Destiny Among the Stars - Scifi - LitRPG - Adventure

An hour later, they reached the portal.

Fifty kilometers from the signal. Maybe less.

Half-submerged in moss and tangled roots, it sat at the base of a ravine, humming faintly with that low-frequency thrum that meant business. System energy shimmered in the air, and even from a distance, Luca could feel that familiar electric charge.

Chris brought the Peregrine to a stop on the ridge overlooking the site. Through the viewport, they could see the portal clearly now. No mobs nearby. No warning signs. Just that warped shimmer and the faint pulse of energy.

"Looks clean," Zoe called from her perch on the roof, scope trained on the treeline below.

"For now," Luca muttered, still thinking about those eyes watching them from the canopy. That Level 62 apex predator hadn't been hunting them, but it had been evaluating them. Learning.

Ryan powered down the Specter and secured it to the Peregrine's rack. "Portal's stable. Energy readings are consistent with what we saw at the last site."

Danny was already pulling up sensor data on his tablet. "System interference is minimal here. Whatever's jamming comms near the signal, it's not affecting this location."

Emily unbuckled from her seat and moved to the tactical display. "Perimeter looks secure, but we should set up fast. That feeling of being watched hasn't gone away."

She was right. Even here, with the portal's familiar hum drowning out some of the forest noise, Luca could feel it. Something in the trees. Something patient.

"Alright," he said, standing and stretching muscles still sore from the morning's tension. "Let's get the Peregrine in outpost mode and gear up. This ground's too soggy for anything else."

Joey and Chris were handling the vehicle's defensive systems, and Danny grabbed his gear from storage while Emily coordinated the check, making sure nobody forgot critical components, like power cells.

Ryan had double-checked everyone's gear because that's what Ryan did: repair and fix what he could with what we had.

While the team suited up, Luca found himself at the dinette. His interface was nagging him with notifications he'd been putting off for too long.

475,000 points of unallocated XP sat there, burning a hole in his skill queue. Plus five attribute points he hadn't touched. All that power just waiting to be used.

He had planned this out with Emily on the Triumph: His Starship Captain abilities. Four skills sitting in queue: Starship Maintenance, Power Systems Optimization, Navigation, and Maneuvering.

Right now, he had the queue set to level 5 for each skill. That would only eat 65,000 skill XP. But if he bumped Maintenance to Level 10 and Power Systems to Level 10, that would take about 397,000 skill XP, leaving him with 78,000 for emergencies.

Better to have the skills and not need them than the other way around.

He focused on the interface and made his selections.

Luca stared at the ability descriptions. Diagnostics and power optimization. Useful, sure, but not exactly the "massive plasma cannon upgrade" he'd been hoping for. Still, if something broke or exploded, he'd have a better shot at fixing it now.

Or at least figuring out how screwed they were before it killed them.

"Hey, Luca!" Ryan called from the Peregrine's storage. "You planning to join us?"

"Just allocating some XP," Luca called out, dismissing the screens. "Ship skills."

"About time," Emily looked up from her gear check. "Those have been sitting in your queue forever."

Luca hopped down from the dinette and approached the portal. Time to see what they were looking at today.

At the portal's edge, he raised his hand toward the shimmering gateway and watched his interface light up.

"Oh, shit," Luca muttered, staring at the display.

"What's wrong?" Emily called from behind him.

He turned toward the team. "It's a space scenario. Derelict battleship."

The team gathered close, and he could see the excitement on most of their faces. Space scenarios meant good loot, interesting challenges, zero-G combat. All the fun stuff.

All the stuff that required proper armor.

Luca looked down at his Level 48 scout suit. The same one that had been too tight that morning, the same one that was three generations behind everyone else's gear. In atmosphere, it was uncomfortable but functional. In vacuum?

"Fuck."

Joey's expression shifted from excitement to concern. "Your suit's not rated for extended vacuum exposure, is it?"

"It'll hold pressure," Luca replied. "For a while. But if it gets punctured..." He didn't need to finish. They all knew what happened when cheap armor met sharp objects in space.

Chris frowned. "What about the emergency patches?"

"Sure, for small tears. Not for plasma burns or claw marks."

"And power?" Danny asked, already knowing the answer.

Luca grimaced. "It's got to be energy cells. Power cells aren't backwards compatible with this old suit. And we've got maybe a handful left in the Peregrine." He gestured at their sleek armor. "Your power cells will run for days. Mine? Maybe twelve hours of active use, tops."

"If your power dies, I can hook you up to my suit," Chris offered immediately. "Emergency power sharing. It'll drain mine faster, but we can make it work."

"Same here," Joey added. "My Juggernaut's got plenty of juice to spare."

Ryan nodded. "And I've still got the portable recharger. Between all that, we should be covered."

Emily's shoulders relaxed slightly. "Okay, that's workable."

"We could skip it and find another portal," Ryan offered.

"No," Emily stepped up beside Luca. "This is exactly the kind of scenario that drops the gear we need. Ship-based loot, high-tech armor pieces." She looked at him. "But you can't go in there with gear that might fail."

"It's not your call," Luca replied, but not harshly.

"Actually, it is." Her voice carried that XO authority he was still getting used to. "Mission safety is part of my job description."

