The C-9 “Wayfarer” is Marek Venn’s vehicle: a crew-rated industrial elevator rebuilt as a single-pilot armoured carrier. It is the ninth revision of the lift program’s design and the first to descend with a pilot aboard.
# Design
The C-9’s open-frame chassis rides a magnetic guide system salvaged from the first survey rig, the oldest hardware ever to return from the shaft. Its armoured cab holds one pilot, the controls and a salvage ledger. Around the cab, a ring of universal hardpoints carries weapons, a shield emitter and a drone bay. At its core sits a phase coupler drawing current from a Rift Shard.
Every compromise in the design was made for mass. One pilot instead of a crew. No ascent motor large enough to climb out in an emergency. Armour where it matters and nowhere else. See Yara Demir for the reasoning.
# The descent lock
The carrier cannot climb out while its descent lock is engaged. The lock holds the coupler to the mapped route and stabilises the carrier against local geometry shifts. Releasing it inside the Rift risks losing the only route that leads back. Marek disabled the ascent override on launch, so that Asterion could not recall him remotely. That also means the lock cannot be released from the surface.
Each floor is a short operation window. The carrier fights, salvages and reconnects to a route marker. If it is disabled, the lock holds it at the last marker, and the recovery routine restarts the operation from there.
# Configurations
Four permanent chassis fit the same expedition: Standard, Scout, Bulwark and Carrier. They are modular configurations of the same vehicle, not four different pilots or story branches.
# Combat modes
In automatic mode the weapon mounts choose their own targets. In manual mode Marek steers the carrier’s aim directly and fires on demand. Manual mode pauses the drone link to free bandwidth for the pilot’s control channel. See Weapons and Field routines.
Somebody has to be the ninth one that works.
— Ilyan Venn, on the C-9 designation
Related articles
ARCHIVE RECORDChassis configurationsStandard, Scout, Bulwark and Carrier: four permanent frames for the same C-9, trading speed, armour, shields and mount capacity.
ARCHIVE RECORDReactor and phase couplerThe reactor interface that draws a small, stable current from a Rift Shard, anchors the carrier to its route, and decides which systems get power.
ARCHIVE RECORDWeapons and ammunitionBasic turret, machine gun, cannon and laser: the four weapon families of the C-9, and why only one of them never runs out.
ARCHIVE RECORDThe lift programHow a one-way tether platform became a return-capable carrier: the phase coupler, the magnetised strip and the price paid to build the C-9.
ARCHIVE RECORDYara DemirIlyan Venn’s assistant and the mechanic who rebuilt his coupler into the C-9. She witnessed his disappearance.