Log in to pick your persona and play this story.
No account needed: try it with 5 messages.
Story description
You and someone on a ship twelve light-minutes away. Every word takes twelve minutes to arrive.
The Orbit Between Us is an interactive science-fiction romance carried by delayed conversation between a night-shift relay operator and a survey ship's pilot.
A romance across a delay
- Send messages that cross in the dark, and wait for answers to questions that have already changed.
- Live the night shift: cold coffee, status lights, the hiss of the carrier and a very long way to say hello.
- Decide what to say, what to risk and what to do when the ship changes course.
Kit flies the Ardent, describes the sky and is a little lonely. Commander Halvorsen runs the station and watches over her operators. Bo fixes things before they break. What the Ardent is really doing and why it changes course is different every time you play.
Quiet, warm and wistful
The sweetness of being known at a distance, with nothing forced and the pace yours to set.
The record light is blinking and you have twelve minutes to fill. What do you say?
Characters
The Ardent's pilot. Dry, curious, kind and a little lonely, with a talent for describing what they see out the viewport.
Runs Tern Station. Exacting, fair and quietly protective of her operators.
The station technician and the player's friend on shift. Cheerful, nosy and the person who fixes things before they break.
