NOVEL NEXT Chapter 93 - Eight Hours
Luca stumbled into the airlock chamber, his chest heaving like he'd just sprinted a marathon, and slammed the inner door shut. Emily and Danny were already pressed against the walls, watching the seals hiss to life. Emergency amber flickered to brilliant white.
Air. Real air. I'm never complaining about recycled atmosphere again.
Through the viewport, he watched his friends fight for their lives. Chris wielded his weld-torch like some kind of plasma flamethrower, Zoe's dagger flashed in quick, vicious arcs, and Joey used his rifle butt to keep the grate from buckling. Ryan hunched over the airlock controls, typing furiously.
What an idiot, Luca thought, exhaustion making him mean. Like typing faster is going to make the airlock cycle quicker.
Nullmaw tentacles wrapped around the bars outside, pulling and pushing with the kind of determination that said they really, really wanted inside.
The outer door gave way with a mechanical clang that echoed through his bones. Chris tumbled in first, still clutching his torch, followed by Ryan looking frazzled, then Joey with that calm expression he wore when everything was going to hell. Finally Zoe flipped through the opening, somehow managing to snag a loot container on her way in before her boots scraped the ceiling and she righted herself in one smooth motion.
Show off.
The door slammed shut just as the last tentacle thudded against the metal like a very angry, very disappointed fist.
[+188,614 XP]
[+67,500 credits]
[Item acquired: Power Cell]
They all let out their breath at the same time, a collective sigh that said everything about the last ten minutes. Beyond the inner door, clean white light spilled down a corridor that looked blessedly free of gore, loose cables, or writhing horrors.
Atmosphere flooded the chamber, and Luca felt his throat finally relax. Emily leaned against him, her usual steel edge softening into something like relief. Danny cracked a grin that was equal parts joke and shock.
"Holy shit," Luca muttered, running a hand through hair that was definitely going to need a wash when this was over. The laugh that escaped sounded dangerously close to a sob. "That was absolutely something."
Ryan wiped sweat from his forehead, already checking his pad. "Airlock's sealed. Corridor looks clear." He tapped the wall console and lights blinked on down the hallway like a runway. Then his expression shifted, and Luca knew that look.
Oh, come on. We literally just escaped death by tentacle. Can't we have five minutes?
"But we've got a problem," Ryan said.
Luca floated over. "What now?"
He held up two energy cells. "This is all we've got for your suit. Each cell gives you about four hours of life-support. Your suit's only eighty-percent efficient at oxygen recovery, so you burn through canisters fast. That's another eight hours, max. Then we're on emergency backup."
Luca's throat went tight. Everyone else got to use the shiny new Power Cells they'd found. His crusty level-48 suit? It was about as compatible with modern tech as a stone axe with a starfighter. Even his active camo was useless against the TL9 sensors crawling all over this ship.
Danny bounced over, eyes bright with that "I have an idea" look that usually meant trouble. "What if we tap into the corridor's atmosphere feed? Jury-rig a recharge system?"
Ryan's head shake was immediate and crushing. "No scrubbers in the feed lines. That's just bulk repressurization. You'd need a converter, high-pressure pumps, filtration arrays..." He gestured helplessly. "Basically a portable life-support factory."
"Worth asking," Danny said with a shrug that said he'd expected the answer.
"So," Luca said, floating in the middle of the bright corridor while power conduits hummed overhead like they were mocking him, "eight hours to find an AI core in a ship the size of a small city. No pressure."
His suit felt tighter by the second, like it was already trying to conserve air.
Emily drifted up beside him, her hand finding his arm. "We've got this," she mouthed, probably not wanting to waste the atmosphere on words.
He forced a grin. His heart was doing that flutter thing again, which definitely wasn't helping his oxygen consumption.
"Right then," he said, pushing off toward the corridor ahead. "Let's go find some impossible technology before I suffocate."
[Mission Objective: Secure the battleship and defeat the AI-controlled defenses. 20% Complete]
Twenty percent? Eight hours to do twenty percent of this nightmare? Luca almost laughed. At this rate, they'll find my mummified corpse floating around the engine room.
The corridor ahead looked like something from Emily's horror movie collection. Lights flickered in that specific way that said "something bad is about to jump out at you," and the walls were scorched black in places.
We should definitely have that movie marathon when we get back, he thought. Assuming I live long enough to need popcorn again.
