“City D is under control,” Viveri reported to Drides in a stoic tone. “They put up a fight, despite our size.”

  Drides sighed. “Good for you. I’m sure Lontonkon is happy. I’m sorry I couldn’t care less myself. My mind’s been elsewhere recently.”

  It was a typical gloomy early morning at the fortress surrounded by the hard, gray, cold rain that protected it. Drides sat on the throne, with Rayna a few feet off to his side, and looked over his last two companions.

  “And… where has your mind been?” Trinqit questioned.

  “Obviously, we’re going to have to do some recruiting, Jenera. If we get a jump on reforming the pretorians now, we won’t have to listen to Lontonkon’s personal suggestions. We can take this opportunity to shape the pretorian league into something loyal to us, not him. No appointments from the king. No votes from the senate.”

  “But Drides… It’s customary to have any deceased pretorians memorialized before new ones are appointed.”

  “That’s right,” Viveri added. “So far, Breen, Kamsa, and Palar have yet to be honored for their service to—”

  “I never cared about them. Breen was probably dying, Palar’s lust for power would’ve eventually driven him to try and kill me to take my place, and Kamsa was part of a sick experiment I never condoned. Aside from all of that, we are in extraordinary times. History will see our fast-tracking of new pretorians as wise. Jenera, do you have any suggestions?”

  “Me, sir? You… want to hear about my choices?”

  “Do I have to repeat myself?”

  “Well… there’s always Phisa Camryde of the League of Flame. I know she’s young, but she’s been eyeing a spot with us for years now.”

  “That crazy teenager with the rocket scythe? Of all the people…” Viveri muttered. “Look, Drides, what we really need is a solar on our team so that we can counter Simon. That boy’s definitely capable of becoming a threat. Kae Anneise may be swayed to join us and is popular in the security council. We could use her knowledge as a veteran officer of the Guard.”

  “We could also use a watairre to replace our little sweetheart.”

  “Trinqit, I really wish that you’d stop talking about her like that.”

  “Yeah? Get over it, bumpkin-bread. Get over her—it’s pathetic. She never felt a hint of love in her heart, for you or anyone else. She was a soulless clone; not even human.”

  “Damn it, shut up! She meant a lot to me! You can’t understand, maybe because you’re a cold-hearted witch who has never loved anyone!”

  “Enough,” Drides said sharply. “Trinqit, shut up about Kamsa. And Viveri, you need to get out of this ‘funk’ you’re in. If you miss Kamsa so much, then go find Nish and pick up another just like her. Take her wherever you go for all I care. Just don’t let this meaningless attachment get in the way of your performance as a pretorian.”

  “I just want to know the truth about what happened that day,” Viveri replied calmly. “Trinqit, if you’d just tell me the truth for once…”

  “Fine. You really want to know what happened? Well, here you go,” Trinqit said angrily. “Little Kamsa was tearing apart our army, fighting alongside Garder. There they were, butchering us gleefully. I stopped the massacre by hitting her with two vector beams. She died in Garder’s arms a minute later. Oh, yes, it was all so very romantic.”

  “You told me you killed her instantly… that there was no pain…”

  Trinqit looked over at Drides, and then back to Viveri. “Oh, sure, I could’ve done that, but I really wanted to trigger an emotional response from her ‘brother.’ I don’t make any unneeded effort to hide the fact that I like to see people realize they’re dying. And in the end, we learned something very important about Garder. Now we know that he and Milla are all that is left of Caeden, and it looks like they can even access his alchemagi reserves. So, your precious Kamsa served some use in the end, right?”

  “You sadist. You let Kamsa suffer. You exploited a fellow pretorian… my friend…”

  “God sake. You sound like a whiney child.”

  “Look, I see it now. You both… You’re in something together. I didn’t join the pretorians to be some maniac with twisted plans. I’m not like the both of you. Neither was Breen… or Kamsa. I don’t belong here.”

  “Relax,” Drides said. “It’s true that Trinqit has been more in the loop than you have, but you have no reason to leave. If you shut up, I’ll tell you everything. You’ll realize that my plans are not twisted in any sense.”

  “Right. No one ever believes that what they’re doing is wrong.”

  “Aw, look what we have here,” Trinqit said snidely. “A self-righteous crusader, out to help the poor and the forgotten. The world has enough people like that, Viveri. Don’t go blowing your chance to be in a position where you can make a real difference.”

  “I just led an attack on an entire Aurrian City… Hundreds of thousands of people could be injured or dead because of me.”

  “And that’s the fault of the rebels. You were only responding as you should. In this war, every drop of blood spilled is on their hands.”

  “And you call me self-righteous. I’m not saying that the rebels are justified or that I’d help them, but what the two of you are scheming… I can tell that it’d only bring further destruction. This is Lontonkon’s fight. You’re just… exploiting the mayhem, using it for your own gains.”

