Part V: Mastranada

After the short flight out of the mountains, Berk leaned back, letting go of the power regulator levers. He ran a hand through his tangled hair.

“We’ll get there before I can finish the story,” he said, nodding toward the city.

“You better start then,” Jyra said, anxious both to hear about the tattoo and to have something to take her mind off another trip into a battle zone.

“The tattoo was put on my wrist in a hospital on Silanpre,” Berk said. “All their patients get ‘em. Doctors scan the lines and it’s a convenient way to access information about medical updates for that patient. However, it also makes it easy to track all the patients.”

“Do the patients like to hide?” Jyra said, feeling her lips twitch toward the beginnings of a smile.

“The patients like to escape,” Berk said, jerking his head to stare at her. His eyes had the serious gleam again and Jyra hastily turned her laugh into a cough.

“How do they…why do they escape?” she asked, eyes watering.

“Do you know much about Silanpre?” Berk said.

“Not a thing.”

“It’s home to the best medical centers in the Kaosaam System. It doesn’t matter how small a city is there; each one has a hospital that can deal with pretty much any injury. Peradian, where I grew up, is one of the largest cities. It’s rumored to be where the corruption began. The hospitals were all managed by local governments, which made them accountable to the communities they served. An agency, however, managed to get control of the medical centers. First came privatization, then came chaos.

“The most immediate change was how few patients were released. Then reports started cropping up about high profile doctors who’d been forced out, professionals who’d been working in the medical field for decades. New staffs were hired by the private agency for all the hospitals. Then there were more complaints from patient’s families. On the increasingly rare occasion when patients were released, they were to return for a check up. I got news from one of my friends the last time I saw him. He came to visit me in the hospital. According to him, our neighbors had a young kid who’d been taken in and released. The family had been told to bring her back in a week. ‘Course at that point, people were getting suspicious. They didn’t take her back. A week went by and the kid’s screams woke my friend up in the middle of the night.”

“What happened?” Jyra said. She was unaware that her hands were clenched together and her fingers had turned white.

“She died and the family took the body to a doctor friend of theirs. Turned out he’d been let go from the hospital himself. He opened the kid up and discovered her stomach was hardly there. It was like a leaf after bugs have chewed at it. He was able to collect some foreign chemicals present in her body, but didn’t have the equipment to tell what they were.”

Jyra’s hands went numb and she pulled them apart, momentarily silenced by the story. She took a deep breath and prompted Berk.

“So if she’d gone back, the hospital would have been able to reverse whatever caused that?”

“I have no doubt,” Berk said. “They knew what they were doing. After a few more cases like what happened to that kid, those who were on leave started showing up again on time.”

“But why did they do all this in the first place?”

“Money. That was all. You can imagine. Medical costs destroyed livelihoods. Some people sold everything but the clothes they wore. Most couldn’t afford a flight off Silanpre and so they had to turn to the one employer left.”

“They had to work for the hospital?” Jyra said. The parallel between the behaviors of the agency and TF made her stomach contract. She began spinning her hair around one of her fingers, tighter and tighter until the strands dug into the skin.

“They did and it got them no closer to loved ones in there,” Berk said. “The hospitals owned Silanpre and the agency owned the hospitals. I don’t know how long it all took to happen. Sooner than you’d think, though, to bring an entire planet’s population to its knees.”

Horbson loomed before them. A massive fire lit up the city and the night. Jyra was sure it was the fallen battleship. She wondered how many people had been aboard, how many of them knew they were about to die. Before she could ask her next question, Berk answered it.

“I told you where I got the tattoo, but you’re probably curious how I got in the hospital in the first place,” he said. Jyra nodded. “A transport crash in the city. My family, parents, brother, two sisters were all admitted. I was the only one who fled the crash site. I thought they were right behind me. I tried to go back and help them but none of them were in a condition to escape. Responders were there soon after and took them in. The eventual cooperation people showed toward the hospital only made my anger worse.”

“But the public didn’t have a choice,” Jyra interrupted.

“I spent too much time wondering why no one resisted instead of starting a movement of my own. At one point, I thought of assassinating the responders who brought people to hospitals, but what would that achieve? The injured would likely die. It took me a long time to realize two things, which were people would’ve had a choice if I’d given them another way and there are things worse than death. By the time I had that figured out, the hospital had me.”

“How did you get injured?” Jyra said.

“I didn’t,” Berk growled. “I had wondered what the extra employees were up to. Think of all the staff they had once entire families showed up to work off their debts. But I found out for myself. A couple responders grabbed me off the street.

“Are responders people?” Jyra said.

“Well, yeah,” Berk said. “What’d you think they were?”

“I have a hard time believing you didn’t put up much of a fight against two of them.”

“I didn’t used to be this way,” Berk said, staring at his bulk. “The agency workers had some formulas they cooked up and they needed human subjects.”

“What sort of formulas?” Jyra said.

“No idea,” Berk said. “I don’t remember much about the beginning. I had quite a few tubes running into me. The lights on the console actually remind me of the fluids. Lots of different colors.”
“You—you have no idea what they put into you?” Jyra said,staring at Berk.

He shook his head. “Lots of steroids, I imagine. Have you felt my arm?”

“That’s not funny!” Jyra said. “How can you joke about something like that?”

“It’s my experience and I choose to do with it what I wish.”

“But don’t you want to get tested somewhere and figure out what they did to you?”

“Where should I get tested? If you think I’ve any desire to go near a medical center, I think you’ve misunderstood my story.”

“I don’t know, I just…” Jyra wasn’t sure where her thought was headed. “If it were me, I’d want to know.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s not you then,” Berk said. “In the interest of living, I’m going to turn my attention outside and see what I can do about getting us safely delivered to the shipyard.”

He brought the pod over the buildings, flying close to the rooftops. White and orange flares filled the sky. Some spiraled through the air; others took the most direct path to the ground. As one shot passed the pod, Jyra saw the rivets on the steel plate. The flares were burning debris from the battle above returning to Drometica.

The fallen battleship in the middle of the city upstaged the storm of tumbling steel. The buildings that still stood near the ship burst into flames from the heat emanating from the carcass. Jyra couldn’t look directly at it; it was like staring at a sun. She witnessed the flames feeding upon the broken hull in her peripheral vision.

“We’ll need to divert around,” Berk said.

“What?” Jyra said, mesmerized by the spectacle out of the corner of her eye.

“If we get any closer to that thing, it’ll cook us.”

The pod jerked sideways and nearly crashed onto the roof of an apartment complex.

“Heat wave,” Berk said, opening the regulators and lifting them out of danger. “It’s messing with the air currents out there.”

Debris replaced people in the streets. Shards of glass, cracked timbers, and chipped bricks blocked roads. Dust that accumulated for years on buildings resettled on rubble. Several more pieces of battle wreckage whizzed by the pod, trailing tails of fire.

“How far?” Jyra asked, taking in a sharp breath each time another projectile barely missed them.

