh would have started waving to the crowd, but if she messed something up by failing to pay attention… no, today was not the time to do that. She kept her eyes laser focused on the chains below her. As this was a newer Skyseed model, the brass bottom did have a window in it, so the pilots could keep a close eye on the chains.

  They remained secure. No sign of shifting, or a connection weakening.

  So far so good…

  Their speed slowly began to increase, not because they were increasing the power to their drives, but because constant acceleration was still acceleration.

  They dared not touch the throttle. Not when they cleared the highest part of the Palace. Not even when they cleared the highest branch of Axiom’s great tree. They held perfectly steady until they received the signal.

  Which was a red dragon flying up to them, but remaining far enough away that the gusts of wind kicked up by his enormous wings didn’t destabilize them. He let out a bellowing roar.

  Jeh and Margaret locked eyes. They nodded, holding up their fingers on their free hand in a countdown. 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… And they both immediately clicked their drives up to the next step, increasing acceleration. They waited, making sure their ascent was stable, before doing this again. And again. And again.

  This was the easy part, the timing. They had to make sure they were pulling with the same force. The hard part… was dealing with the wind. Gusts attacked from seemingly random directions. Jeh and Margaret were both extremely experienced at this point, able to automatically offset the drift of their Skyseeds, helped in no small part by the fact that their designs were far more balanced in mass than the original prototypes.

  However, the wind’s effect on the Module was not something they could just intuit their way through. It shifted left more than right in the midst of certain gusts. Every time they had to restabilize, they then had to quickly relevel the Module. Many people in the planning meetings had wondered why keeping the Module level was so important, it was designed to operate in a place where there was no real “down,” why did it care?

  It wasn’t the Module that cared, it was the Skyseeds. If the Module deviated too far from flat, the Skyseeds would risk crashing into each other as the distance between the two of them shrunk. Granted, a small shift in the Module’s position didn’t pose much danger, but if they didn’t level it out, when another gust of wind hit them, the Skyseeds would reorient themselves vertically to maintain control, and if the gust lasted too long…

  Admittedly, the idea of such a long disturbance was unlikely to occur on a day with such a clear, nearly cloudless sky. But if the weather had happened to be unpleasant when they needed to launch, they’d needed to be prepared for that eventuality. If they didn’t scrub the mission entirely.

  But everyone had been told only to scrub the mission if failure was considered likely. Benefactor was able to send out the planet wide message. She could not receive signals from Mikarol or Descent. The bulk of Ikyu blocked the messages, and the station was going to need all three Modules to start operations.

  It was today or not at all.

  Jeh started to relax as the winds began to die down with the lowering density of the air. They were high enough that the weather wasn’t going to affect them.

  “Okay Margaret, I think we’re in the clear, wind-wise!” Jeh called.

  Margaret tilted her head to the side. “Why are you shouting? The chains carry sound just fine.”

  “Habit, air’s thin, all that.” Jeh smirked. “Gotta remember to use the crystals to talk when the chains aren’t taut. Finally, some things we didn’t do in the drills!”

  “That’s what worries me. The unexpected.” Margaret tapped one of her fingers on the glass of her Skyseed. “Sure, that was an extremely delicate procedure, but we tested it a bajillion times, and we’re really good at it! But up there…”

  “We have the freedom to be creative, slow, and not worry about anything! Well, except random space rocks. But we know how to deal with those now! …Hopefully long term!”

  Margaret nodded. “Yes, that’s… wait, Jeh, look!”

  Jeh turned to her left and saw a… cloud? There shouldn’t have been clouds this high in the sky, and it was… brown?

  “What in the world…?” Jeh frowned. She pulled out her telescope and put it to her eye. She activated a Purple device near the front to zoom in. Even with this, she couldn’t exactly tell what the cloud was, just that it was a bunch of brown… things. Distinct things, not at all like the relative continuum of a cloud itself. The closest thing she could think of was a swarm of bees, but the motions of the things were too slow for that. “I don’t know what it is!”

  “It’s coming right for us, though!”

  Jeh continued studying the things through her telescope. There was something about their motion…

  Jeh closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of her in her Skyseed, ignoring the chain for a moment. She was keeping it level by applying a slight force manually… which meant the wind was coming from…

  “The wind’s blowing it at us!” Jeh concluded. “Since the wind’s not very strong, we should be able to push them back with Orange.” Jeh whipped out an Orange crystal. “We still steady, Margaret?”

  “Yes!”

  “So, on the count of five, both of us cut our drives, and I’m going to push this cloudy brown thing far away with as much strength as I can muster.”

  “...Okay, sure, I’m not going to have time to come up with a better plan!”

  Jeh clutched her hand tightly around the Orange crystal, her other hand very carefully placed on the drive’s controls. Here goes… “Five! Four! Three! Two! One! CUT!”

  They both cut the power to their drives at once. Immediately, Jeh cast the strongest push spell she could muster at a wide section of air in front of her, creating a massive gust in terms of size, but since the air density wasn’t very large, it wasn’t particularly forceful and was unable to disrupt the Skyseeds or the Module.

  The expected sensation of weightlessness reached Jeh, which didn’t bother her, and she kept her focus on the brown cloud, waiting for her gust to hit it. Before this could happen, though, she was suddenly slammed into the roof of the Skyseed as up became down, and she could hear Margaret shouting “JEH!” carried through the chains that were somehow taut once more.

  “What happened!?” Jeh shouted, looking at the Module first. It was surrounded in Orange sparkles. Given how she was feeling, it was being pulled directly downward by… Margaret?

  “When we stopped, it flew at us!” Margaret called back. “Inertia!”

  Jeh inwardly cursed herself for being an idiot. Of course, it’s heavier than us, air resistance is still a thing here even at this height… “If you release it it should continue dragging us down, right?”

  “I think so!”

  “Then let go and let’s regain our footing!”

  Margaret released her push on the Module. Jeh realized with some shock that Margaret had managed to push it and keep it balanced despite not training on it—that could have gone badly and sent us into a tailspin we couldn’t recover from. They entered freefall, and as the Module was now the object leading the motion, it dragged the Skyseeds along with it rather than threatening to ram into them.

  Jeh looked toward the brown cloud of things. It had, clearly, been dissipated by the gust, spread so far apart as to almost be invisible. Several sections of it were clearly flying off in very distant directions. At least that worked. “Okay Margaret!”

  Margaret put her free hand to her ear.

  Right, chains aren’t taut right now. Jeh wrote into the air with Purple. Let’s try regaining control on five! Lowest setting. Ready?

  Margaret gave a thumbs up.

  Jeh held out her free hand and counted down from five. On zero, Jeh and Margaret activated their drives at the same time on the low setting. Immediately, they felt like there was a proper down beneath them, but just barely.