  “Why, Viveri, all this time I thought you were a thoughtless idiot who either couldn’t figure such things out or simply didn’t care.”

  “This argument is pointless,” Drides said. “Viveri, if you want to prove your stupidity and leave, then by all means, go ahead. I won’t give it a second thought. You’ll be replaced and forgotten within the week.”

  “Good, since I’m afraid I can no longer serve your cause. Whatever it might be, I know that it goes against all Aurra. I can’t be a part of that.”

  “Very well.” Drides breathed deeply. “Obviously, your faith in the pretorians and a brighter era in Aurra has been waning these past months, and now it has all culminated into a grand act of cowardice. Kendel Viveri, I hereby exile you from the Pretorian Order. Normally, I’d just tell you to leave and never return. But as we’re in wartime and your position suggests you might give aid to the enemy, I’m ‘afraid’ that you are now our enemy.”

  “What? What the hell’s wrong with you? You can’t…”

  “Trinqit, please execute Viveri immediately.”

  She smiled. “Gladly. Can’t say I haven’t looked forward to it.”

  Viveri turned and took off towards the fibrocators. Trinqit, with a certain degree of pleasure, began firing off vector lines towards and around him. At first, she missed on purpose to toy with him. But as he got closer to the door, she began aiming for him directly. Lines were soon shooting off everywhere, and Viveri had to slow to a crawling pace as he spent his energy avoiding each atomized line that came his way.

  They soon started biting at him and leaving behind painful, deep scars. He took out his sword, desperate for any sort of possible defense, only to have it cut in half. Falling into a frenzy, he rushed towards the door, stumbling as he just barely dodged the lines converging around him.

  “Ha ha! Run! You’ll be sliced to bits if you don’t keep moving!”

  “Jenera, you’ll pay for this! I swear it! You can’t treat people like this! It’s inhuman! You damn sadistic harridan!”

  “Ah, well, ‘inhuman’ gets tossed around so easily, don’t you think?”

  “I’m… I’m not going to let someone like you kill me…”

  “I’m not looking for permission. Now be a good boy and let me cut off that ugly head of yours!”

  The lines swirling around Viveri froze in place for a second, and then formed into a tight vortex that surrounded him. Viveri converted his body into a bolt of lightning and fired himself straight through one of the thousands of tiny openings—just a moment before the vortex slammed shut. He hurriedly threw himself into the fibrocator room and leapt into one of the devices before Trinqit could target him again.

  “Oh, he got away…” she grumbled.

  “Because you play around too much with your opponents, Jenera. Why must you always torment them first?”

  “What’s the point of a fight if you don’t give the enemy something to remember? Kill them outright in the first second, and they won’t even realize what happened—and that makes the fight pointless! It’s all about scarring them for a few lifetimes, making your face one not to forget.”

  Drides shook his head in disappointment.

  “Anyway, where was our fibrocator set? What was its destination?”

  Drides realized it as he answered, “There wasn’t one…”

  “So… what’s that mean? His destination was random, right? Ha… so he could’ve warped inside of a mountain, or deep under the ocean. Heh. A fitting, I suppose kind of funny end to the imbecile of the group. Well, I have to admit that I might miss him a little, but no big loss, right Drides?”

  “Just shut up. Lontonkon is coming in a few hours. I expect you to tell him in detail what just happened.”

  “Y-yes… of course.”

  “Now leave us. I have to talk to Rayna for a few minutes.”

  Trinqit promptly left the room, leaving Drides and Rayna alone. She was still dressed in her new Aurrian clothes and had become complacent and accepting of her “imprisonment,” although she still couldn’t figure out why Drides was being so nice to her.

  “I don’t understand why Mr. Viveri just did that…” she said. “He just betrayed you, right? Right in front of you. If I were him, I would’ve gone out on a mission or something and not return.”

  “He was never the smart one,” he said with a small smile. “Rayna, I wanted to talk about a few things… You’re not going to like what I have to tell you, but I believe you need to learn the truth about yourself.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Your friends never told you where you came from, did they?”

  “Where I… came from?”

  “Sit down, kiddo. This might take some time.”

  Rayna went quiet and took a seat on the steps leading up the dais that held the old throne. In an almost fatherly way, Drides began to divulge to her the reason for her existence.

  Garder, walking alongside Milla and the rest of his friends, was still lost in thought after all that had been revealed to him minutes earlier. His mind was in a fog; the only thing he could remember was that Leovyn was taking them to a ship or something, and that they had already gone through dozens of hallways, stairways, and secure, metal doors to get there.

  Garder murmured, “Milla, I just realized…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Kamsa was… kind of a half-sister to us. Now that I know, it feels like a part of our family has been taken from us.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “Look, for the most part, I’ve recovered from it. I’ll miss her and everything, but there’s a whole army of clones just like her somewhere. It makes me sick to think about what’s happening to them. It’s like… we both have possibly hundreds of brothers and sisters, all being experimented on.”

