The rusted skiff drifted to a halt a safe distance away from the outermost golden ring.
"What's wrong?" Gwen asked, her hand resting on her pistol. "Do you see patrols?"
"I see a bug zapper," Sebastian said, his voice dropping into a serious, metallic hum. He walked right up to the glass, staring intently at the rotating rings.
"That's the absolute firewall," Corbin explained, his voice trembling. "The Golden Rings. They scan every single byte of data that tries to pass through. If you don't have the specific, heavily encrypted biological and digital signature of a Grand Archon, it doesn't just block you."
"It vaporizes you," Sebastian finished for him.
He had the Spoofing Drive bolted to his arm, but he knew instantly that it wouldn't work here. The drive was designed to fool the lazy, automated planetary defenses of standard servers like 112. It disguised him as a grunt.
But the Golden Rings didn't accept grunts.
