It was all going perfectly. Better than Lio could've dreamt. He was flying in a Mastali lightship, untouchable. Silly impulse though it was, he wanted to stretch his arms out and lean into the expanse of the window before him and shout at the whole world to come see what he'd done.

Lio struggled forward in his seat, constrained by the seatbelts lashing him in place. All he succeeded in doing was jamming his kneecaps against a nav console. The nearest screen blinked at him, Mastali code unfurling across it. He itched to touch the console, but the last time his hands had gone anywhere near the glassy surface, Ravi had thundered at him not to fucking touch anything. It was possible he deserved that.

They hurtled over the desert, the lightship skimming the bellies of thick clouds. He twisted back to grin at Duhar. His friend had the glazed expression he normally wore when he was immersed in a sim, his mouth moving slightly, muttering to himself. The lightship swooped and arced as he practiced piloting it.

Beside Duhar, Aziri was bent over the slate, fingers flurrying. They were making impossibly good time. Of course they were. They were in a Mastali craft known for reaching and sustaining incredible speeds. In all likelihood, they weren't even close to pushing the ship's limits. An eager shiver buzzed across his skin at the thought of how much still remained to discover about Opalina. The only downside was that their speed left far less time than anticipated for Aziri to unlock and start the holographs that formed the first part of the course.

Aziri did not look up from the slate, but growled, "Stop staring at me, Lio."

"But you're so pretty!" He laughed louder and longer than the joke warranted. The impossible energy unspooling through the core of his bones made everything wonderful. He was tipsy on triumph.

"We'll be over Bastonar in a few minutes," Yorune warned, pointing at an approaching cluster of lights on the terramap.

"Minutes?" Orvaska asked. "How fast are we going?"

"I don't want to know," Jossen groaned.

Lio rubbed his hands together. "Excellent. It's just enough time for all eyes to be on us when we reach the course."

"You can't be serious about flying it," Ravi growled.

The one thing that could dim his enthusiasm in this glorious flight was Ravi glaring at him with ferocious disapproval through the entire experience. He didn't turn around to face the com when he answered. "We must. It's the trifecta. We powered the lightship, flew it, and conquered the Great Mastali Course. They won't be able to deny our right to crew it."

"That's not how this is going to work, Lio, and you seem to have forgotten all the fucking lightships that plowed into a wall when they tried the maze!"

He'd already considered that and had complete faith in the Mastali alloy. "If we hit a wall, it's the wall that'll be in trouble, not the ship." And they weren't going to hit anything. He tried to hike the strange, flexible metal seatbelts away for a bit of breathing room, watching the window as Bastonar's distant lights came into view.

They soared over the town, and then over rolling hills that tumbled down into the valley where the capitol sprawled. Close enough to turn on the course if Aziri could figure it out. Duhar edged them higher, well clear of the blinking lights that denoted the tops of city buildings. Illuminated streets below looked like golden threads.

He held his breath as they swung toward the ziggurat. The Great Mastali Course extended behind it.

"Fuck, that's not good," Teres whispered, pointing. Lio followed her finger to a group of lights rapidly rising from around the ziggurat. Copters. News of the lightship's flight had traveled even faster than the craft itself.

"Uh, people," Duhar said. "In a sim, you shoot down the approaching enemy aircraft before they—"

"Nobody is shooting anyone," Ravi barked. "If they block us, they block us. We'll have to land."

Lio was about to protest, but he held his breath. The copters seemed to be keeping their distance, backtracking and leaving a clear opening for the lightship's path. Far below, he could just make out the stark outline of the maze's walls. "Come on, Aziri," he muttered, keeping it quiet enough that his friend wouldn't hear.

"Got it!" Aziri shouted. "Loading, and—" A series of brilliant circles of light bloomed in the dark, noiseless fireworks. The Great Mastali Course was live. Lio couldn't help it, he clapped his hands like he was at a particularly spectacular show.

"Where do I go first?" Duhar asked.

Yorune bounced in her chair. "Through the pink hoops!"

"No, not pink, they're magenta—" Onfenka started, and Duhar veered wildly, the ship losing speed.

"Clock's running," Aziri said, gaze flicking between the slate in his hand and the holographic lights hovering before them.

"The big hoops, Duhar!" Lio broke in. The lightship barreled through the first hoop, curved through the second, and punctured the third like they were tearing through the center of a target.

"Nice!" Yorune squealed. "Now do the other ones!"

"Which ones?" Duhar gritted his teeth as the lightship swung far wide and rebalanced, losing precious seconds. "Stop giving me really unclear directions!"

"Hey, be nice—"

"Someone tell me where the fuck to—"

Ravi broke in, preternaturally calm. "Center on the green hoops, Duhar. Three of them." The lightship seemed to leap sideways in flight, aiming at the smaller set of green hoops. Ravi kept talking, his voice too steady and assured. Lio had begun to think that calm façade only appeared when the com was most nervous. "Next up are the yellow ones. They're small."

The lightship threaded through the first yellow hoop, bright gold holographs dancing around the window. Duhar gunned them through the second and then third.

"Light vortexes coming up," Ravi said. "You want to stay in the center of the tunnel."

Lio had watched the vortex component of the course plenty of times. But never this close. The hurricane of colored lights exploded through the darkness as the vortex formed, undulating and snaking through the air on an ever-changing course.

