I was getting hungrier by the second. I hadn’t eaten much as planning my escape back at Terminal E1 drained all of my time. Ozana had completely taken over the balloon and hers looked like an upgrade compared to mine.

“You'll need to undo that cuff. You know that right?” Ozana said.

I reluctantly dematerialized it. Hstrad heaved a sigh of relief and held his now free arm as if it had just been reattached.

For me, my arm weighed less.

“Pilot Ezita?” Ozana called to Hstrad who did not answer. “Pilot Hstrad your name is Ezita. Don't forget.”

“Sure,” Hstrad replied.

“You can now dim the portlight,” she said.

Hstrad turned the light of the rings down so that they were almost imperceptible.

We travelled just beneath the clouds and occasionally had the lighter ones pass in front of our eyes. Hstrad could increase our altitude, however, there was a limit to the height we could climb. A travel basket wasn't designed to go way high up. Some other vehicles could soar higher but there was a common limit and that was the zone where the clouds were thickest—the likeness of stone.

“Fran.” Ozana turned to me. “Begin with the dome. You make the rotating frames, I’ll add the features.”

I nodded and got straight to work. I made one rod then two then three and so on, then I connected them to make frames for the domes. I enlarged and suspended them out before the travel basket, still within the cover of Hstrad's ports. Ozana made the curves of the dome on four faces and illuminated them with a brilliant light.

“How would we know if they can see this?” Hstrad asked.

“Sss!” Ozana hissed.

I could not see Area Zed even with the light of the dome. I focused on spinning the dome and waited in the silence in hopes of whatever was to come after.

There was a flash of light behind us. We all spun around. Then, a high-pitched sound followed.

“Someone just forcefully linked ports with me,” Hstrad panicked.

A construct was coming to life between my fingers.

“Fran. Don't!” Ozana whispered.

One thing was sure, the Pyrants in Area Zed were no slouch. They made not the slightest noise, their Pilots could create nigh-invisible rings that Hstrad did not notice them until linkage.

Three bright beams of light shone from the same direction, almost blinding us. I spied something spinning despite the light but it was no sign of peace like our little dome symbol was. It was a war drill.

“Show surrender!” A voice called from beyond the raucous display.

“Undo the dome, Fran and spread out your arms,” Ozana ordered.

I let the frames of the dome fall without turning back and Ozana's endearments dimmed behind us. The three of us spread out our arms to show that we were harmless.

“Order your Pilot to topple his rings,” the voice said again from a speaker.

Hstrad swallowed and fell his rings.

“And order your Panners to drop the plates.”

Ozana took a step forward. “Pardon us, sires or dams. But we depend fully on Pyrancy to stir our basket.”

“Order your Panners to drop the plates!” The voice repeated, firmer than before.

Ozana sighed and dispersed each plate so that only the jutting, incomplete endoskeleton remained. The travel basket did not require it to stay suspended so we were safe. Temporarily.

“Any sudden movements and you all will be sunk!”

The beams of light drew closer and I shut my eyes in an attempt to manage the exposure. In a little while, I saw a travel basket approaching us. Its balloon plates were fully metal, not like our Pyrant-formed own. Their travel basket however was smaller than ours. There were two more flashes of light from below us. More travel baskets, each with their respective ports. We were fully surrounded now.

The beams dulled and shone evenly so that we saw the faces of those in front of us. They dressed like I imagined: scrap clothings, beaten guard pieces and grey blotches of expired paint. Indeed, they dressed like rogues. There were about five of them in each basket, all of them different sizes and scowls.

“Identify yourselves, and by that I mean speak your names, your terminals, your AOBs, and your reason for taking this route,” the broadest of them spoke. He was bald with a stubble, and a chain fabric decorated his right bicep. We could not hover mid-air without the pull of the abyss disconcerting us so the Area Zed Pilots descended the travel baskets ever so slowly.