Where the corridor split, the left path was completely blocked by a mountain of twisted metal and broken conduits. The right path disappeared into darkness that probably had teeth.
"Well, that's not ominous at all," Joey muttered, eyeing the debris pile.
Chris was already doing his thing, running his fingers along the wall junction like he was reading invisible instructions. The guy had this weird talent for finding hidden stuff.
"There's definitely something here," Chris said, pressing what looked like a completely normal wall panel.
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A soft hiss, and the panel slid aside to reveal a hidden doorway.
"Boom!" Chris whooped, pumping his fist. "Called it!"
Of course he did. The bastard's like a bloodhound for secret doors and hidden loot.
Danny peered into the opening with the caution of someone who'd read too many adventure stories. "Shouldn't we check for traps or something?"
Luca shrugged. "I survived the last one, right? Besides," he gestured at Danny's heavy armor, "you're basically a walking tank. If something explodes, you'll probably survive it."
Danny shot him a look that said 'thanks for volunteering me' but stepped through anyway. His servo motors hummed softly, grav-boots clicking against the deck.
Nothing exploded. No alarms. No sudden death.
"Clear," Danny called back. "And you guys are going to want to see this."
Following Danny through the hidden door, the rest of the team floated into what had to be the ship's idea of a treasure room. Not fancy-restaurant nice, but definitely glowing-blue-matrix-code nice. Pure System architecture, the kind that made your brain itch just looking at it.
A sleek console hovered in the center like it was too good to touch the floor, surrounded by five holographic screens arranged like petals on some kind of digital flower. Or maybe petals around a bomb. With the System, you never really knew.
Chris looked smugger than a cat with a laser pointer. Yeah, yeah, you found the secret door. We get it.
Still going to call this a team effort in the mission report, Luca thought. Fair's fair.
Each screen displayed a ring of hexagonal tiles, tiny circuit patterns running across their surfaces like electronic veins. Time for everyone's favorite activity: puzzle solving under pressure.
The concept was simple enough. Rotate the tiles until every edge lined up with its neighbor, creating one continuous energy loop around the ring.
Zoe finished hers before most people had even figured out what they were looking at. A few elegant swipes, and her interface lit up with that particular shade of green that meant 'you're not an idiot.' She leaned back in zero-g, arms crossed, floating like she'd just solved world hunger instead of a spatial puzzle.
"Cute little brain teaser," she said with the kind of casual competence that made everyone else feel slightly inadequate.
Show off.
Danny attacked his screen with the enthusiasm of someone trying to break down a door. Brute force logic, rerouting connections until something clicked. "Easy as breathing," he announced, his interface chiming approval.
Ryan, meanwhile, was cursing at his screen like it had personally insulted his mother. His fingers flew across the display in increasingly frantic patterns.
Danny, being Danny, couldn't help himself. "Hey, maybe if you just rotate that top cluster first—"
BEEP. Ryan's screen flashed angry red.
[Assistance Detected. No Reward Granted.]
"Are you kidding me?" Ryan groaned, throwing his hands up. "Next time, just let me figure it out myself!"
"Rules are rules," Luca said, trying not to grin too obviously. "System doesn't like cheaters."
Ryan huffed and dove back in, but the pressure was getting to him. Three attempts, three failures. Finally he slammed his hand against the console.
"Fuck it. I'm done."
While Ryan had his breakdown, Luca studied his own puzzle. The energy patterns weren't random; they followed a flow, leaking through weak connections. He rotated the problem tiles first, sealed up the corners, then slotted the final piece home.
His screen flared brilliant green, and the pedestal chimed like a cash register.
Around them, the puzzle chamber unfolded like a mechanical flower. Panels slid away to reveal crystalline data cartridges and upgrade modules that practically glowed with System approval.
[Item acquired: Weapons Upgrade Mod - TL9]
Six upgrade modules materialized, one for each of them. Well, five for the people who'd actually solved their puzzles. Ryan got to watch.
[Item acquired: PolyTitan H-Class Schematic - TL9]
[Item acquired: Quasar Glass Schematic - TL9]
[Item acquired: CorroSafe Alloy Schematic - TL9]
"I was so close," Ryan muttered, glaring at his blank screen like it owed him money.
Floating over, Luca draped an arm around Ryan's shoulders with the kind of sweetness that usually preceded an insult. "Maybe next time try using that brain of yours instead of just mashing buttons?"
