by Vowron Prime
“All systems are green for launch,” Reaver’s AI—nicknamed Al—called out in his drill-sergeant voice.
The projectors mounted on the gunship’s opaque canopy came to life, turning the armored cockpit into a three-dimensional holographic representation of their surroundings. Yet the projectors didn’t stop there—the metal of the floor, the ceiling panels, and even the sidewalls of the cockpit turned into imagery, leaving the three triangularly arranged seats seemingly floating in midair.
The effect was so stunning that even Nova drew a sharp breath. “I admit, I had not expected such sophisticated projection technology from a vessel propelled by fossil fuels!”
MC smirked, reaching back to hand Nina and Nova headsets.
“Why do we need these?”
“Because shit’s about to get loud!” he shouted over the din of rapidly accelerating turbines. To save weight, the craft lacked insulation, which meant that the two massive fans roared into the bridge.
“How primitive,” he heard Nova say as she donned the noise-canceling headphones.
“Well, they also let us communicate,” he said over the headsets’ comms system. With the noise cancellation active, the terrible clamor dampened to a mere hum.
A few taps of the touch screens caused both sets of the gargantuan hangar bay doors to rumble open, revealing a dark, rocky tunnel beyond.
A pair of obscenely powerful headlights flipped on, flooding the corridor with brilliant illumination.
“Al, give me manual control.”
A pair of joysticks and rudder pedals deployed from the recesses of the console, extending outward to MC’s pilot seat. When the doors finally opened, he upped the turbines’ output by several notches, bringing the gunship into a low hover. The covers hiding the other vehicles flapped madly from the incredible airflow.
The landing gear struts retracted flush into the fuselage as the craft’s nose pitched slightly forward like a helicopter, crawling through the massive opening that suddenly felt small.
The hangar’s airlock doors admitted them through, shutting automatically as Reaver passed. MC angled the ship upward, an action that sent Nova into a panic.
“Stop! That opening is far too narrow! You are about to crash!”
“Nina, what is it I always say about backseat drivers?”
His sister chuckled. “The door’s unlocked. Nova, relax. Magnus is one of the best pilots on Earth. He wouldn’t have made the tunnel this size if he didn’t think it’d be safe.”
Confirming her words, he pitched the vessel up and accelerated them through the opening, shooting them out into the bright sun. Nova’s pale knuckles turned white.
MC immediately shut off the headlights. “Al, engage active stealth.”
“Command confirmed. Multispectral frequency absorber: online. Active camouflage: online.”
There were no noticeable changes from within the bridge, but the ship’s stealth technology rendered it invisible to human eyes, and all-but-invisible to radar. Of course, MC had been covering the craft with his own stealth field; doubling up may have been overkill, but then again, two was one and one was none.
The gunship continued to shoot out of the crater, climbing higher and higher until they broke through the first cloud layer.
“Nova, I’m guessing you’ve got our destination punched in?” he asked over his shoulder to her navigator station on the starboard side. Nina had control of the portside guns.
“Yes, I have already entered Kyron’s coordinates into your ship’s navigational computer.”
“I see it. Thanks, as always.”
A dotted green line projected ahead of them, outlining their flight path.
“Al, engage autopilot and prime those Scrammies, will ya?”
“Autopilot engaged. Stand by for hypercruise.”
The gunship—now traveling at just under the speed of sound—underwent several transformative changes. The fuselage compressed, becoming visibly more streamlined, reducing the available space within the cabin. Where three people may have been able to walk abreast before, now barely enough room existed for a lone individual to squeeze past the jumpseat aisle aft of the bridge.
Nova examined the changes in great detail from her seat, though her eyes fixated on an oddity. In a sea of LED panels around her station, she spotted a single analog gauge, one that remained near zero. An identical dial appeared on all of the pilot stations, a touch the designers couldn’t help but include.
“Magnus, this primitive gauge of yours seems to be broken.”
“Oh yeah? Which one?”
“It says Mach, and it only goes up until fifteen.”
“Oh boy…” Nina squeaked.
MC just laughed.
“Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, because Kansas is going bye-bye! Oh, and that mask dangling near your face? Yeah, you’ll wanna put that on. Right about now.”
Nina already had hers strapped on and Nova quickly followed suit, breathing in the pressure-regulated air.
The electric turbines shut off, folding and retracting into Reaver’s fuselage along with the wings they were attached to. The now-wingless gunship sailed through the air in silence, seconds before a soft sound replaced the vibrational din of the electric turbines.
It started innocently enough, but it grew. Steadily morphing into a deep roar. Then it grew even louder.
The G forces mounted. The onslaught of force didn’t relent until the three were literally pinned into their seats by obscene acceleration. Nova stared at the analog dial as it crept past one, then onto three.
The next cloud layer came and went.
Mach five. Seven.
They pierced through the final clouds, vaulting into the stratosphere at hypersonic speeds, yet their velocity refused to diminish. The gunship vibrated and shuddered under the awesome force, the roar of the quad spinal-mounted Scramjet engines nearly overwhelming their headsets’ noise-canceling capabilities.
