Cam sat in his cockpit for a few seconds even after his ship came to rest on the bay floor. He felt tired enough to sleep for a day. The feeling slowly lessened, allowing him the energy get out of his ship. He was eager to look over his character and combat log, but more ships were landing and they needed to store his fighter. He climbed out of the fighter, his limbs aching slightly, but the soreness faded, leaving his movement slower than normal but him otherwise comfortable. His mind still felt tired though. There was no way the game could suppress that. His mental fatigue was his own. He saw the other fighter pilots gathering near the entrance of the hangar where there were no ships, and made his way over.

“--Five for me,” said one of the taller pilots, grinning. Cam recognized the voice as Lant from the comms earlier. He was everything you expected from a jock, big and muscular, with a neck as thick as his head. He stood assured of himself as he talked loudly to the group. “Efftoo wasn’t too much help today.”

“I heard that,” came a voice from the side. As Cam walked up he noticed that the pilots were split into two groups. Almost twenty pilots formed the main group where Lant and Will were, but another dozen stood off to the side.

“But do you care?” Lant shot back.

The pilot who had spoken up just shrugged. Some of the other pilots in the group shuffled their feet, but all seemed passive about the comment. NPCs, Cam realized. Their behavior was so similar to each other that it must be true. He wondered if the AI controlling NPCs could care.

“What are we comparing?” he asked, as he entered the edge of the circle. A couple pilots moved to let him in.

“Solo kills during the fight,” Will said from the other edge of the circle. He gave a rebuking look to the pilots around him. “It’s the worst metric to judge, because we’re supposed to be working together, not trying to pad our stats, but we still end up doing it after every battle.”

“Only the battles that devolve into dog fights at some point,” said another pilot.

“So like Quint said, every battle,” came the immediate response. Cam recognized that as Tophet’s voice. Everyone gave a good chuckle. He finally had a chance to see his wingmate from the battle. She was shorter than he had expected, but looked from head to toe an aviator pilot. She wore a dark flight suit, with a Red Squadron patch on it. Her arms were folded, and she had the posture of someone who ready for anything, but especially ready to look disdainful at a moment’s notice. Her blond hair was pulled back in an efficient ponytail. She had a pretty face, too, but since this was a game anyone could make their avatar look pretty. All she was missing was the traditional aviator sunglasses. A scar ran down one cheek. It was thin enough to not detract from her beauty, but it was interesting to Cam because no scars were permanent unless the player chose to keep one. She had either made her avatar with the scar or had kept it after some battle.

“What about you, rookie?” Lant asked. “Any solo kills?”

Cam chuckled. Everyone knew the answer, but he answered in good humor. The question was typical noobie hazing. Make a player see just how far down the totem pole they are. It didn’t bother Cam.

“Me, solo kills?” he said. “I couldn’t blast through a wet napkin by myself yet.”

That got a chuckle from some of the pilots. That was good. These were players who had worked together for months, if not in game years already with the time dilation. He was the odd man out here, only tolerated because a well liked officer of their guild vouched for him. He had to make it for himself in their eyes and not ride on Will’s coattails.

“Anyone more than five?” he asked after a moment. No one spoke up. “What about you Tophet? You were busy covering for me half the time.”

She shook her head. “Only four, Flyboy. Solo kills require a pilot get ninety-five percent damage on a ship and your drones were attacking every ship I targeted and dropped me off of that.”

Cam frowned. “Seems a bit high. I mean seventy or eighty percent seems enough to consider the pilot did most of the work. That way more pilots can tag the ship without worrying about the stat.”

That got a few reactions, some sounding agreeable to it, others frowning as if to change their tradition was tantamount to anathema. Either way, Tophet didn’t seem to mind that she lost out on some solo kills. She hadn’t reacted one way or another to his suggestion, but looked like she was thinking about it.

“How many podies did we lose?” Cam asked.

“Seven, including Tammy,” said one of the pilots, he clearly looked upset about that fact. He was a scrawny fellow, having having his share of muscle but almost no fat. He gave Cam a scowl as if even bringing up the fact they lost players meant that Cam was responsible for the losses.

“It’s okay Scott,” Will said. “She’s back at base now, enjoying some free time. Not that she can ever just sit around. I’m sure she’s training her skills up.”

That clearly didn’t placate Scott, who still had a scowl directed towards Cam.

“We lost seven,” Will said, turning to answer Cam. “And sixteen NPC pilots. Almost half the wing. The fleet lost a bit more, but the explosion at the end was more than worth it.” He grinned from ear to ear.

Everyone agreed on that point. Even Scott gave a grudging nod. Seeing an entire enemy fleet get vaporized was a sight to behold.

