Pan glared at the view outside. “So much for a clean escape.”

“Yeah,” Alban huffed. “A few of those ships are larger than our Ischyros. But, nothing Fauchard’s size. Too bad they have the look of warships. Any backup coming from Iruedim yet?”

Sotir answered before any of the crew could. “They’re coming. But, I can’t say whether it will be enough.” Sotir’s eyes glazed, and he stared into space. “Maybe, if you can take out half these ships before the others come through. That would work…”

“More are coming? Well, if we’re going to destroy half of these ships here, we’ll need your dragon.” Alban pointed at the windshield. “Get him out there.”

Pan almost froze. She shot Alban a wide-eyed look. Then, she took a deep breath and imagined the circle to call the dragon. She put it in the open space above the trenches.

“Please be good,” she whispered.

The circle traced itself in the air and burst into smoke. The dragon flew out of that smoke and landed hard on the deck before Pan.

She took a step back, nearly losing her balance at the dragon’s tremor, as it rattled the deck. “You’ll be good this time?”

The dragon snorted and bowed its head.

“You need to help too, Pan. It can’t do it alone. Go with it.” Sotir gestured to the dragon.

The dragon’s breath moved slow, in and out. It stared at her, with its red eyes, and waited. Pan had ridden the dragon when the Volanter caught them – that time they failed to get home. Pan thought the dragon remembered.

“Go with it?” she asked.

The dragon tugged at her sleeve.

Riding the dragon in the open air was one thing. Riding the dragon through space was another.

She backpedaled and drew a portal to the battle that had started already. Out in space, shots and magic fired ahead of the Fauchard and well ahead of the Ischyros.

The dragon wound around the portal and stalked for Pan.

“It’s alright,” Sotir called. “Don’t resist.”

“Sotir.” Pan gave him her best what are you thinking look. She was not ready for space.

“Take a com!” Alban stooped and slid a com along the upper walkway.

The com skated under the portal, under the dragon’s claws, and tapped Pan’s foot. She picked it up and fastened it to her clothes.

She gave her attention back to the dragon but not fast enough to avoid it. The dragon grabbed her and rolled her onto its back.

Pan landed on the slim trail of feathery fur between the wings. She laid on the dragon’s back, flat on her stomach. Pan grabbed two fistfuls of the fur. “Am I going to be able to breathe in space?!”

Sotir shouted back, “Yes. It has the scale shield. It’ll work the same for you as it does for the Volanter.”

Pan almost slid free, but the dragon had other plans. From its flanks and belly, black see-through scales unfolded. They swallowed Pan, creating a tight hump on the dragon’s back where she lay trapped. The dragon has always been skinny, and Pan imagined, had the scales not been see-through, someone would mistake the humped area as a part of the dragon.

Or, would that be a mistaken impression at all?

The dragon lurched, and Pan held tight. She looked out the tinted view and saw her portal stream by, revealing space beyond.

Just as Sotir promised, Pan remained safe from the vacuum. She lifted her head and propped herself up on her forearms. Her hair brushed the transparent scale above. She could go no higher, but she had a decent enough view.

Actually, her view was fantastic.

Pan couldn’t help feeling that this view was what space should look like. She could see the Fauchard, great and blue. The Ischyros, smaller but still greater than Pan herself, floated below. It drifted closer to the battle, staying in the Fauchard’s shadow to balance safety with aid.

Pan twisted her head and looked back. She glimpsed Iruedim, green, blue, and clouded. An ideal planet. A single nearby star warmed space, and splayed over the rest of the sky, Pan saw clusters of galaxies. Those clusters were what truly gave Iruedim’s space luster. Cloudy spirals turned on edge, and some spirals showed their full shape, arms and all.

Pan looked ahead and saw the wormhole. It seemed nothing more than a bubble in space, with ships arrayed before it. Unfortunately, those ships were Volanter.

“We might as well go for the ones in the back. Alban and Rooks can handle the ones out front. Then, when the other Volanter get here, they can deal with the mess we leave. We are their children after all. They should expect to pick up after us.” Pan hoped the dragon could hear her. “If you get close, I’ll draw us a portal inside one of the ships.”

