The ship dropped into a vertical dive. Tayel clung to the backrest. Her palms sweat as their vessel zipped downward past the edge of the mothership, leaving the view of the monstrosity behind. The aether dome formed higher and higher beneath them, building up around an ever-shrinking hole open to the stars. An ever shrinking hole that if filled, would leave their ship to be crushed between it and the falling Rokkir mega structure above them.
“Shy,” Tayel whimpered.
“Hang on,” Shy said.
“This doesn’t look good!”
“Just hang on!”
The walls rocked with turbulence. A reflection of the mothership crashing through the sky behind them glinted on the aether dome’s shiny surface as it sped to close. Tayel’s breath hitched.
Their opening shrunk.
And shrunk.
Tayel braced herself.
The ship jolted as Shy burst through the hole in the ice. Tayel slammed into the back of the pilot’s chair. A dozen Varg cried out in the hold. The piloting dashboard lit up like an Elshan sunset, but Shy whooped, even as alarms cried dismay. She leveled the vessel to an easier descent as Tayel scrambled to recover.
“What — what happened?” Tayel asked. “We made it?”
“Clipped the wing,” Shy said.
“But we’re safe?”
Shy looked straight up. “I…”
Tayel’s elation died as she followed Shy’s gaze up toward the fully formed protective shield.
Huge, spinning, and out of control, the mothership crumbled downward, the glow from its hull fires illuminating the dome in brilliant orange. It crashed into the aetherial ice. The explosive boom rattled Tayel to her core. Spiderweb cracks reached out like a thousand strikes of lightning through the shield. Dislodged ice rained down, clinking atop the roof as chunks hit. From the city walls, Varg magis fired white beams of aether, sporadically — frantically — rebuilding what they could of the shattering protection.
“Karun guide us to the gates of heaven,” Balcruf murmured.
The mothership tore itself apart. The booming sound hit Tayel like a physical force as white-hot flames blocked out the night sky. Cryzoar turned orange from the glow, and Shy tugged the yoke as their ship veered from the shockwave. The walls shuddered. The floor swayed like it was being ripped apart.
Tayel kept expecting to die, but in seconds the cockpit darkened. The violent orange hue in the city bled away. The floor and walls’ shuddering whined into nothing, and the ship leveled out enough to hover.
Outside, the raging infernos eating away at the outer dome flickered, spreading thin until they started to fade. Skyscraper-sized pieces of charred debris rolled off the ice, kicking up wave-like plumes of snow as they crashed into the earth. Smaller chunks of mothership clicked and clattered down the still-intact shield, rolling off at the curves. As deadly as the Rokkir ship had been, there was nothing threatening left. The Varg’s plan actually worked.
“Yes!” Tayel screamed.
Shy joined her elated cry, and a chorus of cheers rose out of the hold. Overwhelmed with relief, like thirty pounds had been lifted off her chest, Tayel slouched against the wall. The loss of so many Varg, Fehn’s grievous injuries — for one precious Moment none of it seemed to matter. She hadn’t lost her life at the bottom of a fiery wreck.
“That was amazing flying,” Tayel said.
Shy grinned around the edge of her seat. “And you didn’t think I’d make it.”
“Yeah, well, considering the only way for me to have said ‘I told you so’ was for us to die, I’m happy to let you win this one.”
Shy opened her mouth, but her gaze drifted sidelong, and her lips closed into a slight frown. She turned back around, and the engine rattled as the ship glided forward.
“Where now?” Tayel asked.
A Rokkir schematic of Cryzoar appeared over the dashboard. “The shuttle crash.”
Tayel’s ached at the adrenaline spike. All at once, she remembered why she’d come here. “Right,” she breathed.
Her whole journey flashed before her, everything from the siege to the fight with Ruxbane — and that already felt impossibly long ago. It was hard to believe that two months before, she’d been in the kitchen with her Mom and Jace, eating dinner. A week before that, she’d been playing mag with the Undercity Berserkers. Playing cards with friends at lunch. Rummaging through old flexis in Otto’s pawn shop. Lying in bed, dreaming of faraway places.
Shy steered the ship through the city with ease despite the warning for the damaged wing casting red over the dash. They flew over remaining Rokkir troops disappearing through dark portals. Over fires, wreckage, and toppled buildings — buildings that might’ve been homes. Despite the stories of the planet’s crystalline capitol, despite the vids and the history books on Varg civilization, Cryzoar was just empty now. A cold post-apocalyptic nightmare, and little else.
They skirted a skeletonized, charred skyscraper, and Tayel’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the shuttle crash beyond. The enormous refugee ship rested on a mountain of snow and sleet that used to be part of the now crumbled mile of city wall. The Delta insignia stood out on the side, scorched by a blackened hull breach. Its nose stopped thankfully short of what looked like a residential district, and hundreds of people celebrated in the open space around the crash, jumping, cheering, and pointing up at the dome.
They parted as Shy descended near the first row of apartment complexes. The ship touched ground, and right away the door flew open, letting in the cold.
“Well, here we are,” Shy said.
“Thanks, Shy.” Tayel scratched her head. “Are you alright? You seem kind of…”
“Quiet?”
“Yeah.”
“I. I don’t.” Shy sighed running her hands through her hair. “I keep waiting to be done. This is the day that doesn’t end, and I need to touch base with Kalanie.”
“Will a med evac come in time? For Fehn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No, this is the easy part. At least compared to everything else. And shouldn’t you be out there?”
Tayel wasn’t sure if she was ready to know if everything had been worth it or not. Shy scoffed and batted loose, sticky hair out of her eyes like she was trying to shoo a fly. Tayel suppressed a grin, and the airy feeling that was building with it. Worth it for Jace’s part, at least.
“I am going,” she said. “I’ll find you after?”
Shy nodded. “If I don’t find you first.”
Tayel slipped out of the cockpit and into the hold. She closed the door behind her, shivering at the draft carrying flakes of snow into the mostly empty space. Jace sat where she’d left him against the back wall. Fehn laid beside him, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in rapid succession. His face still shone with sweat.
“How is he?” Tayel asked.
Jace started. “T-Tayel. I thought you were still… He’s stable, I think. I haven’t lifted the coat to see, but blood’s stopped coming through.”
“That’s great news. Shy’s calling an evac, so, hopefully help’s coming soon.”
“I think one of the Varg said they were going to contact Kalanie, too.”
“Oh.”
“I can’t believe we made it,” Jace said. “I couldn’t see out the viewports with all the Varg, but there was light from the explosion, and with the way the floor was rocking I thought…”
“We were really lucky. Shy saved our asses.”
“Again.”
Tayel rubbed her arm. “Again.”
Jace nodded. His gaze wandered to the open door, and he picked at the frayed ends of his sling. “We’re at the shuttle crash, huh?”