“Anyways, folks, we’re still not done,” continued Will, looking around at every pilot. “Get some rest, but we’re still on alert. We’re waiting here for every ship’s jump drive to charge, but the Engra--and us--still have a mission to do. We’re not heading home just yet. If you need to log, let me know, but we’re expecting more action this tri-day.”

Tri-day was another slang word from Celestial Void. The time dilation meant three days in game meant one in the real world, so the in game clocks only advance the date after three in-game days. That kept the in-game date system matched up with the real world one. After all it would get awkward real fast if the game showed March when in the real world it was August. Because of that a set of three in-game days was called a ‘tri-day.’ It was often used even if the three days don’t match up with a single in game date. Generally when people logged off they would be resting or going to work, so typically at least one in game day would pass before they got back on.

It was a strange reality shift to Cam. The virtual reality in New Space had not been nearly advanced as this. It had been more a screen pulled over your eyes with a comfortable place to sit than an immersive reality. There had been no way to have this kind of time dilation. But the new VR pods interfaced directly in the brain and could affect the rate at which it perceived the world around it. These people had lived more than a year in the last real world year. It was a type of fountain of youth. Not keeping a person young eternally, but slowing down the perceived aging process.

No one seemed to need to log out soon. They had come for a mission and even with the fight still had time to spare. Those that had to log out sometime within the next tri-day gave Will the time they expected to leave.

Many of the pilots filtered out. Cam wondered if he should leave himself, but Will motioned for him to stay. Soon it was Will, Lant, Tophet, and two others, a guy and a girl, standing there with Cam. The guy had gold markings on his uniform. He was slender, but tall, taller than any of the pilots. He had light, scraggly hair and an unsure look on his face, but for what Cam couldn’t tell. The girl was dark haired and dark skinned. She was tall for a girl, taller than Tophet, but shorter than Cam or Will.

“So how did our newbie do today?” Will asked Tophet.

“He’s cocky, takes stupid risks, and left me to do most of the work,” she said. “Exactly what I expect from a friend of yours.”

Will grinned and put a hand on Cam’s shoulder.

“Hear that, Emma said you’re going to fit right in,” he said.

“Emma,” Cam said, almost unsure. He had grown so used to her being Tophet in the battle, that it was strange to hear her first name.

“We’re not so formal off the field, Drone Boy,” said Lant, folding his arms. “If you are as good as Will said you are then maybe you’ll stick around long enough to learn that.”

Tophet looked over at Will and winked. “I’d almost say he was slow if not for his reactions out there.”

“He’s certainly full of ideas,” Will said. “I’ve missed having him around so he can tell me why all my ideas won’t work.”

“Today’s worked,” Cam said.

“Yes. The one that was a copy of one of your ideas,” he countered. “Anyways, this is Pete Lant,” he continued, gesturing at the big man. “And these are Malk Zelou and Kass Mector, Gold and Blue squad leaders.”

They all said a hello to Cam and shook his hand, even Lant. His handshake, however, was crushing. Cam even saw himself lose a health point from the squeeze. He flexed his hand afterwards, as the pain faded.

“Knock it off, Lant,” said Kass. “No one cares that your avatar’s stronger than a newbie’s.”

“Hey, just making him feel welcome,” he said with a grin. Cam sighed.

“Quick thinking getting the enemy to think the trap was farther forward than it was,” said Malk, changing the subject.

“We probably would have still won afterwards either way,” Cam said, shaking his head.

“But at a heavier cost,” Will countered. “No, no. You don’t need to say anything. All I’m saying is that it was good to have your help back there. Tactically anyways. You were right about not being able to blast through a wet napkin.”

Will grinned. Cam threw a playful punch at his arm.

“That almost hurt. Maybe you’ll be able to move onto dry napkins soon,” Will said.

Cam just rolled his eyes, knowing he still had a long ways to go if he planned on having even a small chance sparing with Will or anyone here. He’d lose to Tophet, despite how much smaller she was than him. He doubted size would have that large an effect on game mechanics.

“So what’s the score, Flyboy?” Tophet said. “Was all my babysitting worth it?”

“You know, I haven’t checked yet,” he said, pulling up his menu.

“Haven’t checked yet?” she said. “Why not?”

Cam didn’t answer her. He had opened his character screen and was too busy looking at it.

Name Guild Title Level Cameron Calvera Codiem Caelestis None 117 Health Psi Energy Stamina Fatigue 126/127 34.52/37 74.34/76 43% +0.113/min +0.042/sec +0.054/sec Attributes Strength 26 Skill Points Aailable 505 Agility 26 Constitution 26 Speed 26 Endurance 48 Dexterity 41 Intelligence 26 Willpower 37 Intuition 32 Affecting Statuses: None

“Level one seventeen,” he finally blurted out.