“It’s coming up,” Berk said. He squinted and put his tongue between his teeth. “It looks dark up there so the yard’s not on fire.”

Just after they flew over a particular roof, part of a ventilator assembly crashed into the shingles. Jyra stifled her scream.

“What’s the matter?” Berk said.

“Things are falling all around us and it only takes one to finish us off,” Jyra said, scanning the skies through the cockpit, as though hunting for an obnoxious insect.

“They have to catch us first,” Berk said. “Hold on!”

He jammed the left pedal to the floor and the pod swerved. Jyra heard the whistling noise as the projectile raced by before it hit the street below.

“Just get us on the ground,” she said, closing her eyes and clasping her hands together again.

“Stop worrying. We’re here,” Berk said.

The roads became wider and buildings were no longer close together. They seemed to be following a main street up a small hill. At the top, Jyra could see the outlines of ships parked behind a tall fence. The unnatural dullness of the hulls made them easy to spot against the backdrop of the sky and the distant hills. Berk eased off on the engines as they soared over the fence. He flipped a switch and beams from the pod’s landing lights flooded the yard. The ships were parked so densely, Jyra didn’t see an opening for a pod half the size of theirs.

“There,” Berk said. He brought the pod lower and Jyra realized part of a gap had been hidden by the large tail fin of a cruiser. “We can squeeze in.” Berk guided the pod down to the shadow and began a vertical descent. The starboard engine knocked against the cruiser and Berk grimaced. They sank into darkness until the pod settled on its legs with a gentle bump.

“Shall we look around?” Berk said, rubbing his hands together.

“I want to do this as fast as we can,” Jyra said, lifting the cockpit dome up and climbing out to stand on the gravel that covered the shipyard ground.

“Me too, but we’ve got to make sure it’s decent. We don’t need to find out we’re flying a wreck the hard way,” Berk said, jumping onto the gravel. The boots crushed into the rock. The dull grinding noise echoed between the parked transports. Jyra couldn’t help but notice Berk’s size again following his story. She wondered what he looked like before the hospital changed him. He clicked on his light.

“This way,” Berk said. “Turn on your light. Oh wait. You can’t.” He smiled as he walked out of sight. Jyra jogged after him.

They walked down a row of ships. It was like hiking in a canyon. The view of the sky had been reduced to the narrow space between the contours of the transports on either side. Even as Craig’s apprentice at the repair shop on Tyrorken, Jyra had never seen so many ships in her life.

Berk stopped and turned to face a pair of doors. Jyra stepped back, trying to take in the size of the vessel, but there wasn’t enough room. She could see reflections of explosions in the city reflecting off the high extremities of the surrounding hulls. Berk, meanwhile, tapped around the doors. Nothing happened.

“Hold this,” he said, passing the flashlight to Jyra. Berk began pounding on the hull near the hinges of one door and then the other. The thud of the contact reverberated in the aisle, but Berk found what he was looking for. A small hatch cover, about the size of the playing card, had fallen open. He pressed the button inside and the doors swung open on squealing hinges.

They stepped into the cargo bay. Another pair of doors on the opposite wall was even larger than the ones they had entered. The ship Jyra and Craig had flown to Drometica could fit in this bay.

“It’s definitely roomy,” Jyra said. They began exploring the ship. The dust and cobwebs drifted in the beam of the flashlight. They checked the cockpit and confirmed the ship required two pilots to fly. On the third level, they found quarters for the crew. Jyra thought she smelled mold. Even after they’d left that level, she thought she could still smell it.

They made their way back to the engine room. Ladders ran up the walls to the transmissions and drive shafts overhead. As they entered the room, Jyra saw two cylindrical devices, about as tall as she was, standing in the middle of the floor.

“Energy cores,” she said. “I’ve never seen those. This is an old ship.”

“Yeah,” Berk said. “The good news is Leonick can handle energy cores.”

“He can?” Jyra hadn’t intended to be as disbelieving as she sounded.

“You’d be surprised,” Berk said with a sideways glance. “He doesn’t say much, but Leonick’s a details guy. He’ll recall the strangest stuff. Drinking doesn’t even affect his memory.”

“Why do you drink?” Jyra said.

“Keep myself in check,” Berk said gruffly. “To finish what I was saying and to announce our leave, the bad news is this ship doesn’t have what we need. Time to keep looking.”

“What doesn’t it have?”

“We need an exterior incendiary mount,” Berk said. “Something Macnelia’s been working on.”

They walked down the passage from the engine room and up several stairs toward the cargo bay.

“An incendiary mount?” she said.

“For the bomb,” Berk said.

“We’re bombing TF?” Jyra said.

“Yeah, but not before we get Derek.”

“What if my parents are there?”

“Believe me, we’ll figure that out. We won’t drop the bomb until we know they’re clear of the building.”

They jumped back onto the gravel and Berk heaved the doors closed. He pushed his hair back and turned to find Jyra with her arms folded across her chest.

“Why wasn’t I told we had a bomb?” she said.

“Macnelia thought it best and I agree with her,” Berk said.

“Even after drugging the tea, it’s still not enough to trust me?”

“No,” Berk said. “It’s not. If it makes you feel better, I only found out about the bomb a couple days ago.”

“She keeps you all in the dark. That sounds like an excellent way to run a resistance,” Jyra said. “And, no, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“I didn’t think it would, but you know why she’s holding back the information.”

“Because Craig and I are new?” Jyra said. She glanced up at the visible sliver of sky to avoid looking at Berk, who shook his head.

“She’s doing it because you both are angry and we all know what that’s like,” he said.

“I lost my brother!” Jyra shouted. “None of you know how that feels!” Berk stepped forward and Jyra automatically retreated until she bumped into the hull of the ship across the aisle.

“I do know,” he growled. “And in the pain of losing my entire family, in the rage, I considered killing innocent people. I’m not saying I know exactly how you’re dealing with your misery, but I have some idea of the feeling. For the sake of those who are no longer with us, I suggest you remember that of everyone in the resistance. We’re not competing to see who has the harder past, we’re trying to cooperate to make sure others don’t have to endure what we have faced.”

Jyra wiped her eyes with the back of her arm, thankful for the cover of darkness, as Berk turned and continued down the aisle.

“So, I’m too angry to be trusted with some information?” Jyra said.

“Not anymore,” Berk said over his shoulder. “You completed the food mission and proven yourself a worthy addition to the team. Let’s keep looking.”

Jyra tromped after him, unsure how to feel. Although it seemed Berk had just offered to answer any of her questions about the resistance, she couldn’t think of one now. After passing a few unsuitable ships, Jyra privately scolded herself for delaying the mission. They were working on borrowed time. If another ship came down on top of them, not only would it destroy the whole shipyard, neither Jyra or Berk could see it in time to escape.

Berk stopped at another promising pair of doors. They toured the ship and agreed it met the needs of the resistance. Berk crawled underneath it and emerged, rolling up a tape measure.

