The meeting before the jump into the Halfex system was bathed in silence. The newly christened Embroiled Flash had proven its standard engines and void cannon capable on the travel from XM-180. Escape from the station and its accompanying storms had given the ship a good test.

On the other hand, the jump equipment, christened by Silf as the Lightning Drive, had not been tested. And regardless of how much he reassured the other two crew members, they weren’t convinced of its safety.

But despite their misgivings, they didn’t abandon or postpone the mission. As Aire had put it, whether they explode a few systems away or explode at the destination, the result would be the same. A test before the final approach wouldn’t change anything.

The uncertainty sunk into the crew over time, however, which led to an uninspired final meeting. They were collected in the bridge of the Flash, not talking. Everyone knew what they had to do, what they were up against, but nobody said a word. Each one was too caught in their own introspection to break the group free of their thoughts.

Eventually time ended the meeting for them. The navigation computer indicated that they were on the final approach to their jump-out point.

“I guess that’s that,” said Silf. “Head to stations. Remain in radio contact throughout the run. Let’s get through this in one piece.”

Kik nodded. “Let’s.” He swung around the copilot seat to face the bridge controls. Aire had the captain seat today - Silf had decided she was better suited for space combat. Kik wasn’t sure of that yet, but now wasn’t the time to argue.

Aire began the final jump procedure while Kik prepared the sensors for a passive sweep. When they exited the jump, they wanted to be ready for whatever they would find on the other side.

The ship lurched as the void cannon fired. Kik gulped and braced as the wormhole ahead drew closer, much faster than he was prepared for…

---

Shoved from the wormhole in a spin, the artificial gravity struggled to compensate on such short notice. Kik was thrown around in his chair but his buckles held fast until the attitude thrusters evened out the ship’s path.

“What was that?” Silf called over the radio. “What threw us out of balance? Did we miscalculate the jump?”

Instead of replying, Kik ran the sensor sweep out. The response surprised him. Instead of the few ship readings he would have expected of a fleet that size, he received over sixty readings. The closest was a mere twenty kilometres away in outer orbit. The furthest was within bombardment distance of the planet’s surface, some twenty thousand away.

“Aire, we have a problem,” Kik said. “They have a ship right on top of us - so close their gravity threw off our entry. I thought we jumped in further out to avoid them?”

“Silf, we need that hop now,” Aire said, leaning over to check the results.

“Weren’t there meant to be no more than forty capital ships here?” Kik asked, desperately running through the planetary data. “Why are there so many?”

Aire studied the data for a second, ignoring Silf’s complaints that the Lightning Drive was a delicate machine, requiring precise calibration. After a moment she came to a conclusion.

“The nearby one is a wreck,” she said. “But with functioning systems. A recent wreck.”

“Then the others?” Kik asked. “We might spot a wreck twenty kilometres away, but not from tens of thousands. Those have to be live ships.”

“Decoys, perhaps. We’ll find out when we get closer.”

The Flash pointed its nose towards the planet as Silf worked through his trajectory calculations. Looking down at the planet from the bridge, Kik took a moment to relax as he gazed down upon the planet. It filled more than a quarter of the viewing bubble. Blue seas mixed with green, brown and red land. The black wall of night was cutting into the verdant landscape, lights illuminating an odd population centre here and there.

“That large grouping would be the capital area,” Aire said, noticing Kik’s interest. “It contains about twenty of the world’s five hundred million residents.”

“That’s where we’re headed then?”

Aire hesitated. “To an extent. We’ll hit the atmosphere in that area but that’s not where we’ll be coming down.”

Kik looked out at the world again. “It seems like the sort of place where I could take a holiday.”

Aire snorted. “This part of space is no place for that. No tourist would want to come all the way out here, so nobody out here would be expecting tourists.”

“Still, it seems like a peaceful planet,” Kik said. “It’s hard to believe there’s a fleet of warships surrounding it.”

“Believe it or not, they’re out there,” Aire replied.

An alert popped to life on the bridge, making Aire’s words prophetic. Kik pulled it up.

