“Back to the ship! Hurry!” Selva shouted. “Captain Prex, recall your crew!”
The whole group started running for the elevator. Prex blew a whistle to signal his pirates, the two avens kicked on their repulsor boots and flew the last two hundred feet.
Back on the landing platform, the first mate ushered pirates back aboard the Rogue’s Galley, their loot sacks filled with anything vaguely shiny and not previously bolted to the floor.
“How long?” Felden asked.
Selva replied, “About twenty minutes.”
“Then we’ve got time,” Eric said, as they hurried back aboard the volor and its ramp was winched shut. The craft took off with a thump, engines thrumming as its solar-panel sails fed them electricity.
“Not quite. We’ll need to put a lot of distance between us and that facility if we want to get clear.” She hurried forward to the helm station. “Captain, increase your pitch to forty-five degrees! We must get as high and far as we can if we want to survive!”
“Why?” Prex asked. “What sort of weapon are the Keepers striking with?”
“A kind which has destroyed entire civilizations on other worlds.”
Prex appeared frightened, and gave the order. The volor pitched up, climbing fast with its gravity brakes holding it from falling.
Selva continued, “There is one more problem. The cabin pressurization aboard this ship no longer works.”
Eric worked his jaw, ears popping as the volor continued to ascend.
“So we’re going to pass out,” Cobb said.
“Not us.” Felden indicated Zandra and himself. Avens had more efficient lungs, Eric guessed Selva’s cybernetics gave her similar abilities. The Rogue’s Galley passed through the clouds.
“Five minutes.” Zandra checked the display on her flight-suit wrist.
Kadelius passed out first, grunting and slumping into Professor Temerin’s arms. Eric helped get him tied down to a bench, then almost fainted himself as he stood again. The world was growing blurry, and another of Prex’s crew swooned. It made sense the Meridianites would go first, having grown up adapted to a high-oxygen atmosphere. Selva and the avens seemed fully alert, Zandra taking over the wheel.
Even Sir Wotoc fell unconscious. Eric stumbled to a bench, sat down. His head spun, he pinched his arm and willed himself to stay awake. If he’d been looking, he supposed he would have seen a streak of plasma as the warhead screamed through the atmosphere, towards the Iron Mountain.
Behind the volor, a second sun erupted. It started as brilliant white, reflected heat pricking at Eric’s face, then began to give way to a bright yellow-orange. Kilometers away and below, a mushroom cloud and shock wave were building.
The blast hit, sending the Rogue’s Galley tumbling end-over-end in the thin air. Eric, unsecured, went tumbling forward and struck his head on the ceiling, staying awake just long enough to reflect on his second concussion of the mission.
He opened his eyes, staring up at Professor Temerin and the Star Patrol scanpad he held.
“Next time that happens, I’m sending you home,” Temerin said. “No credit for this course.”
“Please do.” Eric groaned, then sat up straight. “Did I miss it?”
He stood, and rushed above decks to the stern. The volor was flying just above an aerial sea of white, puffy clouds, while in the distance a towering post-thermonuclear mushroom dominated the sky like ash from some giant volcano. He wondered how close the top came to reaching space. Even this far into the wilderness, surely gryphon-riders and other volor crews would see it.
“Selva has us zig-zagging for a while longer, just in case Norla fired off another one.” Temerin said. “But we should be in the clear, by now. We’re on course back for Primus.”
“What will you do once you return?” Captain Prex walked up from behind.
“Try to find out what happened to Rachel and the squires, those who were separated from us when our ship went down. Then, continue the fight against Dulane. We could use your help, you know.”
“How so?”
“You can become privateers, raiding Dulane’s shipping. The Freeholds Assembly appointed me ambassador before we left—join us, and I can write you letters of marque.”
“And make us fight your war? I stole this craft because we were tired of serving under the thumb of some distant overlord. We are no friends of Caesar’s, true, but why should we go over to your side? Why not remain free?”
Temerin pondered. “Well, for one, your activities will be fully legal in the Freeholds. You’ll be able to sell your prize-goods and retire in peace. Surely you realize that once the war ends there won’t be much room for sky pirates regardless of who wins. Arztilla and the Keepers, or the Freeholds and the starmen, I doubt either will have much tolerance. At least talk about it with your crew.”
Eric went on another round of medication for his concussion, sleeping like a stone and losing track of time. It took the volor a few days to reach the Freeholds border, then he went above decks to see if he could catch a glimpse of Highwater Mountain off in the distance.
Instead, he saw three gryphons banking down from higher up, great thirty-foot wings spread wide. For a terrifying instant he feared it was the Savage Hunters, then he saw the Beastspeaker Temple outfits the riders wore. Drawing near, the gryphons slowed and pulled in behind the volor. On their backs he saw Ralbor, Ezhiri—and Rachel, in a beastspeaker robe sans blue sash. She raised a hand and waved.
