Ravana's Shadow (29) (Patreon)

It was a big day. Not just because Kit had convinced Jay of all people to join them for an external mission, though that was certainly significant. Today was the day they had the assembled interior of the Neophyte to test. 

It probably wasn't the exact same vehicle, of course. They might have other revisions to make before the project was complete. Much was made from plastic composite, one of the few materials that Mara gave them in abundance. If something went wrong here, they had a perfect opportunity to fix it.

Jay did not wear an EVA suit. But he didn't need one—the construction dome had airlocks and atmosphere. He only had to ride a short distance in the rover, something he did almost every day. 

He still sat next to Kit the entire time, wrapping one arm around her so tight that she worried she might bruise even through the EVA suit.

She would never waste an opportunity for a good training mission. So, there was one other member of the team with her. 

Chase was already comfortable with the equipment, thanks to joining the Institute exceptionally early in its history. He didn't cling to the harness, but paced back and forth by the airlock door, occasionally tugging the tools on his belt. He had also been a soldier of some kind, once.

Kit watched him whenever she could, judging the wiry boy with his bright green eyes and brown hair. He might've been Lucien's cousin, except his build was so much more solid. He had the same muscles as Sadie, and maybe some of the same instincts.

"I can't tell you how excited I am to be coming along," he said, noticing her attention. "I study our mission every day—I'll be ready."

That finally made Jay look up, startling him more than the constant jostling of the rover wheels on the ice road. "Can you fight? Do you know how to shoot things with a laser gun?"

He chuckled. "Honestly, I don't remember. I don't know if I ever used one of those. The Director and I still haven't discussed how I would be armed during our mission."

Kit didn't want to bring any kind of weapon. The Institute had such a great strategy—it had no crime, no prisons. Everyone was eventually rehabilitated. They would probably be sending Garrick down to Remedial for rehabilitation sooner or later. He was just so mean.

"We'll work it out," Kit said. "We have been discussing a number of options. Weapons that will incapacitate or kill biotemplates but can't be used against normal people." The words still tasted strange on her tongue. Yes, she was normal—an immortal child with animal parts on her body, no ability to understand some of humanity's most fundamental drives, and an antigrain reactor in her guts for emergencies.

"Right. There are a number of smart accelerators like that. Bullets that won't pierce our suits, or our cogs.”

The rover rolled through a set of heavy doors into the construction dome. The airlock sealed behind them, and air rushed past outside. With a vehicle insulating them, the change in pressure could go much more quickly. They wouldn't be thrown through the air in explosive decompression.

Then they were inside, and the rover turned to give them the best view as it drove.

Technically speaking, the Neophyte was not the impressive rocket that had detonated over the Institute. It was only this: a craft about a hundred meters in length, suspended by heavy support cables from the ceiling. "It's so... silly," Chase whispered, giggling under his breath. "Why is it so round?"

"The deployment test was yesterday," Kit said, rising. "We couldn't risk they might have a catastrophic deformation with people around."

The Neophyte was not an elegant craft, once deployed. The nose was flat, mostly metal support and docking infrastructure. Just below it were several heavy brackets, currently empty.

Below that was... a sphere, pierced by the central structural member of the rocket. "How does it keep us safe from impacts?" Chase asked, shuffling in his seat. He rose a little unsteadily, holding himself up using a support pole. "If it's just filled with air."

"It's not just air," Kit said. “When we launch for real, it will fill with foam. Once it hardens, it will be almost as strong as steel."

"And self-sealing," Jay offered, helpfully. "Travel to Ravana will take over a month. This has to be your home until you make a new safe place to live on Ravana.”

"The cockpit is up there, just past the support equipment," Kit said. "All our critical infrastructure will stay in there, using the metal superstructure in the Neophyte's core. If we're really unlucky, we could still last the whole trip in the cockpit. We'd just hate it."

"What's our job today, Director?" He backed away from the window and went back to waiting by the doors. 

"We get to climb through the whole thing," she said. "Call it a sanity check. No real danger here, except that we won't like it."

The rover stopped beside a piece of heavy industrial equipment. The door clicked, then slid open. Jay recoiled from it, jumping back towards his seat. Nothing happened, of course. The air beyond smelled like paint and melted plastic, but it was still distinctly breathable. Kit's best friend didn't get sucked out into space.

The mouse took a few seconds to realize he was still alive. He gasped, then stopped holding his breath.

"Told you," Kit said. "It's not unsafe to leave the Institute. So long as we're following the rules..."

He stood up abruptly, retrieving his tablet from the seat. "I'm still not going in there. If you want me to take notes, I can do that from the radio."

Kit was the second down the steps. She scooped her helmet off the rack and carried it under her arm. 

"That's probably a good idea," she said. "The wolf wanted to take a look at our work. Even if he isn't going to be living inside it himself."

"Oh." Jay slowed, stumbling the last few steps. He might've tripped onto his face, if Kit wasn't there to catch him. "What does he care? If it doesn't work and you're miserable, he's not in danger."

She shrugged. "Just pretend he's another citizen. If Forerunner thinks he's misbehaving, he'll cut the signal."

Jay nodded. "I can do it. I can... do it."