“The incendiary mount is on the small side, but it might work,” he said. They returned to the cockpit and spent half an hour working out the starting sequence. After warming up, however, the engines refused to fire. Another half an hour in the engine room uncovered the reason.

From the top of a ladder with the flashlight, Jyra called down to Berk.

“Game over. The thrust calibrators are missing.” She shined the light on the six thick cables on opposite walls that hung uselessly where the calibrators should have been.

“Even if we found others, we don’t have the tools or machines to move some in from another ship,” Berk said as they headed for the exit. “Shame. This would have been perfect.”

They pressed on, crossing into another aisle to check on other prospects. Jyra tried to ignore her nerves. The more anxious she became, the colder the air seemed and she shivered. She thought they should have found a ship by now. Berk glanced at Jyra as she yawned.

“Told you sleep was important,” he said. Jyra suddenly crouched and pulled Berk down with her.

“Put out the light,” she whispered. Just as Berk switched it off, a beam crawled along the hull opposite them.

“Under here,” Berk said. Jyra was certain the sound of every piece of gravel they turned as they crawled into hiding would give them away. The noise of the approaching footsteps grew louder. A pair of boots marched passed them. Jyra exhaled slowly when she could no longer hear the guard.

“Let’s be quicker about this,” Berk said in a much quieter voice than he’d been using once they were standing in the aisle again. “That fellow’s got a stronger sense of duty than I imagined. The whole city’s burning and he’s still here.”

“Down the hill, let’s go,” Jyra said.

After two more ship examinations, they were still without transport. The ground had leveled and the ships at the bottom of the hill were clearly in no condition to fly.

“Give me a boost,” Jyra said.

“What for?”

“I want to get up on this ship and see if I can spot anything nearby.”

“The guard might see you,” Berk said.

“He’s going to find us soon if we don’t get out of here. If he stumbles on the pod, he’ll know for sure people are hear who shouldn’t be.”

Berk lifted Jyra onto a small stabilizer and she was able to clamber up the chilly hull of the small supply ship. She looked up the hill for the guard’s light, but saw only darkness. Jyra clicked on the flashlight and moved the beam slowly over the surrounding ships. This area looked more like a graveyard. The totaled transports weren’t just at the bottom of the hill; a freighter nearby was missing its stern. She was about to give up when her light stopped on a ship four rows over. Jyra climbed down and led the way.

It was another freighter, but in far better condition than the other one down the hill. Berk walked around it with the flashlight while Jyra waited by a crew door.

“It looks good from the outside,” Berk said as he sank to his knees and pointed the light under the ship. “Trouble is a freighter likely won’t have a—”

He stopped talking as he peered at the belly of the ship. “I don’t believe it. Someone’s customized this. It has two incendiary mounts down here!”

Once again, Berk managed to find the concealed door control hatch using his fist. The passage inside the door was wide enough for them to walk shoulder to shoulder. Berk handed Jyra the flashlight as he pushed the button to close the door. The first door they came to on the left led into the cargo bay. It was twice the size of the one in the first ship they checked.

“This will do well,” Berk said, looking through the window into the bay. “Let’s check the engine room first before we waste time in the cockpit.” They headed aft. The lenses of the emergency track lights in the floor caught the flashlight beam and cast reflections on the walls. Jyra pressed the button on the engine room door and nothing happened.

“Dead circuit,” Berk muttered. “The ship’s entrance hatch has probably got a battery backup. You should be able to slide it.”

Jyra placed her hands on the cold metal and pushed. The door began moving on its track into the wall.

She jumped as a voice burst out of the engine room.

“Converge on number nine’s position! Intruders! Repeat, intruders!”

“Been here too long to let this one go!” Berk said. “Get him in the light.” They heard hurried footsteps on steel grating. Jyra shined the light into the room and saw a pair of energy cores on the floor. She tried to get the beam on the guard, but couldn’t tell where he was. The sound of two gunshots filled the room and bullets kicked up sparks to Jyra’s left.

“On the firewall,” Berk grunted. Jyra’s knees shook as she aimed the light and caught the guard scampering down a ladder.

“Keep him in sight,” Berk said as he walked to her side. Jyra watched him draw a shotgun from inside his coat and hold it in his right hand at arm’s length.

Berk’s trigger finger contracted, the gun cracked and recoiled. Jyra directed the light at her feet. Both of them heard the guard’s body hit the floor at the base of the ladder.

Jyra bit her lip. She felt as though she had just woken up without a part of herself. She saw the barrel of the gun drop toward the floor and wished she couldn’t smell the acrid stench of the weapon.

“We have to move,” Berk said. “They’re coming for us. He replaced the gun in his coat and walked into the middle of the engine room.

“Can you bring the light?” he asked. Jyra walked to his side and they examined the cores together.

“I’m sorry,” Berk said. “It had to be done.”

Jyra pretended to understand by nodding. She decided that if they didn’t work fast now, more guards would arrive and there would be more killing.

“Check the walls,” Berk said. “No obvious damage?” Jyra guided the light around the room and didn’t see anything problematic.

“I think we’re set here,” she said. “We should make sure all the doors are sealed.”

“Agreed.”

They jogged down the passage and both headed for the door they’d entered. Berk tried to lock it, but the mechanism didn’t function.

“No power,” he said. “Go to the cockpit and fire up the main power units. Then get back here.”

Jyra dashed off with the flashlight. She ran up the passage and climbed three flights of stairs. Another door blocked her way and she had to push it open. The room on the other side certainly wasn’t the bridge. Jyra doubled back, found another passage and scaled a ladder. At last she found what she was after. She took a seat at the starboard console.

The engine room had looked similar to the first ship they explored. She thought hard about the book, recalling images of freighter controls. Power panels were usually installed on the wall. Several likely boxes were mounted nearby. She opened the covers and saw rows of switches, none of which were big enough to be the main units. Frustrated, she sat back in the pilot seat, watching the dust fly in the beam of the flashlight. Then she noticed another panel above the others.

Jyra pulled off its cover and saw five red levers. She grabbed all of them with both hands and forced them upward. Lights flickered to life around her and she heard the groan of various machines throughout the ship. She grabbed the light and rushed back the way she came, but Berk’s voice stopped her.

“I’m coming! Doors are sealed! Let’s go!”

Jyra returned to the bridge where Berk soon joined her.

“How’s it look?” he said, taking the other pilot seat.

“Hard to say,” Jyra said. “Are they out there?”

“Someone was banging on the door,” Berk said. He flipped several switches. “Okay, the cores are heating up.”

“Launch thrusters, too,” Jyra said. “We just need to get the main engines going.”

Berk looked into the sky through the steel frame that supported the reinforced glass over the bridge.

“Sooner rather than later,” he said and Jyra saw his eyes widen. She gazed up and nodded. Another dead ship was falling toward them. Even though it had hardly cleared the clouds, the massive explosions tearing through its hull were already visible. A new report flashed on Jyra’s console screen.