“Incoming fighters and a transmission from the blockading fleet,” he said. “Do I answer?”

Aire snorted. “Don’t give them the pleasure of our time. Silf, how long until those calculations are done?”

“Rushing, rushing, always rushing,” Silf said. “Can’t you give me a minute to do some work?”

“Silf!”

“Buy me two minutes. Hey, maybe if we had tested this before, I would know how…”

“You’re the one who didn’t want to test it! You said you knew how it worked.”

“And you agreed!” Silf couldn’t resist going for the final word.

“Before you two stop work to jump on each other, we’re under fire,” Kik said. “That’s what we get for staying silent. Sensors pick up projectiles heading towards us, approaching one percent of lightspeed. They’ll reach us in a matter of seconds.”

“Then keep them off us! I need to…” Silf began.

Aire jerked on the control stick, shifting the ship to port. A burst of swearing came over the comms, whether from Silf being knocked off his feet or his calculations being thrown off Kik couldn’t tell.

The projectiles passed the ship in a streak of fire. They gleamed as they raced by, shining light reflected off the distant sun.

“They missed,” said Kik with glee, before the ship was rocked by a shockwave. “They did miss, didn’t they?” Scanning his sensors, he detected a cloud of chaff dissolving into nothingness to starboard and behind the ship. “What are they shooting at us?”

“It looks like shrapnel bombs,” Aire said. “It will mark our position for successive shots. But of more importance, it does surface damage - destroys cameras, sensors, weapons, engines, and so on without damaging the hull. They’re planning on taking us intact.”

“Second volley incoming,” Kik said, interrupting a complaint by Silf. Aire jerked the control stick again in response, swinging the ship’s prow away from the view of the planet - but in return shielding the bridge from any but the luckiest shots.

“We need to do something,” Silf said, seizing a lull in the conversation. “At this rate we’ll be scrap before I can set anything up.”

“Alright,” Aire said. “What do you need to finish your side?”

“Full control of the engines until I’ve set up the jump.”

“Impossible,” Aire said. “We’ll be disabled in half a minute, and that’s assuming they’re bad shots.”

“Then we’re not getting in there. Our only option is to abort.”

Aire growled. “I don’t know how you work, but I don’t back down from a fight after this much preparation. We find a way, or we make one.”

“Why don’t we hide?” Kik asked.

“Where? We’re in open space,” Aire said.

“That wreck’s still there. We can take shelter behind that. If we get lucky, they might even lose our location.”

“Alright,” Aire said. “Silf, you get your chance. You can make your calculations without a direct view of the planet? If you can’t, you’d better figure out how to, because it’s the one chance you’re getting.”

Aire turned the Flash around to face the dead ship, setting the engines to high thrust. Acceleration kicked in and the gravity dropped off to compensate. Kik watched Aire’s hands, noting that she didn’t hold a straight course. Instead she pushed the craft to the left or right with smaller thrusters. Compared to the ship’s overall movement, the distance was miniscule, but that detail would make landing a hit more difficult. It did, however, play havoc with comfort inside the cabin.

The most dangerous part of the transit was the last minute, when the ship was almost at safety. It had been scarred and marked until that moment, incidental damages piling up, but this was the worst of the bombardment. The blockading fleet realised their target was about to reach safety and doubled their efforts.

For the first time, lasers fired. Despite the weapons being near their maximum effective range, the Flash’s armour was no military issue. Plates started to burn from the heat, as much as Aire’s manoeuvres and the distance scattered them.

But the fleet hadn’t acted fast enough. The Embroiled Flash slipped behind the hull of its unusual shield, matching its orbital path. On the bridge, Aire let out a breath and forced her tensed hands away from the controls.

---

“What’s the ship in front of us called?” Kik asked Aire, peering out the viewport at the dark hulk beneath them. It rotated as it drifted, concealing its gutted side from the Flash. Kik had seen it half a rotation ago, a scramble of slow-drifting rubble held together by the few functioning gravity generators.