They walked a direct route towards a ladder, leading all the way up to the cockpit over their heads. It hung like a barnacle on the docking port there, protected in a thin plastic tube. With a little less gravity, it might've made for a fun slide.

They reached a complex end-piece, with various jointed plastic and metal sections.

"Helmets on," Kit instructed, hefting her own. "Chase, get on my private channel. If you want to talk to the wolf, switch to Jay's. He'll bridge the signals but give us privacy when we want it."

"Signal is ready," Jay said. "Not just the wolf. Looks like the whole Ravana expedition is tuning in."

Even Abel, who insisted their VR evaluation and simulated results were more than enough.

"Connect us," Kit said. A little image appeared on the inside of her helmet, just above her HUD of suit information.

It was Garrick, but not as he was. His features were softer now, his whole body much smaller and muscles smoother. He had a pair of sharp triangular ears atop his head. If he ever stood up or moved too energetically, she would see the tail.

"I thought we were supposed to start half an hour ago," he said. This too was different—much higher, not deep like Forerunner. Garrick looked and sounded like a full template now.

He seemed to know it too, and always looked just a little annoyed. Forerunner had shown him what the filter looked like, so it would be no surprise. He didn't like it, but he also had no power to change it. 

"We were," Kit said. "Apologies for the delay. We're about to climb into the cockpit. This is where my team will be for the entire duration of the launch and remain until the acceleration burn to Ravana insertion is complete."

Kit gestured faintly at the ladder, but Chase nodded for her to go first.

“She was made from the bones of your ship," he said. "You should do the honors."

Kit didn't go as fast as she could up the ladder. She didn't worry about Chase falling. But if she got too excited and shook the ladder, she wouldn't exactly make things easy.

"The scale is distorted from your helmet camera. Impressive for how fast you built it."

Filtered, Garrick was no longer constantly negative in every word. Still left Kit wondering whether he was pleased by the outer view of the Neophyte, or Forerunner had created that fiction.

She reached the airlock a second later and clambered onto it. She didn't open the door yet, but waited on the edge for Chase, offering a hand to help him up.

She heaved, then stood up on the narrow ledge.

"Welcome aboard the Neophyte," Forerunner said, through her radio. "Further iterations or refinements may be made to a limited number of sections. But broadly speaking, this represents the finished vehicle, as we hope to launch in a few months."

The doors opened, and Kit was the first inside.

She had seen the virtual models, of course. She'd even been on a tour in digital space. But just as she expected, there was something very different about being inside.

The cockpit was long and thin, not so much for aerodynamics but because of the constraints of their launch vehicle. Some things just made sense—eight complex chairs, all facing the exact same direction, with stations conveniently within reach. The front sloped down into a screen meant to resemble a window, though of course a real one would be too dangerous to stick on the nose of their 

"It looks so normal in there," Garrick said. "Where's the train set? Are you going to play with blocks if you get bored?"

Kit tensed. The transition back to real Garrick from filtered fiction was always jarring. But when speaking with him, she couldn’t trust a lie to coordinate anything useful. "The cockpit contains critical systems only," she explained as she walked

Kit clambered past life support, a simple stowable lavatory—and the open hatch leading down. Kit stopped beside it, turning to face her companion. "This part gets tricky, since none of the internal sections were made to be open in gravity."

"Will we spin it?" Chase asked. "To give us a little up and down, I mean."

"Unfortunately not," she said. "Think of the external surface as the ground. We won't be able to go down there on this trip, we’re just making a visual inspection.”

She bent down, and twisted the airlock hatch open. Another ladder, though it was built to also work as a platform if the ship were horizontal as it was now. They walked through the opening, instead of climbing.  

Windows ran along the walls, ceiling, and floor, in narrow strips. The sphere was divided into two floors, by walls that inflated the same way as the outer shell.

Beyond were all the amenities and utilities that a population would need to live in comfort—modest but comfortable bedrooms, personal sanitation facilities, a workshop, and a central area for social gatherings.”

"Each room is multi-purpose," Forerunner explained, as they walked slowly from section to section. "At the sacrifice of personal space, we could even house every survivor from Ravana for a return journey. At Kit's request, that was the margin of safety for our life support budget. Not something more sensible."

Something more sensible was, in this case, packing severed heads into a powerful freezer to be revived back on Mara, just as had been done with her. 

"Stop so we can see," Garrick asked. She did, aiming her helmet camera through the window into one of the bedrooms. "No way that works. I don't think my people could even stand up in here."

"If an emergency withdrawal becomes required, that will not be a concern," Forerunner said. "Our intention is to transport the entire mass into Mara orbit. If we cannot, you will find new bodies somewhat less intolerable than death in the cold of space." 

"When there's no gravity, we just... fly around?" Chase asked, dropping to his knees to look down into the gym. "Do you know how?"

Kit nodded to him. "Yeah. And by the time we get to Ravana, you will too. That's one of the big things we'll be practicing during the trip. There's not much gravity on the asteroid."

"There will be, when we repair it," Garrick said. He gestured behind him, or at least his false image did. "Grade schoolers are coming to rescue me. I barely believe it.”