  “Garder…”

  “We’ve got to do something about this. I know we’re busy with other things right now, but this Nish guy and his project… We need to stop him. It just feels like it’s a perversion against our family now, you know? Heh… our big happy, strange family.” He smiled just slightly. “We have a dad and a mom again. This is going to take some getting used to.”

  “We’ll make an effort to find Formel, Garder. I promise. It’s just not at the top of our priorities, yet. But I agree with what you’re saying. I feel obliged to do something, too. We do share a connection with all of those clones. Almost feels like it’s up to us to help them.”

  “Right.”

  “The final door to the hangar, I swear,” Osk said as he swiped his keycard. “We’re pretty deep in Aurra now. A few miles down by this point.”

  “And how do you even get a ship out?” Verim wondered. “I doubt you have a tunnel or something that goes all the way to surface.”

  “Nope,” Leovyn answered. “But we’ll explain that to you in just a few moments here. For now, look on and be amazed.”

  The door slid open, revealing the warehouse-sized bay behind it. Sitting in the middle of the giant metal room was a massive aircraft, painted over in a dark, reflective gray. The adjustable wings were spread back, giving the ship an appearance like that of a raven’s during flight. In its entirety, the vessel was just as big as one of Earth’s largest jumbo jets, and its eight engines—three on the wings and two on the rear—was a clear sign of how much power it needed to get off the ground.

  “My, my, that is… big,” Shin murmured.

  “No kidding,” Tabi replied. “How long did it take to build?”

  Leovyn introduced a man just barely taller than Shin, “This guy will tell you. Everyone, this is our chief engineer, Michael Reynolds.”

  He adjusted his glasses and coat, took a few steps forward, and greeted them, “Ah, yes. Welcome, everyone. Yes, the dream of Leovyn, Osk, myself, and everyone else at Eden’s Burrow stands before you.”

  “Now, you know we’re going to want a rundown of this beauty,” Simon said almost demandingly.

  “Easy, Simon. Try not to drool,” Garder joked.

  Michael snickered. “Right, of course you do. And personally, because of this project’s secrecy, I revel in any chance I have to go over our bird’s features. So, here we go. I, um… I’m not good at ‘casual’ talk, so…”

  He took the clipboard strapped to his side and cleared his throat.

  “Ahem. What you see here is the Mezik Mark One, produced—”

  “Wait, Mezik?” Xavier interrupted. “As in, the magic armor from Aurrian folklore that traps its wearer until they die? Now I’m suddenly not so sure I want to step aboard this thing.”

  Michael looked befuddled. “It’s… It’s just a name. Anyway, as I was saying… The Mezik was produced and designed by the Eden’s Burrow Engineering Ward. Utilizing both sophisticated Earth technology and the limitless potential of creation in Aurra, the Mezik is a fusion of modern-day computing systems and construction that can only be created in Aurra.

  “We exhausted over five hundred industrial synthids and careful, expert-driven synthesizing to slowly, meticulously create the Mezik. A project spanning nearly ten years, the Mezik is now nearly complete and ready for its first live test run. If you were to see an Earth equivalent, you might have to wait twenty years first, and the cost would be such that America, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom, all banded together, may be able to fund the project. In other words… the Mezik is truly a wonder than could only be conceived and built in Aurra itself.”

  “Buddy, you trying to sell us a car here?” Garder sighed. “Come on, this isn’t a showroom. Just give us the bullet points.”

  Michael looked at Garder, blinked, and then continued, “So what can it do? For starters, it has all the capabilities of all surviving demirriages. But with its reactor, available sunlight is never an issue. And now, by using the pair of so-called ‘demon claws’ that Osk brought to us, we should be able to travel across the dimensions, as well. I do hope we’ll get to see that feature in action one day, given Aurra’s current… state. On top of its many weapon systems and Mach-five capabilities, it can also enter orbit—though this feature is still a work in progress and has plenty of testing to be done before we can allow it. Truly, we will have wings across Aurra.”

  “Are you kidding me with this guy…” Garder whispered to Milla.

  “Able to hold a crew of sixty and operate on campaigns lasting up to a year, the Mezik is indeed a state-of-the-art, oppression-ending trump card that will make the Guard beg for mercy. Okay, so that last part isn’t actually on the information sheet. But anyway, whew, there you have it.”

  “And we get to ride around in this thing?” Lechi asked.

  “That’s the plan,” Leovyn replied. “But you’ll be sharing the space with around forty other people, so we’ve got some positions to fill.”

  “You all have had a tiring journey,” Rivia added. “But from now on, Eden’s Burrow will be your home, and the Mezik your method of getting around. In that respect, your travels have reached an end here. Now I’m asking that you enter a new phase, so to speak. I need you in this war. You can fight in your own ways of course, but after all you’ve been through already, I think that you’ll agree that this is where you’re needed now.”

  “Why not?” Garder replied. “Got this far, no reason to quit now.”

