Everyone Levels Up

Leo killed his boot magnets and jumped straight up.

His heels left the floor a split second before both worms struck, and they lunged into the empty space where he'd been standing and slammed headfirst into each other.

CRACK!

The impact of two armored skulls colliding shook dust off every wall in the room.

Leo flew upward, grabbed a ceiling pipe with his free hand, and swung his boot up against it as he slapped the magnet back on.

CLACK!

Now he was hanging upside down by one heel, looking straight down at a tangled stunned knot of two very angry worms.

'That,' he thought, 'was the stupidest thing I've ever done and it worked.'

"DID HE JUST—" Harper started.

"HE DID!" Camila yelled.

[This unit has no words… This unit is updating the Captain's combat rating to "Lucky Idiot."! It is a promotion.]

The left worm untangled first as it reared its head up toward him and opened its mouth to hiss however Leo aimed straight down its throat.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

Four rounds through the soft roof of its mouth and straight into its brain.

It went limp.

[Ammo: 5/15]

Ding!

[Survival Points +9]

[Current: 30 / 1,000 SP]

The last worm whipped upward at him like a striking snake but Leo let go of the pipe and he dropped.

He fell right past its lunging head, close enough to see his own reflection in the black teeth, and slapped one hand against the wall beside the last copper ball. 

His boot magnets caught and swung him flat against the metal.

The worm sailed past his face with its soft pale underside exposed for one heartbeat.

…That was all he needed.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-CLICK!

All five rounds, straight into the soft segment under its throat.

The last flechette severed the main nerve cord and the worm spasmed violently in mid-air, then crashed down onto the pile of its dead siblings, twitched once, and went still.

[Ammo: 0/15]

Ding!

[Survival Points +7]

[Current: 37 / 1,000 SP]

With the empty gun still smoking in his left hand, Leo slammed his right palm against the giant ball of copper beside him.

"FOUNDRY RECALL!"

BZZZT… FLASH!

The last sphere vanished in a swirl of blue.

[Copper Conduit: 20 / 20 — COMPLETE!]

[Ship Power: 42% ➔ 41%]

…Then silence.

It was real silence, the kind that only came after a fight as there were no more teeth and no more shrieking through the floor. 

It was just seven people breathing hard into their helmets, surrounded by floating violet bubbles and seven very dead worms.

Leo dropped back down to the floor, panting, and stared at his SP log.

"Hold on," he said between breaths. "AI… The first one gave me sixteen… The second gave me nine… The third gave me seven… They're the exact same Level! Why are you shortchanging me?!"

[Clarification... Survival Points are not a salary, Master Captain, A Level 1 kill can give anything from five to twenty points, depending on how healthy the creature was, how old it was, and how many of the same species you have already killed… Killing the same thing over and over pays less every time. If the Captain wants bigger numbers, this unit recommends hunting something bigger than plumbing pests.]

"Bigger?!" Camila squeaked. "Please don't encourage him!"

Before Leo could argue with a ceiling, warm golden light washed across the gory chamber.

It rose from the floor under all seven of them at once.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

[Combat EXP distributed to all participants.]

[Crew Unit: Harper — Level 1 ➔ 2]

[Crew Unit: Chloe — Level 1 ➔ 2]

[Crew Unit: Camila — Level 1 ➔ 2]

[Crew Unit: Elena — Level 1 ➔ 2]

[Crew Unit: Jin-Ah — Level 2 ➔ 3]

[Crew Unit: Aoi — Level 2 ➔ 3]

[Master Captain Leo — Level 1 ➔ 2 ➔ 3]

The golden light poured into Leo twice in a row, and it hit like nothing he'd ever felt.

It was like someone had poured liquid sunlight straight into his veins.

The hollow tiredness left over from losing a pint of blood to Chloe vanished in an instant. 

His muscles tightened, his lungs opened as the world around him snapped into sharper focus, every edge crisp and every sound through his boots clear.

"Whoa..." Harper breathed, flexing her arm inside her armor sleeve, grinning ear to ear as a second surge of bronze light rolled up her arms. "That feels like chugging four espressos straight into a vein…!"