“What? No way,” said Lant.

Will grinned. “That’s impressive. I expected maybe half that in the battle.”

“How’d you manage to pull that off, Flyboy?” Tophet asked, genuinely sounding impressed.

“I had my drones tag anything they could right before the nukes went off, starting with both carriers. I must have got both.”

“Drones?” she said, her voice going to disgust. “Drones got you fifty levels?”

Everyone else seemed to echo that sentiment. Even Will seemed surprised.

Cam nodded. “More than that, but at least sixty.” He glanced through his combat notifications. There was a lot there he would have to go back and look at later. “One carrier got me thirty-five levels, the other got me thirty.”

Skill Up! Small Projectile Turrets II Small Projectile turret damage increased by 2% Level Up! You are now Level 36 You have skill points to distribute Level Up! (x2) You are now Level 38 You have skill points to distribute Level Up! You are now Level 39 You have skill points to distribute Skill Up! Drone Control I Max Drone Range increased by 3% Skill Up! Evasive Maneuvers II Max acceleration increase by 2% Skill Up! Combat Prediction I Awareness on the battlefield increased by 1% Level Up! You are now Level 40 You have skill points to distribute Skill Up! Small Energy Turret II Small Energy turret damage increased by 2% Level Up! You are now Level 41 You have skill points to distribute Skill Up! Velocity Control II Max speed increased by 2% Level Up! (x2) You are now Level 43 You have skill points to distribute Level Up! You are now Level 44 You have skill points to distribute Level Up! You are now Level 45 You have skill points to distribute Skill Up! Impact Targeting II Damage with all ship weapons increased by 2% Skill Up! Small Ship Drones III Small Ship Drone movement speed increased by 1%/Damage increased by 2%; Willpower increased by 1 Level Up! (x2) You are now Level 47 You have skill points to distribute Skill Up! Small Gunnery III Small weapon fire rate increased by 2%; Dexterity increased by 1 Level Up! (x3) You are now Level 50 You have skill points to distribute Level Up! (x35) You are now Level 85 You have skill points to distribute Level Up! (x30) You are now Level 115 You have skill points to distribute Skill Up! Drone Navigation I Drone speed increased by 2% Level Up! You are now Level 116 You have skill points to distribute Level Up! You are now Level 117 You have skill points to distribute

His stats had gone up, and several skills as well. The two big level boosts near the end of the log had to be from the carriers. Several other levels were likely from his drone tagging ships that Cam or Tophet killed. He had over five hundred skill points to spend. He wasn’t sure where to even start.

“You’ll start seeing some diminishing returns on kills real soon,” Will said. “A hundred levels in a day is more than awesome, but you’re starting out. Higher levels get tougher, especially with experience depending on the difficulty of what you encounter. The game’s been going on for a year. I don’t know of anyone over level two thousand.”

“I’m not sure what I should spend my points on,” Cam admitted. “I’m not sure where I would fit in with the bigger picture in this game.”

“Remember higher skill levels get exponentially more expensive, too. I have a few suggestions, but you should bank most of them for now,” said Will.

“He’s still low level. Does it matter for our mission?” Kass asked, squinting at Will as if that would give her some answers.

Will gave a noncommittal shrug. “Nothing that will gimp him later, no matter what he chooses to do.”

That was an answer in and of itself and everyone knew it. Will wouldn’t comment further about it, but did talk through some general advice about choosing skills.

“It’s good to diversify. In this game you can’t expect to be flying just one type of ship. When two percent fighter speed can get you a dozen or so skills in flying another ship, you might want to get those skills. Most of us have the skills to fly corvettes and frigates solo. Anything larger than that and you’ll want more players on the same ship to work the different ship functions. We’re all pilots, but we have some skills in all ship areas and have at least one other specialty. Theoretically you could drop the group of us off on any ship and we’d be able to make it work.”

Cam’s mind started working through that. This wasn’t just a random group thrown together for a dogfight. This was a strike force. Cam wondered what sort of mission Will had planned that needed a force like this.

“Are our losses going to affect that?” Cam asked.

“Not much,” Malk answered, giving a sideways look at Will. “We still have all the skills, just less redundancy.”

Cam nodded, but filed it away for further thought. He was definitely curious as to what Will had planned. The other pilots seemed so too. Will had all but confirmed that he expected these skills to be used, even if the other pilots hadn’t jumped on him for answers. Up until now, Cam had thought the Engra was trying to jump to some location where they could hit a target and then get out. This type of planning by Will suggested something far more intricate than that.

“Come on, lets get some grub,” said Will. He paused a moment as everyone felt the Engra make a jump. This jump was much smoother, as it wasn’t being done in combat situations. All Cam felt was a small lurch sideways before the world righted itself. After another moment Will continued. “With luck we’ll have some time before we see more action.”

