Time seemed to crawl as Ren waited ‘patiently’ in that pocket of debris. Eyes kept turning to the letters scrawled into the stone-floor, but it didn’t change anything.

  There’s a war going on outside, and here I am…here we ALL are…trapped who-knows-how-deep under a destroyed fort. And all I need to get out of here is a heading… She grumbled to herself, Gotta hand it to the Kitezans… As much as we thought they were nothing but country-bumpkins, they really pulled one over on us. All this time, Lord Xanarken was trying to get us in the peaceful way, and they were planning this…

  She tapped the back of her helmet against the basalt wall behind her, eyes closed as she listened to the sound of the silence. Every now and then, she could hear something far-off – a section of the palace crumbling on itself, no doubt – but for the most part…it was as quiet as a tomb.

  Eyes opened, and she looked at the broken rock, What could they possibly want, if they’re going to destroy their own home on the way out? …I’m sure Gabe would have figured it out by now. Hmph… Such is the privilege of not being stuck under a thousand tons of shit…

  .

  They’re going to take Sargon instead, Gabriel answered, watching the bleak sight of the devastated ground pass by like it was some terrible doomsday movie. The nanotech containers rattled-around at the back of the skiff, That’s why she wanted Iresha, and had no qualms about killing his father. That’s…why the pulses from that energy weapon came down on the southern advance instead of passing by; she’s going to clear the way forward. She doesn’t want to ruin Sargon before she gets there. Rylen’s going to have to think about how much the Tuonela means to him in a big hurry; he could end this in a heartbeat if he was willing to shoot at it with the orbital. One shot through the bridge, and it’s over… But what’s the price for killing 70,000 people with your own ha-

  His whole thought-process came to a screeching halt when he saw a new volley of five green pulses screaming through the sky overhead, “…Oh shit…”

  .

  The fleet’s spread was getting too wide; more shots were getting through. The northern grouping had to call in back-up support from the First Wing ships further back at the border, throwing everything they all had at the onslaught to stop it from getting through to Agartha.

  An hour of anti-ICBM tactics had left the over-casted skies pock-marked with massive gaps. Older craters in the heavens were starting to streak, as winds high above carried those clouds back across the open voids. Another hour, and the Guardian was as much a ruin as the Ward, crashed to the ground with the rear half of it entirely missing; one of those devastating green comets had managed to strike the ship directly. Every window had been shattered and the metal twisted like taffy before it hit the ground, and whatever was still left just burned.

  And there were still two hours to go for the remaining fleet to get to Oceanside, even at top speed.

  But one little red ship had managed to get through, speeding ahead of the rest of it with reckless abandon. Already beyond the forward wave of the approaching World Cloud, Gabriel was in the dark. If Rylen had ever noticed he was gone, he’d never said anything.

  That would change quickly though.

  Gabriel set Maeve to auto-pilot, staying safely above the clouds on that last part of the approach. He nervously let go of the controls and rose from his seat, heading to the back of the skiff to where the pods were bouncing around. He grabbed the nearest one, sat on the floor in front of it, and brought up the access panel.

  It took a little while to find the particular network that the Fafnir had connected to; between theirs and Rylen’s I.D.s being encrypted, it wasn’t as simple as just looking for their names or ranks in the lists. However, his own rank now let him see hidden systems, and it was only a matter of deduction to find the one that had six users connected; one for each of the Fafnir, one for the Sixth, and one for their Captain. Nervously, he connected himself to it, and watched the pod open the small spigot that let nanotech spew-out like a gas leak.

  And, as expected, it took less than 15 seconds for Rylen to notice and manifest aboard the little ship, “What in the actual shit are you doing.” The Eidolon asked, manifesting that same old-school mantle that he’d been teased for on the Sterling Rose.

  Gabriel stared up at him from his spot on the floor, “Every second counts, and I’m tired of waiting. You don’t know why the Fafnir are offline and I’m sick of hoping for the best. So, I’m taking pods to them.”