  “You just want to fly around in the ship,” Shin noted.

  He smiled back. “Well… that’s part of it. And a secret weapon like this would sure make the war easier.”

  “But how’s it get out and come back again?” Temki wondered.

  “This room utilizes a security system,” Michael began. “Basically, it blocks all alchemagi most of the time. However, every thirty-seven minutes, the restriction is released for exactly thirty seconds. During that time, the Mezik can return via its demirriage-like functionality. There’s nothing special about thirty-seven minutes, by the way. We just thought it might make it slightly harder for the enemy to find a pattern of some sort.”

  “So… once you leave, you basically set a timer, and then have thirty seconds to get back here when it goes off?” Garder replied. “Sounds okay, but I hope you have more defenses than just time.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Sure we do. Look above.”

  Garder looked at the ceiling. Over two dozen heavy defense turrets were hanging down, each poised to open fire on any possible invaders.

  “Also, she has more than enough security features to lock out anyone unregistered, so they can’t seize her controls. You know that Aurra’s computer systems are very simple. Even basic electronic security can stop any sort of cyber-attack on the Mezik. Normally, such use of Earth tech in Aurrian machinery is completely outlawed, but something like that isn’t going to deter us all the way down here.”

  “Rivia did mention the cheating, yes,” Viktor said. “Amazing work. She’ll help us get to the sea fortress, correct?”

  “The alchemagi-draining rain should do little more than slow her down,” Leovyn replied. “As far as its defenses go, you should always be fine. Its armor is fused with a ceramic weave and alchemagi shielding.”

  “It’s twice more, ah, protective than a Guard tank,” Michael added.

  “Should anyone try to down the Mezik on your way to fortress… well, they might end up cowering in fear after they fail to make a single scratch on her hull. It might sound arrogant, but aside from a direct hit by a nuke or high-level nova spell, she might just be unassailable.”

  “Oh, man… It feels good to be able to overpower the Guard for a change,” Garder replied.

  “I’m eagerly awaiting its test run,” Michael said, “so I’m coming with you to rescue Rayna. There’s just one thing we need to work out.”

  “What is it?” Rivia replied.

  “We’re still lacking an able crew. We’ve got ourselves a pilot, but seeing as how the majority of the people here are scientists, engineers, or guards, we’re a little short-handed. We also need a couple of medics.”

  “What about a captain? And maybe an XO?” Shin wondered.

  “Osk will be your captain. But we do still need an executive officer and, basically, just more people on the ship all around.”

  “Pip and his cousins,” Milla spoke up. “We’ve still got to go pick them up, anyway. This’ll blow their minds.”

  “Right, along with the rest of the Angels,” Wendell added. “I think we could fill up the crew pretty quickly.”

  “If there’s nothing else we need to do here, I propose that we get going right away,” Leovyn said.

  “Systems need time to warm up, but we can board,” Osk replied.

  “Copy that.” Michael activated his headset and spoke into it, letting his voice echo across the hangar. “All ground and flight personnel, prepare for take-off. Colt, fire up the engines. We’re coming onboard.”

  “Roger,” an audible voice replied on the headset. “Everything’s good to go, but I still say we need one of those scented pine tree things.”

  “That was Colt Huart, our pilot,” Michael explained. “Let’s go up and meet him.”

  In order to get onto the ship, the group had to use an extendable elevator system that ran on rails alongside the vessel. Once inside with the door hatch closed behind them, they found themselves in an environment even more different than the one in the rest of Eden’s Burrow. Monitors and computer systems ran across the interior, and the aircraft was very clean and simplistic in design.

  The Mezik felt like something out of a science fiction story, and felt especially alien to the rest of the world. It would be a very strange sight to behold in the skies above an Aurrian City to begin with, but inside, it seemed unbelievable that it could be constructed by human hands in the early twenty-first century.

  After looking around the general area near to the entrance, they caught sight of a map of the ship displayed on one of the monitors where a crewman would normally be sitting. The vessel was wide open with all of its sections easily accessible across two floors. Below were the barracks, small mess hall, reactor chamber, and engineering bays. The main floor was devoted to flight, navigation, and weapons and defense systems, with whatever leftover room being given to passenger seats.

  “Still got a skeleton crew,” Colt’s voice came in over the PA system. “Just enough to keep the bird in the air, Osk. We going to get some more men before we attack?”

  “That’s the idea. Our first stop is the place where I used to be.”

  “Where you used to… Oh, you mean the City. Got it. I’ll set coordinates. Hold on, just a second. I’m coming out to meet everyone.”

  The hatch on the left opened, revealing the sophisticated cockpit beyond. A single large chair was surrounded by controls that looked like they belonged to a space shuttle. Standing at the door was a young man not only almost the same height as the twins, but who also looked remarkably like them. He slid his hands into his pockets and looked the group over.

  “Weird,” he murmured. “Uncanny how much we look the same, huh? Heh, almost like we’re triplets.”