"Oh, shit." Duhar shot the ship upward, and the light engulfed them. "Fuck, I can't balance board this."

"Engage flightstick targeting," Onfenka said.

The nav console at Lio's knee lit up, and Teres yelped. Directly in front of her, the screen morphed into a metallic stick with a slight wave to its edge for a handhold. A thumbprint sized oval lit up at the top, like a biometrics reader.

Duhar looked up from his console. "Teres, that's all you! Let's go!"

Teres sputtered, "Goddess, I'm not fucking touching that, it looks like a—"

Lio burst into hysterical laughter, his stomach swirling with the tilting motion of the lightship as Duhar tried to keep them inside the vortex.

"Teres!" Aziri roared, "You are not twelve! Just grab the dildo thing—"

"Not helping," Ravi cut him off.

"It's not a dildo, it's a thruster!" Duhar's aggrieved bellow only made Lio laugh more, jolting in his chair.

"Oh yes, that's so much better," Teres said. But she reached for the flightstick just in time. The vortex shot downward, and the light tunnel caved.

Lio clawed at Teres' forearm. "Dive!"

"I don't know what I'm—" And then she was just yelling incomprehensibly, and so was the crew, and so was Lio. His stomach went weightless as they plummeted, careening toward the ground. The vortex swung up again, and he was thrown back against his chair as Teres put them in a vertical climb. It felt like his head was being squeezed into his spine, his neck threatening to cork into his shoulders.

"You got it, Teres!" Duhar's voice vibrated in Lio's ears. "Loops coming up—"

And then they were screaming with delight. Or he and Yorune were screaming with delight, and everyone else was shitting themselves. Adrenaline electrified his blood. The lightship dropped, a supersonic raptor on the hunt. Without the seatbelts, Lio was certain he'd float up to the ceiling. They spun and then dove and swept to the right and climbed again. The vortex spiraled around them, the lightship whirling like a drill. It was impossible to watch the window, and Lio's gaze clung to the readouts on the nav console, even though they made no sense.

"Maze!" Ravi yelled. "We're coming out of the vortex!"

Duhar squawked, "Engage cornering boosters!"

The central nav console flashed blue in the corner of Lio's vision, and he saw Duhar's frantic nod. "Okay, good. I'm gonna need somebody mapping me through this."

"Com Endessen," Lio said, swiveling to meet his dark eyes. Ravi glared at him, but there was no time for argument. Teres let out a whoop as they broke free of the vortex. At last, the very solid, very non-holographic walls loomed before them. They zipped toward the shadowed entrance.

"Turning on more lights," Aziri announced, right before ghostly lights spilled down the impenetrable grey walls of the maze.

"I need a second terramap." Ravi barely got the words out before a map depicting the maze in miniature sprang up over his nav console. "Right at your first chance, Duhar." He traced a route through the holograph.

They rushed toward a wall, and Lio covered his eyes. Duhar shouted something, and they were all hurled sideways in their chairs.

"Oh yeah, this baby can corner!" Duhar shrieked. The lightship sprang left after Ravi's directive, like it was launched from massive coils, pouncing through the air.

Lio dragged his hands away from his face and looked back. Both Ravi and Duhar were entirely concentrated on their respective nav consoles. Wise decision, because the view through the window was a blur of speed and tilting grey angles that left Lio dizzy. He choked off a scream as they took another corner, hugging the walls. Whoever designed this course was fucking ballistic. Then again, he was the one who insisted on flying it.

Turn, turn, another turn, slamming almost into the ground, zipping around another corner. His ribs were bruised from smashing against the armrests of the chair.

Teres had her arms wrapped around her head. "I'm going to be sick."

"Hang on," Lio gasped. "Almost there." He had no idea if that was true.

But the words proved prophetic. Duhar whooped, spinning the lightship completely onto its side and accelerating. The howling crew dangled from their chairs as the ship bolted out from among the walls, into a ring of lights cast by a horde of copters.

"Shit, we picked up the pace there," Aziri said, once Duhar had righted them and everyone sat shaking and upright on the flight deck. Lio's pulse barreled through him even as the lightship slowed to a stately glide.

"Engage landing approach assist," Duhar said, and the nav console projected a mess of dashed lines and targets that made no sense. At least it seemed to help Duhar. The world stopped spinning. Through the window, Lio watched the ground wobble nearer, illuminated by the lightship's glow. For a few minutes they floated so nicely he expected them to alight like a massive metal butterfly.

The ship jolted, bounced, and plowed a furrow into the ground, dirt spewing across the windshield. Lio yelled along with everyone else while they continued to skid. The lightship gradually found a more controlled taxi, although that might've been more a result of the colossal amount of dirt and grass and possibly a few unlucky trees it was pushing rather than Duhar's landing skills.

But their pilot had gotten them through it. The ship shuddered to a real stop, and Lio swung his chair all the way around to grin shakily. They'd found and flown a lightship. Through the Great Mastali Course. This crew was undeniable, unbeatable, unmatched.

Ravi slumped forward, right through the lights of the terramap. "Shut it off, Duhar," he groaned.

"I think I can hibernate it, so the lights stay on." He tapped and swiped some combination of keys and screen, and the bright blue glow faded from the nav consoles, leaving them opaque silver. The light emanating from the walls dimmed but didn't entirely extinguish. Duhar patted the nav console in front of him like it was puppy. "Good job, Opalina."