Body moving with only minimal input from him, and only vaguely aware of Jenny Mae at his back, Heath opened the hatch to the ship core. Every time he had done this before, he had ensured complete solitude. It was the manifestation of the ship and its connection to the System. Where every hard-fought growth path was both reflected and controlled. The Wandering Loon’s beating heart.

  From his pocket, Heath pulled a handful of argo crystals. Some were large, coming in at a full gram. Most were shards and slivers, some so small he could barely feel them. They were nearly useless on their own, which was why he had a handful.

  18 grams. It was his life savings, along with the rest of the crew’s available funds and what he could quickly sell off the Wraith. Every credit they had been able to scrape together had gone into purchasing the argo, from reputable banks to backrooms at pawn shops, they had picked up as much as they could on their mad flight to the Siegbahn system.

  Normally, Heath thought long and hard about where it would go. He consulted with the Loon and weighed future growth against current needs. Each new crystal was a careful step into their entwined future.

  Today, they just needed as much power as he could get. Shields, antimalware, processing power. Anything that was metaphysically or practically related to defense got a dose. No careful placement, he jammed crystals into the matrix wherever they would fit.

  Through his [Ship Link] he felt a surge of power before his eyesight faded to nothing. He felt Jenny Mae push him into a chair only distantly before he let the Skill take him entirely away.

  He blinked and found himself standing on an infinite plane. Looking down at himself, there was no body he recognized. Just an orb of light, surrounded by smaller satellites, and veins tracing the vague shape of a human. His Class, Heath realized with a jolt.

  His attention was pulled to the distance. Another being of gold, one Heath would recognize anywhere, was covering part of the plane. Pillars of crystal anchored the golden light, which spread in a complex weave over the whole region.

  It wasn’t alone. A rotting plague swept forward, dismantling the golden web. The Loon fought hard, but she was losing.

  “Heath.” The Loon’s voice was warm, joyous as she welcomed Heath home.

  With a thought, Heath was there, surging across infinity to stand beside the Loon, bringing with him the tidal wave of new power.

  He could already see it wasn’t going to be enough. New pillars rose amidst the Loon’s being. On the battlefront, a golden wall rose as the shields were strengthened, the Loon’s golden network reinforced and resisting the virus. But there was just too much of it.

  “We can do this,” he said.

  “Together.”

  Heath stepped forward and joined the fray. He tore at the encroaching tide, the curse unsuited to a regular Classer after being specialized to infiltrate the Loon. He used [Shield] to block new waves, [Hull Integrity] to shore up weak spots. His [Ship Maintenance] Skill got its first combat use, perhaps ever, infusing pure mana into the Loon’s directed defense. Even [Knots] helped as he wove defenses for the Loon and unpicked the thickets of virus as they tried to make themselves unassailable.

  Every opening he made, the Loon was there to take advantage. More golden orbs appeared, directly contesting the encroaching green. The antimalware, maybe.

  The curse didn’t take that lying down. It wasn’t sentient, Heath didn’t think. Just a viral entity with two focuses that drove all else away. Expand. Survive.

  It began to attack Heath. With no true programming to sink into, the virus was unable to infect him. That didn’t stop it from trying. Green light surrounded him. When the seeking tendrils couldn’t drill through his being, it turned into a corrosive cloud, eating away at the edges of his soul.

  A scream tore out of him, despite having no throat to shape the sound. Agony, announcing itself across the not-quite-reality Heath and the Loon were manifesting together. A small echo of what the Loon had been experiencing for days.

  Then, the defenders were there. Heath was freed as they ripped the attack to pieces, absorbing the energy into themselves and moving on. If he could have, Heath would have curled into a ball to wait out the aftershocks. He wasn’t healed. The very makeup of his Class, his soul, had been damaged, and it would take time and rest to be truly better, or able to interact with the System without pain. Tomorrow’s problem.

  He leapt back into the fight. In this place, he and the Loon weren’t truly separate entities. The pair were dual manifestations of the same bond. So Heath felt it when the Loon projected triumph.

