By the time I exited the 7th Floor for the fourth time, the Firebrand Liberation Fleet had moved to the second-outermost ring of Zones. Not only that, but several more fleets, each also 1,000 strong, had joined us. Within three days, even more would arrive and a full armada of 10,000 Federation ships would join the effort to reach Magnos. Then, to embark and reach the general region near it would take about a week.
Before the embarking, General Karl held a special briefing for the commanders of the Firebrand Liberation Fleet—mostly formation leaders, with a few of the more promising individual ship captains. I was also obliged to attend, though he noted when he informed me of this that he was still going to be circumspect about our final objective.
Indeed, he made it sound like this was an operation to wipe out a major Kinetice hive-world, which were indeed more common in the outer reaches of Area 1. The other nine generals had been briefed by Marshal Varstithon himself, who would, since Bruzigan's own fleet was all the way at the other end of the Area, personally take command of the armada. Those generals, Karl, and myself would be the only ones in the know of the operation's true nature, and the other nine were simultaneously giving their own fleets briefings very similar in nature to the one I was sitting through.
"For the record," I said to Karl, once the briefing had wrapped up, "it would have been better if I'd known more about the cover story for the operation in advance. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to keep a straight face when you kept referring to me as a 'payload' to be 'delivered'?"
"I apologize. It hadn't occurred to me." But it didn't escape me that he didn't manage to keep a straight face at that.
"I'm glad you're able to see humor in the situation right now," I said, seriously, "that's something I often have trouble with. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to start working up some final simulations."
Those were mostly speculations on what enemies—monsters, elementals and the like—I might encounter. That, and the rest of my training in the virtual space, mostly took a backseat to what I referred to officially as "psychological preparation drills," by which I meant I did a lot of relaxing and gaming and spending time with Mewi to try not to be tense to the point of constantly fearing the worst by the time we arrived in the space near Magnos. I did keep to my regular chef and spell leveling training schedule outside of the virtual space, though.
Blitzing me into the Fire Planet's atmosphere wasn't a matter of simply warping into its orbit and taking a few minutes to find the right spot. The Kinetice, among the other oddities of their technology, had some sort of queer type of device that they kept powered on their Hive Worlds that stopped Area 1 void ships from warping straight into their orbit. This forced any effort to take a fight to their home turf to engage in protracted ship-to-ship battle—and the Kinetice saved their best vessels for Hive World defense, so such operations were rarely undertaken.
There were ten such Hive Worlds surrounding Magnos, and in sufficient proximity to it that the "fields" which could not be warped through overlapped with each other, creating a massive warp-nullified zone that surrounded the Fire Planet in all directions. As far as most of the operation's participants knew, Magnos was an eleventh Hive World that housed one of the Kinetice Grand Underminds, a hive queen of puissance only surpassed by the Overmind. We’d go there, drop the “payload” which was implied to be some kind of bomb capable of one-shotting such a creature, and nope back out.
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Except, unknown to them, I wouldn’t be participating in the nope back out part, being the actual payload in question.
By the time the beginning of our final approach was imminent, I had calmed down as best I could, though I was still nervous. This would be a stern test of all the power and experience I’d gotten since coming to the Tower. All the support I’d secured for myself and Mewi, our very place on the powerful floor team with powerful allies, was contingent on my success today.
The moment of truth was coming up fast—even with x20 virtual space time dilation. I was forcibly logged out of virtual space, and the first thing I heard was an automated voice saying “Alert: Arrival in the engagement zone in 15 minutes. All personnel to battle stations.” The message repeated twice before cessation. It was a familiar message to me, having played whenever we approached a planet to liberate, but it still hit differently this time.
Doing my best to outwardly project confidence, I left my quarters. Anyone who passed by me, if they weren't preoccupied enough with scrambling to get to their station, would have seen me heading for the Incursion Bay like usual. And like usual, by the time I turned down the corridor leading to its entrance, I was alone and unobserved.
This time though, when I got to the Incursion Deck, I turned to the left wall and pried at a seemingly random panel. It came away easily, revealing a handprint scanner that, like the secret compartment in the desk I'd stored the mission dossier in, was keyed to my Tower identification data. When I placed my palm on it, the wall responded with a humming noise, then slid open to reveal a lift.
Where the lift opened, there was only a few feet between it and a heavy open hatch plated in heat-resistant material which was apparently much more effective than the space shuttle tiles from Earth. Well, it had better be.
Inside, there was a pristine airlock. When I entered it, the hatch shut behind me, and the inner door opened to the cockpit. The cockpit was situated in the epicenter of the lander pod's structure for maximum protection, so there was only a camera screen for external viewing. A pair of smaller monitors off to each side displayed the words [CURRENT STATUS: Host vessel in transit. Unable to begin startup sequence.]
A moment after I got situated, I heard the automated voice, though somewhat fainter: "Alert: Arrival in the engagement zone in 10 minutes. All personnel to battle stations." I leaned back in the chair, in as much as it would let me, and thought of Mewi.
Five minutes later, when the last alert, "Warning: Arrival in the engagement zone in 5 minutes. All remaining personnel to battle stations immediately." sounded, I finally conquered my inner jitters. Assuming Mewi and I didn't stay in Area 1 all our lives, this wasn't the last time I'd be going into an unknown situation. The information on the 10th Floor was extremely limited, and there were also more limitations, to hear tell of it, on sharing information about the Floors in Area 2 than there were in Area 1.
I could do this.
Soon enough, the "unable to begin startup sequence" message disappeared as the Firebrand was brought out of warp speed by the Hive Worlds. I knew what extremely complex controls looked like, since I had gone to Space Camp when I was 12. Fortunately, this wasn't it. The main screen in the center below the viewscreen was actually a touch screen that was used for 90% of the lander's control functions. Not that it still wouldn't be difficult—even with my stats, the g-forces that were going to be involved weren't trivial, and it'd feel worse than in the simulations.
One of the control functions was actually beyond my power—that of actually detaching the lander. General Karl would do that, as specified by the document in the mission dossier that detailed how the special function to do so could be accessed from the captain's chair. So, once I had ensured the lander was fully powered up and all systems were operational, there was nothing I could do but wait.