I am standing in the middle of the reactor control room, completely wrecked, checking the alerts on the panel. My mind finally clears as I finish recalling the events that brought me here.

  “Haa…” I let out a long sigh as I understand my situation. In my opinion, there is only one thing I can do. “YESSS, I’M ALIVE!! LEGENDARY STORM MY ASS! WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOBODY EVER SURVIVES? WHO SAYS SO? I AM THE MASTER OF MY DESTINY!” I shout at the top of my lungs, raising my arms enthusiastically. Until, suddenly, I get dizzy and lose my balance.

  Everything spun around for a moment.

  “Ouch…” I mutter, bringing a hand to my head. I shouldn’t have done that; the wound has reopened. “Worth it.”

  I tear off a piece of cloth from my shirt and tie it tightly around my head as a makeshift tourniquet.

  I hope I have more than one of these shirts.

  “Well, that’ll have to do for now, but I need to treat it soon. Horaizon, are you there?” I speak to the ship, but only silence answers me.

  It seems not. The reactor is dead; we’re running on backup power, and the system is a disaster. Either she burned out with the reactor, or the remaining power isn’t enough to boot her up.

  “Well, maybe that’s for the best… she’d have a heart attack if she saw the state of the ship,” I say, feeling a bit lonely. “But how am I still alive?”

  I check my surroundings and the system logs.

  “Mmm… looks like my last trick diverted most of the reactor explosion’s energy through the cooling conduit,” I murmur, looking at the enormous hole left behind by the rampaging energy.

  Apparently, the reactor control room is the most heavily protected area in the entire ship: it withstands explosions and high radiation levels. And even so, it’s in ruins. Luckily, the airtight seal held.

  “Good thing too, or I would’ve suffocated.”

  I have to admit I got incredibly lucky. If I hadn’t been in this exact room, and if I hadn’t opened the core’s vent conduit, I wouldn’t be here now.

  “Alright, the important thing is that I’m alive. Let’s try to stay that way. Let’s see what condition we’re in.”

  First, I need to head to the bridge and use the main console to try to repair the Seeker as much as possible: restore hull integrity, regain vacuum seals, and be able to move freely around the ship.

  I check the route on the panel. It seems that most of it is depressurized, so I’m going to need a spacesuit to leave.

  “And where am I supposed to find a spacesuit in the reactor room?”

  I start searching; in the worst-case scenario, I’ll have to improvise with whatever I have on hand.

  I spend the next half hour checking cabinets and shelves, rummaging through every box and desk.

  “Well… something is better than nothing.”

  In front of me is a full-body silver suit along with a helmet, a small case of blue capsules, a flashlight, a coil of cable, and a fire extinguisher.

  I pick up the suit and examine it. It’s a radiation suit meant for work in the core, but I think it might withstand the vacuum of space for short stretches… or so I hope.

  Well, it’s airtight, so it should work, though it won’t be comfortable. Its lining isn’t the same as a spacesuit’s, and it has no thrusters; without them, I won’t be able to move if I start floating. Hopefully the extinguisher will help with that.

  I set the suit aside and pick up the small case. I open it and take one of the capsules in my hand.

  “The good thing is they kept a proper inventory; the suit would be useless without the oxygen capsules.”

  Since the suit is airtight, I need an oxygen source. The old suits used heavy tanks, but over time that became obsolete. Nowadays, the standard is for suits to have an internal generation system.

  Of course, it’s not like they can create air out of nothing. That’s where these capsules come in, they contain the chemicals needed to convert into oxygen.

  “These are the small capsules, so they last an hour. I have ten capsules, so ten hours of oxygen. That should be enough.”

  Lastly, I check the reel of reinforced cable, which I hope will keep me from drifting out of the ship.

  “Alright, everything’s in order. Time to get ready.” With some difficulty, I manage to put on the suit and the anti-radiation helmet. I secure the reel at my waist, store the flashlight, the extinguisher, the capsule case, and the polyfix in the suit’s pockets. Then I place an oxygen capsule in the chest compartment and check the oxygen level on the wrist gauge. “Oh, almost forgot.” I quickly grab my portable device and attach it to my shoulder.

  Very securely, of course.

  “Of course I’m going to record all this. It’ll make for a great projection… if I make it out alive. With the record button on, now we… begin. Alright, locked and loaded. Here I go.” I grab onto a bar and press the door button, which opens with difficulty. A powerful force sucks the air and anything not bolted down out of the room. I have to cling on with both hands to avoid being blown away.

  After a moment, the suction stops and I start to float slightly.

  “Okay, we’re in vacuum now.” Even though I say that, I can’t actually see outer space. All I see is the Seeker’s corridor: battered, with bits of metal and objects floating around: spoons, screws, and panel fragments.

  I quickly hook the end of the cable to a secure anchor point. After giving it a few tugs to test its strength, I begin to move slowly down the hallway.

  I move by avoiding large objects or pushing them aside. I check the suit’s gauges, and so far everything seems in order.

  I advance through the sections, slow but steady, inside a ship I barely recognize as the Seeker, given how damaged it is.