[Crew Unit: Harper… Kinetic Tuning proficiency increased. Weapon handling improved.]

"Oh, I could get used to that," she laughed.

Chloe was staring down at her own hands again but this time she wasn't afraid of them. 

…She was smiling a little.

Elena was standing very still with her eyes closed, as if she was savoring it and didn't want anyone to notice.

Everyone noticed.

Leo opened his status window, still buzzing from the double rush.

[Master Captain Leo — Level 3]

[EXP to Level 4: 0 / 4,800]

He stared at it.

'Forty-eight hundred?!'

He'd killed three worms, three and they'd carried him from Level 1 to 3 in one go, because the first couple of levels were cheap but that number on the screen was huge, and it was only going to get bigger from here.

'So that's how it works,' he thought, a cold sinking feeling settling in his stomach. 'The first few are free. After that, the system makes you bleed for every single one.'

[Correct. The early levels are a welcome gift… This unit would call it a sample, like the free cheese at a supermarket. The rest of the cheese costs money. In your case, the money is blood.]

"Thanks," Leo muttered. "Love that for me."

He pulled up the turret blueprint.

[S-Rank Twin-Barrel Mag-Rail Point Defense Turret]

[High-Grade Alloy: 50/50 ✓]

[Copper Conduit: 20/20 ✓]

[Status: Ready for fabrication when you return to the ship.]

…They had it.

…Every scrap of material for an S-Rank railgun was sitting in the Foundry, waiting.

"All the turret materials are secured," he announced.

A ragged, collective sigh of relief went around the room then he pulled up the other numbers.

[Suit Oxygen: 00:48:15]

[Ship Life Support: 01:36:00]

[Still needed: Scrubber Filter Cores]

[Squad Ammo — Leo: 0 | Harper: 11 | Camila: 12 | Chloe: 11 | Aoi: 12 | Jin-Ah: 6]

[Wasp: 50%]

…Forty-eight minutes.

The fuel was full, the alloy was full, the copper was full and the only thing standing between them and a ship that could actually breathe was the scrubbers.

…And there was only one place left they could be.

Leo looked down at the empty carbine in his hands then across the room.

"Jin-Ah."

She looked up. "Yes?"

"I need your battery."

For a second, she just stared at him, like he'd asked for one of her kidneys.

Then her eyes moved from his empty gun to the SP log still glowing faintly in the corner of his HUD, and he watched the math click into place behind them.

'He can only earn points with his own hands,' she thought. 'And he can't earn anything with an empty gun...'

She didn't argue.

She popped the battery out of her carbine, floated over, and pressed it into his palm.

"Six shots," she said stiffly. "Don't waste them and if you get yourself killed with my battery, I'll never forgive you…"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

He slammed it home.

CLACK!

[Ammo: 6/15]

Jin-Ah slung her empty rifle over her shoulder and looked away quickly, but not before he caught the faint pink at the tips of her ears.

[This unit notes that Crew Unit: Jin-Ah just handed her only loaded weapon to the man who needed six rounds and a plasma torch to kill one worm… This unit finds this touching and deeply irresponsible in equal measure.]

"Aww," Harper cooed. "Jin's sharing her toys~"

"Say one more word, Harper, and I'll use my empty rifle as a club. On you…"

…

On the way out, he passed Chloe.

She was standing by the breach with her arms wrapped around herself, staring at the worm she'd torn open. 

Violet blood was drifting near her helmet in little floating beads, and she was leaning very carefully away from every single one of them.

"Hey," Leo said. "That was insane, you know… What you did…"

She flinched at his voice, the way she always did but this time, she didn't run behind Sensei.

"I... I didn't want it to hurt her," she whispered. "It was going for Sensei's back, and I just... moved."

"You did good," he said. "Really good."

She looked up at him.

For the first time since the bridge, her green eyes actually met his and stayed there for one second and even two. 

…Then they dropped to the collar of his suit, where the two little bite marks were hidden, and a flush crawled straight up her neck.