“I am Panner Gadne.” The moment Ozana began, it occurred to me that a Pilgrim may have been present. There were neither Pilgrims nor Prophets in Eophyla. Most of them were assigned to the Iron Capital or other super-terminals. However, if Area Zed was in direct communication with the Iron Capital a Pilgrim was all too possible. And, any Pilgrim worth their training would catch our lies with only a touch.

“These are my fellow delegates. Pilot Ezita and Pilot Fran,” Ozana continued. “We are from the terminal, N2 and the Area of Base, Nifadelna. We are going to Aksselranta. We acquired this basket as a loan from Eophyla. It got spoiled during use and hence, needs servicing. We can't return it in this condition. It will strain the relationship between our two Bases.”

“This is not the route to Aksselranta.”

“We know. We needed aid. Pilot Ezita here made an error of packing excess Waste while forgetting all our food.”

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Hstrad swallowed again.

“Do you know where you are?” The man asked.

Ozana took a breath. “Area Zed.”

The man was about to say something when Ozana interrupted him, “With all due respect, the 111th Krakian Propaganda, Section XI, advises good treatment of traveler-delegates, without extortion, torture or deathly harm.”

The broad fellow scoffed. “And Section XII, advises that the aforementioned provision may be disregarded if there is sufficient expectation of threat or illegality.”

The pair exchanged glances before the man conceded. He said, “We'll house you and give you enough food for the rest of your journey to Aksselranta but not until our Pilgrim questions you.”

My heart raced; I could have sworn I saw Hstrad shaking. I was waiting for any signal from Ozana to engage and hoped Hstrad was ready also.

Ozana was unflinching as she said, “Good. Send them in.”

Is she crazy?

The man turned around, searched the faces behind him and looked back to us. “She is away.”

I felt the fear leave my heart to reside in my stomach. It was nauseating.

“You'll remain until she returns,” he went on to say. “Goule. They are clear! We can land.”

Goule, a distinctively short man, spoke into his Comms System, “All units to land.”

I wanted to sit back in relief and possibly hug Ozana. Though, when I thought of everything that had gone down I hated Terminal E1 all the more. It did not need to be this tasking to save Mubbers. I hated those that had pretended to be his friends, Hstrad, Mabeth, all of them. I actually sat back in relief, I did not feel too good. As we came closer to Area Zed, I beheld the shadow of their terminal. They had a Weisinger's facility at the side to purify their own metals. It made sense as they were under the radar and could not contract with other AOBs. Also, having to get metals sent from the Iron Capital every time they had need of it would be unnecessarily stressful. The Weisinger's was one-fifth the size of their terminal. Back at E1 we extracted metals but did not have a facility to purify them. That was the AOB’s job, so we had extracted metals sent over to our Base for purification.

E1-12 came down with a thud, so did the other travel baskets.

“Goule and Lata will escort the three of you to the kitchens where you'll eat. After that, they'll bring you to Headquarters, I will be waiting for you there. We have to discuss logistics and assign you duties while you remain here. I am Aaxel by the way.”

I'd noted he avoided saying his Pyrancy. I searched his chest for a badge. There wasn't any; it was the same for the others. Nevertheless, if I were to guess, I'd say he was a Panner.

“Algog, prepare living sections for the three of them,” Aaxel told the man behind him.

Goule and Lata took us to the food hall which was notably smaller than our own back at E1.

Heads turned wherever we passed, like it was rare to have someone not from Area Zed in Area Zed.

Food eventually came and I couldn't help myself. Whoever served the meal did well to feed us well, portions were bigger than what I was used to and tastier too. If Ozana was not with us, we would have either starved or tested our luck with poison clouds. Food pipes didn't only harvest food, they also filtered them from the debris left over by our engines and the seldom abyssal eruptions.

Headquarters in Area Zed was filled with infrastructural models and on the walls were hanged screens with detailed plans of what I had no knowledge of. Part of the floor was an open mesh grating, so I could see the room directly below us. All sorts of weapons were contained there and full guards were arranged on the walls.

Aaxel caught me looking and said, “It's just an extra storage.”