“I have no idea,” Aire said. “But I would guess that it was one of the Halfex ships jumping back from patrol. It would have received the same reception as us.”

Kik gazed down at the navy-grey hull plating. “Or worse. Do you reckon there’s anyone still alive in there?”

“No,” Aire said. “If there were survivors, they were captured when the ship was boarded. The blockading fleet wouldn’t leave a prize like that unpicked.”

“Then do you think there would be anything down there we can salvage?”

“Did you forget that the fighters arrive in five minutes?” Aire asked. “That’s enough time to get out of the airlock, find something interesting, and then look back at the ship to realise it was destroyed while you were gone. Settle down and finish analysing those weapon trajectories. I want to know which of those readings are decoys and which were firing on us.”

“Almost done.”

“Come to think of it, Silf,” Aire said, “how long do you have left on that drive? Our temporary shield is exactly that - temporary.” To accompany her words, another weapon impact marked the wreck, redirecting its spin. On the prow, Kik caught a flash of an inscription. The ship’s name vanished into darkness in moments, but he caught what it said.

“The Spectre of Death,” he read aloud. “Morbid.”

“Give me two minutes,” Silf said, his voice overlapping with Kik’s on the radio. “Wait, what?”

“The name of the wreck. The Spectre of Death.”

“So we’re hiding in the shadow of the Spectre of Death,” Silf said.

“For behind them lies unending darkness, and an end that comes for you,” Kik said. He considered how long it had been since he had last listened to the song.

“What language...?” Silf began to ask.

“Cut the chatter and work, you two,” Aire said. “We have an appointment to make.”

“Right,” said Kik. “Computations just finished. I read four ships among the decoys - at least, four ships that chose to fire. There must be more.”

“How high are their orbits?”

“Either six or fifteen thousand kilometres, two at each. Just below geosynchronous.”

Silf’s tone of voice didn’t betray a grin, but Kik could imagine one. “We’ll slip right through to the other side.”

“It’s up to you to make sure that happens,” Aire said. “As much as I hate to say it, we’re counting on you.”

“Thank you,” Silf said, the most serious Kik had heard him in a conversation not related to ships. “Now be quiet and let me work. I’m starting to get nervous.”

---

The final minute was marked by an increased thrumming. But not like Kik was accustomed to. He had grown up on starships - he was used to humming, clanking, squeaking, even banging from time to time. That was just the ship letting you know it was still working behind you. This was different. It was a rattling shake that crunched through the ship’s bones and the very fabric of its being.

On the seat next to him, Aire wore a distraught expression. She had her hands resting on the viewport, sensing the tremors that struck through them. Kik knew she was feeling the same as him.

“This is wrong,” she murmured. “Very wrong.”

Her words were drowned out by a laugh over the radio - one originating further beneath, in the far reaches of the ship. Silf was laughing at his terminal as the giant orb behind him spat inspecting tendrils through the space around it. He directed the craft’s engines for one final push, gliding it out from behind its crumbling shield into open lines of fire.

“Here it comes!” he called, as the ship’s trembling juddered up another notch. “Witness my power!”

“Stop your delusions, you crazy…” Aire began, before the comms network cut out.

One final burst of lasers snaked up from the hostile craft kilometres below. Confused crewmen peered at sensors, wondering why the hidden ship had chosen now to reveal itself, and then by drifting out without a purpose.

But as the last few shots scarred its hull, the craft moved inwards. It shrunk down to a point until, with a final explosion of space, it was gone.

Except that it wasn’t.

---

Kik woke to a wall in his face. He blinked a few stars from his vision, shaking his head to clear it. He scrambled around in his suit before bumping his bottom and realising that the craft was stuck in zero gravity. Next to him, Aire was floating in her straps, still unaware. The silence on the radio indicated that Silf wasn’t out and about either.

After untying himself, he shook Aire’s body to no avail. Unfortunately, he didn’t know what do do with an unconscious person besides leave them to rest. Instead he gave the bridge controls a test.