“Mains are ready!” she said. “Engaging launch thrusters.”

The ship shook as it lifted off. The thrusters spat gravel at the other transports parked nearby. The stern of the ship rose faster than the bow, which allowed Jyra and Berk to see the guards running up the hill.

“Back to the pod!” Berk said. They piloted the ship forward. Jyra kept the launch thrusters at full power. A mug shattered on the floor and the contents rushed toward the front of the bridge.

“Where’d that come from?” Berk said.

Jyra didn’t answer but she knew. Steam rose from the streaks of the beverage that must have belonged to the guard who lay dead in the engine room.

“Where are the landing lights?” she said. “We’ll need them in a moment.”

“Check the right side of the console,” Berk said. “I’ve got to get ready.” The ship’s forward momentum suddenly slowed.

“What’s happening?” Jyra said, hastily checking the screen for any damage reports. A door ajar warning appeared.

“Nothing. I just opened the cargo door so that’s added to the drag,” Berk said, standing up. “Get as close as you can to the other ships above where we parked. I’m going down to the pod on a rope out of the cargo door and flying back in the same door.”

“All right,” Jyra said. “Go, we’re almost there.” Berk slid on the spilled drink and his boots squeaked as he pivoted on the floor before descending the ladder. Jyra reached forward, flipped a likely switch, and the landing lights illuminated the rows of transports beneath her.

A flash overhead drew Jyra’s attention back to the sky. The wounded ship was closing in. She looked back at the shipyard and saw the cruiser tail fin ahead. She cut forward thrust and the bridge passed over the pod. She applied reverse thrust and the ship held position. Jyra rolled the transport to the left so she could see the ground. After a couple minutes, she saw a flash that had to belong to a gun and she suddenly found it hard to swallow. The lights of the pod flared in the darkness, the vehicle rose up, and headed for the ship. Another minute passed and the cargo door ajar warning disappeared from the screen.

Jyra revved the engines and the ship shot forward, leaving the shipyard and the guards behind. The doomed vessel had changed course and Jyra kept it in view. It glided toward the plains. A plume of fire jutted from the wreck and it split in half; the bow headed for the city, the stern kept a rough trajectory for the plains.

Berk returned to the bridge as the stern hit the ground in front of them, raising dirt and sparks. Jyra felt the ship shudder around her from the shockwave.

“Don’t fly over it,” Berk said.

“I won’t,” Jyra assured him. She flew around the wreck. Even as they passed, Jyra felt her mouth go dry as she saw, through the scorch marks and flames, a jagged-shaped “N” on the side of the hull. Berk noticed it, too.

“Another confirmed sighting,” he said as he took his seat and began running diagnostics. “At least we got a ship.”

“Yeah,” Jyra said absently. The mountains loomed before them and Jyra remembered the flash of gunfire before Berk flew the pod up to the ship.

“You didn’t kill another guard did you?”

“Wounded,” Berk grunted.

“With a shotgun?” Jyra said, raising her eyebrows.

“Shotgun wounds are usually serious,” Berk said. “No. Don’t you remember what I told Craig before we left?”

“You throw harder than guns can,” Jyra said.

“Punch harder than they can, too,” Berk said and raised his fist to show bruised knuckles.

Jyra noticed the wet floor under Berk and thought it was the spilled drink again until she remembered someone had fired a gun during the pod retrieval.

“Little more than a graze,” Berk admitted. “Thankfully not carrying the bullet. I hate digging those out.”

He turned so Jyra could see the hole in the sleeve of his coat and the blood around it.

“Berk! You’re crazy!” Jyra couldn’t believe he didn’t tell her at once. “That needs to be cleaned and bandaged.”

“Will do once we’re back,” Berk said. “You’ll understand if I object to using the on board aid kit. Might be…expired. Also, I’m not crazy. They called me Berk the Berserk in the hospital. Call me anything other than that or my real name, we might have a problem.”

Jyra was sure the way Berk clenched his bruised fist as he spoke was no coincidence. He sat up and began studying an overview of the ship’s information.

“This ship’s registered name is Mastranada. What do you think?”

“Sounds good,” Jyra said. “What do you think?”

Berk, who had pulled his flask free, was preoccupied with a long swig and didn’t answer.

Part IV: Attack on Horbson

Jyra and Craig took a seat at the table, which was now covered by a map.

“You’re looking at a settlement to the northeast of here,” Berk said. “It’s called Horbson, about thirty miles away.”

“It’s been an essential and convenient source for us,” Shandra said. “It’s a perfectly functional city on it’s own, but has some vulnerabilities.”

“The police aren’t very organized. In fact, it’s challenging for them to form a basic perimeter,” Berk said. “Even after one patrol had me nearly cornered in a food storehouse, other units failed to cover all the exits. I made it out and escaped with the goods.”

“How long have you been operating from here?” Jyra said.

“About eight months,” Shandra said. “We need to work faster, though. Each mission into Horbson is another risk. Just because the authorities haven’t followed us back here yet doesn’t mean they won’t. But we’ve got to eat and food supplies are getting low. Let’s go over the food theft first. Then we’ll start talking about hitting the shipyard.”

“Why are you sending us on the food mission? We don’t know anything about the town,” Craig said.

“Exactly,” Berk said. “Which means no officer has seen you there, nor anyone else, so you can’t be identified.”

“Shouldn’t our anonymity be preserved for the ship mission?” Jyra said.

“The ship mission will take all of us,” Shandra said, exhaling heavily through her nose. “When did you two become so doubtful?”

“I want to make sure we’re thinking everything through,” Craig said.

“That’s been seen to,” Shandra said. “So here’s what you do.”

She explained the plan with constant input from Berk.

“This market will receive a shipment in about six hours,” Shandra said.

“It’ll be dark by then,” Berk added with an assuring nod.

Leonick only stared and took sips of Nova from a flask that, as far as Jyra could tell, had materialized in his hand.

After reviewing the location of the market’s loading dock, Shandra moved onto describing the vehicle.

“It’s a standard mid-range pod. We’ll go see it in a moment.”

“Either of you ever flown one?” Berk asked. He leaned forward and through the shaggy hair about his face, Jyra noticed his eyes gleamed with a serious gaze.

 She shook her head.

“I’ve flown a pod before,” Craig said, also put off by the sudden shift in Berk’s demeanor.

“I’ve hit people before,” Berk growled. In a pleading tone he added, “Shan, you’ve got to let me fly.”

“Macnelia wants the two of them to go,” Shandra hissed. “The pod belonged to Berk before he donated it to our cause. Instinctive protection of such a machine dies hard.”

“I want as much time as possible to go over the pod with each of them,” Berk said, sitting back with a scowl.

“It’s fine if you want to just show Craig,” Jyra said. “He’d be better at it—”

“Not if he’s been shot,” Berk said. “I don’t mean to say that will happen, but if it does, it’s up to you to get him back here.”