“Why is it exposed?” I asked daringly.

“It's underground,” he clarified.

I was flummoxed.

“You are wondering why our Headquarters is on the ground floor and not closer to the summit?” He caught onto my confusion.

I nodded. Headquarters was where everything came together. It was where inter-terminal messages were either sent or received, where communique from the Iron Capital was logged. And most importantly, it was every terminal's self defense system. If a terminal was attacked, Headquarter walls dislodged to form additional landing areas so that Panners and Pilots could work hand in hand to either retaliate or evacuate. Apart from being close to the abyss, on-ground Headquarters did not provide equal protection to the multiple sections of any given terminal. Hence, the travel baskets and other essential machinery parked the summit were most prone to destruction by invaders. Every Engineer was taught this in their very first lesson. Heck, I had already taught this to my students.

“It's for strategic reasons I don't trust you to know yet,” Aaxel said. “Good observation, regardless, Panner Fran. Goule. Lata. You may leave us!”

It remained the four of us in the place. Ozana, Hstrad, Aaxel and me.

“You won't live here for free. For the duration of your stay, you three will assist the running of Area Zed but before I assign tasks. I have a question.” He looked each of us in the eye for a length of time.

He was young, though he had a leader’s demeanour. Without the stubble, I’d bet he’d look younger. He folded his arms and asked.

“Are you associated with the State Eternal?”

Ozana did not dally with her reply. “No! Why?”

“The Iron Emperor was nearly assassinated about a week ago and suddenly we have stragglers passing through,” he said. “We haven't had stragglers for months if not stars.”

“We are Children of the Empire. We have no reason to lie. Besides, if you had such reservations when we were still in the sky, why didn't you have us put in a cell?” Ozana said.

Aaxel scoffed.

“We'll wait diligently for your Pilgrim to check us. But you be mindful not to accuse us of treason,” she continued.

Aaxel almost chuckled and retreated to relax on a control board.

“Pilot Ezita. You'll meet a Pilot Davvon after now. I have you on Pilot trials. By first dawn tomorrow, you begin work. Anything you don't understand, ask Davvon.” He turned to me. “Panner Fran, you’ll be working at the Weisinger's facility. We need more hands on the metals.”

“I have never worked in one,” I said.

“My Engineers will teach you.”

“How will I cross over to the facility?” I asked.

“You haven't heard of tubes?”

“I have.” Tubes were placed anywhere on terminals to be ejected as travel means to other nearby facilities, in this instance, the Weisinger's. Tubes also had Pilot rings around them to prevent them from sinking into the abyss. Suddenly, I thought of the Drafts that Ozana had earlier told us of. They had no need for tubes as they could just trek the distance between facilities.

“The tube is clear for passage by the sixth hour every dawn. Pilot Irek handles it. You wouldn't want to vex the man by arriving late. He opens it again by dusk at the sixth hour. Don't be late for either. People have had to sleep at the Weisinger's because Irek refused to open the tube.”

“I understand.”

“You’ll work personally with me, Panner Gadne.”

“Doing what?” She asked.

“You’ll find out in due time. The rest of you can go. Panner Gadne, stay behind. I have something to discuss with you,” Aaxel dismissed us.

Goule was the only one waiting for us outside, Lata, the lady, had left.

“Follow me,” he said gruffly. He took us to our sections. It was several floors up. Area Zed wasn't as packed as E1 so there were only a few persons loitering about, some with tracks opened down to their waists. It was far too casual and they all seemed to know one another.

“Here.” Goule left Hstrad and I before the door of our section.

“I guess we are sharing a room,” I said.

Hstrad entered without a word. He put his things on the up bunk, undressed and entered the Waste Room almost immediately. The sling bag that I had brought with me was there in the room. Despite that, they had hanged new tracks for us to wear. When Hstrad was through, I entered the Waste Room. I did not mind sharing a Blackstone. I was quick in there and jumped into bed for a deserved rest.

Before I slipped away, I turned over from the wall and said, “I am not sorry for putting you through this.”