  Jeh also knew better than to say they were out of the woods. The lowest setting wasn’t enough to overcome Ikyu’s gravity, they were still falling even if it didn’t feel like it. “Okay… Okay, we need to get back up to speed! Every five, ready!?”

  “Ready!”

  At every count of five, they increased the power of the drives in tandem. From their perspective, it was hard to tell exactly how fast they were going and in what direction, but they both knew simply from the strength of the drive spell being used whether they were falling or going up. Jeh let out a sigh of relief when they finally returned to the acceleration level they had when they lifted up from Axiom.

  Then something went splat against the top window of Jeh’s Skyseed. She looked up and saw a brown smear. “Uh…” She didn’t see any sign of the cloud anymore. “Margaret, hold!”

  “What!?”

  “I’m scraping something off the window!” With Orange, Jeh removed the brown substance from her top window, and levitated it into the air next to her. It looked… kind of like mashed mushrooms.

  “...That’s probably what the cloud was made of.” Margaret observed.

  “Well, yeah, but what is it? What makes a cloud of mushroom mash?”

  “Aren’t balloon whales and the Blimps fungi? Probably a creature like them.”

  Jeh blinked. Then she laughed. “Just a swarm of floating mushrooms?”

  “Would probably have been really bad to plow our way through thousands of them.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Jeh let out a sigh of relief. “Well, guess we’ve overcome yet another unexpected obstacle: mushroom balloon swarm thing!”

  “I don’t see any smears on the Module, do you?”

  “Nope! Looks like we just hit the one!”

  “Good! Chains look secure.”

  “Another victory for the Wizard Space Program!” Jeh beamed. “...I wanna give you a high five right now.”

  “We can do it later. After we deal with… everything else we’re about to deal with.” She frowned. “The chains are going to be taut during our ascent, but not while we’re sitting. We should probably get more used to talking with them, as it’ll be the only way to talk to the others initially.”

  “Right! I’ll hear more from you when we get in the station.”

  With that, they stopped their vocal conversation as they rose higher and higher into the sky. Now, there was nothing the natural wonders of Ikyu would be able to do to them. Now… they were in space. The blue sky was gone, replaced with the endless black. With no more need to concern themselves with air resistance, they were free to go any direction they wished. Their goal was the skies above Descent. So chosen because it was easy to identify, relatively close to Mikarol, and because the Blimps had the hardest module to lift into orbit and so leveraged everyone else to let them have the honor. Plus, there it was currently night, so they would be able to see the lights better.

  They didn’t bother to get into a proper orbit, as they would have needed to slow down significantly once they arrived over Descent, and they didn’t have all the tools for precise orbit navigation and calculation the Moonshot had on their Skyseeds. Ironically, there were such tools on the Module, but that wasn’t ready for use yet. The route they took to Descent was more direct: a straight acceleration away from Ikyu at an angle until they were directly above the Western ocean, and then a gradual turn until they could accelerate in a straight line back toward Ikyu until they approached the space over Descent.

  As they were performing the turn, Wanderlust flashed at them.

  It took Jeh a bit to decode the message. Hope you’re having a good time!

  There’s no way she knows exactly where we are, right? Margaret wrote the space between their Skyseeds.

  Nope, the light’s not even on yet. Jeh wrote back. Though, we’re probably the only ones that can see it, considering Ikyu’s shadow.

  Wish we could signal back. Let her know we’re fine.

  Jeh just shrugged and they continued on their way. They cut acceleration and turned around about halfway to their destination. Even though the Skyseeds were pointed away from their direction of travel, the chains still remained taut. Acceleration really is really weird but also convenient, Jeh thought to herself.

  As they were in Ikyu’s shadow now, they could see the stars above them. They didn’t twinkle up this high. Jeh wasn’t sure why that was. Blue probably had some theory about the atmosphere, but Jeh didn’t remember any specifics. From here, though, she could identify Hexi.

  Can’t wait to go to you, one day… all of you, really. Jeh broke out into a huge grin. There’s no limit to how far I can go… I’ll get to see it all one day. Her smile faltered. Just… not with everyone. She quickly shook her head, pushing the thought aside. Just means we gotta do it quick, then.

  I think we’re close enough, Margaret wrote. Time to get as still as we can?

  Jeh nodded. They carefully reoriented their three-part craft until the Module was directed directly downward, toward the mountain range of Descent. They set their drives to the level required to almost exactly match Ikyu’s gravity. As they didn’t know their exact elevation, they knew they would be slightly off, but it was going to be good enough for their purposes.

  You got the light? Margaret wrote.

  Oh, you bet I do! Jeh pulled out a Magenta crystal and pointed it at the beacon on the Module.

  Both of them were suddenly blinded.

  Jeh sighed. In hindsight, we probably should have pointed that light away from us first… She turned off the light and waited for her eyes to adjust before writing to Margaret. Let’s rotate it away.

  Good idea, that was too much even for my eyes.

  Jeh readied her Orange crystals… then paused. Wait, how am I going to do this while the Skyseed engines are running? And… the chains are attached… Jeh facepalmed.

  I think I just saw the problem, Margaret wrote. The chains only let us have a single orientation. If we want to rotate the module and keep position, we’ll have to detach the chains, rotate it, and reattach them.

  Well, they’re designed to do that, even if we weren’t supposed to… all this planning and still unexpected things come up. Jeh rolled her eyes. Cut the drives on five, then I’ll hold the Module while you undo the chains. Good?

  Yes.

  Jeh held up her fingers and counted down, and the two of them cut the drives. In space, the very small difference between their actions caused the module to start rotating toward them slightly, but Jeh quickly grabbed it in Orange and held it still relative to them.

  Margaret carefully used her Orange to undo the extremely tight clamps on the chains, detaching the Module from the Skyseeds. She rotated it around so the light pointed away from them, and then carefully reattached the chains, careful not to slam any part of the Module. It was delicate work, but it only took a few minutes.

  Ready to restart the drives. Margaret messaged.

  Once again, they started their drives at the weakest setting, and slowly increased until they were satisfied with their stability. Then Jeh used Magenta to turn the beacon on again. They could still see the glow from it through the Module’s windows, but they themselves remained in shadow and could still see the stars above them.

  Okay, now we look to see if we can find any of their lights, Jeh wrote. Now that we’re stable…

  You guys are really slow, you know that?

  Margaret hadn’t written those words, but they were in Karli. Right after Jeh saw the words, she saw the pointed shape of a pair of Mikarolian Skyrippers lift up from below them, but it overshot and drifted a fair distance past the Skyseeds. The two Skyrippers dragged behind them a large cubic Module slightly shorter than the Crystal control Module’s long edge. It was no doubt heavier.

  Having trouble, Xanava? Jeh wrote, making sure to place the words right in front of the Skyrippers.

