Dust in Pieces were all in the cockpit. Slowly advancing towards the big ship where a sister in need of saving was. They were behind the [Admiral]'s ship, with minimal magical signature to try and be stealthy.

Krovukk was pretty sure they had been spotted a long time ago, but they didn’t really feel like they had a choice. They had tried to come up with a plan, but nothing seemed to stick, and were now simply following along in hopes of an opportunity presenting itself.

The ship they were following was getting really close to the hauler smuggling different goods. They all were at the point where they were thinking about a diplomatic approach. Which honestly, wasn’t their style, but it made the most sense. Why go up against a high level [Admiral] when you could simply buy the slave back?

Of course it wasn’t fair, why would they have to pay anything? They would rip them off for sure, claiming random reasons to bloat the debt they had to settle for sure, but between that and probable death?

Life wasn’t fair. Or so the saying went. Some [Karmic Sages] had apparently hotly debated the point, saying it actually was fair, but not immediately, and that past lives were to be taken into consideration.

Which honestly sounded like an easy way out to Krovukk. Sure it had been magically proven that souls reincarnated, but they knew next to nothing else about the process. How would you even go about proving it evened out?

Back to the present, he saw that not much had changed. They were just a bit closer to the other big ship. It would take at least five full minutes until the [Admiral]’s ship landed, and another few if they wanted to follow suit.

Krovukk didn’t think they should parlay with a bunch of criminals. Maybe the smart thing to do was to find others like them and come back, but he understood the urgency of wanting to save their sister before something happened to her.

Stuck between the cheeks of a metal golem. A metaphorically shitty place, although golems didn’t need to defecate. Thinking about it, that expression didn’t make a lot of sense.

Krovukk almost marveled at how easily he was getting sidetracked. A sign he really was nervous. But it was hard not to, given the situation.

As the other ship started to slow down, the crew all noticed the ship systems going haywire. Systems they had shut down turned on, and systems that had been on just went wild. Even the directional system started acting up something fierce, and they did a maneuver he didn’t have a name for. A barrel roll crossed with a wingover was the closest he got.

Not ready for the wild moves, only Levy who was attached to his seat stayed in it.

Krovukk hit his head with the others. Well, not Xar apparently as he was nimble enough.

Reacting quickly, Levy stabilized their course enough for them to fall back on their feet, or scramble back up. But even with him actively correcting things, the ship was still moving wildly.

What in the system’s name was going on? Krovukk had never seen anything like it. Of course he had seen minor anomalies, usually explained away with the classical argument: Mana be strange sometimes.

Well, apparently today it was batshit insane. Xar was already rushing out to check on the mana storage. If they somehow decided to blow up, they would soon be space junk. Not something anyone wanted to happen to them, really. Apparently it was a very painful death.

They weren’t the only ones who were having trouble. The [Admiral]’s ship seemed to be in the same state as them. Just as he was about to check how the big ship was holding up, a huge explosion blew out a fifth of the ship. Xar would be sad he had missed it.

His guts were wrenched. They didn’t know where their sister was, and that explosion had surely killed a large portion of the crew. He cast a look at the brothers and saw them, worry clear on their faces. Yeah that was not good. But on the other hand, she did tend to be lucky when it mattered, and this was exactly the kind of opportunity they needed.

Without any prompting, Levy slowly tried to orient them towards the new opening. It was clear they wouldn’t get another chance like this, so he aimed the ship at the rather large new entrance. The ship was still going a bit insane, but it was calming down.

In front of them, the other smaller ship was simply trying to stabilize. But just as they thought the anomaly was finally passing, the ship went completely dark. Exactly like when Matt had appeared. He felt the gravity disappear and started floating instead. He hated zero g.

Looking through the cockpit, it was clear that it wasn’t just them. This was affecting everyone. Krovukk could barely imagine being on the big ship right now, an explosion of that sized followed by no magic? That meant doors wouldn’t close, that all the failsafes would stop working.

Was whoever sent Matt doing something again? Krovukk only now noticed everyone else was talking rapidly around him. With everything going on he simply hadn’t registered a word they had said, even if he had noticed they had been talking.