  “So… you must be Colt,” Milla replied after a few moments.

  “Yep, that’s me. Best damn pilot in the Burrow.”

  “You’re the only one we have,” Leovyn muttered.

  “Yeah, but still, I’m up there at the top. First thing you should know about me: I’m an Earthen. I hear that goes for you, too.” He turned to Simon. “And we’re both pilots, to boot. Hope you’re not eyeing my job.”

  “Huh? Really?” he replied. “Wow, how’d that come to be?”

  “Mr. Huart was at the top of his flight academy, and we sought him out,” Leovyn explained. “He was completely devoted to his work, and an orphan. He was our guy. So we made him a very rare Earthen-Aurrian.”

  “Why not just get an Aurrian pilot?”

  “Because nothing else in Aurra flies or operates like the Mezik,” Colt replied. “And the Burrow doesn’t run like other Aurrian places, as I’m sure you know. They go to whatever means they need to for success, so that means that unlike the Guard, Earth-to-Aurra isn’t off limits.”

  Osk added, “Of course we took a risk of him being a newsoul. And we made a judgment call based on his… personality. Turned out he was an eight and flew Aurrian craft in past lives, even before Earth had flight.”

  “Yeah, kind of sucks that I’m giving up my Earth life, but you know, I guess I don’t mind visiting Aurra twice in a row. Beats flying boring, big old military cargo planes over the Atlantic for years.”

  “And there’s the added bonus that if anything happens to him, we haven’t permanently lost a good pilot. At least, assuming that the dimensional boundary returns to normal sometime soon.”

  “Colt, how long do we have?” Leovyn asked.

  “We should be hot in about five minutes. Why don’t you guys go ahead and get buckled in. Might be a bit of a rough ride, you know. Haven’t flown this thing yet outside of simulation.”

  “A maiden voyage, huh,” Verim replied. “Try not to crash, okay?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. Baby should practically fly itself.”

  With that, Colt returned to his big seat, and the group took up the available passenger versions at the midsection of the mostly empty ship. While Scud stayed on Wendell’s shoulder, Tanesh was buckled in alongside Lechi and Temki. Meanwhile, Leovyn had purposely separated himself and the twins from the others so that he could talk with them personally.

  “Look, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but it’ll have to wait. Just know that I have been monitoring the two of you throughout your lives. I’ve just… never been able to reach out and make my presence known. I’m proud of you two. Your mother would be too, if she knew everything.”

  “I still have yet to meet Escellé…” Milla replied. “I really want to.”

  “She was looking at me a bit oddly when we met,” Garder added. “Not that I really picked up on it then. Leovyn… um, Dad, why couldn’t you take care of us yourself?”

  “Because I had to hide from then on.”

  “Yeah, but you could’ve taken us with you. The Burrow seems like an okay place to grow up. I mean, you’d probably be gone most of the time, but it’d at least be better than having our memories screwed around with.”

  “Garder, Milla, listen… I always knew that I’d meet the both of you in person, so I wanted you to have something of a normal young life. The Burrow is no place to raise kids. Trust me, there are more than a few families here, and they’ve blinded themselves to both the beauty and the horrors that Aurra has in store for everyone. If you grew up here, you would’ve grown up na?ve. You would’ve never joined the rebels, nor would I have let you, because I would’ve been way too protective. So I trusted an old friend to watch over you in N instead, and just waited to see how things would progress from there. When you look back, it seems, maybe, that things have worked out pretty well for us in the end, right?”

  “I understand,” Milla replied. “There’s nothing wrong with your reasoning. If I were you, I would’ve done the same thing.”

  “I still… I don’t know,” Garder continued. “Yeah, I see your side, but I don’t get why you had to give us fake memories of parents. Plenty of children are raised by the government or foster parents in Aurrian society.”

  “Yes, but…” Leovyn took a deep breath. “It was what I wanted. Just until you could support yourselves, I wanted to give you parents. You know, if you’re with the government from the cradle, you tend to turn into a militaristic, hive-mind type. I had to let you feel like you had options. And sure, you ended up joining the academy, but that was by your own free will. What I’m trying to say is, I just wanted you to grow up thinking you had parents. And I had Bired and Vadaka shape them in a specific way. Heh, you see, I had the parents made into how I’d perceive myself and Escellé as normal, working class Aurrians with no special backgrounds. Outside of that, their personalities should’ve been nearly identical to our own.”

  “Now that I think about it, they kind of were,” Garder said. “Okay. I think it’ll be a little weird for a bit calling you Dad, but I’ll get used to it.”

  “Right. But I’m not here to babysit. You’ve proven yourself as capable adults, and that’s not going to change now. I respect you. So, after this whole thing is over with, let’s sit down and share stories, okay?”

  “Are we really just going to charge into this fortress?” Tabi asked, turned around in her chair. “Leovyn, do you even know how fortified it is?”