  Shut up.

  I’m not actually saying ANYTHING.

  You know what, you two come up here, see how hard it is to stop precisely.

  Margaret wrote a small message in front of Jeh’s face. She’s right, slowing down is going to be tricky without the Module hitting us.

  But we’re great at this, and they’re new. We got this.

  Jeh couldn’t see Margaret’s eyes, but given the rest of her body language, she was giving Jeh the mother of all eyerolls at the moment.

  Just take it slow, I’ll hold the module in place as we slow down.

  They synchronously clicked their drives forward, drifting half of the way to the Mikarolian setup. Then they cut their engines and Jeh grabbed hold of the Module with Orange. They turned their drive directions around, pushing back against the Skyseeds to slow them. Jeh suddenly found her will rather taxed, as the drives were not helping move the Module at all, and even in space it still had a lot of inertia for her to overcome. But the exertion was for less than a minute, and they came to rest about a meter or so below the Mikarolians, and a few meters to the left.

  Coulda been better, Xanava wrote. Jeh could see her face now, currently displaying a laughing face. The other Skyripper had a human man in it, wearing a red suit that matched Xanava’s own. Probably some kind of official Mikarolian non-armor uniform necessary for space flight.

  Better than yours, Jeh wrote, crossing her arms and fixing her with a smug grin.

  You could see us while making that flight, we had to fly into a blinding light. I say we were more impressive. Xanava’s face displayed a thumbs down and then an explosion. Suck it.

  At least we can both agree we beat the Blimps, yes? Margaret wrote.

  We’ve been here for, like, an hour, losers, Xanava retorted.

  We had a lot further to go.

  Can we be professional about this? The Mikarolian soldier wrote.

  Xanava visibly sighed. And that’s the great war hero Jamerik Hahn, everyone. Personally blew up several Vraskalian outposts in a week with surgical precision space strikes. Got a lot of medals. Has no sense of humor.

  Humor has its place, and it is not at moments of import such as this.

  Loosen up a bit, Jeh encouraged. The universe is wonderful, and it’d be horrible if we couldn’t have fun while exploring it.

  Agreed, Margaret signaled. There is much beauty out here, I recommend taking a moment to appreciate the stars myself.

  Sentimental pansies, Xanava wrote.

  Jamerik wrote another message. Your ways are yours, mine are mine, I suppose we shall learn to deal with them over the course of this operation. That said, we are above Descent, and our light should have been easily visible. But we have seen no sign of Descent’s part of this operation, and it concerns me.

  Xanava’s face displayed a facepalming face. You were concerned before these idiots showed up, afraid they crashed into something.

  That fear has now been remedied. The fact remains that Descent should have been here first, but they did not meet up with us when we had our light on, nor have we seen their light above us.

  They do have the larger Hangar Module, Margaret pointed out. Perhaps it gave them trouble. Descent must be able to see us though, it’s night, and we’re right above them. They have the capacity to send us a message at this point if something has gone wrong, and they are not.

  Unless Descent is exploding or something.

  Jeh looked down at Descent. I can see the city lights just fine, they don’t look weird. We just need to wait for them.

  The purpose of the synchronized timing was so we wouldn’t have to wait and waste resources. Jamerik wrote. We are burning through crystals. The longer we remain up here in this standing pattern, the more likely something is to break.

  Oh, don’t worry about that, we’ve got enough stuff to make it work now, even if one of our ships breaks. As long as they get the hangar up here.

  He’s going to worry about it, Xanava wrote.

  Jeh shrugged. I guess worry as much as you want then?

  At that moment there was a bright flash of light that temporarily blinded everyone but Xanava. When Jeh’s sight came back to her, Xanava’s screen was flashing all sorts of bright colors and she was pointing angrily at something in the sky. Jeh looked up, and noted that there was a single bright point right above them. That was getting brighter.

  Oh. They’re not turning their light off. Uh…

  Jeh looked down as the light washed over them again. She was able to keep her sight this time, and noted that they really overshot again.

  Okay wow, they really don’t know what they’re doing, Xanava messaged.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Can we… help them? Margaret asked.

  Not sure how.

  They whipped past the Mikarolians and Kroanites again, blasting them with the light.

  Is there a way we can get them to turn their blasted light off!? Xanava messaged.

  I’d rather not distract them, Margaret replied.

  Agreed, wrote Jamerik.

  The Descent ships whipped by the congregation three more times before they found themselves at a relatively similar elevation and slowly, very slowly, approached the group from the side. They still didn’t turn off their light, but it was oriented behind them, so no one was blinded as they approached.

  Approached too quickly.

  Jeh saw it first. She didn’t even send a message, she just used Orange to nudge the Mikarolian ships one direction, and the Kroanite ones the other. The motion was not particularly smooth, but it also wasn’t particularly strong—everything here was pretty heavy. The carrier ships moved more than the Modules, but Margaret, Xanava, and Jamerik were all reactive enough to grab the Modules in Orange and keep anything from crashing into other things. The Descent ship careened through the group, once again flashing its light on them all with great intensity.

  I’m going to still be blinded if they try that again really quick… Jeh quickly ran through her options. How could she sense if something was coming at her without using her eyes? Magic crystals didn’t give reaction forces that weren’t visual in some way… even though the glows weren’t really the same as light, a blinded individual still couldn’t see them…

  Wait… Jeh pulled out her Yellow crystal. This… she pushed out her Yellow magic. She felt when a connection was accepted or rejected. Since she had no desire to actually connect minds, it didn’t matter what the response was on the other end. She sensed Margaret extremely close by, Xanava, Jamerik… …and there were two others heading right at them once again. Not extremely fast, but there would be a crash if things went as they were going.

  Jeh decided she couldn’t risk moving the Module she was chained to while completely blind, so instead she created a field of Orange pushing right in front of them. The two spirited she sensed were caught up in the field and brought to a stop.

  As Jeh’s vision returned, she saw a window with Enrique’s terrified face plastered into it less than half a meter from her face.

  ARE YOU CRAZY!? Both she and Xanava messaged at the same time.

  Enrique curled up into a ball and closed his eyes.

  Jeh decided not to bother him at the moment and looked around. Enrique was in one of Descent’s cubic ships, a short distance away from another one that housed Claire. She was shouting extremely angrily in Enrique’s direction. At first, Jeh wondered why she was bothering, but she realized that Enrique probably could hear her as their ships were in contact. Not with each other, but they were attached by cylindrical metal supports to a much larger, cubic structure with a very large door on one side, and an airlock on the other, right between the cylindrical supports.

  They… didn’t use chains… they took it up as a rigid body… Jeh wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than their plan.

  Think she’ll stop shouting at him long enough to pay attention to us anytime soon? Margaret asked the other pilots.