  Gold light surged forward, and Heath with it. In a risky feint, the Loon had allowed one portion of its defenses to remain weak, holding back the argo that would have reinforced the wall.

  The curse had capitalized, bulldozing through. The mass of green and black had shoved inside, committing everything to ending the battle.

  The Loon’s defenses collapsed around the invader. A ring of solid gold attacked the oozing tumor of green and black.

  Closer and closer the circle shrank. Heath leapt over the defenses and into the final battle. He roared in defiance, in love, in pain as the last of the green faded into oblivion.

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  The curse was gone, but neither of them had come out of things unscathed. Heath was still leaking mana where the virus had assaulted his class. The Loon was battered and scarred. The golden light spread throughout the plane, yet there were patches that didn’t light up. Dead spots, where the Loon no longer had dominion, or ability to influence.

  In a daze, Heath stumbled towards the closest. His [Ship Maintenance] Skill was already urging him to send mana to heal the breach. Activating the Skill was like sandpaper across sensitive skin as his class objected. At least it worked, the patch absorbing the energy and sparking enough of a connection for the Loon to reconnect.

  He turned to the next closest.

  “Heath. Heath, stop.”

  “What? Loon?”

  “Heath. You must stop.”

  “You’re hurt.” He was tired, in pain, he couldn’t understand what was happening. All he knew was that the Loon needed help, and it was his job to give it.

  She seemed to understand. The merge went both ways. “Just as it is your duty to help me, so is it mine to help you. It is time to return to reality.”

  “But –”

  “You are not meant to linger too long in this place, Heath. And not just you and I have done battle today.”

  With a touch like a gentle god, the Loon flung him back into his body and consciousness, shutting the [Ship Link] down to its most basic state.

  He gasped, opening his eyes and jerking his head around. Everywhere, the questing green tendrils were black and dead, flaking off into ash that piled on the floor and exposed the Loon’s inner workings.

  “Heath?” Jenny Mae’s voice was soft as she stared at him from a few feet away.

  “How long?” he rasped. His throat felt like he’d swallowed glass and his face was itching. He felt around and realized he was covered in blood.

  “Ten minutes, if that.”

  It had felt a thousand times longer. “We have to go.”

  Jenny Mae nodded. Then jumped forward and stabbed him.

  “Why?” he croaked.

  “Let’s go!” The healing serum wasn’t as strong as the medpacks, but it was already working. It also itched like the burning hell as it went to work. His throat, his muscles and bones, every piece of him ached, and the serum made it worse as he stood and left the bridge.

  He picked up speed, joining Jenny Mae as they ran back out through the cargo bay and out the back hatch.

  Outside was a massacre.

  Metal pieces, including the terrifying saws that had lined the walls were smoking smithereens around the floor. Acid ate away at the floor in deadly puddles, making any sort of motion a hazard. Ekaterina and Copperfield had been busy. They were moving slower now, but still cut down any of the reinforcements the Shaman called to attend the battle. Neither was unscathed. Ekaterina’s arm was hanging limply at her side, not slowing her in the slightest as she swung her staff. Copperfield was moving in a jerky pattern that belied a real problem. One hip joint of his borrowed armor was fused together. Heath tried not to think about what had happened underneath.

  Through it all, Emerald battled the shaman.

  They were bleeding in at least three places, their armor and clothes stained dark over their right shoulder and ribs.

  The Shaman was faring better. His staff was missing all of its dangling pieces, and most of the crystals were dark, but the man himself appeared unharmed. As Heath watched, an ethereal hand grabbed the man’s hair and pulled, halting him long enough for Emerald to phase into view and slash out with a wicked dagger Heath had never seen before. The gash across the man’s abdomen leaked a black fluid. Blood mixed with oil and something worse.

  Just as soon as the wound appeared, it began to seal itself shut. Metal strands wove together like stitches, cinching the skin closed again. It wasn’t perfect healing. Blood still leaked out of this and several other wounds. But it was more than Emerald had.