  Suddenly, an alert sounds in my suit: the capsule is nearly depleted and I have to replace it.

  “Wow, an hour already.”

  This is taking longer than I thought. When I was in a hurry, I crossed these corridors in minutes. I stop and quickly replace the capsule; I don’t want to run out of oxygen in the middle of nowhere.

  “I have nine hours of oxygen left. I hope I can get the ship’s systems working. If not, I’ll need to find a lot more capsules.”

  I do a quick check of the route. I’m already halfway; I should reach the bridge before the next capsule runs out, as long as nothing goes wrong. It would also be a good idea to stop by the infirmary to find something to treat the wound on my head.

  “Alright, let’s keep going and not waste any more time.”

  I resume my march through the Seeker. It really looks like a shipwreck; all that’s missing is finding bodies floating everywhere.

  “Well, I worked hard to make sure that didn’t happen.” As my mind wanders, I’m forced back to reality by a blockage in the path. “How the hell did this happen?”

  In front of me lies a collapsed corridor. It looks as if it had been compressed, like those balloons clowns twist at parties. They can make a dog, but if you ask them for one shaped like a golden lancer armor, they look at you as if you were an alien.

  “Come on, Rob, focus,” I tell myself, shaking my head.

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  Maybe the storm’s tendrils compressed it… or it was caused by a massive decompression.

  I check the Seeker’s map on my device. This corridor is the only direct route. There are alternative paths, but I’d have to backtrack quite a bit.

  “Mmm… I don’t want to waste more oxygen capsules.”

  I feel like a character from an old dungeon-crawling game: I follow the mapped route, but the short way is blocked, and I have to traverse the whole dungeon before I can reach the treasure.

  “That’s how it was back in the 2D era.”

  I admit it was fun to play… but experiencing it in real life sucks all the joy out of it.

  “If only I could use some cheat code to skip the blockage…”

  Hmm, that gives me an idea.

  I open the ship’s map on my portable device. When players compete to finish a game in the shortest time possible, they often look for glitches that let them clip out of the map and jump to the next area… or straight to the final boss.

  A small smile forms on my face.

  “I like it… let’s try it.”

  This zone is on the ship’s exterior perimeter, near the hull, so maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for.

  “Come on, glitch, where are you?” I walk through the nearby corridors, searching for any sign. I finally arrive at an area illuminated by a faint reddish glow coming from a seventy-centimeter-wide breach in the ship’s hull. “Bingo.” I pause a moment to check my gear while mentally reviewing the strategy.

  The plan is simple and—if you ask me—ingenious, but risky: I’m going to leave the ship and walk outside the “map” to bypass the obstructed area and re-enter safely on the other side. Of course, there’s always the chance I’ll end up drifting helplessly into space, so I need to be careful.

  “Looks like you’ll see some action after all,” I say, patting the extinguisher at my side. With everything ready, I secure the cable to a firm point and step through the breach.

  My eyes widen at the incredible sight before me. It’s not the calm, endless darkness of the void I expected.

  Ships. Ships as far as the eye can see, of all sizes and classes, of every design and era. Nothing unites them except their condition: battered, dead, devoid of any sign of life. Machines that once roared across the cosmos now float aimlessly in the void.

  “Am I in the Pantheon of the Princesses?”

  I quickly dismiss the idea after searching in vain for the Final Radiance.

  It’s unbelievable: before me stretches a ship graveyard comparable to the largest ever recorded in the Rim. No… it might be even more immense.

  The sight is astonishing, but it’s soon overshadowed by what covers it.

  My eyes are flooded with a deep, vibrant red, speckled with dark motes dancing on its surface like shadows trapped in the tide. It’s a powerful, entrancing radiance, as if the entire universe were wrapped in it.

  No stars are visible in any direction. Everything is covered by that crimson veil. I remain there, floating in the middle of that vastness, held in place only by my cable.

  Held… held to what?

  The Seeker is now just another dead ship, drifting in this crimson necropolis.

  “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  With a soft hiss, the door to the control room closes behind me.

  “Finally made it… it really felt like an eternity.”

  After exiting the ship from the outside, I was able to shorten most of the route to the bridge. I even passed by the infirmary and grabbed a medkit to treat the wound on my head. It’s no longer bleeding, but better safe than sorry.

  I check the suit’s scanners. Looks like the bridge’s airtight seal is still holding.

  “Aaahhh, nothing like breathing without needing a helmet.” I sigh as I take off the helmet and the improvised spacesuit. I take a moment to breathe, stretch my arms and legs… how I missed gravity. “Alright, enough rest. Let’s see if we can get this ship back in shape.”

  I’d like to enjoy this moment a bit longer, but there are urgent things to do. So, without wasting more time, I approach the main console.

  “Pheeeew, that’s a lot of red.”

  I can’t help but whistle as I look at the ship’s projection. Normally everything is blue when the system is in order, and any faults show up in red… What I’m seeing now is a projection almost completely red.

  “Wow, you really took a beating,” I say, giving the console a few pats. “Alright, let’s start with the most urgent things.” I quickly check the areas that still maintain vacuum seal. There are only a few: the bridge where I am, a couple of critical areas, and some sections far from the exterior hull. Thankfully, the oxygen generator is still working. I guess it’s only natural for something so critical to be well protected.