The bridge controls were unpowered too, but out the viewscreen was another surprise. The planet, previously the size of a curled-up person, had grown as large as the viewscreen itself - just the right size for him to see empty space if he leaned his helmeted head against the viewport.

But rather than sightseeing, figuring out the power was higher on the list of priorities. Kik made his way to the back of the ship after a moment’s pause to check Aire’s restraints. He wanted her safe in case the gravity came back on suddenly.

The engineering section of the ship was silent and quiet. The only sound came from the generator’s low hum. It was still operating - it was just not getting power to anything else.

His first thought - the fuses - turned out to be correct. Overcurrent from the transfer seemed to be the reason for the blackout. Pulling the fuse module’s release lever, he dropped it behind his shoulder and left it to drift in zero gravity.

The row of replacements was only an arm’s length away. He pulled the top module from the row and slotted it in. The gravity kicked in without warning. Kik’s legs gave a jolt as he fell from half a meter in the air. He thanked his luck that he hadn’t been working upside down when it happened. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

A pull of a lever, locking the module into position, and he was done in engineering. Rushing back to the bridge, he hoped Aire was awake, because once the engines started firing they wouldn’t have much breathing room - the enemy sensors would pick them up straight away, if they hadn’t already.

---

Aire was conscious but groggy. As Kik rushed onto the bridge she turned a baleful eye upon him.

“How long was I out for?”

“I don’t know. The ship clock was off,” Kik said. “As long as I was out plus two minutes, if that helps.”

“And Silf?”

“I’m here,” Silf said. “How could I sleep through getting dropped on my shoulder? No idea how long I was out, though.”

“Is the Lightning Drive still functioning?” Aire asked.

“Not a chance. I think it will need a few days to recharge.”

“Then it’s up to me now. Kik, Silf, sit down and enjoy the ride.”

Aire took hold of the controls, her fingers running along the joystick, attitude control, thruster levels, before dropping her fingers into place. She settled into her rhythm, concentrating only on the ship beneath her feet and the enemies in the darkness around them.

“Silf, get strapped in,” she said across the radio. “Let’s take this descent up to eleven.”

She slid the thruster nozzle forwards, pressing Kik back into his seat with the comforting grip of acceleration.

---

“Fighters closing, estimated arrival in one minute!” Kik said.

“Can’t we lose them in the atmosphere?” Silf asked.

“Calm down, you two! I’m trying to fly!” Aire’s voice was just as strong, the loudest syllables of her message lost in a burst of feedback.

The Embroiled Flash was giving its all to reach the surface, but the blockading fleet wasn’t just sitting around. A wing of fighters had been launched to bring it down before it made planetfall, and while the outer atmosphere had started interfering with their lasers, they were still landing hits.

Kik was starting to understand why they had needed the Lightning Drive to get this far.

To make matters worse, it turned out another three of the decoys were actual ships. One of those had been a stormship hiding in a low orbit. It had launched fighters and the occasional broadside, but fortunately its bombardment weaponry were too inaccurate and short-ranged so it was reduced to the few lasers it stocked.

At over a hundred metres long, there was plenty of the Flash to soak up the incoming laser fire, especially if Aire dodged and spun during their descent. But plasma like the approaching fighters carried was more of a threat - especially at close range, where they could target vulnerable systems with impunity.

Kik watched the terminal as the little dots representing fighters drew closer. Interference from the orbital reentry caused the screen to go blank or sensor noise to appear, but keeping track of consistent readings meant he could tell which were the real targets among the phantom images.

Aire’s piloting had kept them out of optimal range and, as a result, serious danger so far, but that was about to change. This time they had no wreck as a shield, no sky full of atmosphere to scatter the blows - only them and the enemy’s guns.

“They’ll be on us in five se…” Kik started to say, before being jerked in his chair by weapon impacts. The fighters followed moments later, spinning around and decelerating.

“Where are our defence lasers!” Aire shouted.

“They’d be useless even if we had any,” said Kik with a more reasoned voice. “There’s no way we could target anything with this turbulence… oh, they took out some of our attitude thrusters.”