Jyra gulped.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Craig said, keen to divert the conversation away from even a hypothetical gunshot wound. “I mean, we’re not supposed to grab random boxes, are we?”

“They should be labeled,” Shandra said. “A couple floodlights above the dock should make them easy to read. Of course, they’ll also make you more visible.”

“Will we be armed?” Jyra said.

“You’ll each have a gun, but hopefully you won’t have to use them. Remember, you’re dealing with innocent people,” Shandra said. “No kill shots.”

Jyra wasn’t sure she could hit any target with a gun; she’d never even held a firearm. She was so preoccupied thinking about the consequences of possessing such a weapon, it took the sounds of chairs scraping back from the table and the map rolling up to bring her attention back to the cavern.

“Berk will show you the pod,” Shandra said.

Jyra and Craig followed Berk toward a passage across the cavern. Jyra watched Shandra walk over and take a seat next to Neeka. The two of them began talking in hushed voices. Soon, the cavern disappeared around a sharp curve in the corridor as the newcomers trailed after Berk farther into the mountain.

*

The passage was dimmer than the first. Lights were spaced at greater intervals. Some flickered as the trio passed them. Jyra ran her fingers along the rough, damp walls. She remembered the rocks on Tyrorken. She and Dario discovered a pile of gritty stones near a pit mine when they were children. They made a game of seeing who could throw the farthest. Even at the narrowest point of the pit, none of their rocks made it even halfway to the opposite side. They stopped when Jyra’s coughing fits from the bad air forced them to return home.

Jyra stumbled on the uneven ground and Dario’s smile as he lobbed a dirty stone vanished from her mind. The passage floor had become even steeper.

“Might want to use your hands from here,” Berk said over his shoulder. Jyra watched as he spread his arms to brace his body. The sleeves of his jacket pulled back to reveal his wrists. Though she couldn’t see it, Jyra thought of his tattoo and before she considered it, she blurted the question.

“What's the tattoo on your wrist?”

Berk stopped and fumbled in his jacket with one hand. He took a swig of whiskey and then continued on.

“From a hospital on Silanpre where I’m from,” he grunted. “If you make it back, maybe I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

None of them spoke again until they came to a fork in the passage.

“This way,” Berk said, taking the right corridor. “Nearly there.”

Jyra’s feet were clammy and cold, but her face was hot from the effort of keeping herself upright while navigating the steep path.

After another ten minutes, Jyra heard a loud snap and light spilled into the passage ahead of Berk—he had thrown a switch on the wall. The trio stepped into a cavern that was about the size of the one with the fire pit.

The pod was parked in the middle of the room. The twin engines faced the passage.

“Take a look at her,” Berk said. “I’m going to check outside. Make sure a test run is all right.”

He strode across the cavern and up the ramp of granite. Jyra followed him to the base of the ramp. Instead of the sky, she looked up to see a sheet of ice hanging over the opening. Berk stepped out of sight between the crest of the ramp and the overhead glacier that shielded the cavern from view.

She turned her attention to the pod. Craig was already pacing around it, eyeing the small cockpit with two seats arranged side by side. The main body was rather thin. A rack took up most of the space behind the enclosed cockpit. The engines sat just aft of the rack. The nose swept off of the cockpit and finished in a fine point. Three retractable legs held the pod upright. The dull gray cowling on the machine reflected the lights on the cavern ceiling.

Jyra stared into the cockpit and the diagrams from the book Dario gave her surfaced in her mind. Toward the front of the book, she remembered the simpler flying machines.

Footsteps announced Berk’s return. Jyra broke her gaze with the cockpit.

“Is this a custom build?”

“Did most it myself,” Berk said.

“The controls are from a Class B stunt flyer, right?”

Both Craig and Berk seemed taken aback, but Berk nodded.

“Correct, I salvaged nearly the entire console from a wreckage yard. Lots of stunt pilots on Silanpre. I had to patch the right side back together.”

Jyra had already noticed the fine welded line that snaked evenly between the controls on her side of the pod.

“I think you and I should take her out first,” Berk said, walking up to Jyra.

“Yeah,” Craig said. “I was only going to ask where the ropes for the rack were stored.”

“Compartment on the side there,” Berk said, pointing at a hatch as he twisted the release lever that allowed the cockpit enclosure to swing open.

Jyra wasn’t sure where her confidence came from, but she caught her reflection in the clear cockpit dome. The Mourning Mark remained smudged on her forehead. She retied her hair and stepped into the cockpit, settling in the pilot’s seat. She heard her words from the night before, demanding action. She felt like she knew this cockpit, this machine, and all about how it worked. Her feet found the rudder pedals. Her nerves settled, replacing the feelings of recklessness and anger from the previous night. Jyra heard Berk talking to Craig, but didn’t understand a word he said.

Berk took the empty seat and pulled the dome over the cockpit. It latched with a loud click.

“He’s clear,” Berk said. “You know how to start her?”

His voice sounded distant, like he was speaking to her through the cockpit dome from outside. Jyra nodded and she reached down near her knee and pressed the starter. One click and then another echoed through the body of the pod and Jyra knew the engines were on standby. Then a roar filled the cavern. She heard the whirring of the motors over the bellowing engines that angled the dynamos to send the pod up the ramp. She eased back the lever with her left hand to retract the legs. Then she increased the engine power and they crept out of the cavern.  At the top of the ramp, she reduced thrust and the pod dropped neatly down a steep slope. Then Jyra gunned the engines and they burst out into a long valley, surrounded by mountains.

“Why didn’t you want to fly?” Berk hollered over the noise. “I’ve never seen anyone take to her so fast!”

Jyra stepped on the left pedal and the pod curved in that direction. The sheer cliffs of the mountains rushed at her, but she steered with ease and kept her hand on the engine power regulators.

“Let’s head back,” Berk said. “Give Craig a chance, but I already know who I want flying on this mission.”

In the back of her mind, Jyra knew getting back into the cavern would be tricky, but her body didn’t seem to listen. The pod soared up to the top of the ramp and glided forward, missing the glacier and the top of the ramp. Jyra rotated the machine and dropped the legs before landing.

“I guess I need to take her out for a flight in case you get shot,” Craig told Jyra.

“Shandra should be down with supplies soon,” Berk told Jyra. “Head up the passage a bit. You don’t want to be in here when we take off.”

Jyra covered her ears as the pod roared off. She wasn’t sure what to make of her skill at the controls. The seriousness of her goals, the reasons she was on Drometica in the first place, tempered the lightness in her chest and the exhilaration from flying.

Before the pod returned, she heard scuffling in the passage and Shandra and Neeka appeared carrying items for the mission. Even in the dim light of the passage, Jyra saw the shining barrels of the guns, emerging from their holsters. The sight erased all thoughts of the pod and the mission itself.

“You all right?” Shandra said.

“Yeah,” Jyra said.

“No you’re not,” Neeka said. “None of us are all right. You’ll learn to forget it, though.”

“I’m sorry about Derek,” Jyra said.