  Okay, time to return air to as many zones as possible so I can move around more freely.

  “First, activate the sealing bulkheads.” I press the button, and the thick bulkheads seal the entryways to all sectors. “Now let’s bring back the oxygen.”

  With another button, the sectors begin to fill slowly, replacing the vacuum of space.

  “As expected, there are a lot of leaks in the outer sectors. I’ll have to keep them sealed until I can repair them.”

  After a while, the intact sectors have normal oxygen and gravity again.

  I recovered around 60% of the sectors. Not bad. I check the generator’s oxygen and fuel levels.

  “Quite efficient. Even on backup power alone, the oxygen generator can keep running for three months.”

  At least I won’t suffocate in the near future.

  I set the computer to run a full systems check, identify the most critical failures, and give me an inventory of what we have available.

  “Well, this is going to take a while.”

  With that, I can finally take a breather and rest a little. I collapse onto the captain’s chair and let out a long, exhausted sigh. I take a cellular patch from the medkit and apply it to my head.

  “Mmmm… feels weird. It numbs the pain, but… weird.”

  The blank cells inside the patch adhere to the damaged tissue and transform into whatever cells are needed, quickly closing the wound and fusing perfectly with the original tissue. I leave the patch alone so it can do its job and rub my eyes in exhaustion.

  “What kind of mess have I gotten myself into?”

  Up until now, I couldn’t afford to think too much about it. There was work to do, and in the middle of the chaos there was no room to get depressed. All I could do was keep going, step by step.

  But now the work is done. I’m safe… at least for now. And with nothing to keep me busy, I can no longer steer my mind away from those thoughts I’ve been trying so hard to avoid. Suddenly, the full weight of the situation crashes down on me.

  “What was all that out there?” The image of what I saw outside the Seeker returns to my mind: ships everywhere, and that crimson veil covering everything. “I need to get my thoughts in order.” I pull out my portable device and open a blank list.

  I usually use it to jot down ideas for new projections; it’s very useful because I’m the kind of person who comes up with hundreds of things and forgets them just as fast.

  “First: where am I?”

  Everything seems to indicate that I’m inside the Red Storm. Who would’ve thought: it’s not a hole that swallows things and reduces them to nothing, but rather a place that stores them inside.

  “Okay then… inside the Storm,” I note on my list. “Second: am I alone here?”

  Given the huge number of ships I saw, it’d be ridiculous to think I’m the first to get swallowed alive. The chances of finding someone aren’t zero… not to mention the possibility of some kind of native lifeform living in the Storm.

  “Might not be a bad idea to get some weapons, just in case,” I add the note. “Third: what am I going to do now?” I can’t help but sigh again. “Repair the Seeker?”

  I don’t know whether it’s possible or even worth it. I blew up the main reactor myself. I still have backup power, but I doubt it’s enough to get out of here or travel through space.

  “Ask for help?”

  Maybe I could try to get the antenna working and send out an S.O.S., though I don’t know if it can pierce through the Storm. Still, worth a try.

  “Try to break through the Storm?”

  For now, that’ll be the last option. I barely survived going through it once, and that was in one of the kingdom’s best ships. I doubt I’ll get better results with whatever half-functional scrap I manage to put together here.

  “Wait for rescue?”

  Well, the Seeker is one of the kingdom’s most modern ships, and it vanished in the middle of an exploration mission. I don’t doubt they’ll look for it, and most of the crew made it out; they should be able to report what happened.

  But even so, I wouldn’t be too optimistic about a rescue. The Storm is too unusual a phenomenon: it moves with no apparent pattern, appears and disappears at will, and getting through it is no simple task.

  “This is why I didn’t want to think about my situation… it’s as bad as I feared.” I sigh again while rubbing my eyes.

  All right, I’ll stop depressing myself for today. I think I’ve earned a break. I’ll eat something, sleep a bit, and we’ll see tomorrow once the ship finishes its diagnostics.

  I set all that aside and grab a few ration bars I found floating during my trip here.

  “It’s not much, but in this situation I should be grateful to have anything at all.” Out of habit, I take out my device to watch something while I eat. “Yeah, no EtherNet signal,” I say, chewing on the ration bars. “Let’s see what’s in the internal storage.”

  My device is full of Clifford’s projections. I’m not in the mood to watch anything in particular, so I just scroll, looking for something to entertain me for a while.

  “‘The First Standard-Bearer: All About the Legendary Dragon Emperor,’ ‘Why Are Armors Humanoid in Shape?’, ‘The Three Nightmares,’ ‘Which Princess Is the Best and Why Is It the Commander Princess?’, ‘How to Reach the Level of Absolute Sovereignty and Apply It in Combat’… hmm, that last one got a lot of views.”

  I see many projections that bring old memories back to mind. Suddenly, a title catches my attention.

  “‘Examining the A.R.K.A. Survival Manual, Chapter 8: Shipwrecks.’” My eyes light up. “That’s it.”