_*]:min-w-0 !gap-3.5">3. We Travel Faster Than LightThe free fall ended milliseconds ter when the darkness disappeared into light. We fell again and saw that we were in.....in the Eiffel tower only.

  Except it was not the same Eiffel tower we left.

  Ahead of us, a second spire rose, higher and bigger than the original spire. I looked behind. There was no original spire, only a railing. It seemed like multi-reality. A huge, door with a rusted pque. Arriana went straight to the door.

  We followed Arriana, each step drawing us deeper into a secret that spanned continents, gaxies, and maybe even time itself.

  I gnced up. The rusted pque was in a nguage simir to the alien's spacecraft, which somehow transted itself in my mind: Bst Pad — Keep Away.

  "This is it," she said softly. "Once we step through, there's no going back."

  Caleb barely hesitated. After teleporting across Staten Isnd and riding a light-speed train across the Atntic, what was one more impossible door? He gripped the cold, ancient handle and pulled it open. "Then let's see what's inside."

  Excitement or fear—I couldn't tell what fueled me—but I followed. The door smmed shut behind us, the sound echoing like the final note of an old song.

  We climbed a spiraling stairwell swallowed in darkness. The walls hummed with energy, vibrating slightly beneath my fingertips. Numbers and calcutions fshed through my mind unbidden—structural integrity analyses, power output estimates, equations for dimensional stability. My brain was doing that weird genius thing again, but this time it felt like it was responding to something in the environment.

  When we emerged at the top, my jaw unhinged.

  A vast unch pad, the size of a football field, stretched before us. The ceiling—or rather, where the ceiling should have been—opened directly to the stars. Of the four pads, three were empty. One held a machine that looked part fighter jet, part helicopter, part rocket.

  It was sleek—razor-shaped nose, four wings—two on the sides, two vertically aligned above and below. Five exhaust ports fred at its rear, the central one a massive saucer. Along its wings were rger versions of the same weapons the alien assassin had used at St. Agnes'. What caught my breath, though, were the ancient markings etched into its body:

  ??? ?

  The same symbols I'd seen on the assassin's ship. My mind tingled, transting: "The Valorant Army."

  "How can I read that?" I whispered.

  "The same way you understood the assassin," Arriana expined. "Your blood grants you access to Auralis—the universal nguage."

  "Auralis,"I repeated the word,"The universal nguage"

  "But we're not here for expnations yet," Arriana said, her voice firm. "We're here for transit."

  "Transit to where?" Caleb asked, still clutching the wooden splinter he'd used to stab the alien. Somehow he'd kept it this whole journey, like a bizarre souvenir.

  "To the Crucible Ark."

  "What's that?"

  "You'll learn soon."

  She keyed open the side hatch with a sequence of complex hand movements. Inside were five seats—one cockpit, four behind—lined with fshing consoles and a Tes-style yoke that nonetheless looked ancient. Arriana typed 'Crucible Ark' into the nav-screen. It chirped in a nguage that made my ears hurt but my brain understand:

  Category: Pnet

  Location: Consteltion Pisces

  Distance: 45,600 Light Years

  Flight Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

  Wait. What?

  Forty-five thousand six hundred light years in two and a half hours?

  "That's impossible," I said, my supercharged brain instantly calcuting the physics viotion. "Light itself would take 45,600 years to travel that distance."

  I remembered Einstein's equation: E = mc2. At that speed, we'd become pure energy.

  "The IPTS was just a warmup," Arriana said, her eyes fshing violet again. "This is how the Valorants really travel."

  She pressed a button. The hull began to rumble as the engines came to life. A lever illuminated and displ

  A gaxy map unfolded onscreen. The Milky Way shimmered with a path tracing halfway across its breadth. Arriana hit Re-center. The map zoomed in—Earth, then France, then the Eiffel Tower hidden beneath us. A single option appeared: Start Route.

  "There's something you're not telling us," I said, my mind racing ahead. "About me. About why that assassin came. About the Light."

  "Strap in," she replied, avoiding my question. "This'll make IPTS feel like a baby stroller."

  Caleb and I exchanged a look. That bad? After nearly being liquefied on the train? We strapped in, cinching the harnesses tight enough to hurt.

  Arriana pushed the levers to Move. The craft lifted, smooth as gss, rising straight up through what appeared to be solid tower. The metal frame of the Eiffel Tower simply phased around us, like we were passing through a hologram.

  Once outside, she threw the levers to Escape Velocity. The ship surged upward. G-forces pressed us down like we were made of jelly. My ribs felt like they'd liquefy. Still—beneath the terror, I felt adrenaline, excitement. A thrill.