  I don’t care, Xanava messaged, before generating words right in front of Claire’s eyes. Hey! Idiots! We’ve got a station to build!

  Claire visibly growled. She didn’t have to pull out her Purple crystal as all the Colors were integrated into the seat of the cubic ship design, so she messaged quickly. He needs to understand exactly how close he just came to killing us!

  That you both came to killing us.

  I was trying to regain control, but this idiot couldn’t keep his drive steady and kept fighting me for rotational control while screaming that none of it felt right! And I couldn’t stop him, he just kept doing it!

  Does he have a history of losing his nerve? Jamerik asked.

  On Ikyu? Yes! But not in space, he’s trained to do this specifically. I don’t know what’s up with him.

  Maybe the pressure got to him, Margaret offered. You did miss several times. After a moment, she added. He’s clearly not in any condition to listen to you right now, I recommend just leaving him be so we can actually begin the mission. This is far from the most complex thing we will have to do.

  …Fine. Fine. You’re right. Claire took in a deep breath and let it out. So, now that we’re all here, check for damages. We just stopped rather abruptly, check the Hangar Module for me.

  If you turn off your light, Jeh messaged.

  …Oh. Entirely forgot we had that on.

  The light dimmed. Jeh turned off their light as well. They could still see each other from their standard lights, but now no one was in danger of blinding anyone.

  Jeh detached her Skyseed from the chains, quickly floating around the Hangar Module. She didn’t see any obvious damage, and the cylindrical supports weren’t damaged either. Seems good, though I obviously can’t see the inside.

  Door mechanism might still be busted, knowing my luck today, Claire messaged. But we have to wait until we’re in orbit to try that out.

  It’s time to get into orbit then, Jamerik messaged. Which means it’s time for us to assemble into the traversal arrangement.

  Agreed. No one bump into each other, okay? Margaret messaged.

  Everyone save Enrique set to work, detaching all the Modules from the various ships. At this point, everyone was now in freefall—if they remained like this for too long, they would start reentering Ikyu’s atmosphere. They did not plan to stay here very long. They used various ropes and chains to link all the Modules together. At this point, none of them were allowed to touch, and they didn’t want to try to engage the airlocks while on a timer. Arguably, if everyone could have met already in orbit, that would have solved that problem, but no one was sure how to plan exactly where an orbit would be ahead of time. Once the station was up and running, it would be a shining light people could follow at all times and predict its position ahead of time. That was not the case for assembly, leading to the awkward “get into orbit” phase of the mission.

  All the ropes and chains used to tie the Modules together needed to be kept taut at all times. To serve this goal, each module was attached to a single ship with a drive set to very low, but equal, settings. This wasn’t perfect as each of the ships had their own drive designs—the Mikarolian one’s lowest setting was stronger than the others, and while the Descent drive could match it, the Kroan drive wasn’t quite a perfect match. As such, the three ships chosen to pull the Modules taut were the Skyrippers and Claire’s Cube. They pulled with equal forces away from the three Modules, pulling them taut and keeping them in plane.

  The rest of the ships were attached in a train formation, with Enrique’s Cube attached by three chains to the three Modules, but on one side. Using a lot of ropes, they tied Enrique’s Cube to Margaret’s Skyseed, and then Jeh’s Skyseed at the very front.

  The ramshackle spider web came together… and for a moment, Jeh was reminded of one of Blue’s designs for the interplanetary ship.

  “I’m thinking long and pointed…” Blue pointed at the rough sketch on the chalkboard. “When traveling fast enough, you can get the effect of gravity. So this long central part is the one everyone lives in, and the back widens out…”

  Jeh took a deep breath. Practice for the future… let’s see how we can fly something big. She put a big message in the space in front of them. Ready to start orbital insertion! Ready?

  She got four Ready! Messages in response. Nothing from Enrique. The original plan had been for his cube to help get them into orbit, but… well, strictly speaking, they didn’t need that. The two Skyseeds had more than enough thrust to pull this off, it would just take longer.

  Margaret, only start your drive on my signal. And watch Enrique.

  Got it.

  Jeh started her drive. Slowly, at first, so she could pull the ropes connecting her to Margaret, Enrique, and the Modules taut. Secure? She asked.

  Secure! She got back four times.

  Increasing power! She gradually brought the drive up to its higher settings. She did not do it as slowly as the previous times, as this time they were in space and everything was already secure. She felt herself pressed back into the bottom of the Skyseed. Forward was now definitely up, and up just happened to be slightly above Ikyu’s horizon, toward the sliver of Ikyu lit up by the sun. She pushed most of her will into the drive itself.

  The difficult part was remaining pointed the right direction. She was not in full control of that, if she tried to shift the Skyseed, she would rotate independently of the rest of the assembly. Claire, Xanava, and Jamerik were responsible for that. She was responsible for telling them how off they were. Which, at the moment, she didn’t know. That would require some on the fly experimentation.

  Margaret, start bringing your drive up to power.

  On it!

  Jeh trusted Margaret to make sure her drive was always lesser than Jeh’s. Otherwise they would crash into each other, and they’d been told many times to avoid that. Jeh remembered an argument about if two engines on a rope would actually be able to pull something more efficiently than just one. Apparently the answer was yes, since they were doing it, but there had still been an argument.

  With Margaret spinning her engine up, it was time for Jeh to start doing orbital dynamics. Which was to say she held up some pieces of paper to Ikyu’s horizon to determine their altitude, and a little central dot on her upper window to determine their orientation. She had no need to actually run calculations or anything; Blue had already done those. Jeh just had to refer to the notes and tell the others to adjust the heading. This was simple enough, as all she had to do was tell them to go away from or toward Ikyu. Sometimes it took the three of them a few seconds to agree on how exactly to do that, but as they were all adjusting their trajectories extremely slightly to do this, they always eventually managed to succeed.

  Until the spinning started happening.

  It was a very gradual addition to their motion, but the entire webbed conglomeration started rotating around an axis that cut right through the center of Jeh’s Skyseed.

  Guys, we’re starting to rotate… why?

  No idea. Jeh had no idea who the message was from. We could try to correct, but do we need to?

  I’d rather not be spinning, than you.

  You aren’t the captain.

  Nobody is, Jeh messaged back.

  I think we don’t need to fix it, we can fix it—

  The message was quickly overwritten. You’re just going to let it keep spinning!? Are you insane!?

  Calm down, we’re just discussing it, we have time.

  We’re trying to enter orbit!

  ENRIQUE!

  Jeh understood. Ah, Enrique’s finally starting to say things… She wrote out a message. The slight spin isn’t dangerous, Enrique.

  The reason we almost crashed into you was because of spin! I couldn’t control anything!

  You should have stopped trying!

  And let us die!?

  You almost killed us all!

  Look, let’s just stop the spinning, avoid the argument.