“–long did it last when Matt arrived?” The captain asked them.

“It wasn’t long, maybe a few minutes?” Xar responded.

“It’s not the same.” Levy said as he shook his head. The others turned to him.

“Well, think about it. When Matt teleported in or whatever, it just went dark, straight away, right? There wasn’t a whole period when everything went crazy. What do you think that means? The person or thing doing this isn’t doing the same thing, meaning, we have no way of knowing how long it will last.” Levy explained.

“Plus it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Xar supplied. Krovukk turned to look at him questioningly.

“Well, as long as it’s dark, we can’t really do anything. Like at all.” He explained, to which the others nodded.

“There is one thing we can do.” The captain said as he turned to look at each one of them.

“True.” Levy nodded, before they all guessed what he had in mind. It wasn’t really hard to guess, it was the only thing they could do right now.

“Alright, but what about Matt?” Xar asked.

“Oh.” The captain said before pausing.

“Well, we’ll suit him up too, and depending on what happens we might have to take him with us.” He finally added. It was non-committal enough that everyone agreed without a fuss.

“Whoa! You scared me.” Levy exclaimed as he opened the door. It slid without any resistance, but he had to pull it himself. In front of him was Matt, who had floated up here. Krovukk could barely see him in the dark, but luckily there were a few mana crystals that still glowed weakly.

Good thing the kid wasn’t hurt, but he was worried about what would happen. If, like he believed, they would crash into that big ship, with no magic shield or anything to protect the ship, they might not be able to leave him on it at all, and need to take him with them, which wasn’t ideal.

“Guys, we don’t have that much time.” He said as he saw the big ship becoming bigger.

“Yeah, he’s right, if we hit anything that depressurizes us, we are all dead right now.” The captain added.

They filed out and floated down in the main hall, where there were several space suits ready in a closet. They were fairly thin, for space suits. Krovukk immediately set to task and the others started putting them on too. Matt was trying to find one his size, but ended up having to take one that was slightly too large.

Krovukk thought the teen had slimmed this last week compared to when he had arrived. He hadn’t been fat, but more on the chubby side.

Soon enough, the whole crew was suited up, and mana still wasn’t back. They floated back to the cockpit to try and see what was going on, but as they arrived, Krovukk was the first to see an issue.

The ship was slowly rotating on itself, but keeping its forward speed. So right now, they didn’t even see the big ship they were most probably going to crash into. They had no way of knowing how much time it would take.

So they prepared. As much as they could at least. Once everyone was in space suits, they attached Matt to a seat first. Then they attached themselves.

Now that they were done however, they had no way of looking. They had hurried thinking a crash was imminent but so far it hadn’t been.

The truth was that space was vast. Usually ships would constantly accelerate or decelerate in order to reach their destination fast. There was another factor at play too however.

Time perception. They had hurried, and now not knowing what was going on, time seemed to creep by ever so slowly. In truth, it hadn’t even been more than a minute since they had fastened themselves up. It just felt like a long time because they were constantly anticipating a crash.

Krovukk was about to ask Levy if they had maybe missed the other ship when the whole ship violently shook. There had been no shield or magic system to cushion the blow.

A space ship was made durable, but it rarely took into account having exactly zero mana. Their hull integrity was breached and the air was sucked out through a hole in what a dazed Krovukk had to guess was the kitchen.

Even fastened and secured as he was, the crash had rocked him violently enough to make him question up from down. Well with no gravity maybe that wasn’t such a good analogy, but still.

Krovukk took a glance at the others and saw they seemed to be in a similar state to him. They had all put on their battlegear beneath the space suit and were ready for anything. It wasn’t completely unusual to fight in zero-g, but it wasn’t that often either.

Gravity magic had been one of the first things they had perfected in order to travel in space. It was necessary for the bone structures of the different species to not deteriorate and was a necessary magical cost.

Today gravity magic barely cost anything, because instead of adding gravity to a whole ship, there was a sort of programming that made the spell very complexe in nature, but mana efficient in the extremes. Gravity was only applied to individual objects when needed. Which might seem strange, but it meant there wasn’t actually a ship-wide gravity field.

