how to fly

You act. Then the day answers.

Nothing moves until you move it. Every turn is a held breath — take as long as you need with it.

the turn

  1. 01
    Allocate the reactor. Power is finite. Push it into shields, weapons, engines, or life support — never all four at once. What you starve is the choice you are making.
  2. 02
    Charge a weapon. Weapons fill over turns. A charged weapon glows warm; it is the readiest thing on your screen, and it will not wait forever.
  3. 03
    Target a room. You do not shoot ships, you shoot rooms. Break the echo’s weapons and it cannot fire. Break its oxygen and its crew stops mending.
  4. 04
    Move your crew. Crew mend systems, fight fires, and hold breaches. A room without hands in it stays broken.
  5. 05
    Jump, when you are ready. Leaving is a choice. Each jump takes you deeper, and depth is what the Ledger records. Staying is how you gather cinder. Both are how you die.
  6. 06
    Choose your route. Every beacon offers two or three onward routes. You see what kind of place each leads to — an echo, a signal, a waystation, a hazard — never what waits there. Every route is one beacon deeper; the choice is what you meet on the way.

reading your ship

  • Fire an ember spreading room to room. It eats systems and air.
  • Breach a cold vent. Air leaves; crew cannot stay long.
  • Low oxygen a draining fill on the room. Crew slow, then fall.
  • Hull what is left of the ship itself. It does not mend in flight.
  • Shield layers that regrow between turns, if you power them.
  • Charged weapon warm and insistent. It is asking you to fire it.

what counts, and what does not

Depth counts. How far into the band you flew, on today’s day, against the same field as everyone else. This is your score.
Cinder does not survive. Everything you scavenge and spend is spent inside the run. At dawn it is gone. It was never yours to keep.
One counted run a day. The Standing Day is flown once. Patrons may practise sealed days as often as they like — practice never touches anyone’s standing.
Nothing can be bought that helps you. Patronage buys cosmetics, archive, and practice. It does not change the day, your ship, or your place in the book.

There is a teaching day, first. It is not counted.

Fly the teaching day