  “I’ve been there. And outside of the miles of rain surrounding it, there’s nothing special about it. It’s just a decrepit castle on a stone spire in the middle of a sea. It probably couldn’t even support a defense system. I doubt they’ll be expecting us, so we may just pull off a surprise attack.”

  The eight engines all spun up, and the sound of the couplings detaching outside could be heard thereafter. After another few seconds, the ship began swaying gently; a clear sign that it was hovering in place.

  “Right. Everyone tucked in?” Colt’s voice went over the PA. “All hangar defense systems, ready for go. Deactivate… now.”

  As the only windows were located in the cockpit, none of the passengers could see the red swirling lights outside in the hangar, indicating that the security field was temporarily down. The engines hit their peak, and Colt continued with the announcements.

  “Michael, you might be pleased to know that all systems are operating as they should. Firing up the demi-system now…”

  Michael nodded and scribbled down a few notes on a clipboard.

  “Clock running. T-minus thirty-seven minutes until next possible return. All systems running… Here goes. Say goodbye to the Burrow.”

  Then there was a minor jolt throughout the entire craft. All went silent for a few moments. Gravity felt just a little different.

  “That’s it. We’re now descending upon Old City J.”

  “That’s it? Didn’t even feel like anything happened,” Verim replied.

  “Most of what you experience on a demirriage trip is visual,” Shin said. “But I do have to agree… that was very quick and um, uneventful.”

  “Here guys, bringing up some feed for you,” Colt announced.

  Four of the nearby monitors turned on and showed four sides of the Mezik. Outside was the white, barren landscape of the region, and by the look and feel of things, the ship was dropping at a fast rate of descent.

  “Forgot to mention one thing,” Michael spoke up. “The demirriage system doesn’t run on thoughts at all. It’s tapped into the Guard monitoring and navigation network, so it’s just point and click with a map, and then you appear at that location about thirty-thousand feet in the air for safety to give the pilot time to scan the landscape and act accordingly. The only exception to this system is the home hangar. Downside is, the system needs six minutes to cool down and reset, so we can’t warp to places repeatedly.”

  “You guys really thought of everything,” Simon replied. “Hey, you know, I have a pilot’s license myself. Think I could…”

  “We’ll see,” Michael said. “Maybe one day in the future, when we know what the ship’s capable of.”

  “Yeah, of course. I know you still gotta break it in and everything.”

  “We’ll be landing in twenty seconds. Destination is right outside the City,” Colt reported. “Guess we pick up your friends, show them around, and then go after Drides.”

  Six of the eight engines rotated to a vertical position and quickly slowed the Mezik to a halt about twenty feet off the ground. While they continued burning loudly outside, five large supports folded out from underneath the ship and dug into the ice below. After making an official landing, Colt opened up the entrance and turned on some green lights near the door to indicate that the passengers were free to exit.

  Right outside Old J was a small rebel camp. Pip, his two cousins, and the rest of the Angels emerged from a tent to greet everyone.

  “Well, well, what have we here?” Pip asked in amazement.

  “Our new way of getting around,” Garder replied. “Like it?”

  “Mr. Montag, is everyone with you?” Rivia inquired.

  “Yeah, this is everyone. Mind telling me what’s going on?”

  “Let’s board first,” Michael said. “We’ve got positions to fill.”

  “Pip, what’s the situation out here?” Shin wondered.

  “Hasn’t changed much. Train station’s been sealed off since D fell, and we’re trying to make some room in J to accommodate those still in the caves. When the ghosts left the City, it freed up quite a bit of space.”

  “What about Hekens?” Xavier added.

  “He and his kid returned on the last train before we sealed the tunnels. He’s a lucky one.”

  “So you’re Lieutenant Montag? I’ve heard about you,” Osk said as he took a step forward. “Captain Osk.”

  “Osk?” Pip replied as he shook his hand. “No kidding. It’s an honor finally meeting you.”

  “Forgive me for being forward, but would you like the role of Executive Officer aboard the Mezik here?”

  “Wait, you named this thing after that soul-devouring… Ah, never mind. I… I don’t know much about flying, sir.”

  “You don’t have to. All we need is a natural born leader. Based off of what I’ve heard, you’d fit the bill pretty well.”

  “Well… In that case, I’d be honored to take the position.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it.”

  “Congrats, Pip,” Milla said with a smile.

  “Yeah, thanks, but… what about Dak and Kyler here?”

  Pip’s cousins both turned their attention to the captain.

  “You’re both field medics, correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kyler replied.

  “Good. We have none currently. Would you like to work in our medical bay, then?”

  “Sure thing,” Dak said. “Yeah, we can fill those seats.”

  “Be glad to,” Kyler added.

  “Excellent,” Leovyn said. “As for the rest of you, we have plenty of positions available. I know most of you probably want to fight, but the good news is that most of our weapons and defense stations need people. Either way, this bird is your ticket to your new home, so even if you don’t want a permanent post, everyone needs to get onboard for the trip.”