“What? We need those, dictator’s arsehole!” Aire swore and tried to raise the prow, the ship sluggish and unresponsive. “Now I can’t even try to dodge!”

“Where are they now?” Silf asked. “Are they starting their next run?”

The ship shook again and Kik peered into the monitor, trying to make sense of the nonsensical display. “No, they’ve split into two groups of eight and are both making passes. They’re trying to reduce our mobility then they’ll go in for the kill.”

“Trying to reduce our mobility is the same as going in for the kill,” Silf said. “If we can’t fly, we can’t land. And if we can’t land…”

“We’re dead,” Aire finished for him.

“How dead are we now, though?” asked Kik, looking into the sensors again, as if it was predicting his future. Perhaps it did. “I think they’re pulling off.”

“Impossible,” Aire said. “Check the readings again.”

“You’re right, they’re still coming. But not all of them. I only count nine fighters.”

Another impact shook the ship, Kik’s chair creaking as it rocked in a direction it wasn’t meant to. It settled back into place with a groan, but it wouldn’t be the same again.

“That came from below,” Silf said from his perch against the hull. “How are they shooting us from below?”

“They’re not,” said Kik with a hint of glee. “We’re under anti-air fire.” He chuckled. “That’s another two fighters down. They’re pulling back. We made it through!”

The ship shook with more violence, and Aire interrupted Kik’s glee. “Did you forget we’re being hit by the fire too?”

“Not that one. That was from behind.” He checked the screen. “New update. Six of the remaining fighters are pulling back, and the last one’s still on our tail.”

The ship groaned, this time a groan of pain. The air braking was working in slowing the ship, but the stress it inflicted in addition to the weapon impacts would soon cause something to give.

“Can’t you shake it?” Silf said, fear creeping into the edges of his voice.

“It’s not that easy!” Aire half-screamed, wrenching at the controls. “If I handle this badly, we aren’t landing in one piece!”

“And if you don’t handle it,” Silf said, “we won’t reach the ground except as flaming wreckage!”

“It’s targeting our engines!” Kik put in. “It looks like a close-range shot, then maybe… I think it’s trying to collide with us?”

“How long until impact?” Aire asked.

“Thirty seconds. I’d say it’s going to shoot in the next…”

Another impact rocked the ship, knocking two of the engines out. With the imbalanced thrust, the craft started to spin, throwing the Flash’s crew around in their seats.

“That’s its shot!” Kik screamed when he had found his balance. Now it’s going to reach us in ten!”

“Got it!” Aire shouted back. The ship’s shuddering reached new levels as she span the ship around in different directions to keep the heading despite the engine imbalance.

“Collision in three… two…” Kik called from his station

Aire stopped compensating for the missing engines. The craft twisted and lurched, spinning as it fell.

Even through the hull of the Flash, Kik could hear the scream of the fighter’s engine as it closed. Even over the complaints of the Flash’s hull, it screamed in pain and fury. Using up its fuel in a suicidal rush, it pressed onwards, to its own destruction.

It struck the Flash amidships. The impact breached the hull, driving a brutalised fragment of metal and electronics into one of the Flash’s storage bays. Atmosphere flooded in and out, the pressure change and interior fire causing blast doors across the ship to slam shut.

The Flash kept spinning, trailing pieces of shrapnel and splashes of fuel thrown aside in the impact. The front and back halves of the fighter broke apart. The rear fell clear in a corkscrew as its engine gasped its final dying breaths.

Inside the bridge, Kik’s chair was leaning and creaking beyond all safe boundaries, but he was alive. Beside him Aire had the controls locked in a death grip, staring only at the instruments and the disappearing flames in the viewport.

She started with little twists, tiny movements, with what seemed to be no effect. Yet with every twitch, the ship’s spin lessened, the Flash entered a straighter course.

Kik watched, in awe of her abilities, as she finished straightening the ship’s course. It was nothing but tiny adjustments, but it achieved incomparable results.