  The sky cracked open. BOOM. We'd broken the sound barrier.

  The speed gauge blurred: Mach 9... Mach 15... Mach 40…

  "Escape velocity of pnet Terra exceeded," announced a voice from the console—not a recording, but something alive, aware.

  Heat bzed across the nosecone. Then—silence. Weightlessness.

  "Belts stay on," Arriana warned. "Next phase's a vomit vortex."

  She shoved the levers to Faster Than Light.

  Don't ask me what happened. My mind—even my supercharged, number-crunching mind—couldn't process it.

  We ripped past the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto—in ten seconds ft. The gauge switched units: ly/h.10 ly/h... 20... 50... 10,100...

  "X1 velocity achieved. Rotate," the ship announced.

  Arriana pulled the yoke. The ship tilted and climbed above the gactic pne. For the first time, I saw the Milky Way from the top. It was... a sea of stars. Infinite. Breathtaking. A spiral arm gaxy, its center bulging with the light of billions of suns, its arms swirling outward in cosmic slow motion.

  20,000 ly/h. Arriana eased the levers to Neutral. Acceleration calmed.

  "Unstrap," she said. "Time for breakfast."

  She hit a button. A marble box burst into a table. Grapes. Turkey. Cake. Pudding.

  "Got anything else?" I asked, suddenly aware I hadn't eaten a proper meal since lunch at St. Agnes'—which felt like a lifetime ago.

  Another button press—burgers, hot dogs, sizzlers, apple pie. Jackpot.

  Caleb downed five hot dogs and a burger, the stress of the day transting to hunger. I took out two burgers and most of the pie. We ate for an hour, watching the stars blur past through the viewports.

  Then, Arriana turned her seat to face us.

  "Time for answers," she said. "First—you call it the Milky Way. In Auralis, it's Vaelora. And its people? The Valorants."

  "Valorants," I repeated, the word familiar yet strange on my tongue. "The same as the assassin?"

  "Not all Valorants serve the same masters," she said cryptically. "Some serve Lord Korrath, guardian of Vaelora. Others..." She trailed off.

  "Auralis?" I asked, connecting with what she'd said earlier. "You mentioned that before. The nguage I can somehow read."

  "The universal speech. Language of light and stars. All cosmic beings understand it at some level. Your lineage within you transtes it perfectly."

  "The lineage within me," I repeated. "What exactly is—"

  "Hey, are those stars moving?" Caleb interrupted, pointing to the viewport.

  Two white lights bzed on the horizon. Not stars. Ships.

  "Strap in!" Arriana yelled, leaping to her seat.

  She rammed the throttle back to Faster Than Light. Lasers sprayed toward us, the same purple energy weapons the assassin had used.

  "Thunderbolt Mark 10s," she muttered. "We're toast."

  A ser grazed the wing. Metal scorched. The nav-screen lit up:

  Arrival in: 1 Minute. Angle: 70° down.

  Arriana dove. Spiraling. A second ser rocked us.

  "Booster 2 failure. Thrust -10%," the ship announced, its voice somehow tense now.

  Then—"Destination reached. Brake now."

  Ahead: a pnet like a spinning atom. Rings moved in complex, mesmerizing ways—not ft like Saturn's, but interwoven, dancing around each other in patterns that hurt my eyes to follow.

  Somehow I knew: You had to enter at the right moment, when the rings aligned, or be crushed in their magnetic fields.

  "That's the Crucible Ark?" I asked, momentarily forgetting the ships pursuing us.

  "Yes," Arriana confirmed, sweat beading on her forehead. "And someone doesn't want us to reach it."

  She spun the ship 180° and fired retro-thrust. The enemies gained. She hit a yellow button. The ship's guns fired, purple energy ncing out toward our pursuers.

  "Kids! Get to the pods! Now!"

  "What about you?" I yelled.

  "Your lives matter more! Go!"

  She looked at me, suddenly serious. "You must survive, Mark. At all costs. They know who you are now. What you are."

  "What am I?" I demanded.

  "There's no time! The escape pods will protect you. Trust me!"

  Caleb and I scrambled to the rear of the ship. We found two egg-shaped pods. Strapped in. Hit the red button.

  The pods ejected. The st thing I saw through the viewport was Arriana's ship taking one final hit—a blinding blue fsh, brighter than a thousand suns.

  Then came the shockwave, a silent wave of energy that caught our pods and hurled them toward the pnet's surface like toys thrown by an angry child.

  And after that—only darkness as the pod's emergency systems kicked in, plunging me into suspended animation.

  The st thought that crossed my mind:They know who you are now. What you are. Who am I?

  And why did it feel like the answer was buried somewhere deep inside me, waiting to be discovered?