  The two dozen Angels confided briefly, then promptly lined up.

  Leovyn turned to Osk and Rivia. “The three of us will assign roles. Michael, you keep us on time. I don’t want to spend more than an hour here. Just tell everyone where to go, and how to operate their new toys.”

  “Got it,” Osk replied.

  “Would it trouble you to put me on comms?” Xavier asked. “Um, sorry about this, but I seem to be pretty good at… communicating.”

  “Ah, come on, man,” Garder sighed. “We get what’s basically a freaking starship, and you still want to turn dials on a radio.”

  “That’s fine, Xavier,” Leovyn replied. “However, I’d like you on ground communication. The rain will muddy the channels, so we need to keep a direct line open from the ground. That’ll be your job.”

  “I suppose I could do that. Whatever I can do to help.”

  “Listen up,” Leovyn called out to everyone. “I’m going to be working with Rivia, his three paradigms, and the rest of his pals on the ground. I need the rest of you on ship detail. We don’t know what to expect from the skies, and it’s up to the rest of you to keep us safe.”

  “What about us?” Temki asked for himself and Lechi.

  “You both should stay on the ship, throughout the mission.”

  “I have to agree,” Milla added. “I don’t want to put you in danger.”

  While Temki looked quite downtrodden, Lechi shot back, “Look, the two of us aren’t helpless children. We’ve been with you all for a long time now, and we’re both capable. I know I’m only a level one, but there are some useful defensive spells I can still pull off, and when I pair up with Temki, the two of us can really become a powerhouse.”

  “We could use some metal in this fight,” Garder agreed. “You know… just to have more of the alignments to use. We don’t know what we’re going up against here.”

  “This could be the end of our journey together,” Lechi continued. “Please, let the two of us help. Give us a chance to shine.”

  “Okay, okay,” Leovyn said. “Just try not to get hurt. And listen, when and if we go up against Drides, that’s a fight that I only want myself, Rivia, and the twins to take part in. The two of us are the probably the only ones strong enough to take him, and my kids are invulnerable to his eye.”

  “Leovyn’s right,” Rivia added. “An attack on Drides needs to be a focused one. We go up against him with too many people, and we’re nothing but fodder. But it’s not just the protection the twins possess—I believe that they are fully capable of fighting Drides, as well. He’s still human, and I promise you that we’ll find a way to bring him down.”

  “But if all else fails, we complete the mission and get the hell out of there. Remember, our primary goal is to rescue Rayna. Any questions?”

  All kept silent, aside from Lechi quietly assuring Temki that they’d watch out for each other in the upcoming assault.

  “Good. Now, everyone get onboard. We have no time to waste.”

  Getting everyone organized took a little longer than they had hoped. By the time the needed spots were filled and their holders confident that they knew what they were doing, the Mezik had been positioned outside of J for nearly three hours, and frost had gathered on her wings. When Colt finally got the all clear, he didn’t hesitate to get the ship into the air and warp it to the rim of the Red Caspianti sea, a storm-ridden body of water between Tillethy and the island that hid City Z from the world.

  Right away, the aircraft began rocking in heavy winds. Using the monitors to see outside, the group could see that they were already surrounded by an impenetrable gray, with crashing waves far below.

  Colt came in, “All weapons at the ready. Picking up multiple heat sources down there. “Hold on… It’s a Guard outpost by the look of it. The sea is surrounded by them. Okay. Weapons free, wait for my mark.”

  The group looked around at the nearby weapons stations. The new crew members were preparing to open fire, and it was easy to tell that they were excited to finally join the fight after so many years of waiting.

  The Mezik dropped below the clouds, and clearly visible from the camera mounted on the bottom of the ship was a fast-approaching military compound surrounded by air defense towers. A few seconds later, anti-aircraft fire began to pelt the hull.

  “Hold on,” Colt repeated. “Our descent speed should give us cover. Just wait until they’re within weapons range. Just a little more…”

  As the Mezik slowed, the accuracy and impact of the incoming fire increased greatly. The ship was taking hits, but the damage was so light that it almost felt like little more than stones were being hurled against the vessel. Her armor was far too strong to be comprised by even the moderately heavy firepower of the towers below.

  “Open fire!” Colt shouted. “Torch everything!”

  The pulse cannons went off first, emitting streams of vibrant blue energy that seared straight through anything they touched, and decimated whatever they focused on for more than a couple of seconds. After several short bursts from all four cannons, each of the defense towers was either in flames or in the process of collapsing to the rocky outcroppings.

  The Mezik’s following attack was a barrage of energized spheres that burst into scatter bombs a few hundred feet above the compound, and then exploded over a large radius. Each tiny sphere let out a deafening hum as it detonated, and the entire compound was soon in ruins, with its sunsphere badly damaged in the aftermath.

