The Starfighter Invitation by Höst Andrea K

Author:Höst, Andrea K
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction
Publisher: Andrea K Hosth
Published: 2018-12-06T16:00:00+00:00

26

mars

Before making any other decisions, I turned off my Snug's gravity to see what would happen, and found myself delightfully light. Mars' gravity was around a third of Earth's, and made me feel superhuman.

It was only after some quality bouncing that I settled down to choose my Renba: the Art Deco bird, which was sparrow sized, falcon-like in shape, and flitted in a distinctly artificial manner that suggested anti-gravity. Or perhaps just low gravity. It was hard not to picture a little chunk of brain—would it be brain?—hidden inside the silver and black casing. It was harder still not to leap up in delight to touch the ceiling at every reminder that This Was Mars.

Since Dio hadn't pushed me to choose a Challenge before setting out, I decided this was free-exploration-without-guiding-arrows time, and triggered my airlock, only to have to pause and read through the city rules. This was a duel-enabled zone, but not open PvP. The courtesy standards were…it looked like there was a higher standard of politeness and public decorum on Mars than on Earth.

"Is there a way to read location rules before you've landed on a planet?"

[[Rank Eight.]]

"Pfui." I accepted the rules, and opened the airlock, not in the least surprised to see that I'd entered a long white tube that reminded me strongly of Vessa's rollercoaster. There were hardly any people about, but otherwise the whole design was very reminiscent of Vessa. I wondered if The Synergis was going to end up like too many space exploration games, where the same handful of planet designs were replicated over and over again, with only randomly generated names to show you the difference.

I took a lift pad up to the transport pods, and fooled with my menus until I figured out a way to go somewhere without starting a Challenge. Lethe West sounded promising, and in very short order I forgot any similarities because the pod shot out into the immense rift that was Valles Marineris, and everything was white arches and lavender sky.

The lavender, Dio explained, was an effect of the Earth-equivalent atmosphere inside the habitat, and the dust in the air above the roof. The arches really were aqueducts—and housing, and gardens, and anything else that could be usefully placed in kilometres-tall support structures.

"What happens if there's an earth-, a Marsquake, Dio?" I asked, as my pod deposited me inside yet another tube, and I began to work out how to get out into the valley.

[[Mars is quite stable. But there's a certain amount of flexibility built into the habitat to cope with natural expansion and contraction, along with minor disturbances. If there is an emergency, your Snug is always the best shelter option, however. If it's at a distance, try for one of the transport system pods. They can function independently, though they're quite slow outside their tubing.]]

I considered my floating alien overlord. "Is there going to be an emergency like there was a storm?"

Dio laughed. [[There's enough in the lan Challenges here to push you without any further complication.

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