  “You are actually insane. You could get shot out of the sky any second! Oceanside is swarming and the Tuonela is heading this way!” Rylen argued – losing another SkyFortress had set him on-edge like nothing else, “You have to turn back!”

  “Not without dropping these off first!”

  “Gabriel!”

  He stood up and looked on defiantly, “I’m not coming back until I’ve kicked these out the door. If you’re really that worried about me getting shot down, then either pilot the goddamn ship so we can do this on the move, or punt them out the open door yourself while I fly it. We need to be able to talk to the Fafnir, and we can’t wait another hour for the Cloud to get here.”

  Rylen just stared in confusion, but blinked hard and shook his head, “I don’t know how to pilot these small ships.”

  “Then stand by and get ready. The palace is huge so I’m going to go in low and you can punt one into each wing.”

  “…You’re not going to like what you see when the palace comes into view.” Rylen warned tepidly.

  “The Hell is that supposed to mean?” The Fourth wondered, heading back to his seat to retake the controls.

  “It’s gone. The Duchess blew it up.”

  “The Duchess WHAT!?”

  Maeve swerved, and Gabriel frantically tried to stabilize it – Rylen’s mantle was thrashed around, having to reform itself several times before the ship finally leveled out again. The Sixth just shook his head, “Do you know how to pilot these?”

  “Yes, I know how to pilot my own ship! You can’t just say the Duchess blew up the place Ren was supposed to be inside and expect me to react like it’s no big deal! Explain!”

  “Relax, they’re fine. We’ve confirmed it with the failsafe. I just don’t want you doing that while we’re above Oceanside.”

  “…I’m going to have a bloody stroke before we ever get there.” Gabriel grumbled, and pinched the bridge of his nose for the migraine he already had, “How can you connect the failsafe without nanotech? How come you can’t just talk to them through it? If this whole venture turned out to be pointless then I swear, I’ll find and shit on your pod when we get back.”

  Rylen hadn’t looked so offended in decades, “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Don’t test me!”

  “The failsafe is a completely separate system from the World Cloud.” The Sixth glowered irritably, “It’s half of what makes the Eidolon System work the way that it does. This is the aspect that redirects neural input and output onto a different pathway. In other words, it’s the thing that translates how the brain issues orders for physical movement to the body…and makes it happen somewhere else. For the Fafnir, it’s the failsafe on their armor, letting the Captain pilot them in case of unconsciousness or mutiny. For the Eidolon, it’s what lets us use our mantles without walking around the pod-room, mirroring every gesture and footstep in tandem.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Gabriel didn’t have an answer for that; his quiet in the wake of the explanation was strange.

  “…What? Did that go over your head?”

  “…It’s the Tuonela…up here…” He explained, and pointed towards the northwest. Though at a distance, the vessel was still clearly a massive construct, and it was still shooting-off the green meteor-like energy blasts.

  Rylen came up to the pilot’s seat to get a better look, “…It’s intimidating, up close like this. From the orbital, it’s just a piece on a board.”

  “I don’t know if it was obvious earlier, but…knowing she blew up the palace, it’s crystal clear that the Duchess is salting the earth as she leaves this place. She doesn’t intend to come back, and I’m certain she’s going to head straight for Trazad with that thing.”

  “That would certainly explain the new heading.” The Sixth agreed, “She’s taken out two SkyFortresses now, and ruined probably a hundred square miles of her own countryside. If this hair-brained plan of yours works…I’m sicking the Fafnir straight onto that thing.”

  “…And you’re certain they’re okay?”

  Rylen huffed as he went back towards the door, and corralled the pods with his feet, “Yes, all four of them resisted the movement take-over per the protocol.”

  “I wish I understood half of what you said sometimes.”

  “And if I wrote a book on all the reasons why we each stay in our own lanes, you not knowing Sixth Wing protocols would be a chapter of its own.” Rylen countered, “…I wish I could cloak this ship. You’re going to start seeing resistance any second.”

  “You should be ready to shoot that damn thing down with the orbital if it gets hairy.”

  “…There’s too many innocent people aboard. I can’t. Especially not now that it’s above the cloud-line.”

