Chapter Text
The Starblaster’s descent was so fast that initially, everyone in the IPRE crew assumed that the ship was going down. Taako even shouted to Davenport and asked how they could possibly be crashing this soon after jumping planes, not letting the potential of an untimely death hold his tongue from making one last quip. Davenport, still at the helm, didn’t have an answer for him, because they weren’t crashing. It was as if something was artificially speeding up their descent, like a large magnet on the ground, pulling them full force towards the plane below, and there was nothing he could do about it.
They’d been gaining speed for several seconds, and it had now reached the point where a cursory glance out the window meant nothing anymore. The ship’s acceleration was so fast, and the plane below was so quickly approaching them, that the sky around them and everything underneath them was just a blur. It didn’t help that this plane was covered in a thick blanket of clouds, which at this point, had enveloped the Starblaster completely. Davenport tried to keep the ship steady, his hands grasping the helm firmly, but the controls weren’t responding to him. It was if the ship was frozen, and something was yanking it out of the sky.
“Everybody, brace for impact!” Davenport shouted. Lup, Barry, and Taako grabbed onto various parts of the ship walls. Magnus grabbed Lucretia. Merle dove under a table. But, just as they were sure they were nearing the ground, the ship stopped falling. Davenport heard the landing gear deploy without his instruction, and in a moment, everything was quiet. Merle poked his head out from under the table.
“Is everything okay?” he asked. He looked at Davenport, who was staring confusedly at the Starblaster’s controls.
“I… didn’t do that,” Davenport said.
As he said that, the Starblaster’s exit door open, and the ramp came down. All seven of them turned to look at it. Magnus let go of Lucretia and started towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Lucretia asked.
“Well, someone helped us land,” Magnus said. “Time to find out who.”
“So you saw something take control of our ship and you want to go and meet it?” Taako asked. Instead of answering, Magnus walked past him and started down the exit ramp. Merle and Davenport followed and then, with a sigh, Lucretia gathered up her journals and walked down the exit ramp after them.
“There’s no way I’m going out there,” Taako said. He looked to Lup, and noticed Barry doing the same thing. She grabbed Barry’s hand and gave Taako a shove.
“C’mon,” she said. “Cautious doesn’t look good on you.”
When Taako, Lup, and Barry had exited the Starblaster, they saw their four crewmates spread out in a bright, white room that seems to have no definitive boundaries, and no clear exit. Lucretia was taking notes and drawing sketches of what she could make out around her, while Magnus, Merle, and Davenport were investigating, all in different corners, just how far this room stretched. When Taako, who was trailing behind Lup and Barry, finally stepped off the ramp, it retracted by itself. As the exit closed, the seven of them could see two words appear in red block letters in the white space in front of them.
“BOUNDARY VIOLATION”
“Boundary violation?” Taako asked incredulously. “Whoever you are, you dragged us down here!”
The two words disappeared, and more words appeared in their place. A woman’s voice began speaking, and as she talked, the words she said displayed one after the other where the red text had been. The voice was light, but not cheerful, as she plainly stated the text in front of them.
“By entering into our plane’s airspace, you have violated our centuries old agreement with the other planes in our system. Our strict policy against outsiders extents to members of all planes, from all systems. By violating our boundaries, you have breached this agreement, and are subject to penalty.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucretia saw Magnus tense up, like he expected armed guards or security officers to appear out of the expanse of white light around them, and she put one hand on his shoulder to calm him. With the other, she wrote down every word appearing in front of her in her own personal shorthand.
“You have been brought to this station to be dealt that penalty,” the voice and text continued simultaneously. “Should you wish to enter our plane and join our society, you must first take our personal aptitude test. The test will show you if you are morally fit and personally worthy enough to join us. Those who refuse to undergo the test will be executed immediately. What is your choice?”
The seven of them all looked at each other, a few of their eyes going back to the words in front of them just to make sure that they were reading correctly.
“This is ridiculous,” Taako said. “I don’t know about all of you, but I’m not going to take some test just because a bunch of floating words and a disembodied voice tells me to.”
He started walking back towards the Starblaster, but was stopped a few feet from it by a forcefield that sent him reeling backwards. He tried sticking his hands out towards the ship, but it was met with red energy and a zap of electricity.
“It doesn’t look like we have much of a choice,” Magnus said, turning from looking at Taako to face Davenport. “Between the seven of us, we’re bound to pass any test they can come up with, anyway.”
“But what about the Hunger?” Merle asked. “How do we know how long this test is going to take, or if they’ll even listen to us about the Hunger if we pass?”
“We might be risking our lives for them to ignore our warnings completely,” Taako agreed.
“But if we don’t take the test, we’ll all die here,” Lup said. “I agree with Magnus. The only way out of this one is through it. Besides, it doesn’t appear that wherever these words are can hear us. That, or they’re not able to, or choose not to, respond to us. We couldn’t warn anyone now if we tried.”
Davenport looked around at his crew and then, giving a little nod, looked up at the words and said, “we choose to take the test.”
As he said this, three glowing, blue-green circles appeared on the ground in front of them.
“Divide yourselves into groups of 2-3,” the voice said, “and assemble yourselves onto these transport pads.”
The realization that they had to split up ran like a chill through the group. Taako and Lup instinctively took a step closer to each other, and when Lup realized that Barry hadn’t moved, she grabbed his shirt sleeve and yanked him closer to her. Magnus grabbed Lucretia’s hand, and Davenport and Merle made a moment of eye contact. The words and the voice waited until all three groups got on their respective transport pads before continuing.
“Each test consists of a single test chamber with one final exit door. If you exit the chamber, you’ve passed the test. Each test also contains challenges specific to each team member that you must pass in order to continue on. You must complete the entire test, and you cannot communicate with anyone but your teammates throughout the test. Tampering with the test, circumventing challenges, or breaking any other rule inside the test chamber will result in immediate disqualification, punishable by death. Should one of your team members die, you must continue on without them in order to finish the test, or forfeit, and be executed.”
The writing paused, as if to give everyone time to process this information. No one made a sound.
“You will now be separated and scanned, and an individualized testing chamber will be generated for each team.”
And just as those words appeared in front of them, the transport pads activated, and the three teams were on their own.