Why was Krovukk thinking about gravity right now? Well, he did miss it for one, he wasn’t one to really enjoy the zero-g of space. He had trained in it enough to be proficient, but the system knew he would much rather fight with his two legs on ground.

Unlocking his security strappings, he joined Levy who was already floating about, asking the others if they were okay and mostly getting muted nods. It seemed no one was hurt, only dazed. It looked funny because no one heard him. Krovukk could see him speak and understood what question he was asking by his face alone, but without any magic to transmit sound between them, and no air around them, no sound would travel between them.

It was Matt who seemed the most lost. The worst part was that they couldn’t really leave him here on the ship. Honestly they might even have to abandon it completely. It would depend on the damage and on what would happen on this rescue mission.

The captain gestured for Matt to stay safe behind them, and motionned for the others to follow him. They all floated down into the kitchen where a rather big hole greeted them. Now, it was extremely important that they not fuck up going to the other ship.

If they jumped and didn’t manage to stay on the other ship and bounced off, they had no magic to adjust their course and would be floating through space until magic was back. It was already surprising how long the blackout had lasted, but at this point, they could only count on it continuing.

The captain stopped at the edge of the hole looking out. All of them tried to peek outside, There, they saw the other ship, barely ten meters away, with a hole of its own. Xar looked at them with a worried expression, Levy with determination and the Captain without any clear emotion on his face.

It was strange to see them all so close but not being able to talk to them. Krovukk had never experienced zero-g like this. All the magical systems had always worked, meaning there had been plenty of safety nets should something go wrong, and he could talk to his buddies.

Now? With no mana, no safety nets and no talking? Space had never felt so oppressive before. Like a forgotten cruel mistress who took her revenge on them for cheating with magic for so long. The ten meter jump to the other ship would have been laughable in a normal situation.

There would have been no risk in it. Now? If they failed, they might float for however long magic didn’t work. And what if they continued floating and once magic was back, the mana crystals were out of mana? It would be a slow and painful death.

It made the rather easy looking jump look daunting. The space separating the two ships was that much larger, that much more impressive. Krovukk spotted Matt, but he didn’t seem worried. He seemed strangely determined and focused.

He probably didn’t know that a failed jump might be a death sentence, otherwise he doubted that the young kid would be able to be that calm.

It was then probably a good thing no one could tell him. Krovukk himself would rather not know right now as he knew the fear made it that much more likely to fail. They had all been looking around close to the hole for a minute now, waiting for the captain to make a decision.

Well, apparently he had already made it, but was just deciding on how to proceed. He pointed to himself and the jump, telling them he was going to do it first. He pointed to a spot where Krovukk guessed might be inside the other ship. It was hard to tell with no light on the other side, but it was the spot that went the deepest into the other ship.

Taking a visible deep breath, Krovukk was glad that their oxygen system didn’t rely on magic for once. Well, not entirely at least. There were magical fail safes on it that were not working right now, but the base system didn’t use magic.

The captain jumped and flew through space. He hadn’t jumped very hard, which was probably smart as it would be easier to land then, but it made the time in the absolute void of space that much longer.

They all looked at him intently as he slowly made his way to the other side. He had jumped as straight as possible, but even then, a small rotation had snuck in and he was halfway turned the wrong way when he finally arrived on the other side.

He missed to grip a metal pole, bounced his shoulder on the ship, and almost bounced back out in empty space with nothing to grip, but managed at the last second to grip a pipe that was sticking out. Hauling himself close to the ship and in a good and secure position, he motioned for them to follow.

Levy was to go second, and he barely hesitated as he jumped. He put more strength to it, but jumped straight at his brother, who easily caught him and helped him. They motioned for Matt to go next, as they didn’t want him to go last in case something went wrong.

Matt’s determined look was somewhat faded, and terror was starting to crack through on his face as he turned to look at Xar and Krovukk beside him.

He had wanted to be determined and strong, but making that jump? There was something inherently terrifying about it. Still, he steeled his resolve, hesitated some more.

After some silent reassurance by Krovukk and Xar, the kid finally did it.

Matt jumped, his first flirt with a merciless mistress called space.