“We all are,” Shandra said. Jyra wanted to look Neeka in the eyes, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“He’s more than new motivation,” Neeka said and Jyra could tell by her voice that she was fighting to keep a level tone. “He’s more than that to me.”

“I know,” Jyra said. The roar of the pod ended the conversation and as the noise began to fade, the women entered the cavern.

Craig and Jyra were each given a gun. Jyra strapped the holster belt around her hips, hoping the firearm would never leave its snug position next to her left thigh. As though she could read her mind, Shandra said, “you’ll be firing it when we take on TF.”

Jyra didn’t respond but accepted the rolled up map of Horbson. They were given a bag that contained a couple of sandwiches and a large canteen of water.

“Here’re a couple flashlights,” Neeka said, pulling them from the deep thigh pockets of her trousers.

“Make sure you don’t try and take too much stuff,” Berk said. “She won’t fly with too much of a load. You probably can’t tie that much stuff on anyway. As long as you’re doing everything right, do everything as fast as you can, too.”

Jyra realized she expected to see him take a sip of whiskey, but his hands remained at his sides.

“Head down the valley and you’ll almost be able to see Horbson once you’re clear of the foothills,” Shandra said.

“It’s probably getting dark out there,” Neeka said.

“Are you suggesting we go?” Craig said.

“We aren’t the subtle type,” Berk said. “Go get us some food so we can make the push to get out of here.”

Jyra and Craig climbed into the cockpit and stowed their supplies behind the seats. They waved at the others as they retreated up the passage.

“I can’t quite believe they’re trusting us do this,” Craig said.

“Macnelia’s got an interesting way of building trust,” Jyra said, but her mind was already clearing as she leaned down to start the pod. Moments later, they burst into the darkening valley. Jyra stepped on the right pedal and the pod careened toward the plains beyond the foothills.

“Everyone back there’s a little strange,” Craig said once they left the mountains. “Still, it sounds like we’re heading right back where we came from.”

“Which makes me wonder why Macnelia let Derek come back so soon,” Jyra said, as she pressed on the left pedal. “If they’re heading to Tyrorken anyway, why go to the trouble of getting you and I here?”

“I don’t know what TF planned to do with you, but we had to make sure you were beyond their reach,” Craig said. “As I said before we left, you might have been sent into a mine already. As for Derek, I don’t know exactly how he kept TF from knowing about his activity with the resistance. I think he convinced them he was running prospecting missions to Drometica, which he could do in addition to checking in with the resistance.”

“When Derek delivered the letter to me, he made it sound like he worked on the rigs with Dario,” Jyra said. “He said his team was taking the day off to mourn.” 

“Could be true.”

“Derek was in charge of a team of workers and ran prospecting missions? That’s an awful lot for one person to manage.”

“I don’t know anymore than you do,” Craig said. “Until we rescue Derek, we won’t really know.”

Jyra took the hint that he didn’t want to discuss uncertainties. Instead, she asked Craig something she’d been wondering about from when she met him in his living room the night of their departure from Tyrorken.

“Why did you make me promise not to tell anyone all the stuff you told me about the resistance? We were about to leave the only planet and people I’ve ever known.”

“Secrecy,” Craig said after a brief pause. “When I made that request, we were still in a dangerous position. Had you been captured when we took off, I had done all I could to make sure you didn’t reveal any sensitive information to the enemy.”

Jyra had a sudden vision of sitting in an interrogation room, fighting to withhold what she knew. The glare of the lights bore into her eyes and anonymous agents screamed questions at her. She shook herself, trying to jostle the scene from her mind.

The clouds in the mountains followed the pod toward Horbson. An unbroken mat of gray blocked the stars. The lights of the city were visible in front of the hills on the horizon.

“Might want to drop a little lower,” Craig advised. From this distance, they could see the lights of only two vessels in the air near Horbson. The police could lock onto the pod easily, especially without other flying vehicles to interfere with tracking systems.

“A custom build like this won’t have an ID chip,” Jyra said.

“They’ve been using it for supply runs since they’ve been here,” Craig said. “I’m sure the police can track us even if we don’t have a chip. They can still see us.”

“I’m surprised they’ve managed so many getaways,” Jyra said as they cruised lower. She could see the black outlines of boulders and other features on the ground now. “How did the police manage to lose them over plains this size?”

By the time they reached the outskirts of Horbson, the two airborne vehicles had disappeared. Jyra slowed to a reasonable speed and glided by row after row of boarded-up windows. The pod flew over multiple broken streetlights. The first working one illuminated an unpaved road and someone lying facedown at the base of the pole.

“I don’t think I’ll eat the sort of food we’ll be getting from a place like this,” Craig said.

“Can you find where we are on the map?” Jyra said. Craig unfolded the map and crumpled the sides down so it would fit in the cramped cockpit.

“Let’s see we came in from the northeast,” Craig said, tracing a finger in from the plains. “Do you see an opera house?”

“Do you see an opera house or anything like one around here?” Jyra snapped.

“Just jump a little above the buildings so we can check.”

Jyra guided the pod upward. About eight blocks straight ahead they saw, through the gloom, a dome jutting above the other broken buildings. As they drew near, it was obvious the opera house was as decrepit as the rest of the neighborhood. Pieces of the dome had caved in and large timbers and buttresses had broken loose and fallen on the dirt roads below.

“Please tell me the market is far from here,” Jyra said dropping the pod below the rooflines. Craig searched the map, crumpling it more as he went.

“It is,” he said with relief. “Head southwest. It’s more central than I thought.” Jyra cruised through the streets and the buildings began to change. Fresh paint and flashing billboards replaced cracking walls and blocked windows. The streetlights were all on and although the roads were now paved, they were still empty.

“What’s that smell?” Craig said. Jyra had already noticed the odd acrid aroma. Her immediate thought was something happened to the pod. Maybe a motor overheated or a circuit shorted? No warning lights appeared before her and the pod sailed onward with no apparent trouble.

As they traveled farther into the city, they could see more of the skyline, which was nearly obscured in a thick haze.

“We’re almost there,” Craig confirmed with a quick glance at the map. He and Jyra could hardly take their eyes off the city. Both of them could tell something wasn’t right, but like Jyra’s thought that something might wrong with the pod, they chose to deny the feeling.

“What’s all over the street?” Craig said suddenly. White sheets of paper covered the pavement. The moment Craig spoke, Jyra realized the haze was actually smoke. They flew another few blocks and the pristine buildings were burning or leveled. Bodies lay in the street and people were running frantically through rubble, floods from ruptured water mains, and leaping flames.

“Head right!” Craig shouted. Jyra jammed the pedal and the pod swung down another street.

“Two more blocks!”

“You’re crazy!” Jyra yelled. “We can’t land here! This place had just been bombed!”

“You’ve got a lot to learn about completing a mission,” Craig said. “Now land! There’s a fenced lot right there!”