  “She’s taken out two of your SkyFortresses and who-knows-how-many others.”

  “I’m not multiplying the body-count ten-fold on our side to save time.”

  Gabriel sneered back at him, “How many of our own people have to die before you shoot that thing down?”

  “At least another 15,000.”

  “You could try taking Far’nah out yourself. Do to her like Xanarken tried before; make good on your alternative approach. The Tuonela’s right there…”

  “I don’t have a way of getting over there until the Cloud permeates the area.”

  “Just upload your owl-mantle to this network! Ren put the entire Fafnir training-suit onto Seth’s before!”

  “Gods, fine…but if this nanotech goes offline just like theirs did before, you’ll be down a pod to supply them.”

  “Just fuckin’ do it! They only need enough for communications anyway!” Gabriel barked, “And get ready; we’re heading down!”

  Rylen was aghast, but there was no time to argue, and he grudgingly started the process of moving the avian mantle’s data to the lower system. He took-hold of one of the door-side handlebars as Maeve began the dive, and Gabriel – without a single second of evasive maneuvers training – summoned every ounce of willpower in his body to ignore his fear of heights so he could keep an eye on the screen.

  The sky was alight with firepower; artillery shot at the little skiff from all angles. They were still far enough away from the ground that most of those shots missed by a mile, even those leading the ship, but Gabriel soon pulled-up on the controls to avoid splattering against the ground, and found Maeve being shot-at from above instead. Streets and buildings were exploding all around him, and Maeve shook terribly, but onward it went, “Get ready! Dump them all quickly but only one at a time! I see the palace, or…whatever’s left of it!” He hollered, and reached up towards the ceiling to manually release the emergency oxygen mask stored above him. He pinned the joy-stick between his knees so he could pull the mask on, and set a finger to the hatch-door button after.

  Rylen crouched with a shoulder against the rear door’s lip, and kept two pods pinned behind himself as he took position with the first. That vertical sliding gate opened – the cabin filled with wind, sucking the air straight out of it. The Sixth’s mantle looked dusty as the maelstrom ripped away a fine layer of its surface.

  Maeve came up from the south, and Gabriel signaled, “Now!”

  The Eidolon let the first tech-orb fly, and it plummeted to the smoldering rubble at the south end. The second went out, landing roughly on top of the throne-room’s crater. Finally, the third pod was launched, bouncing off the ruins and landing in the burning northern overlook. Maeve launched out of the smoking pyre over the high rocky hills, and climbed quickly to avoid getting shot.

  Rylen looked back at the Fourth, silver hair whipping around violently, “Now get the Hell out of here! Don’t stop for anything, and don’t come back this way!”

  “Bye!”

  The Sixth dissolved, the dusty puff of nanotech getting sucked out the back of the ship as the hatch closed, and outside, that large owl appeared. It took a second to regain its bearings – and took a shot through the center of its body for the trouble – but as soon as Rylen knew what direction he was facing, he took off for the Tuonela. It was hard to see through the smoke and clouds, especially in the dark, but the behemoth gave itself away with more of those green shots.

  Deep beneath the rubble, Ravan was the first to find her HUD coming back online, and she immediately called out for help, “Cap-Captain! The whole palace blew up! We’re stuck!”

  Back on the Buckler, Furion paused in his unsettled pacing, “Dame Ravan! You’re back online?”

  “I don’t get it either! My HUD just came up! My leg though…I’m trapped!

  Corbin was next, “Shit, man…”

  Then Jense, “…Oof…”

  Gabriel listened-in, heart pounding in his chest, “C’mon, Ren…”

  “Someone tell me where the Hell I am and what direction to shoot so I can get out from under this crap-pile!”

  He nearly melted out of his chair for the relief of it, “Ren!”

  “…Gabe? When did you…?”