The dragon stuck its head out, like an arrow, and aimed for the closest of the distant ships while all around, new ships joined the fight.

Pan counted more of Fauchard’s kind. They were smaller than Fauchard, but still a bit bigger than the Ischryos. It was a fleet of six, maybe seven large ships. Pan couldn’t get an exact number. But, that wasn’t all. The strangest parade of little ships joined the battle.

A crescent moon. A great lizard. A sphere. And even something like a gourd.

Magic rings of the Iruedian kind met rings of Volanter make. Many fizzled, meeting in space. Others hit their marks, and explosions decorated her familiar’s flight.

Pan could tell the Iruedian circles by their multi-rings, vibrant colors, and interconnected runes, laced together with stars.

Pan could tell the Volanter circles by their comparative simplicity. She counted some with three rings, but there were no bands to hold the runes in place and no stars to stitch it all together.

The dragon burst through an explosion, and Panphila tucked her head down. Because it was a dragon the color of ink, they blended into the background and slithered their way through space.

Pan raised her head and peeked out the scales. She saw their target below. She could also see a window. Pan squinted and glimpsed the details. She traced a portal inside.

Meladee lost her balance and fell to the deck. Inez fell beside her.

“Shit. Get back up. We’ve got to change that wormhole,” Meladee said.

Inez pushed to her feet, and Meladee climbed Inez back to a standing position.

“I can’t get a clean line to the wormhole,” Inez said.

“Just pretend those other guys aren’t here.” Meladee closed her eyes and imagined the wormhole, tranquil and alone in space. She opened one eye and peeked. “What I wouldn’t give for a break with reality right now.” Meladee sighed. “Just try to concentrate.”

“Your fleet is a mishmash. Where did you get half of these things?” Alban’s voice buzzed through the com.

“A museum,” Rooks called back. “That’s why they call me the Curator.”

A bang against the Fauchard drowned Alban’s laugh.

“You know, any fucker who laughs during a fight is probably a crazy fucker.” Meladee shot Inez a sidelong glance.

Inez spread her hands. “Why are you looking at me like that? I would never.”

Meladee scowled. “I don’t mean you.”

Rooks turned round on them. “I better not hear any more talking out of the two of you. Get to work.”

Meladee took a deep breath and stared hard at the wormhole. She knew Eder’s part of the spell better than she knew Inez’s, which was good because Eder was the one unable to do any magic right now. Meladee had memorized Eder’s part of the spell with more gusto because she knew that if she had to stand in for anyone, it would be Eder.

Poor, poor kid. He was not a battle mage, and the fact that he kept getting dragged into these situations was a testament to the overly close relationship between Inez and Eder. She was his security blanket, and that was going to get him killed. Maybe all of them.

Camellia knelt on the floor and hugged Eder around the shoulders. He cowered beside a bench, having sunk to the deck before he made the seat.

The Fauchard shook again and jostled them. Camellia bumped into Eder, who bumped against Florian. Florian hugged him from the other side.

Eder put a hand over his forehead, shading his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I botched that spell, and now we’re all going to die.”

“No, we won’t die. Have a little faith in Rooks,” Florian soothed.

Camellia looked at the battle outside. It was bigger than any she’d seen, with more ships participating than when they’d fled Girandola. Of course, a lot of those ships were the strange Lurrien vessels that completed their fleet. It was anything but coherent and grand.

“I let everyone down,” Eder said.

Florian began to make sounds of objection.

But, Camellia said, “Well, that’s true. But, you’re not the first to have done it. I have. Meladee has. Even Eva has let others down.” Camellia nodded at Florian. “Maybe, not him.”

Eder laughed. Florian narrowed his eyes, with good nature.

“Maybe, you should do a job more like me. Be an anthropologist…Come where there’s company,” Camellia coaxed.

Eder quieted. “I’ll come. If we survive, I’ll come.”