Seething, Jyra lowered the legs and brought the pod down, landing harder than she intended. Craig unlatched the cockpit and pushed it up. He sprang onto the pavement with his gun and flashlight already clutched in his hand.

“What are you doing?” Jyra said. With the cockpit open, the din of the crisis unfolding beyond the lot couldn’t be ignored.

“The mission,” Craig said, stalking over to the fence. Jyra followed him.

“Put the gun away,” she said.

“Jyra, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

“We never did!”

“This is an outstanding situation. I’m not going to shoot anyone, but we have a job to do. Clearly, we’re going to need another plan than stealing a delivery. I’ve never been here before, but I can guarantee that shipment won’t come in tonight.”

“So why don’t we just walk into the store and take what we need?” Jyra said, scowling at the gun in Craig’s hand.

“That’s the new plan,” Craig said. “But we don’t know what’s in there, which is why we’ve got weapons. That market could hold a couple hundred people. They might have sought shelter in there during an attack. Let’s move!”

Craig pushed through the gate and crept up behind the empty loading dock. Jyra followed with her flashlight in hand. Her gun remained holstered at her hip. An explosion echoed across the city as Craig and Jyra scrambled onto the dock.

“Against the wall, quick!” Craig whispered. As they shrank into the shadows, two men ran by on the street, each armed with a rifle.

The large cargo door wouldn’t open, but the latch on the nearby the conventional door retracted when Jyra tried the knob. Just before they walked inside, the outdoor lighting on the block lost power. Had it not been for their flashlights, Jyra wouldn’t have been able distinguish inside from outside—both were equally dark.

The echo of their footsteps told them they were in an enclosed room. Jyra half expected Craig to tell her to quiet the noise of her thumping heart. She had never thought about being afraid of the dark and the flashlights provided limited comfort in the eerie stockroom. One of their beams caught a long light fixture swinging on its cord; they could see mounts where it had been attached to the ceiling.

“A…bomb blast might have knocked it loose,” Craig said. After a couple tense minutes, they found a few boxes of canned goods stacked on a hand truck.

“Let’s make a pile of things to take,” Jyra suggested.

Another box contained a few bagged loaves of bread. Craig discovered a carton of juice at the same time Jyra found several stacks of boxes that had been knocked over. A few eggs were broken on the floor. She tried to keep her voice from shaking as she spoke.

“We’re not the first ones here.”

“Keep looking,” Craig said as though he hadn’t heard her. “We’ll load up and get out of here soon.”

Something crashed on the other side of the stockroom. Jyra yelped and fumbled for her gun.

“Who’s there?” Craig said. He tried to make his voice sound deeper, but failed to quell the quivering tone.

A man stumbled out of the darkness. Streaks of dried blood ran from his bald scalp down his cheek.

“Stay where you are!” Craig warned, raising his gun.

“I’m not afraid of you,” the man said. Jyra glanced at Craig, whose arms were shaking. She wished Berk had come on the mission.

“What happened to the city?” Jyra said.

“Nilcyns hit us,” the man said, leaning back on a crate that creaked as it took his weight. “Lower your gun, boy.”

Sweat reflected on Craig’s forehead beneath his brown bangs. He lowered the gun to his stomach, but kept it aimed at the man.

“Nilcyns?” Jyra said. “What are those?”

“Trouble’s what they are,” the man said. “You don’t find interplanetary militias in this galaxy. Maybe on individual planets, but not between them. If you combine all the ships in this system, you get a lot of firepower, probably enough to tear the galaxy a new black hole.”

The man laughed but his guffaws became coughs. Jyra was sure the hand he’d used to cover his mouth had fresh blood on it when he returned it to his knee.

“Thing is, any alliance of ships, any formation flying in open space is considered hostile. There’s an unwritten rule in the galaxy that if surrounding ships witness that kind of unity, they can blast the offenders into dust. ‘Course, if a few ships team up to do that, the moment they neutralize a threat, they’d best go their separate ways. Fast.”

“I think we should probably take that advice right now,” Craig interrupted.

“If you’re ever thinking of going into space again,” the man said. “You’ll want to watch out for the Nilcyns. They are the only renegade group that’s managed to remain over time. A battle here, a battle there, their ships are destroyed and people think they’re gone. Like disease, though, they keep coming back. So does the proof. Right now, ships from this city are fighting the Nilcyns up in space. The carcasses of ships will come back to the ground and some will be marked with the Nilcyn’s insignia.”

“What’s it look like?” Jyra asked.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” the man said. He clapped his hands; the noise made Craig and Jyra jump. “Now, before the defeated wrecks come thundering down around us, how about if you help a dying man get out of here?”

“Sir, I’m sorry but we’ve got to be going,” Craig said, bending down to pick up another box.

A loud, dry click made Jyra jump again. The man had whipped out a revolver and aimed it at Craig.

“You can go, but you need to take me with you,” he snarled. “I’m not going to die in the back of a grocery store!”

“It’s hard to feel generous toward someone who’s pointing a gun at me,” Craig said.

“If you’d kept yours on me, you wouldn’t be in this mess. But when it came down to it, you probably wouldn’t have shot me anyway.”

The man stood up and walked toward Craig, keeping the revolver on target. “You’re not the type who shoots and moves on. You agonize over the decision. It haunts you, does it not? You’ll carry all the pain of your days till the last one. ”

 The flare of the light distracted the man just enough for him to turn and catch the butt of Jyra’s flashlight in his forehead. He groaned as he crumpled, his weapon clattering to concrete before him.

Craig pivoted his light to Jyra, who stood unsteadily on the spot, her arm still extended.

“Nice throw,” Craig said, kicking the man’s weapon across the room and under a set of shelves. He directed his light at the man’s body and they saw his dark shirt had a large fresh bloodstain on it. “Looked like he was dying, after all,” Craig said. He picked up Jyra’s light and clicked the button. “I think you broke it.”

“I’m sure they’ll forgive me. Let’s get out of here.”

They stacked their boxes on the hand truck and wheeled them outside. The light from distant explosions reflected off tall buildings nearby, but it was too dark to even think of loading cargo on the pod.

“Let’s get everything out of there first and stack it in the lot,” Craig said. “If anyone comes along, we can barricade the gate.”

They made three more trips with the hand truck. In the rope compartment Berk had indicated on the pod, Jyra found a short cord, which she lashed around the gate latch, while Craig began untangling the thicker ropes.

“Little boxes on first so the big ones hold them on the rack,” Craig said when Jyra returned from tying the gate closed. They stacked the boxes neatly, but their nerves and the semidarkness interfered. Twice they had to pull a large container from the bottom of the pile, while keeping the unstable load upright until they could rebuild the base.

Once the cargo was on the pod, Craig and Jyra stood on opposite sides of the load and threw ropes over the boxes, cinching them to the rack. A sudden blast a few blocks away shook dust loose from the buildings across the street and caused the fence around them to rattle.

“Fire it up!” Craig shouted. “Time to go!”