Everyone filtered out to the mess hall, eager for some food and exciting stories from other pilots in the battle.

* * *

“--Then he flew down towards the asteroid, and I thought my babysitting job was over.”

Cam walked up to the table with his tray of food and sat down. Tophet was talking.

“No such luck,” she continued, to a round of laughter.

Most of the pilots were looking at him or Tophet. At him as if wondering how he was still alive, or at Tophet to encourage her to keep telling her story.

“So what happened?” one pilot asked after a few moments.

Tophet seemed to be waiting for that. “He flew right into friendly fire, and managed to get it to hit the missiles.”

“No way.”

“Seriously? How?”

“Tell them Cam,” Tophet said, looking down at him with an encouraging smile. “I’m just as curious.”

Cam looked at the expectant faces. He had sit down near the end of the table, at the only available seat at the table. Most of the pilots were looking at him. It looked like Will and the two squadron leaders were missing but other than that it seemed all the pilots were there. There were some who looked at him with a scowl, including Scott, the one who had looked upset earlier. Cam’s stomach was growling. Even in game players could get hungry. Something about it was important to keep the proper patterns flowing in the brain if players played for long stretches of time. He just wanted to eat, which would hopefully lower his fatigue on top of easing his hunger, but the pilots seemed more hungry to hear his tale. He only had a few minutes to eat. Will had wanted to talk to him, but knew Cam should get some food in him, even if it was virtual.

“Well, there’s not much to it,” he started. “I saw our destroyer’s firing at the frigates. They had a predictable firing pattern. I flew towards where they’d be firing next and timed it to fly through when the shot went off.”

Many of the pilots gaped at that. Others were shaking their head as if he was lying to them.

“Wait, you figured out our destroyer’s firing pattern mid combat and used it?” one asked. He had a narrow face and dark eyes. “They’re projectile turrets, how did you know the timing with their velocity?”

Before Cam could say anything a voice came from down the table.

“He didn’t,” Scott said. “He got lucky.”

“Lucky he has friends in high places,” said the pilot sitting opposite of Scott. He held out a hand and got a high five from across the table.

“Hey now,” said Tophet. “None of that. He’s a newbie, not a noob.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that you had to babysit him the entire fight?” Scott asked. “Your regular wingman died or do you not care? Enjoyed the babysitting too much, maybe?”

Tophet glared down the table at Scott. Cam knew well enough to keep his mouth shut for now.

“There are twenty six podies in the wing,” she started, cooly. “We took one new pilot with us. He replaced a comp, not a podie. If you’re looking to blame someone maybe we’re not adaptive as we should be.”

“So it’s Tammy’s and Eric’s fault they died?”

Tophet shook her head. “It’s all of our faults. This was a surprise for everyone. Don’t blame the guy who convinced the enemy to fall back into the blast zone just because he’s new.”

Scott’s lip twisted up in a snarl. He looked ready to bite someone’s head off, but instead he stood up, took his tray, and walked to the door.

“You always defend Will’s decisions. Even the bad ones,” he said as he walked out. Three other pilots followed him. Everyone remaining at the table was silent as they left.

Cam tried to wait patiently but he was hungry enough that he started eating as soon as Scott was out of the room. For all this being a virtual world, the food was pretty bland. It definitely felt like military rations delivered in the field. He had two kinds of mush on his plate to choose from, green bland and blue blander.

“What’s with him?” he asked between mouthfuls.

It seemed no one wanted to speak up. Cam kept eating. He felt slightly self conscious, but once he took a bite he realized how hungry he felt.

Eventually Tophet spoke up.

“Eh, he’ll get over it. He and Tammy are together. They live far apart in real life, so the game is often all the time they have together. But also his best friend got passed up for the wing last month. You getting a free ride in probably doesn’t sit well with him.”

“Ah,” Cam said, pausing for a moment with his spoon between his plate and his mouth. It made sense. Unfortunately he couldn’t do anything about it right now. Scott had already made up his mind about him. All he could do was prove his worth, but that would take time.

There was silence. Cam decided to keep eating. The other pilots slowly went back to their food too. Eventually one of the pilots spoke up. It was the same one who had asked about the projectile firing before.

“So how did you know the timing?” he asked.

Cam shrugged, trying not to smile. He couldn’t resist. “I attempted a calculation of the de-ex-de-tee of the ammunition based on the two shots the weapon took before, and extrapolated a good likelihood of success, but with a large margin of error.”

“Huh?”

“I got lucky,” he answered finally letting out a grin, and went back to eating. Half of the pilots stared at him trying to unravel what he had said, the other half rolled their eyes right then and there.