  Agreed, Jeh messaged. Let’s just deal with it.

  Fine.

  Jeh felt the Skyseed get tugged to the side slightly. That was a little more dramatic than I was expecting… She paused. And the spin hasn’t stopped… Jeh felt another jerk on the Skyseed. They started pointing more toward Ikyu. Wait, what that’s not…

  Jeh, Enrique’s trying to do something.

  Jeh really would have liked to know who that message came from. Well… stop him!

  How? He’s in his own ship and we can’t detach it!

  A small message appeared right in front of Jehs’ face. Claire here. Enrique is clearly a liability, I’m going to take him out with Red unless someone has a better idea in the next few seconds.

  Jeh’s mind raced. She couldn’t see Claire’s ship well enough to send her a private message, so she wrote a big one everyone could see. DO NOT DO THAT!

  Whatever that was made Enrique panic more. Jeh was unsure what exactly was keeping his frantic motions from tearing the entire network apart, but whatever it was, she couldn’t trust that it would keep happening. Margaret, no time to explain, I need to turn off my drive and you need to push my ship as hard as you can!

  Jeh didn’t even wait for Margaret to respond as she pulled out a Yellow crystal and attempted to interface with Enrique’s mind. She felt the pang of direct rejection.

  There are ways through mental defenses. Remember the tales of Dramais. Remember your adventures, your studies, and…

  Something flashed in Jeh’s mind. She gripped both a Blue and a Yellow crystal in her hand at once, and lit her fist with some kind of rippling pink effect. Instinctually, she pushed for Enrique’s mind again.

  Then she wasn’t on the Skyseed anymore. She was in a white expanse of nothingness, standing on… nothing. The only other thing there was Enrique. His face was twisted into a permanent scream, and tears were all over his face… but they weren’t running down. They were frozen.

  Jeh looked down at her hands. They were still glowing pink.

  “What the heck did I just do!?” She yelled at the whiteness around her. There was no response.

  “Something that, quite frankly, shouldn’t be possible.”

  Jeh whirled around, coming face to face with… Kirkkok, the shadowy raven with a smiling blob on his head.

  Seeing Jeh raise her fists, he lifted his wings. “Hey, hey, hey! Chill! I didn’t do anything, you did this!”

  “But why are you here, little…”

  “Okay look I understand you don’t like me very much, understandable, but like, I’d rather not be punched by… whatever it is those freaky hands of yours can do, and I’m pretty sure the situation out there is pretty dire and you can’t afford to be too distracted. Right?”

  Jeh glared at him.

  “...Please don’t punch me.”

  “Answer my question.”

  Kirkkok fluffed his feathers and his smiling hat frowned. “Fine, uh… so, technically speaking, I am bound to Jeremiah’s family unless a higher demon ends my contract, and no one has done that, so I’m kinda stuck following Margaret around in… oh my gosh, you’re calling it the Gronge Field? That’s so stupid!”

  “I’m in the Gronge Field!?”

  “Your consciousness, anyway. And his, too.” Kirkkok pointed at Enrique. “Though you’ve frozen it.”

  “Well. That…” Jeh blinked. “That was what I was trying to do. Instinct just kicked in.” She looked down at her hands. “Why on Ikyu would Jenny need to know how to do that!?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Great help you are.”

  “I could lie about knowing things, if you want.”

  “That’s a good way to actually get punched.” Jeh frowned. “Wait, you said you’re connected to Margaret? …You can see what’s going on, right?”

  “Yes. …Okay, fine, I’ll tell you, she’s got your ship in her grip and is slowly ratcheting down her drive so they can coast for a while and figure out what to do. Enrique didn’t get barbecued.”

  “Well at least the plan worked.” Jeh glanced at Enrique, frowning. “Hey, do you know how to wake him up?”

  “Well, I could just…”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Kirkkok sighed. “Of course, once they know you can screw with people’s souls, they never let you… you can probably just slap him.”

  Jeh walked up to Enrique and slapped him.

  He dropped to the ground, screaming. Then he saw the endless expanse of white everywhere. “...Am I dead?”

  “No. I’m not really sure what you are, but you’re not dead.” Jeh tapped her foot on the ground and crossed his arms. “You’re welcome, by the way, Claire was going to burn you to death.”

  “She—”

  “You were going to kill us all.”

  “I was trying to save us!”

  “He’s completely lost his cool,” Kirkkok observed. “Talking really isn’t going t—”

  “AUGH! DEMON! I REALLY AM DEAD!”

  “Oh for the love of…”

  Jeh put her hand to the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I swear… this…”

  Enrique started running away into the endless whiteness.

  “...Should I stop him?” Jeh asked.

  “...He’s not actually moving, this is all just mental perceptions. You guys can’t really leave your bodies behind. Well, he can’t. Dunno about you, you’re already being freaky bizarre.”

  “...Riiiight…” Jeh crossed her arms. “Well, uh…” She pointed her fist at Kirkkok and lit it on fire. “You’re going to tell me how to get us back to the convoy, and how to make sure he won’t be a problem, or we’re going to figure out what this fist does when it meets your beak. I hear removing all magic from an area actually kills demons, maybe I’ll try to dream up a punch that does that.”

  “Yeah, sure, fine. Honestly, I’m a little fond of your crew anyway, don’t want to see this whole thing go up in flames.”

  “Without you actually doing anything. Just me.”

  “...Well making him not an issue is simple, just knock him out in this mental space, that will keep him from regaining consciousness. As for getting back yourself… I mean, I don’t even know how you got here. Presumably you’ll eventually run out of will to keep the spell or whatever you’re doing going, so it won’t last forever, so…”

  “I’ll worry about one thing at a time.” Jeh ran after Enrique and found that she could catch up to him in just a few steps. “Huh, you really didn’t go anywhere.”

  “AUGH!”

  “Calm down or I’ll make you calm down.”

  “AAAAAAA”

  Jeh sighed and punched him in the back of the head. He fell over, out cold.

  “That was… anticlimactic.”

  “You did what you wanted to, the… Gronge Field responded.” Kirkkok made a gagging sound. “Really, really stupid name…”

  “So maybe I can just want it to be over and…” Jeh clenched her hand into a fist. It sparkled.

  And she was back in her Skyseed.

  I’m up, I’m up! She messaged. Enrique should be out cold. Do I restart the drive?

  Yes! Multiple messages came back to her.

  She did as asked, turning her drive back on. The Orange glow around her Skyseed vanished.

  Directions? A message came to her.

  Jeh quickly scanned the skyline. They were pointing away from Ikyu—the better of the two directions to be off by. Start slowly tilting toward Ikyu. Hey, the rotation’s gone, glad you guys managed that! Margaret, how are you doing?

  Exhausted, but fine, came the reply. What did you do?