Finally, she leaned back in her chair and let out a breath. Deploying atmosphere wings, the ship’s freefall began to take a more controlled path.

“I think we’ve stabilised,” she said,” gazing out upon the cloud covered surface of the planet.

And then the latest of the explosions hit.

The breach in the hull spouted fire into the atmosphere, along with bits of pulverised fighter and plating. A trail of smoke followed the Flash down as it reentered a corkscrew.

Aire’s moment of inattention cost her dearly, although even if she had been watching there wasn’t much she could have done. The fuel supply to an engine on the untouched side cut out, throwing away her desperate attempts to balance the load.

A piece of falling debris struck one of the Flash’s atmospheric wings, crunching a third of it off. The remnants of the end hung loosely together, the material splintered and cracked throughout.

“It looks like the fighter’s plasma weapon blew up. It’s something of a miracle it hadn’t earlier,” Kik said.

“Perhaps it’s best you don’t talk for now,” Silf said, after Aire responded with a meaningless grunt. “Save the analysis for later.”

Aire exerted a heroic effort to get the craft straight again, but nobody on board had much hope of a successful landing. The ground beneath them was not really ground but water, water nearly as far as the eye could see. There would be no safe landing there.

Far in the distance, beyond the layer of clouds, Kik could just make out the mountains and dark hills of land. Too far away to reach with a broken wing and only three working engines.

Looking around, Aire grimaced. “Come on, keep your eyes peeled. There has to be something. I’m not giving up yet.”

Kik slowly shook his head. “I don’t think there is. Not in the middle of the ocean.” The reality of the situation was setting in for him.

Aire turned her gaze upon him. “Don’t. Give. Up.”

“Aire, what we can do?”

Aire’s hand grabbed the front of Kik’s void suit and yanked him forward against his restraints, her other still glued to the controls. Her eyes locked onto his through their helmets, and for a moment he was no longer in the plunging death trap, but back in his parents’ room on the Benefactor, being told off for leaving the engine room door open. Then he blinked and the moment was broken.

“It’s never hopeless while you’re still alive. Now stick your head into that window and look, or find something useful to do.”

“Look at what? There’s nothing out there, Aire. Nothing! There’s no hope!”

“Is that what you’ve been saying to yourself all this time? All this time that you’ve been working for Erstine? I can’t see a solution, so I’m going to give up?”

“But there’s nothing I could have done. If my parents were in my place, they’d be doing the same jobs I’ve been…”

“But not willingly. They would listen, question the things they see. Where has your fear gone? Your desire? Have you forgotten what Erstine wants you for?” Aire let him go and gestured with her free hand. “Grow some balls and think a little. Being passive will get you nowhere.”

“But once my mother wakes up…”

“Do you think she’ll get the chance to? With Erstine’s men watching over her, day and night? He gains the most from having her stay under as long as possible, and then pass away without a fuss. He wouldn’t want her waking up to talk, after all. I’m guessing she knows too much. That may be why she had the accidents in the first place.”

“You mean Erstine caused it?” Kik’s voice raised an octave.

“You never suspected that? Not even the tiniest bit? I don’t even know what happened, but I’ll bet Erstine had a hand. At the very least, he wouldn’t have let the situation go without gaining some benefit.”

Kik thought back to the cryptic message he had received from Erstine. If he recalled correctly, there had been an afterthought - “Your parents’ suffering was not without purpose.” Perhaps that was Erstine gloating about his victory to someone who didn’t even understand what it meant.

Then he sighed. “Alright. Fine. My light isn’t going out yet. I’m going to check the engine monitors, see if I can get at least one of the thrusters back online. Even though it looks hopeless, I can make sure that today is not my day.”

But before he could get out of his seat, Aire was pointing out of the viewport at approaching blips of light. “No need. Look, Kik. There’s our hope.”

“What? What?” Silf called. “What do you see?”

“Incoming aircraft,” said Aire. “Planetary. It looks like we won’t be abandoned out here after all. I’m transmitting our provided clearance codes.”

