“Punch it,” I say.
She looks at me, eyes wide, reflecting the red emergency lights. “Rynn, that’s a suicide run. We have no shields.”
“It is a delivery,” I correct. “And we are First Class. We do not stop.”
A spark lights in her eyes. The fear vanishes, replaced by the chaotic joy of a pilot who just got permission to do something impossible.
“Hold on to something, Lord Chaos,” she says, gripping the stick. “We’re coming in hot.”
She jams the throttle forward. The Pink Slip screams, engines flaring blue-white one last time as we dive straight toward the heart of the Zater Reach asteroid field.
Ahead of us, the massive shadow of Henrok’s fortress looms against the stars, a beacon of hope and destruction.
Behind us, the void burns.
11
Sanctuary Under Siege
Polly
ThePinkSlipisscreaming.
Not a metaphor this time. The audible shrieking of tearing metal and failing stabilizers fills the cockpit, vibrating through my bones until I can’t tell where the ship ends and my skeleton begins. The viewport is a blur of obsidian rock and flashing red proximity alarms, and the G-force is trying to paste me into the seat, crushing the air from my lungs one brutal squeeze at a time.
Through the bond, Rynn is a blazing pillar of calm. Not the cold mask of the diplomat—something deeper. Something that feels like bedrock.
I have you. Fly.
“Come on, baby,” I grit out, wrestling the yoke with both hands. My muscles are on fire, biceps screaming, sweat stinging my eyes and dripping down my jaw. The harness digs into my shoulders hard enough to bruise. “Don’t you quit on me now. We’re home. We’re almost home.”
“PORT THRUSTER OFFLINE,” Zip stutters, his usual smooth synthesis glitching into static that makes my heart clench. “ST-STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY AT CRITICAL. I RECOMMEND... BRACING. AND PERHAPS PRAYING TO WHATEVER DEITY OVERSEES RECKLESS PILOTS.”
The joke is weak. Zip’s jokes are never weak. Terror lances through me, sharper than the G-force.
“Rynn!” I shout over the roar. “Shields to forward! All of it!”
“Diverting!” His voice is calm—unnaturally, terrifyingly calm. Through the bond, I feel him pouring his own strength into me, a solid anchor in the chaos. He’s not afraid for himself. He’s entirely focused on keeping this ship together long enough for me to land it. On keeping me whole.
You’re magnificent, hums through the bond. Now show them what you can do.
I slam the retro-thrusters.
We hit the atmospheric shield of the hangar bay like a stone skipping on water. The energy barrier ripples, an aurora of amber and gold that floods the cockpit with alien light, slowing us down just enough to keep us from becoming a crater. But the impact still rattles my teeth, sends white-hot lightning shooting up my spine.
The ship slews sideways, momentum carrying us toward a wall of crystalline crates that gleam like stacked gemstones in the emergency lighting.
“Too fast!” Rynn warns, his hands flying over the co-pilot controls to compensate. Through the bond, I feel him working with me—two pilots, one ship, moving in perfect sync.
I stomp on the yaw pedal, forcing the nose around, burning the last fumes of our fuel to soften the impact. The deck rushes up to meet us—
SCREEEEE—THUD.
We slam into the stone-and-metal deck plating with enough force to crack my molars together. The landing gear shears off with a sound like a gunshot, and then we’re skidding—sparks showering the canopy like a meteor shower, metal grinding against stone in a deafening cacophony that goes on and on and on.
The world is a violent blur of motion and noise until we finally, mercifully, screech to a halt against a reinforced blast shield. The impact throws me forward, harness biting deep, and then—
Silence falls. Heavy and sudden. The ringing in my ears so loud it’s almost a sound of its own.