  Yeah, what did you do, Enrique’s out like a light!

  I don’t really know! Jeh responded. Muscle memory from the deep past, I think. Stuff went down but I think we should build a space station first before trying to figure it out. Sound good?

  Yes.

  Margaret, you good for managing the drive?

  I can, yes. Though I don’t think I can go for much longer.

  Jeh took out her notebook and examined her reference points. Good thing we’re almost in orbit then…

  The next ten minutes had Jeh’s heart racing the entire time, waiting for something else to go terribly wrong. But nothing did. They started lowering the power of the drives after that point, as they were in a relatively circular orbit, according to Blue’s calculations. They sat in that orbit for ten minutes, checking to make sure the position of the horizon wasn’t changing as they moved.

  It shifted but only a little. The orbit must have been slightly elliptical. But Jeh wasn’t going to complain about that, getting exactly circular had never been an expected result.

  Okay, I think we can detach now. Jeh messaged. Time to start building this station.

  They started detaching various ropes and chains, allowing all the ships and Modules to float freely. They were in orbit now, all moving collectively without issue, and in no danger of falling or being rushed. Margaret took Enrique’s ship to the side and took a rest. Jeh, Claire, Xanava, and Jamerik set to actual work, arranging the Modules so they faced each other in the orientations they would be attached.

  So, Mikarol superiority wins again, Xanava wrote. Both of our pilots are still up.

  Shut up and work, Claire messaged.

  Oh, I am, don’t worry. Xanava’s face displayed a smug grin. Now we get to see if your precious hangar got broken.

  Jamerik visibly sighed. I have to agree with Claire, Xanava, we have come this close to complete mission failure multiple times. Please do this without any fanfare.

  Xanava’s face displayed a stormy cloud. Fine.

  The central cubic Module was Mikarol’s and served as the basis for the whole station. Each of the six faces had an identical airlock, so its orientation was unimportant. On the “front” face, chosen completely arbitrarily, the Hangar Module was lined up to attach. Jeh remotely activated some latches on the airlocks’ edges, opening up the metallic interfaces that would allow the two Modules to lock together. She wasn’t entirely sure how the engineering worked, but the plan was that once the latches were pushed into each other, they would start pulling on each other, refusing to ever let go. Then they would be able to open up the Magenta and air “vents” to allow communication between the two Modules.

  They just had to push them together lightly enough and perfectly aligned. There were some pilot wires at the ends of the metallic interfaces to help with this. If they started bending, they weren’t perfectly aligned.

  Claire ended up being the one pushing the actual Modules together. Jeh, admittedly, felt quite tired at this point, and Jamerik did not trust his skills. Xanava simply didn’t argue, for once. Claire, despite all her rage and yelling earlier, took to the job with extreme focus and precision. She brought the two Modules together softer than Jeh thought could be possible, carefully nudging both sections together with carefully applied Orange.

  Latch successful. Claire reported. Turning to Crystal Control.

  The most symmetric design for the space station would have had the Crystal Control Module attach opposite the Hangar, but they had decided early in design to reserve that opposite airlock for interfacing with newer generation spaceships. Thus, the Crystal Control Module was attached on the “upper” face to the Hangar’s “forward” face. Claire once again took over the final alignment and push together, and did so expertly.

  The station, the beginnings of the City in the Sky… was technically assembled.

  Everyone was silent for quite some time.

  It’s time to go in, idiots. Xanava messaged. The Hangar’s big enough to hold all our dinky little ships, open it up.

  Claire nodded, using Orange to turn a crank on the outside of the Hangar. The great doors vibrated a bit before sliding open. Jeh found herself fascinated as the forward face of the hangar peeled back, revealing another face behind it—four layers of metal doors retracting into the walls of the immense cube. They really wanted to make sure that entrance was extremely redundant and rugged. The interior of the Hangar was almost completely empty. She could see the airlock attached to the central cube on the other end, and there were several ropes floating around for tethering ships, enough space for eight small ships. While there were only six of theirs right now, the Mikarolian Skyrippers were a little tall, so they were going to block two slots each. There was still enough room for all of them to drift in and tie their ships down to the walls.

  Claire closed the doors. Besides the glow of their various ships, they were suddenly in pure darkness. The hangar did not have windows.

  Claire rotated another lever. Sealing the doors. The seals have to be engaged with the rubber, and then… well, who wants to open up the canister of compressed air?

  Xanava opened up the hatch on her Skyripper’s cargo hold and took out a can of compressed air with Orange. Holding it very tightly, she opened the valve. A burst of vaporous air emerged from it. At first, Jeh couldn’t hear anything, but remarkably quickly she started to hear a soft hisssssssss from the canister that became louder and louder as air filled the chamber.

  “It works!” Jeh shouted, throwing her fists into the air. “Yeah! We did it, we built a space station!”

  “We have to turn all the systems on first,” Jamerik said. “Patience.”

  “We’ll need four canisters of air in total to fill the station to breathable levels,” Claire said, opening one of hers now that she was sure there wasn’t a substantial leak. “Two for the Hangar, and one for each of the other modules. Ish. Once we have two here, we can open the vent to the other Module. Then…” She frowned. “Okay, how are we going to open the vent to Crystal Control? I think we all just assumed we could do it remotely but none of us can see it right now.”

  Jeh facepalmed. “I can go do it, I’m immortal.”

  “It’s… not a problem,” Margaret said. “Jeh, don’t you remember? Tests have been run in high pressure air environments, it doesn’t hurt you. Just put all the air we need in, then open the vents. Pressure will go down but we’ll still be fine.”

  “Oh. …No, I don’t remember that.” Jeh scratched the back of her head awkwardly.

  Once her tank ran out of air, Claire opened up the vent to the Central Module. The air rushed in. Jeh decided her tank might as well be the third one, and she filled the station with more air. Once the tank was exhausted, Jeh looked to everyone.

  “I think we can just… walk out there now. Careful with your doors, pressure’s a little stronger out there for once!”

  Everyone—save Enrique, who was still out cold—opened their doors. The Skyseeds were the easiest to open with their screw tops, that could be rotated despite the additional pressure. The Skyrippers had hinges that were hard to push open, but not impossible, especially not for people from a nation that prided itself on strength. Claire actually had some difficulty climbing out of her cube, having to push on one of the doors with a significant amount of Orange to get it to pop. There was some mild chaos as air rushed into each ship and blew papers around, but nothing too chaotic came of it.

  Margaret drifted over to Enrique’s cube and opened it. She checked his pulse. “He is just asleep… I was half afraid his air was going to run out.”

  “It’d take longer than that,” Jeh said.

  “I… suppose.”

  Jamerik undid the latch on the last canister of air, increasing the pressure further.

  “My ears…” Margaret grumbled, feeling the pressure building.