"...Thank you," she squeaked, and fled behind Harper anyway.

Harper gave Leo a look over Chloe's head that very clearly said progress.

Behind them, Elena was still holding Camila's hand.

She seemed to notice it all at once, she dropped it like it had burned her, crossed her arms, and stared fiercely at the ceiling.

"Your hand was shaking," she informed Camila. "It was distracting me. That's all…"

"Sure," Camila said gently, smiling. "Thank you for holding it anyway."

Elena made a strangled noise and walked away.

Leo walked out of the bloody chamber and stepped back onto the lip of the shaft.

He looked straight down into the dark below Sub-Level 7.

Two floors down, at the very bottom of the tower, the pulse beat against the soles of his boots.

Thump... hummmm...

"Two floors left," he said. "Now the core."

The last eighty meters of the shaft felt like walking down the throat of a drowned giant.

Nobody talked much as they didn't have the energy for it, and the dark down here didn't feel like it wanted to be talked in.

As they passed the shattered rim of Sub-Level 8, something strange happened.

[Ambient temperature rising.]

Their suits registered warmth.

Out here, in the dead cold of vacuum, warmth was the last thing any of them expected. 

It was soaking out of the walls, radiating gently through the metal into the soles of their boots and the pulse wasn't a faint vibration anymore.

Down here at the bottom of the tower, every beat was a physical pressure wave. 

It climbed through their boots, up their shins, and thudded straight against their ribs.

Thump... hummmm... Thump... hummmm...

"It's like walking into something's chest," Camila whispered.

"Please don't say things like that," Harper whispered back.

Leo stepped off the wall onto the wide reinforced floor of Sub-Level 9.

The seven of them spread out in a half-circle, and fourteen beams of light cut into a vast cathedral of a chamber, carved deep into the rock under the station.

In the very center stood a huge cylindrical housing, ringed in heavy bands of dark gold metal.

Behind thick viewing ports of leaded crystal hung a small sphere of pale ghostly cyan plasma, floating in a magnetic bottle. 

…It pulsed faintly like an ancient heart that had somehow kept beating for centuries after the rest of the station went cold.

Thick cables and pipes branched off from its base like metal roots, plunging straight into the bedrock.

And above it, carved across the huge arch over the core, was a line of alien script.

It looked gouged.

Ten centimeters deep into solid armor plate, with ragged frantic edges, like someone had stood up on a catwalk with a cutting torch in shaking hands and burned the words into the metal one stroke at a time.

Every visor in the group flashed a blue scanning box over the symbols.

[Partial translation: "WARNING… DO NOT EXTINGUISH… BENEATH THE LIGHT SLEEPS THE [DATA REMOVED BY REMNANT PROTOCOL], WE OFFER OUR GRIEF TO THE STARS."]

[Full translation restricted under Novice Buffer Psychological Preservation Mandate 2-C… Focus on your salvage…]

[This unit would like to note, off the record, that it does not like this room.]

A cold silence settled over the channel.

The seven of them stood there staring up at those ragged gouges in the warm dark.

"The system is censoring it," Jin-Ah murmured. Despite the warmth of the room as a shiver ran visibly down her spine. "It's deliberately hiding what killed the people who lived here."

"For our 'psychological preservation,'" Harper said. "That's the least comforting thing it's said all day and it once told Camila not to lick a fuel tank."

"I would never!"

"Look at the script," Ms. Tachibana said softly.

She hadn't taken her eyes off the arch.

"That symbol there… the one the AI wouldn't translate earlier, in the gantry. 'Warning' and 'grief,' fused into one word... It's here too… Right before the part it removed." Her voice dropped. 

"Whoever lived here didn't leave this as a sign. They left it as a last message."

She looked from the inscription down to the pulsing cyan heart.

"This reactor wasn't kept running to power the station, Leo," she whispered. "It was kept running to hold something back…"

Thump... hummmm...

The core pulsed once more in the silence and for the first time since they'd landed, Leo found himself really, truly wishing he'd stayed on the ship.