Camellia rubbed his shoulder. The three of them would return to Groaza, and they would pretend that nothing terrible was coming from the Volanter. Camellia hoped that this invasion would be it, but somehow, she didn’t think fifteen ships was quite the entire Volanter fleet.

Another ship popped through the wormhole.

Sixteen.

A distant explosion took one.

Fifteen.

Pan and her dragon sailed on to the next ship. The dragon circled, not the bridge, but the central room. A window above a great Mother Tree let in natural light. Even on a warship, they had a place for a Mother Tree, though this room looked smaller than the one on the civilian ship.

Pan sighted inside. Her eyes followed a light from its place on the ceiling to a point in the garden below.

The portal swirled open.

The dragon streamed through and alighted atop the bush she’d aimed for. The dragon could fly, but it wasn’t a spry bird. Its claws and weight flattened the bush to the soil. It opened its canopy of scales.

Pan slid off. “You go to the bridge. I’ll go to Engineering. You meet me in Engineering as soon as you’re done.”

Pan ran to the back of the room. Her familiar had gone the opposite way in a blink. Pan knew the dragon would outpace her, even with the shortcut she’d discovered to Engineering.

Pan ran out of the room and caught a Volanter off guard. She conjured a portal circle right at the center of the Volanter’s torso, hoping to cut him in half. The Volanter teleported, with a quick blast of a circle that Brynn must have reaped all those years ago.

Pan just let the Volanter flee. She ran away and disappeared around a corner. She was not here to play games. She had to destroy as many ships as she could before more came through the wormhole.

Pan skidded to a stop. She’d found the slide.

The Volanter had a slide to reach Engineering, and it would get Pan there in a flash. Pan grasped the handle at the top of the slide, pulled knees to her chest, and slipped in.

She would be gone before that other Volanter realized where she went.

Pan touched the sides of the slide, feeling static dance along her hands and creep up to her hair. With a final whoosh and turn, Pan hopped onto her feet and ducked out the slide.

Pan took one last at it. “How can they concentrate when this is here?”

As one, the Volanter engineers looked at Pan.

“How?” She gestured to it.

Then, she portaled away to a pre-planned outcropping halfway up the wall. She’d found it in the first Engineering room she’d destroyed and would rate it a ten out of ten for hiding. She couldn’t say what it was there for. It was just an unreachable shelf, probably designed so they could brighten their workspace with some holiday cheer or maybe a potted plant.

Pan crouched in the little space, like a statue.

She sighted their engine, a spiraling tube, filled with sparks and light. Pan knelt and cast three of her portals. First one at the base of the column. Second one at the middle, and third one at the top. They sang into being, each a humming a different note.

The first circle died on the lines of a counter. Circle two received the same treatment. Circle three opened a portal to nowhere in particular, singing its success like a collection of bells.

The engine groaned. Like a tree, it began to lean; then to slide free of its support system. Finally, it fell and shattered over the floor.

Pan conjured a protective bubble, just large enough for her crouching form to fit. She tucked her head and closed her eyes tight against the resulting explosion.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a mess of shrapnel; Volanter dead or in bubbles of their own; and her ride, working its way toward her on wings of ink.

The remains of the Volanter ship drifted away. The vessel spit sparks along its broken edges. The Volanter in bubbles began their own casts, having finally spotted Pan.

She opened a portal for her dragon. It zipped through, and then, grabbed Pan’s bubble. She opened another portal behind, and they sailed away.

Circles fired off where she had been, but Pan and the dragon were on to the next target.

“The wormhole is shifting now,” Eva called from the main console in Fauchard’s engineering bay.

She and Sten had gone to help the overworked engineers, offering what services they could in this kind of a battle.

Eva freed the engineers to work on the Fauchard, while she monitored the main console for more damage reports. As she passed the reports off to others, she scanned the wormhole for activity. She was just in time to watch the wormhole rapidly move between locations.

Eva’s innards seemed to tick faster and faster while the whole of Engineering moved slow around her. A new report of damage came in. Eva glanced at the screen and found it was minor enough to ignore for just a moment.