  “It won’t be for long,” Jeh said. “And look at us, floating, in a hangar!” She spread her arms and legs wide. “I actually have space to move around! Can you believe it!?”

  “Don’t break anything,” Claire said as she drifted to the airlock. She pulled a crank out from one of the sides and started turning it, sliding the doors both on the Hangar’s side and the Central Module’s into the walls. She drifted through, lighting the way forward with some Purple magic. “Let me know when we’re up to pressure!”

  “We could let the air out faster…” Xanava suggested.

  Jamerik shook his head. “Let’s not tempt fate any more today. Just wait.”

  Jeh drifted into the Central Module after Claire. It was… rather boring in there. A room with six airlocks and eight areas in the corners devoted to storage doubling as walls that messages could be hung on. There wasn’t even any furniture. Bored, Jeh started rummaging through the drawers and found emergency food supplies, star charts, backup air restorers, and other such things that might be necessary in a pinch in space. There was even a singular spacesuit that looked like it would fit Jamerik. Maybe intended as a general suit for humans? It would suck if anyone else needed one, though…

  “Air’s in!” Jamerik reported.

  Claire moved to the airlock that led to Crystal Control and opened up the vent. The air rushed in, but besides blowing Claire and Jeh’s hair around a bit and making their ears pop, it had little effect.

  “Oooh, oooh, let me!” Jeh pulled herself to the airlock and pulled on the crank, opening the doors to Crystal Control.

  The image of the Crystal Control Module in space, freshly installed, ready for seemingly anything, would be one of the strongest memories ever formed in Jeh’s mind. Sunlight streaked in through one of the windows, glinting off the crystals in the drive right in the center. The light spread throughout the room, illuminating chairs on each of the walls, and a couch near the back where another airlock stood. A few cabinets attached to the walls were littered here and there, and there was a table clearly designed for taking measurements of the stars and plotting trajectories.

  From Jeh’s current perspective, the pilot’s seat was upside down. It was a far simpler construction than the ones she’d seen before; no gyroscopes, no rotation, just straps to keep it up in the air, pointed directly at one of the windows. She drifted toward it and grabbed onto one of the straps with her hands. She noticed her heart was racing once again. With a deep breath, she sat down in the chair, and strapped herself in.

  She grabbed hold of a marbled crystal of Magenta. She looked Claire in the eyes. “Are we ready to turn it on?”

  “Yes,” Claire all but whispered. For once in her life, her eyes were wide open with excitement.

  Jeh grinned. “Here we go.”

  She pushed her will into the crystal. Immediately, a ring of Green activated toward the airlock, beginning the act of restoring the air. Purple crystals flashed to life along the edges of the room, lighting up everything with a facsimile of sunlight. Magenta crystals carried the signals into the other modules, turning on the lights there. Fans whirred to life, carrying the air throughout the station. Outside, the main beacon lit up in a brilliant show, declaring to the universe I AM HERE!

  The intention was that the beacon would never turn off ever again.

  Jeh took in a deep breath and let it out. She pushed her free hand into the air. “WELCOME, EVERYONE, TO THE CITY IN THE SKY!”

  Everyone broke out into applause, even those in the other Modules.

  In that moment, relief washed over them all. There was no more rage. There was no more frustration about everything that went wrong. It was done. The station was in orbit, fully operational, and all of them were alive. Jeh could hear high fives being given.

  “We’ve got some Vraskalian vodka in storage for celebration!” Jamerik called.

  “Oh, mister proper procedure man is breaking out the alcohol?” Xanava asked.

  “You’re just jealous you can’t have any!”

  “Bring me some!” Jeh called. “I can’t exactly leave the chair!”

  Everyone shuffled into the Crystal Control Module. It was a tight fit for all of them, but they didn’t particularly care. Margaret set Enrique on a chair in the back and started having fun trying to drink in zero gravity. The vodka floated in the air in warbling bubbles and stuck to the interior of the containers; a trait that had often frustrated many, but at the moment Margaret just found delightful.

  The vodka itself made her gag, but that was also amusingly delightful, in some way.

  Jeh ran her hand through some of the loose droplets and they stuck to her hand. She sniffed it. “Ewww, how can people stand this!?”

  “Aren’t you a little young, anyway?” Jamerik asked.

  “Pff, boy, I’m a few thousand years old, I just don’t know it.” She winked and then licked some of the vodka off her fingers. “Egh… no, not digging into that right now.”

  “I still can’t believe it’s actually here…” Claire said, looking out the window. “It… it all actually worked.”

  “Something to be proud of!” Jamerik declared. “I admit, I had my doubts when I was told of a cooperative enterprise with other nations… but even I see now, what great things we can do when we come together! None of us could have accomplished this on our own!”

  “We all also caused a lot of problems,” Xanava pointed out.

  “And that’s in the past. Look at this. Three rooms… the start to the conquest of the stars!”

  “The start of a world without boundaries!” Claire added.

  “The start…” Jeh said, beaming. “Of exploring the great unknown.”

  “The start of a better chance at survival.”

  Everyone stopped talking immediately.

  Jeh slowly turned to her left.

  There was a demon there.

  It wasn’t Kirkkok. This creature… was humanoid in form, but lanky, and hunched. Multiple sets of antlers grew out of his head instead of hair. He had six piercing yellow eyes on his chest, but his face itself was completely blank.

  “I’m sorry, did I ruin the vibe of your great triumph?” He chuckled. “I assure you, that was not my purpose, though I expected as much.” He ran his hand along one of the station’s walls. “My, what fine craftsmanship… truly spectacular what you have all done, it was in fact worthy of your previous celebration.”

  Jeh clenched her free fist and surrounded it with a vibrating light. “If you so much as…”

  “My my, jumping to threats immediately? Understandable but disappointing. I mean your station no harm.”

  “You mean us harm,” Margaret said. “We know your kind’s purpose.”

  “You also know that Eyda has not given us any commands for many millenia, and as such we are free to act as we please.”

  “To corrupt us.”

  “Oh, only if we want to. Which, admittedly, a fair amount of us do. But the one you’re familiar with mentioned those I represent. I believe that monster was of the mind we were ‘playing kingdoms’ like it was some kind of useless game? I assure you, we of the Dark Lands take our nation very seriously. And your station…”

  “Did Kirkkok tell you?” Jeh asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “Oh, that bird? I must be honest, I did not know he existed here until you mentioned him.” The demon chuckled. “No, we have been examining your progress from a distance ever since we noted the satellite in the skies. You have merely reached the point of actual real interest to us with your ring of lights earlier today.” He bowed slightly to them all. “How rude of me, I have not even given my name. I am Ambassador Ryzelbul. Well met, pilots of the Kingdom of Kroan, Empire of Mikarol, and Descent, City of the Blimps. You have carried out the seemingly impossible and started a City in the Sky. Congratulations!”