  “Not important! You can thank me for the care-package later! I’m figuring out where you are now…” He answered, again setting Maeve to autopilot as the skiff darted swiftly out over the western waters. When he knew, he puffed a breath, “It feels a bit illegal to have access to this, but…you’re under the southern pile. If you shoot up and about 65 degrees north, you’ll find the sky. Be careful though, the city’s-”

  Ren was the one worried about the sudden cut after that, and immediately pointed her forearm-cannons in the direction she’d been told. The air screamed and whistled as those beams cut through the debris – sparks and fire broke off as the rock went molten and splintered apart from the stress. The way the rock gave way suddenly was enough for Ren to feel she’d punched through, and like a missile, she shot through that narrow tunnel. Literal lava and molten metal clung briefly to her armor as she squeezed out, and she unfurled those massive red wings as she burst from beneath the ground, “Gabe!? Gabriel!”

  “He went west over the water!” Rylen answered, barely half-way up to the colony-ship by then.

  She took off like a shot, bits of debris flaking off of her as she went.

  “The rest of you need to get out of the pile and get to the Tuonela! Take out the array!” The Sixth added, “I’m going to try and take the Duchess out myself.”

  Jense had been nearly flat on his stomach, buried under the rubble with a number of heavy ceiling-panels crushing down onto his armor. Still, he managed to grumble, “I fucking said we should take out the weapon…but no one listens to me…” to himself. His overlay finally pulled up a map and his orientation upon it, and he – like the others – was able to find a good path up and out.

  Corbin spoke as he and Ravan realized how close they were to one another, “Lord Rylen, sir, the colony ship is equipped with some kind of E.M.P. device.” He started, and Ravan was able to blast her way into the space he was in; her left leg’s armor was dented slightly where the rock had pinned her before. Together, they continued ‘digging’ their way out, “Being close to the array was enough to distort our stealth capabilities, and in quick succession, they did something that knocked all of our tech out completely. Not just offline either…the nanotech collapsed around us like sand.”

  Rylen continued his ascent, “Great… Understood. Get up here and let’s figure it out.”

  “Sir!”

  Ren was surprised how far Maeve had gotten in such a short period of time, but that surprise quickly changed the rage as she spotted the ship being held under the water by the Sovereign Shadow, “Don’t you ever quit!? Get off him!”

  The little red ship had taken a number of punches to the roof, with those large clawed arms pinning the vessel beneath the waves. The thin head lifted and rippled, and Regulus turned to see the angry acting-Captain come barreling after him, “There she is…” He said to himself, a half-smirk crossing his face. With the wings of the skiff still in his grasp, he twisted it around, and forced the nose up to breach.

  Ren was quick to adjust; flying low to the surface, she arced upward and ricocheted off the hull to hurl herself at the ‘face’ of the mech. The impact was enough to dislodge it from Maeve, and Ren pulled the head back hard enough to flank it like a rodeo-calf, flipping it over before kicking it at the water upside-down. She knew it would only buy her a few seconds, but the splash of the massive mech hitting the surface was enough to obscure her retreat towards her partner. She quickly dove beneath the waves as well, and chased after the sinking skiff. Hands clamped to the front where the windshield ought to have been, and the line-gaps in her wing-arms glowed brighter as she put on the after-burners to keep the vessel from sinking further, “Gabriel!”

  She heard the subtle groan of a man who’d been whacked three-times-too-many in the head that day, but when he finally opened his eyes again and spotted her – underwater and trying to pull the whole ship upward – he quickly sobered-up and grabbed the controls with one hand as he clutched his head with the other, “I got it…I’m up…”

  “Hit the thrusters! He’s coming!”

  Gabriel didn’t need to be told twice, and as Ren dipped out of the way. The bright white lights behind Maeve’s curved wings lit-up again, and the ship started to rise. Ren gave it a quick kick in the rear-end as she pushed it from the back to get it moving faster, and turned it north instead of west. Water sprayed off of it as it breached the surface, and Maeve finally got airborne again, “I’ve got it from here!”

  “Get moving! I’ll cover you!” Ren barked, and quickly turned as Regulus came rushing at her from behind. Metal banged as Ren was pushed up, and was abruptly turned down towards the water again, pinned by the mech’s head and small arms like a seal in the jaws of a massive shark.