“Yeehaw! Mach-fucking-eleven, baby! My sweet Reaver, how I’ve missed you so!” MC yelled in glee.
“Youhopeless adrenaline junky! Nova, the Mach scale is based on the speed of sound. Mach eleven means we’re going eleven times faster than the sound barrier,” Nina said, an equally large grin plastered on her face.
“You… two… are… insane! Truly! Utterly! INSANE!” Nova shouted through gritted teeth as she held on for dear life.
The acceleration eventually abated as they reached their cruising altitude, allowing Nova to breathe freely once again.
MC unclasped his mask. “Holy shit! Was that a rush or what? Al, buddy, what’s our ETA?”
“Remaining time to destination: fifteen minutes. Current altitude: eighty thousand feet. Current velocity: Mach twelve.”
Hard and fast; that was how those Scramjets burned. Sure, he could’ve dialed back the intensity, gone for a more sane trajectory and saved some fuel. Drag at Mach twelve was fairly atrocious, after all. But after all the shit he’d faced over the past month, he’d earned the right, goddammit. No one was going to deny him a little fun.
Then, like a home theater system put suddenly on pause, everything cut out in an instant.
The sounds muted and the vibrations quelled, leaving the three in stark silence high above the planet.
They sailed through the sky, rapidly losing altitude as they fell back to the earth. The ship went into a dive. Their speed fell, eventually reaching a drag-limited terminal velocity.
When they’d fallen back down to around thirty thousand feet, the gunship expanded back to its original size, deploying the ducted fans to bring them to a low-altitude cruising velocity of half the speed of sound.
They broke below the lowest cloud layer to find the Sorathean capital of Kyron far below, the great Ells Mountains stretching north into the distance, as far as the eye could see.
With the Scramjets offline, their stealth would be near perfect. Even so, getting this close to the Legatus’s planetary HQ gave MC the jitters. The other two felt simi
larly; the cockpit remained conspicuously devoid of comms chatter during their final approach.
But their arrival went unnoticed, and MC leveled off at a thousand feet, descending onto the snowfield that stretched south of the capital. The very same one where they had fled from just a few weeks before.
How the tides have turned.
No longer running for their lives like mere hunted prey, no longer quaking in fear of discovery with every passing moment.
When they were mere feet above the snow, MC extended a hand and concentrated, relocating away a sizable expanse of snow and ice. Fusing the ice into its surroundings, he hollowed out a makeshift subterranean hangar, into which the gunship descended.
The triple landing gear legs deployed, a soft jolt indicating contact with the cold, blue ice.
“This is your captain speaking. On behalf of Cromwell Airlines, we’d like to thank you for flying with us, and we do hope to see you all again soon!”
“You didn’t even serve us snacks! And the legroom sucks! What a shitty airline. I give it a half star!”
Nova nodded vigorously. “Definitely half a star. Would not fly again.”
Ignoring their remarks, he shut off the ship’s active camo but kept its stealth systems online to be on the safe side. The ice surrounding the craft would hide it from Dyn sensors, but the best security systems always resembled an onion—plenty of layers.
He eyed Nova as she stood up to stretch, her white one-piece backless dress perfectly complimenting her angelic looks. It was one of the few outfits that fit her without modification. Too bad it was woefully inadequate for the northern climate.
“You girls better put your layers on. It’s pretty darn cold out there.”
Working together, MC and Nina helped stuff Nova’s bound wings into an oversized down jacket before covering it all in a thick Sorathean cloak, making Nova look like some kind of hunchbacked mountaineering porter.
The rear ramp dropped open, allowing the frigid air to rush in.
MC retrieved his pack and walked out, his boots crunching on the slick surface. He gave the sheer ice walls a scan before turning to the two girls, all bundled up in their layers. Nina attempted to help Nova with her own backpack, but the effort was doomed to fail from the start; the winged alien already looked comical on account of her hidden wings. Adding a pack would’ve been grueling for her light frame.
“I can carry that,” MC offered, slinging the grateful Dyn’s pack over his left shoulder.
“Thank you, Magnus. How is your headache?” she asked, glancing towards the miniature portal nestled within his pack.
“At this distance? Noticeable, but bearable. I can only hope that the fatigue decreases when the relocator levels up, or I might not be able to make a bigger one. Guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“You better let us know when it gets bad. It’s not worth a headache,” Nina called out, shivering despite her clothing.
“You got it, princess. Well then, since we’re here, why don’t we go pay Empress Xikanika a visit?”
Twenty-Six
The snow crunched underfoot as the three trod to Kyron’s outer gate, joining the line of waiting wagons and caravans. After several Gyris-mounted riders were admitted, their turn arrived.
“No wagon or mount? You don’t mean to say that you made it here on foot, do you?”
The guard’s suspicion was evident, and jerked back when MC drew close and revealed his face. Clearly shocked at the stranger’s pale visage, the guard reached for the sword at his waist.
“I’m a contractor and my business is my own. Will you let me pass? These two are with me.”
“Forgive me, but we must verify your contractor card. We have many who claim to be contractors. Standard procedure, I assure you.”