  Margaret took a step forward, murder in her eyes. “What do you want?”

  “I thank you for your restraint in not stabbing me, a physical altercation in such close quarters may be… disastrous. For you.” He glanced at Jeh. “Though, of course, there is always the possibility you pull out some trick. Do not think I am not aware of your recent discoveries. Your mind is as open of a book as anyone else’s.”

  Jeh shuddered. “Reading our minds isn’t a good way to make us like you.”

  “You wouldn’t like me anyway, might as well keep the advantage, hmm?”

  “I am getting real sick of your snarky attitude,” Xanava grunted.

  “And yet you can’t help but begrudgingly respect it.” Ryzelbul folded his arms together. “Regardless, my purpose here is to meet you directly so you may send a message back to your homes. You are not the only powers on Ikyu with the ability to reach space; as is clearly evident by my presence here. And yet, the acts performed in space are of relevance to all such nations. We propose… a conference. A conference where powers with interest in the world beyond the sky come together to speak of their knowledge. A place of cooperation, yes, as some of you care so much about… but also a place to brag, to show off what you have learned first. And a place to foster new ideas…” He spread his hands wide. “Why, I can tell right now that some of you are cursing yourselves that you didn’t think of that idea already! Even if you ignore me this day, you will likely organize such a thing yourself, and we will show up anyway… So, why not start off on the right foot?”

  “What do you get out of this?” Jamerik asked. “You can read our minds, you can already have all our secrets of space travel. What’s the purpose?”

  “You would think so, but that’s not quite true. Only the strongest among us can query reality itself. I may be able to read your mind, but that does not mean I have a clue how the interior workings of your drive actually function. I… would need to be taught. And we have come to the conclusion that cooperation is far more suitable to this end than… conflict.” He held his hands out wide. “And so I am here, on the dawn of this glorious day, to secure connections to that end! Do not worry yourselves with the burden of setting such a conference up, we graciously offer to handle it ourselves.”

  “No,” Claire said.

  Ryzelbul turned to glare right at her. “...We would prefer…”

  “I’m going to say my idea, not you taking it out of my mind.” Claire folded her hands. “You want to control the conference. No. No, you don’t get to, we get to do that. You said you’ll show up anyway, go right ahead, in fact we’ll invite you. To a place that’s neutral territory far from your base of power.” She snapped her fingers. “The Tempest will host us. I hear there’s a very nice Guardian Spirit there who’ll make sure things go well.”

  Ryzelbul leaned back. “Ah… and now that the idea has been spoken, the minds have all turned to it.”

  “You’re going to have to be on your best behavior. If she’ll even let you in.” Claire grinned.

  “Oh, she will. As much as she hates our kind’s substance with a burning passion, she understands what we are, and that she should not provoke a direct conflict. I will warn you, that this will raise tensions in a stalemate far greater than you understand. And no, I do not feel inclined to explain further, as you have made things… significantly more annoying for me and my associates.”

  “Then I have a question,” Margaret said, stepping forward.

  Ryzelbul grinned, his mouth appearing in two halves on both of his hands. “Oh yes, Our Lady Eyda most certainly takes delight in your sufferings, and you are quite fortunate She does not glance here to the Edge hardly at all. And, for the record, we of the Dark Lands are also lucky, for it allows us far greater autonomy. Should She return, we would lose that, and not even care that it was gone.”

  “...Doesn’t that bother you?” Jeh asked.

  “My, empathizing with a demon? Surprising.” Ryzelbul placed his blank face right in front of Jeh’s. “We are not allowed to be bothered by such things. She designed us that way. But I thank you for your concern nonetheless, though it is completely unnecessary.” He made a motion as if he was tipping a hat he didn’t have, and then he walked through the exterior window like it wasn’t there and started falling to Ikyu.

  Margaret immediately started hyperventilating, grabbing one of the straps next to Jeh’s seat.

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay Margaret, he’s gone… he’s gone…” Jeh put her hand on her arm.

  “We… We need to get off this diadem planet…” Margaret gasped. “Go where they can’t find us…”

  “Well, at least they seem content to let us do that,” Claire said. “For whatever reason…”

  Jeh clenched her jaw and looked forward, through the window. She couldn’t see Ryzelbul anymore. But she could see the part of the world where the Dark Lands were. It was night there.

  Not a single light came from that area.

  She shivered. Why did everything feel so cold? The station was supposed to be getting too hot, they would need to cool it soon…

  ~~~

  SCIENCE SEGMENT

  So that was a lot of crazy science, huh? Let’s go over it and see what exactly was going on. Throughout the entire mission, they were abusing the physical properties of ropes and chains—that is, the properties of tension. When pulled taut, ropes ensure that the distance between two points remains the same, and using a network of such ropes you can create shapes that remain constant so long as force is applied to the ends. Most importantly, the force doesn’t have to be precise for this to work: have three kids of different sizes pull on the ends of a parachute, you’ll get a triangle regardless. On Earth, networks of ropes under tension can be remarkably sturdy; hammocks, nets, etc.

  In space though there is another issue, though. Yes, the shapes will still hold. But unbalanced forces will not be canceled out by the ground or air resistance, instead the leftover force has to act on the network itself. Which means these networks in space will start spinning. I don’t think I need to tell you why that’s bad; uncontrolled spinning has been an issue for the Wizard Space Program to overcome since its inception.

  Another fun thing about ropes and chains under tension: they carry sound really well! Many of us have tried the experiment of tying two cups together with a string and then talking into one end, finding the sound carries all the way to the other. This is because rigid bodies are much better at transmitting sound than soft ones. Sound is, ultimately, just vibrating molecules, and molecules with less freedom have fewer ways to dissipate energy. Sound carries pretty badly in air, pretty well in water, and excellently through, say, concrete. The main reason sound doesn’t seem like it travels through solids is because sound loses quite a bit of energy when passing through an interface between two types of materials. Fun fact: I actually forgot about sound transmitting through the chains when I wrote the first draft of this and had to edit it back in!

  It was briefly mentioned that there was an argument about if two engines on the same rope would actually be able to pull it more efficiently than just one engine. So long as the rope is taut, yes, it’s treated like a solid body, and it doesn’t matter where you stick the drives, all of them will add their thrust together. The reason we don’t do this kind of thing in reality is because the rocket engine in front would fry the ones behind it. Cheating wizards don’t have to worry about this, but they do have to worry about making the front engine the strongest, otherwise the back engine will start to make the rope “buckle,” putting it into a regime where it is no longer a rigid body.

  …Huh, while a lot of science was done this chapter, most of it was stuff we’ve already discussed. Airlocks. Air pressure. Moments of inertia. Inertia itself. This was like a big exam for them, wasn’t it?