Kik peered out the window as Aire transmitted the data. The sensors gave him little reliable information. “They don’t seem to be changing course from their attack run.”

“They will.” Aire’s voice was filled with confidence - any opportunity was a good one for her.

“Keep me updated. I’m going to engineering to check up on the engines.” Kik had no way to escape this confrontation, but at least he could distract himself before it was concluded.

---

The solitary pilgrimage to the rear of the ship was interrupted by occasional transmissions from Aire. From what he could make out, the fighters had overshot and turned around, escorting the Flash in its glorified fall towards the ocean. They had refused all communications, although Aire had picked up encrypted chatter going between them and somewhere on the land. Aire’s voice grew increasingly worried with each transmission, although Kik still believed that rescue would come. There wasn’t much they could do if it didn’t.

Kik ran through the diagnostics to see if any of the engines could be brought online. It was a futile hope, as the few remaining camera feeds of the hull would attest. Two of the failed engines only half-existed, the missing parts melted by plasma fire into splashes of metal and ceramics raining through the atmosphere.

The last failed engine’s fuel lines had been cut and it had already burned through its remaining supply - it was now little more than a chunk of highly engineered metal on the back of the ship, even more so than its two cousins.

Kik banged his fists on the wall by the terminal, taking a moment to breathe. The screen flickered as its already loosened power connection juddered. The ship was a mess. He had barely made it past the warped, overheated wall twisted into the hallway further back.

Closed bulkheads had further slowed his progression with their efforts to keep the ship pressurised. Now he found out the engines weren’t fixable. Add that to the heavy scarring and assorted system strain the vehicle was currently under, and it was a surprise that they were still in the air.

If there was one bright side, it was that the Lightning Drive hadn’t been damaged. If that had been struck, who knew what exotic fate awaited them - perhaps nothing more than an explosion, or perhaps the ship would be transported inside the planet, or split into two halves and sent in different directions. And if that had broken, Kik doubted that Silf would be able to fix it for them to escape - especially not without his usual shipyard full of tools and parts.

---

Kik squeezed back through the damaged wall section to return to the cockpit. The diagnostics he had run on the other assorted machineries of the ship had universally reported at least minor tune-ups required. The fuel system and sensors had been heavily damaged, but there were enough failsafes there to keep them flying and listening for now. Damage control was at work on fires in the collapsed room, but extinguisher levels were low from a tank puncture.

All in all, it was a heavily damaged ship, but nothing was about to explode and, with some assistance, maybe they could land.

Aire’s worried face on his return changed his assurance back to concern. Her radio silence for the last two minutes, previously unnoticed, now seemed ominous.

“What’s happening?” Kik asked.

“We just broke the cloud barrier. I’d put us at one and a half kilometres above ground level. At this rate of descent, we won’t make it thirty kilometres before hitting water. With our speed, that’s less than five minutes of flight time.”

“Have our escorts made a move?”

“Not a twitch. They’re holding position as we descend. I don’t like it. This smells of military paper pushing, and I dislike military at the best of times.”

“If it is a problem with bureaucracy, at least they’ll save us after we’re wrecked. Salvage laws are good for something.”

“With the speed we’ll hit the water,” Aire said, “there won’t be anything left of us to save - and what is left will be scattered over the area of a few hangar bays.”

The deadline and the water drew closer together. As their smoke-marked trail across the sky lengthened, the situation in the cabin grew increasingly tense. Aire hunched further and further over the controls, trying to convince herself that she had the situation under control. Kik scanned the sensors and the sky outside, desperately looking for something - anything that would help them.

And then it came. A signal approaching, hidden by the interference but persistent and regular enough to be a true reading.

When it arrived it was revealed as a four-engine propeller plane, a similar length to the Flash. Similar to the escorts before, it overshot before coming back for another pass from behind.

“I hope that thing has some serious lift, or we’re done for,” Aire said, gesturing to the approaching waves. There was still a two hundred-odd metre grace between the water and the ship, but that was far too little room for anyone onboard to feel comfortable about.

“It should have. I’ve never seen at atmospheric vehicle of that size.”