Danny cleared his throat. "What if we change the approach? Keep Luca in the entry area while we push deeper? He could handle technical stuff, ship systems, while we deal with combat."

Zoe shook her head. "Bad idea. If something goes wrong, we don't want our captain stuck in a compromised suit."

"So what are you suggesting?" Luca asked, feeling left out. "I sit this one out while you guys have all the fun?"

The team exchanged glances. He could see them weighing options.

Finally, Emily spoke up. "Your call, Luca. But if we go in, we do it smart. You stay with the group, no jumping on bosses like a maniac, and at the first sign of suit problems, you're out."

Luca looked at the portal, then his team. His friends. All of them in proper armor, all of them ready to follow him into whatever was waiting on the other side.

"Alright," he decided. "We go in. But careful and methodical. This isn't a smash-and-grab."

Ryan grinned. "Look at you, being all tactical and shit."

"Don't get used to it," Luca replied, but he was smiling too.

The team spread out, pulling on their armor with the kind of energy that came before a challenging dive. Luca watched them suit up and tried not to feel like the weak link.

Joey knocked on his shiny white Juggernaut chest plate, the dull thud echoing across the clearing. Danny was already sealed up in his new power armor, servos whining softly as he tested his range of motion. Even Chris, usually the most cautious of them, seemed eager as he checked his weapon systems.

Luca tugged at his scout suit's collar. Still too tight. Still three generations behind everyone else's gear.

"Hey," Emily appeared beside him in her sleek Guardian armor. "You know what they say about vintage gear, right?"

"That it gets you killed?"

She laughed. "That it's proven. This suit got you through how many missions on Sol?"

"Different kind of missions," he replied. "Less vacuum, more breathable atmosphere."

"You'll make it work. You always do." She reached out and squeezed his shoulder, the metal of her gauntlet cool against his neck.

Zoe looked up from where she was checking Danny's seal integrity. "Besides, we're not letting anything happen to you. Right, babe?"

Danny's helmet turned toward her, and even through the visor, Luca could see him grin. "Right. I've got his back."

"We all do," Ryan slinging his pack over his shoulder. He'd loaded it with extra breach charges and emergency patches. "Just try not to get shot, okay? I don't want to explain to your dad why we came back one captain short."

"Gee, thanks for the pep talk," Luca muttered, but he was grateful for the concern.

Chris finished his systems check and surveyed the group. "Alright, everyone's sealed and green. Weapons hot, emergency patches loaded."

"Got extra patches." Ryan patted his pack. "And emergency sealant in case our fearless leader springs a leak."

"I'm not going to spring a leak," Luca protested.

"Famous last words," Zoe called out.

Deep breath. His suit's life support kicked in, functional if not smooth like the newer systems.

"Alright, guys," he forced a grin. "Let's see what kind of trouble we can get into."

They lined up at the portal's edge, that familiar shimmer of displaced air and energy washing over them. Luca could feel his heart rate picking up, that mix of excitement and terror that came with every dive.

The world dissolved into green light and vertigo as reality reassembled itself. When his vision cleared, Luca found himself floating in what looked like a massive breaching pod, its walls scarred and battered from whatever fight had brought them here.

The portal behind them dissolved. Gone.

His chest tightened inside the suit. Through a small porthole, he could see the vast emptiness of space, darkness littered with the twisted remains of hundreds of starships.

"Holy shit," Chris breathed. "It's a graveyard out there."

The battleship loomed before them, a massive construct of dark metal disappearing into the void. It looked like a city that someone had launched into space and then tried to blow apart.

And somewhere inside that metal maze, AI-controlled defenses were waiting for them.

Luca tested his suit's integrity one more time, then moved toward the exit hatch.

Time to earn those ship skills he'd just leveled up.

Floating toward the exit hatch, that familiar weight of leadership settled on his shoulders despite the zero gravity. The others drifted behind him, weapons ready, energy running high. This was it. Time to breach onto the battleship and see what secrets it held.

He found the manual release and pulled it down.

Nothing.

Frowning, he tried again, putting more force behind it. The hatch stayed stubbornly shut.

"Uh," Luca turned to the team. "Little help here?"

Danny pushed off the far wall, power armor servos whining as he maneuvered over to the control panel. His heavy gauntlets moved over the display with surprising delicacy.

"Pressure lock's fine," he reported after a moment. "Atmosphere's equalized. It's just... jammed. Could be damage from when it landed."

"Or when whatever fight happened out there went down," Emily added, peering through the porthole at the debris field.

Ryan was already moving, unslinging his pack and rummaging through it. "No problem. I've got the plasma cutter."

He dug deeper into his pack, tools and equipment floating free in the zero-G environment. His movements got more frantic as seconds ticked by.

"Shit," he muttered finally.

"What?" Zoe asked, though her tone suggested she already knew.

"I left the plasma cutter on the Peregrine."

Silence.

Luca closed his eyes for half a second. Oh, fuck me.

Zoe pressed her forehead against the porthole, breathing hard. "We're stuck."

The pod creaked, like something shifting in the metal. Like whatever forces had torn apart the ships outside were still at work.

Luca swallowed, his mouth dry inside his helmet.

Captain's log, he thought grimly. Today I die like a sardine in a fucking tin can.