Ryan's expression could have powered a plasma cannon. "Shut up, Luca."
"I'm just saying," Luca shrugged, enjoying this way too much, "some puzzles actually require thinking. Weird concept, I know."
Danny's grin was pure predator. "Can't wait to see what this upgrade does to my warhammer. Something's about to get very, very dead."
Luca clipped his own weapon mod to his belt pouch and pulled up the schematics on his interface. The wall of numbers made his eyes water.
"Christ, why is the System drowning us in TL9 blueprints?" he asked. "We've got like fifteen of these things now."
Ryan perked up, his mood shifting from sulky to excited in about two seconds. "That's exactly the point. The System's pushing us toward TL9. These aren't just random drops, they're building blocks."
"Like a ladder," Danny added, nodding enthusiastically. "Each schematic is another rung."
Luca squinted at the CorroSafe specs. "But can't we already make something like this? Molybdenum-zirconium alloys aren't exactly cutting-edge."
"Sure," Danny said, "if you want discount armor that falls apart when something serious shoots at you. This stuff?" He gestured at the schematic. "Hyper-specialized metallurgy. Grain structure control, precise heat treatments. It's the difference between TL8 plating that gets chewed up and TL9 armor that laughs at plasma fire."
Ryan was practically bouncing in zero-g now. "And look what else we've collected: RheTung composites, UltraCeram matrices, graphene processor wafers. We're not just hoarding blueprints, we're mapping out an entire tech revolution."
"We should definitely chart all this out on the Triumph," Luca said. "See how it all connects. Maybe RheTung feeds into UltraCeram, which powers armor systems, and graphene wafers run the AI cores."
Joey's med scanner beeped ominously. "Radiation's climbing. We shouldn't linger."
Chris, meanwhile, was trying to pry open another compartment with the determination of someone who'd spotted buried treasure. "Relax. These schematics are worth millions. Maybe billions."
"Chris," Luca said, watching his friend attack the sealed container, "do you ever think about anything that isn't credits?"
"Nope."
After stuffing their gear with enough tech blueprints to build a small fleet, they headed for the exit. Another door had obligingly opened at the back of the room, revealing a corridor that disappeared into darkness. At the far end, an elevator shaft yawned like the universe's most uninviting invitation.
"Well," Ryan said, pointing at the obvious hole in the floor, "that's definitely our way down."
Luca pushed off from the wall, gliding down the corridor with what he hoped looked like controlled grace. Smooth as silk. Like a zero-g ninja. His wedgie was probably visible to everyone behind him, but at least he looked cool doing it.
If I had a cape right now, it would be billowing dramatically.
He'd switched off his suit's life support since the corridor had breathable air, buying himself a few precious extra hours. Emily was checking her pad for some reason, anxious to get a move on. Zoe yawned like puzzle-solving was just another boring Tuesday. Danny pocketed his schematic with the gleeful expression of someone already planning his next weapon upgrade.
The next floor was going to suck. Luca could feel it in his bones.
"Whatever's down there," he said, staring into the shaft, "it's going to be ten times worse than what we just went through."
Ryan joined him at the edge, peering into the darkness. "Open shaft, no visible bottom. Definitely our path forward."
"Where's the actual elevator?" Luca muttered. "Or are we supposed to just free-fall and hope for the best?"
Five suppressor drones dropped from a shattered vent cover, plasma cannons already charging with that particular whine that meant imminent death.
"Contacts!" Chris barked, his assault rifle snapping to his shoulder.
The fight lasted maybe ten seconds. Plasma fire lit up the corridor in strobing bursts, and when the light faded, five smoking chassis were scattered across the deck like expensive scrap metal.
Joey, naturally, had found a nice, safe spot in the back and watched the whole thing like it was dinner theater.
[+ 94,307 XP]
[+33,750 credits]
When the last chassis clanged dead at their feet, silence fell. The shaft yawned below them, dark and uninviting.
Luca drifted beside Zoe as she walked toward the open shaft. He rocked back on his heels, or where his heels would be in zero-G, and shook his head.
"Down we go," he said, flicking his helmet light on low.
Emily checked her sling. "After you, Captain."
He gritted his teeth. "No turning back now."
They pushed off into the abyss, one by one, their lights swallowed by the battleship's silent waiting heart.