MC hesitated, fighting through his indecision. As the silence grew awkward, he relented and produced his card.
The guard did a double take and quickly glanced at the name etched on the card, but instead of nodding and telling him to be on his merry way, the Sorathean’s gaze bounced between the card and MC like a broken robot. Then the guard waved his colleague over.
“It’s Emsy! By the gods, it’s really Emsy! The Hero of Dervegen!”
His shout hushed any conversation, giving the three friends the undivided attention of not only the guards but every wagon behind them too. A carrier pigeon took to the skies just a moment later. MC briefly entertained the idea of downing it, but refrained—they were here to meet the empress after all, so it wasn’t as if they needed to stay hidden. He just wished they wouldn’t make such a big scene about it. He roiled with emotion. Memories of his Dervegen massacre played in his mind. He thanked his stars he couldn’t read Zevan expressions. The guilt may have broken him.
“Contractor Emsy, it is truly an honor,” the guard said, bowing his head. “Please, allow us to escort you into the city. Your escapades in Dervegen warrant an upgrade of your Contractor tier. Every city has been on the lookout for you.”
“Look, do we have to do this right now? We’re just looking for passage.”
The guard bowed in deference. “Please, it will not take long. We only wish for you to accompany us to the Contractors Hall in the Second District. It would be our honor.”
“Fine, whatever,” MC said, agitated. It would only cause more of a scene to argue. “Just make it quick.”
Nova, Nina, and MC soon found themselves escorted by a detail of no less than five honor guards through the busy streets of the Outer District. Yet the district’s densely packed buildings and its throng of foot traffic posed no obstruction to them—the guards made sure of that.
“Magnus, did I hear that right?” Nina asked. “Did she just call you a hero? See! Even people of this world recognize your awesomeness!”
“She? Really? And I wish they wouldn’t,” he replied tersely.
“Yes, she. And geez, no need to get all defensive about it. Nova, you know anything about this?”
The Dyn angel shook her head. “No, this is the first I am hearing of such matters. Magnus, please do share your tale.”
“I’d rather not,” he repeated. “More importantly, Nina, what do these people look like to you? Do they look human?” he asked in a bid to change the topic.
Nina eyed one of their armored escorts. “Well, kinda? It just seems like their proportions are a bit off. Pale skin, the eyes are a little bigger than they should be, small nostrils and mouths. They all look gaunt. It’s so weird—if you don’t pay attention, they could pass off for a human, but if you look closer, there’s definitely something odd about them.”
MC had been tempted to deploy tight Midar pings to “see” for himself, but refrained. He didn’t dare activate that ability so close to the enemy’s main base, even with the stealth field active.
He cast an anxious glance at the mountain range that towered over the capital, pitching the great city in shadows. Dyn sensors were probably sensitive enough to pick up radar this close, especially since he was likely the only non-Dyn radar-generating source on the entire planet.
Nina halted when they crossed through the portcullis into the outer district’s undercity, her mouth agape at the spectacle.
“Princess, if you’re getting excited about this, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
“I mean, walking through a medieval city feels like I’m playing some kind of VR fantasy game, but this? Holy shit, Magnus!” She stared in awe at the central elevator tube that pierced the cavern’s roof.
It took her another moment to come back to her senses, but she resembled a kid in a candy store the entire way up the elevator to the Second District. The middle-class homes in the higher district were markedly larger and nicer than the ones below, as Nina pointed out. In fact, she wouldn’t shut up about the city and its novelties.
Where the previous district had primarily wooden construction, most buildings here were made of stone and mortar. The streets reflected the theme, being both wider and
cleaner, though that might have been on account of the lower traffic. MC realized he’d barely noticed such details during their fateful escape, weeks before. It almost felt like he was experiencing an entirely different city this time around.
They finally entered the Second District’s undercity, where the level of opulence became markedly more distinct. Every building in the massive cavern soared to at least three stories in height, with several of them stretching almost to the roof itself. Dual-paned glass windows dotted the structures, and the magically lit cobblestone roads were both smooth and luxuriously wide. Contractor’s Hall came into view. Being far more impressive than the one in Dervegen, it occupied an entire city block, and its vaulted roof towered four stories in height. It even boasted a small courtyard that surrounded a magically powered fountain.
Their guards held open the enormous double doors to allow them passage, as if they were in some kind of royal procession. Inside, the grand building’s grandeur was oddly deserted. Empty tables and chairs decorated most of the expansive area, and the contract board occupied a lonely corner that seemed entirely too small for its surroundings.
Witnessing the girls’ confusion, their Zevan guides volunteered an explanation. “Not many werebeasts survive in this cold, and few Contractors make the journey north. All contracts are flown via pigeon to the capital before being assigned to one of the branch offices throughout the empire. This building is more of a status symbol than anything else.”
The empress certainly got the short end of the stick, having been strong-armed by her gods to move her capital to this remote place. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she had to take the fall for it, too. Somehow, MC had the hunch that revealing the gods’ blackmail wouldn’t go well for her. He almost pitied her. Still, the ruler had betrayed Nova. Even if it was the right decision for her empire, he had a hard time getting over that.