  “Pathetic.” The Shaman spat, blood and spittle landing on the floor in front of him. “You think a fresh Class evolution would be enough to win a fight? Underleveled and unpracticed? This is not a fairytale, you don’t get to win just because you believe in yourself.”

  The last crystal on his staff flashed a neon shine before winking out. For a beat nothing happened. Then the ground shuddered. The implements that had littered the floor vibrated and shot towards the space in front of the shaman. They formed together into a golem twice the height of a human and with three times the limbs. Each ended in the largest pieces of detritus, sawblades and sections of catwalk meant to encircle a ship.

  Even as the golem formed it began to fall apart. Held together by stored mana, it would only last for a single blow. In battle, that was enough.

  Heath ducked, dragging Jenny Mae down with him as a saw sliced through where their heads had been. From his angle, he saw Copperfield collapse in a similar strategy, while Ekaterina darted backwards.

  A grunt. A smack.

  He jumped back up to see the golem fall to pieces as Emerald shimmered back into view. They had slammed into the wall, and now fell to the floor, unmoving.

  The Shaman turned to face Copperfield where he struggled to stand in his damaged armor. He sneered at the sight and opened his mouth, to lambast them for their defiance one more time.

  Heath’s pistol went off. This time it hit, the phase round slamming into center mass, burning through cloth and skin and metal.

  Hitting at almost the exact same time was Copperfield’s shot, fired as he lay prone on the ground. It was a glowing purple, almost painful to look at. A device they’d found raiding Wraith’s armory.

  “Not enough,” hissed the Shaman. He thrust the staff forward.

  Nothing happened. Again. This time, grey-green liquid manifested, but fell to the ground only a meter away.

  “Mana drain,” came Copperfield’s voice.

  Heath and Jenny Mae were already firing. His next shot went wide but Jenny Mae had [Sharpshooter] for a reason. Her absurd gun blew the enemy classer’s left arm off at the shoulder.

  The scent of sizzling flesh forcing Heath to gag through the barrage.

  A clatter as the staff hit the ground several yards away, along with the arm holding it.

  Nobody cheered. Even as they watched, wires and thicker tendrils extruded from the shoulder, reforming a new limb.

  Heath was taking aim again when he noticed a warping in the air between the Shaman and him. Then a bolt of pure force slammed into the spot, taking the man’s legs with it and gouging through the floor and into the chamber below. And the one below that.

  The Loon’s gun trailed a line of smoke, where all of Ekaterina’s remaining mana had just been forced through at far too close a range for a ship.

  Heath staggered forward. Jenny Mae ran to Emerald, while Copperfield limped up beside him, having peeled himself out of the useless armor.

  They stood over the Shaman. He wasn’t dead, but Heath doubted he could see them. Both eyes were rolled back in his head as whatever lived inside his body fought to keep him alive. Looking closer, the regeneration was still active, but far slower. A problem of mass, Heath thought. Without mana to fuel the reaction, he was limited with what his body had inside. That was a problem he could solve.

  He held out his hand. Copperfield handed over his saber wordlessly.

  It was inelegant. Heath had never trained with a sword, nor was the blade intended for this kind of use. But rage and determination can make up for lack of skill, or Skill. Especially when the target didn’t fight back.

  With a wordless shout, Heath started hacking. The Shaman had reinforced his bones and skin. Heath just swung harder. A final, sickening squelch and the head rolled free of the rest of the torso.

  Standing back, he realized the others had joined him, Emerald supported between Jenny Mae and Copperfield, barely conscious but alive.

  “That’s gross Heath,” Jenny Mae said.

  “What –”

  “Seriously man, the sword is going to need a ton of repair after that.”

  “Symbolic moments –”

  “It didn’t even work,” Ekaterina cut in and pointed to where the head had rolled.

  There, at the jagged stump of a neck, nanites and wires were hard at work. Nothing that would give them trouble, but it was true, even beheading hadn’t stopped the regeneration from taking place.

  “Everyone get on board the Loon,” Heath said. “When she’s ready, we’re dumping this thing into the sun.”