She stared at the wormhole’s data and watched the activity that resembled static on a screen. Then, it happened. The wormhole read smooth.

Eva called up to the bridge, “It shifted! No more Volanter ships will come. But, the Ischyros might be able to get through. They can bring help.”

“We know it shifted Eva…there’s just too many Volanter through already. We’ve lost half of the Lurrien ships, and two of the Girandolan.” Rooks paused. “No one is getting through right now, and…”

“It’s too late,” Alban broke into the conversation. “Pan destroyed eight ships, but too many came through while she worked. I don’t see how we can win this.”

Eva broke the com channel. She submitted the damage report, sending it on to someone else to fix. Eva pulled up a tactical display. The Volanter ships outnumbered the Iruedians and one Scaldin vessel, at least in ships of substantial size and fire power. The small Lurrien ships barely counted, and half of them were just scatterings of debris, obstacles logged on her scan.

It was too late.

Pan lay supine on her familiar. Its protective scales made a roof above her, and she gazed at space. She stroked the feathery fur of her dragon’s back. It was so dark and smooth and soft. Her familiar was not evil. Well, maybe a little.

“Pan, come back. Sotir wants you,” Alban called.

“I’m not at all tired yet. I can get more ships out of the fight for you.”

“It won’t make a difference. If you don’t come back now, there won’t be an Ischyros for you to come back to,” Alban growled.

Pan stared at the space above. She could see the burst of explosions, fuzzy as they were through the see-through scales of her dragon. “Why can’t we win? I thought I heard that the wormhole shifted. If we can’t win, we could just go home.”

“You’re right. Meladee and Inez shifted the wormhole’s exit but not fast enough. We’ll never get through now. Come back,” Alban said.

Pan felt the dragon turn as it moved for home, sans orders from Pan. Home, of course, didn’t mean Scaldigir; it meant the Ischryos.

Pan frowned. “I’m coming. But, Alban, did you say Inez and Meladee shifted the wormhole? What happened to Eder?”

“Eder couldn’t help cast the circle. He failed at it.” Alban continued to speak.

Pan didn’t hear a word. She closed her eyes and envisioned the time message circle.

This is an easy fix. Meladee should take Eder’s place. Tell the Fauchard to switch Eder and Meladee before the first casting.

Pan startled as she stood on the Ischyros’ bridge. Everyone watched the wormhole. The wormhole still loomed before them, and the Fauchard disappeared, half of it already inside.

Pan had the distinct impression that she should call the Fauchard and beg Meladee to substitute in for Eder.

Time message! It was a time message.

“If they change the wormhole before we come through…I swear.” Alban shook his head.

“They won’t,” Sotir assured him.

“We need to call them as soon as we reach the other side,” Pan broke in.

Alban and Sotir turned to her.

“Are you alright?” Sotir asked.

Pan thought her wide eyes couldn’t have given him much assurance, and nothing she said would either. “Remember when we changed our route? Made sure we went by the Volanter’s house.”

“Yes, I do. You had to use the time message.”

Pan nodded. “Well, we’ve needed it again. I know you’re tired, but you need to look ahead right now.”

Sotir stiffened and stared at Pan with narrowed eyes, but he soon let his vision glaze and stared into space.

Pan faced Alban. “Call the Fauchard and tell them to substitute Meladee for Eder. He’s not going to be able to do the circle, but Meladee might.”

Alban crossed to the com embedded in his chair. His finger hovered over the button as he watched the wormhole.

The Ischyros already made its way through. Pan watched their view ripple, and then, she saw Iruedim. She was the only Scaldin who remembered the view.

Alban hit his com. “Rooks?”

“You called fast. What is it?”

“Don’t let Eder try to cast the circle. You need to put Meladee in.”

A pause followed. “Alright. It’s done. Get clear of the wormhole.”

A few moments later, the wormhole exit shifted, and it led to Scaldigir.

Sotir came out of his trance, ashen. He looked Pan in the eyes and asked, “How far did you get in that other timeline?”

“Maybe not as far as you.”