  Survivors could be seen fleeing the area on the infrared monitors, but Colt knew that there was no further meaning in spending valuable time in the area, so he pushed all of the engines to forward full, and the burning military base disappeared behind them.

  The sheer cliffs surrounding the sea came into view, and Colt brought the Mezik to a rapid stop. After a heavy jolt, it hovered in place.

  “A few of you might want to come take a look at this,” he said.

  Leovyn, Rivia, Wendell, and the twins got up from their seats and proceeded up the cockpit. Ahead of them was a nightmarish sight.

  The world had become almost monotone. Unearthly dark, thick storm clouds covered the sea for miles around, and the rain just ahead of was so thick that it had reduced visibility to a few feet. Across the violent waves, in the middle of the sea, there was a single shape: a dark, barely visible silhouette that was only momentarily noticeable if lightning struck somewhere behind it. With a torrential rain already splashing the Mezik’s windows, the view of their destination became even gloomier.

  “That’s where we have to go, eh?” Wendell muttered and looked over at his companion as he sniffed the air. “Scud doesn’t much like the feeling of this place at all. Of course, he is a cat.”

  “Guess we have no choice but to plow through it,” Colt replied. “But just look at that rain… it’s like it’s filling every square inch ahead of us. Earth’s worst storms have nothing on this weather.”

  “Remember, you four…” Leovyn murmured. “This stuff is no ordinary rain. It chews through alchemagi. This bird is our only way in or out. Everyone has to be back onboard before we get out of there.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Okay, you guys… let’s go forward and see what happens.”

  As if putting the Mezik into a lower gear, Colt began by giving the throttle a nudge forward. The aircraft powered ahead slowly, and once it entered into the downpour, its speed reduced even further, and the rain was strong enough to make the nose dip.

  “Careful,” Osk’s voice came in through the cockpit communicator. “Ease her in, Colt. We need to make sure the rain has no adverse effects.”

  “That’s the plan, Captain. Michael, how are the readings?”

  “The rain is nasty stuff,” his voice replied. “If the sensors are right, they’ve already overpowered the alchemagi shielding. The regular old solid plating is holding up, though.”

  “We’re almost completely engulfed now. I’m going to give the ship some more power. Fuel room, how’s it going?”

  An engineer responded from the back of the vessel, “We’ve got some additional stress, but it looks like the systems can take it. We’ll increase the synthids’ hydrogen production just in case.”

  “Okay, go ahead full,” Osk ordered.

  “You got it. Going ahead full.”

  The twins and the others took their seats once again and prepared for a bumpy ride. As the Mezik powered ahead, the engines grew louder and choked from time to time, giving the feeling that even the advanced craft carrying them was having difficulty getting through the torrent. Soon, the lights began to flicker before dying completely, leaving the crew illuminated by monitors and dim emergency lighting.

  While most everyone was assured of the craft’s capabilities, a growing wave of worry began to culminate through the ship. The Mezik felt and sounded as if it were being tortured, and if left in the rain for much longer, perhaps it might drop into the sea.

  But then, as things seemed their worst, the rain let up almost instantly. Aurra’s diminished sunlight poured into the open cockpit, and the engines fell silent once more.

  “We’re… here…” Colt let out a deep breath.

  The eye of the eternal storm was incredibly large, spanning both miles around and upward. Once the sun set beyond the eye wall high up in the sky, the island would likely be shrouded in darkness.

  Keeping the engines running quiet, Colt circled the fortress a couple of times to get a good layout of the place, and then settled down right outside of the thick, black steel walls. The rock spire only had one spot big enough to hold the Mezik, and even then, the ship was in danger of slipping off the cliffside.

  “There’s no big entryway or anything, but I think I see a service door on this side you could use,” he reported. “I’ll orbit the fortress at a safe distance. Xavier, it’s up to you to keep comms going down there. It’s an important job, so don’t screw it up. Now, everyone that’s going ashore, go on and do so. And good luck in there.”

  Leovyn and Rivia and his group gathered their things and exited, none knowing what things would be like in ten minutes. As soon as they were off, their ride took to the air again and began its silent patrol around the fortress. As Xavier set up a relay, Tanesh whimpered, and Scud flicked his tail, the others took a moment to simply take in the sight, and maybe think about where they had all come from and where they might be going.

  “How is this storm… just, going like this?” Garder wondered.

  Viktor answered, “Old legend says it was some highest-level watairre spell gone wrong, thousands of years ago, and the spell’s lasted even long past its creator’s death.”

  “Oh, come on, that can’t possibly be… true.”

  “Wanna find out?” Tabi asked him.

  Garder just shook his head, and they headed in.

  The rock spire that held an ancient fortress once all but forgotten by the Guard was nestled under a cloudless sky. At its heart was perhaps the true center of the storm being experienced all across Aurra. Drides, and in all likelihood Lontonkon himself, were within reach. If there were ever a chance to end the war before it was everywhere, this would be it.