Jyra leapt into the cockpit and Craig yanked on the ropes a final time, triple-checking their strength. He clambered into his seat and prepared to pull the enclosure in place. He hesitated as another noise climbed above the peripheral chaos. A small skiff shot overhead and the police markings on it were unmistakable. Craig slammed the enclosure and locked it. Jyra angled the engines, fired them and the pod burst from the ground. Craig looked to the right, the direction of the last explosion. A large fire crackled in the middle of the street.

“What is that?” Jyra cried, staring at the sky.

Craig followed her gaze. The gray clouds were no longer invisible in the night. Something lit them from the behind and the source grew brighter. Transfixed, Craig and Jyra watched the enormous mystery behind the clouds. They were returned to reality by a flash of light close at hand and an amplified voice.

“Unknown transport pod, you are ordered to land immediately and prepare to be searched.”

The police patrol that had flown over them had a spotlight trained on the cargo behind the cockpit.

“What’s to search?” Craig said with a grim smile. “It’s obvious what we’ve got.”

“The man was right,” Jyra breathed. “It’s a toasted ship.”

Craig, already preoccupied with the law upon them, took a few moments to redirect his gaze. Sure enough, the clouds were still lit up, but the source was no longer a mystery. An enormous ship was tumbling through them. The battered hull glowed a fierce orange from the stress of reentry into the atmosphere.

“Comply with orders or we will shoot you down!” the amplified voice said. Berk had been right about the police and their ineptitude; the officers in the skiff hadn’t even seen the remains of a battleship hurtling toward them.

“It’s breaking up,” Jyra said.

“We should move,” Craig said.

Jyra gunned the engines and the pod blasted forward before the officers could react.

“Now they’re chasing us!” Craig said.

“It’s okay,” Jyra said, “We can outrun them.” She couldn’t help noticing, though, that the pod was not as fast as before.

“The load’s slowing us down,” Craig said. “The police are on our tail! Get us down into the streets!”

Jyra steered the pod into a dive, but something flashed by the window and distracted her.

“Pull up!” Craig yelped. Jyra lifted the nose of the pod up just before she buried it in the pavement.

“What was that?” she said.

“What was what?”

Something else fell on Craig’s side of the cockpit and stuck in the road. He identified it before Jyra launched the pod forward to escape the police.

“It’s debris from the falling ship!” Craig said. “Get above the buildings and get us out of here!”

“The cops will get us then!”

“We’ll be crushed by the ship otherwise! Go! Go!”

Craig was right. The ship fell with such speed the air pressure on the ground beneath it was increasing. Jyra took the pod above the buildings in time to see a massive engine from the doomed giant pulverize the police skiff behind them.

“No one in pursuit!” she said. “Let’s get back to the mountain!”

They flew over the plains, staring at the destruction of Horbson. The crippled battleship landed in the middle of the city, shooting a column of white flame and dust into the air. As a spectacle, Jyra would have thought it a beautiful sight, but the death and pain it must have caused weighed on her conscience.

“I suppose it’s good we’re planning to leave soon,” Craig said.

“Unless all the ships have been destroyed,” Jyra said, her spirits falling further at the thought.

Jyra had always marveled that when traveling some place for the first time, the return journey never seemed to last as long. The trip back to the mountain was no exception. She guided the pod easily back into the cavern and parked it. The moment they opened the cockpit dome, they heard voices. Craig and Jyra jumped free of the pod and saw Berk, Shandra, Neeka, and, surprisingly, both Leonick and Macnelia.

“I got the radar working moments after you left,” Neeka said. “What’s happening over there?”

“It sounds like the Nilcyns are the attackers,” Craig said. “A huge battleship crashed into the middle of the city when we were flying home.”

“How do you know it was the Nilcyns?” Macnelia said.

“We met a man at the market. He told us that,” Jyra said.

“He told you the Nilcyns were attacking Horbson?” Macnelia said. Jyra sensed Macnelia didn’t believe her.

“He didn’t know what other force in the galaxy could be capable of such destruction,” Jyra said.

“I suppose we’ll see,” Macnelia said. “It’s a mystery how the Nilcyns continue to survive. Countless others have attempted to copy them, but they all meet their end by the cannons of flash alliances.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’ll see?’” Neeka said.

“Well, our plans seemed straightforward. First we needed food for the journey to Tyrorken, and now we need a transport to get there. We must go to Horbson, procure a functional ship, fly it back here, and load up all the provisions we can take.”

“How many people are going to get the ship?” Jyra asked.

“Not all of us now,” Shandra said. “Most people over there have other things to worry about besides ship thieves, especially if that’s a Nilcyn attack. Berk and Jyra, how about you?”

“Why me?” Jyra said automatically.

“The size of the ship we want will likely require two pilots to fly it, especially so close to a planet’s surface,” Macnelia said. “It’s not like the rest of us will be sitting around waiting for you to get back. We’ve all got a lot of work ahead of us so let’s get to it.”

Leonick was already making his way up the passage. Macnelia, Neeka, and Shandra followed. As Berk and Jyra headed back toward the pod, Craig came jogging up behind them.

“I just want to grab my sandwich and some water,” he said.

“I forgot about that,” Jyra said. “Now I want mine.”

They dug them out from behind the seat. Berk walked around his pod, inspecting it as well as the cargo. “Once you two have finished eating and drinking, you can help me unload the boxes.”

Craig and Jyra ate quickly, but Berk already had half the load on the cavern floor. They finished the rest of the lifting and stacking.

“Where’s the other flashlight?” Berk said. He’d started cleaning out the cockpit.

“I threw it at the man who told us about the Nilcyns,” Jyra said sheepishly. “He had Craig at gunpoint.”

“Got confused?” Berk said. “That thing throws harder than you can.” He pointed at the gun at her hip. Craig looked at his own weapon and began loosening the belt.

“I suppose you’ll want this?” he said.

“No, I’m fine,” Berk grunted. He threw back his head and emptied his flask into his mouth. “I can throw harder than those things.”

They all laughed and Craig finished taking the holster off and held it out.

“No, seriously, I’m all right,” Berk said. “Keep it for now.”

“See you soon,” Jyra said.

“Good flying,” Craig replied. “And mission accomplished.” He leaned forward and pulled Jyra into a one-armed hug and whispered, “you better come back.”

“I will,” she said, feeling a familiar sense of denial. “I wouldn’t want to miss going back to the home world.”

“Let’s go before I crack open my next flask!” Berk said. Craig and Jyra turned and saw Berk already seated in the pilot’s seat. Jyra gave Craig’s arm a squeeze before jogging to the pod and jumping into the seat. Craig waved and retreated into the passage as the engines began to roar. Berk’s massive hands glided over the console, tapping and pulling the necessary controls. He brought the pod smoothly out of the cavern and into the dark valley. By the glow of the instrument panel, Jyra caught sight of his bare wrists and she remembered.

“I made it back. You have to tell me about your tattoo.”

“I reckon I do,” Berk said.