“Yeah, it’s carrying a lot of weight already to be lifting us too,” Aire quipped, but her eyes were as hopeful as Kik’s. They had both had their fill of setbacks.

The plane swooped over directly above the Flash, slowing its pace to match its space borne cousin. The cockpit was doused in shadow as the prow of the plane blotted out the sun overhead.

“What are they doing?” Kik asked as the nose overhead dropped lower and lower. “I doubt this is a complex form of attack, so why are they doing that?”

The other occupant of the cockpit shrugged. “I don’t know, but I have a feeling we’ll find out soon.”

As predicted, the Embroiled Flash was knocked from above moments later. The hull grinded and screeched from the sudden tension. It faded away after the initial ruckus, returning the ship to the usual groans, screams and wails of stress.

“Did they do anything?” Kik asked.

But Aire was already sighing in relief. “They’ve attached us together. I can feel the pull in the Flash. She’s responding much better now. With this, we can make it back to land.”

He looked out the windscreen. “About time, too. I doubt we were more than thirty metres off the surface. A particularly big wave, and…”

Aire waved her hand. “I don’t feel like dwelling on the past. I’m moving on to how I’m going to land this wreck.”

Kik laughed. It felt good to relax for a moment and think hopefully about the future. The stressed knots in his shoulders started to ease. “I’m sure they’ll have something figured out.”

---

“They didn’t figure it out! They didn’t figure it out!” Kik screamed, hanging onto his seat as the airstrip drew closer and closer. The now familiar sound of a cable breaking free resounded as a second tether to their supporting craft gave way. The entire ship started to tilt back, putting more and more pressure upon the front tethers. The craft above them was pulled forwards, its front and back halves lifting unevenly.

The problems began when the craft above them had started to slow, approaching the final job of the landing sequence. The runway. Its rotors swivelled upwards as it tried to slow, and Aire eased the Flash’s engines to match.

But reduced speed meant reduced lift, and reduced lift meant unmanaged load - load which the accompanying plane wasn’t qualified to take. It struggled to raise itself from the beginnings of a fall, and it was doing a good job until the first cable snapped.

With a jolt that shook through the entire ship, and then a moment of near-stillness, the final tethers came away. Kik experienced a moment of weightlessness as the ship began its fall - straight down towards the airstrip.

The ship was only thirty metres above the rolled surface of the runway, but with its tonnage it would be crushed under its own weight. Given the amount of combustibles and electronics aboard, Kik had no doubt that none of them would be walking away from the explosion inevitably following that.

But Aire wasn’t sitting at the pilot seat for nothing. As the freefall started kicking in, she shoved the accelerator forwards. Far forwards. There was no time to balance the left and right engines - she just put everything the craft had into power.

The ion engines melted trails in the artificial material of the airstrip. If there had been anyone behind and beneath the craft they would have been cut in half by the accelerated beams of particles.

They did their job though, and propelled the craft more forwards than downwards. The backwards drop turned into a tilting, forwards lurch, ungainly but more survivable.

Kik braced as his world tilted forwards and sideways. There was a brief moment of security, where he almost convinced himself they might miss the ground entirely. All that filled the viewport were clouds, similar to the ones on XM-180.

Then came the impact.

Aire had deployed the landing gear earlier, for all the good they did. The ship landed on its right side, that end of the ship crunching against the floor. The internal stairs on that side of the ship were crushed into shards of scrap and sent flying into the bushes either side of the runway.

As the ship slid forward, its roll petered out and it settled back onto its now flattened right side. The engines powered down as Aire slid their controls to minimum. She started going through post-landing checks.

Kik tasted blood in his mouth. He spat it out for his suit to absorb, a stray drop marking the base of his visor. The wound started to itch closed.

Looking around, the ship was settling into its new position. A clang or two resounded from further back as an unsecured part bounced down from the top of the ship. He considered unlatching his restraints but thought better when he saw the wall of terminals and controls he might have fallen into.

The words came out almost before he could help them. “Another successful landing.”