"They're firebombing us—why are they firebombing us?" Sorrel looked from Coppelius to Gwynn, then back again.
"I believe they have a sort of tracker on him." Coppelius stood and grabbed the sword. The smell of smoke filled the air, and the ground began to rumble from the impact. "Or something—or maybe a spell. If he ended up incapacitated, then. . ."
"Then they try to smoke you out." Gwynn's expression was grim. "We have to get you out of here."
"I don't think we'll be able to steal my ship back—"
Coppelius's pondering was interrupted by the all-consuming roar and the shockwave that emanated from it. The smell of smoke filled Sorrel's nostrils and her ears rang as she found herself in the snow, not entirely sure how she got there.
The white of the trees and the stark dark wood of the pines blurred around her. The ringing in her ears grew louder, as shrill as screams and drowning out everything else around her. The ground shook as she tried to push herself up and off the ground, only to fall back down again.
Before she could hit the snow again, Coppelius grabbed her arm and pulled her up. Gwynn somehow had gotten to her other side and placed her hand on her other shoulder, stabilizing her.
Still, Gwynn turned her head back to the dark prince lying unconscious in the snow. There was a high-pitched note of uncertainty in her voice, laden with the compassion that came as easily to her gentle-natured twin as breathing. "What about him?"
"He won't be coming after us any time soon." Coppelius let go of Sorrel's arm and started forward. "But I'd rather not stick around to find out."
Sorrel shook her head, Coppelius didn't understand. "She means that no one deserves to die like this."
Coppelius stopped and turned back around. Sorrel couldn't quite understand the look in his eyes. "Look, this isn't my first encounter with him. He's tougher than you think—he's gotten out of worse before and he probably will now."
The wind picked up, and there was ash already mixing with the snow—or maybe that was just Sorrel's imagination. Whistling of more fire-bombs drew her attention overhead. It was an endless meteor shower, the kind of apocalypse only in the movies.
And yet where she stood, it was as if time stood still.
Something's not right. It was a strange, clinical observation. But one that Sorrel noticed all the same.
"Trust your instincts."
She could hear her father's voice, as if he were right beside her here and now.
"Come on, we've got to move, we've got to find Maman and leave!" Gwynn was tugging at her arm again. "Sorrel, we have to go!"
Hearing her sister call her name broke the spell. Sorrel shook her head. "You're right!"
She grabbed her sister's hand, and then Coppelius, and the three took off into the final daybreak on Perrault.
----------------------------------------
The streets were frantic, the opposite of the eerie silence of just a few hours before. The streetlights were as red as blood and roses, flashing as sirens mixed into screams and shouting, a symphony of terror. People filled the streets, all hoverboards and land speeders forgotten in the desperation, the urgency to move, just move—
Sorrel clung tightly to her Coppelius and her sister's hands, knowing that one wrong push and they could be separated, possibly forever.
The Annwynese soldiers had disappeared, and not even the usual constables of the Society were out. All while the ground continued to rock and shudder, the air filling with more smoke and snow and ash becoming further indistinguishable in the sight and the smell, all with the bombs whistling and roaring.
Still, somehow they made a break for the Marchand Bed and Breakfast just as Celine burst through the door, carrying a large mechanical box in her arms—two of them, Sorrel realized in a heartbeat.
"Maman!" She cried, letting go of both her sister and Coppelius to embrace her.
Instead, Celine pushed the smaller of the two boxes into Sorrel's open arms. It was her father's box.
"You shouldn't have come back here, you should have gone straight for the spaceport!" Celine yelled over the cacophony.
"We couldn't leave without you!" Gwynn shouted back as she joined Sorrel's side.
Celine sighed, a reluctant fondness surfacing in her eyes. "I know, Gwyneira."
She looked around at the madness in the streets, and beckoned Sorrel and Gwynn to lean in. "Everyone else is risking the spaceports—but Madame Abelard has something ready, she was waiting for you girls."
"Oh." Something in Sorrel's heart swelled, thinking of the older woman who ran the junkyard. Thinking of how the solitary and cranky older woman's last grand gesture reminded her of exactly why they were helping Coppelius.
"We'd better go, though." Celine adjusted her hold on the box. "I don't know how much longer we have, either before Abelard decides to go anyway, or before there isn't much of a chance of getting through the blockade."
Sorrel looked to Coppelius, but he wasn't paying attention to her mother or the Marchand sisters. Rather, he was watching wide-eyed at everything unfolding around him, at the rising fires and the last bid of desperation for survival, a planet's undoing.
"Come on." Sorrel's voice was gentle as she reached to take his hand, at sharp contrast to the violence and tragedy in the making. "We've got a ride out of here."
He accepted her hand, but he turned towards her and looked as if he were seeing through her, or perhaps something that wasn't quite there. He didn't seem all there, Sorrel realized.
"This was all for me." His voice cracked at the horror. "Forgive me."
Sorrel shook her head. "Nothing to forgive. That is, unless we don't get off this rock. Now let's go, before Madame Abelard decides to leave us behind!"
This seemed to rouse Coppelius from his trancelike state. He blinked rapidly, then gripped her hand more tightly as the light returned to his eyes. A determined expression came over him.
"You're right. Let's go."
...
Keeping to the sides of the roads and weaving around, the party somehow managed to stay together as they ran against the tide of those fleeing for the spaceport. It wasn't long before they reached the gates of the junkyard, completely locked and closed.
"No!" Sorrel let go of Coppelius's hand when she saw the chained-up gate. She glanced up its towering height. Without the hoverboard she'd carelessly abandoned in the forest, there was no way that she would be able to get over that.
"I thought she was waiting for us?" Sorrel looked to her mother, whose brows were furrowed in matched confusion.
She then looked to Gwynn, who nodded back—they were on the same page once more. They stepped forward up to the gate, to the little black intercom box. Gwynn tapped the button, and one of the little lights blinked red, then blue.
"Madame Abelard, are you there? It's me, Gwynn Marchand, I have Sorrel and my mother and a friend with me." Gwynn glanced back, gesturing at everyone in the party. "Maman said you were waiting for us—I hope you haven't waited too long."
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Silence answered her.
"Uh, Madame Abelard?"
Sorrel shook her head and approached the gate. She grabbed the metal chain links and started shaking it. "Come on, at least let us in to fend for ourselves if you're going to be stubborn!"
"Stars above, Sorrel, child, you are so impatient!"
A figure approached the gate, and opened a little hidden side-door not too far from where Sorrel was shaking said gate. Sorrel was then greeted with the diminutive, but no less domineering, figure of Madame Abelard.
She wasn't much older than Celine, with certainly a higher percentage of silver in her hair and matching shrewd silver eyes. She wore a purple spacer's jacket, the logo of the company almost completely worn off.
"You didn't really think I'd leave you all behind, did you?" She surveyed the party, her eyes locking on Coppelius. "So this is what landed in my yard last night. Interesting."
She then looked to Celine, her eyes softening. "I am happy to see you here, dear. I'm glad at least Valiant didn't have to see this."
"Me too." Celine looked over her shoulder. "You said you have a ship?"
"I've been fixing one up for the last twenty years, don't you worry." Madame Abelard beckoned for them to follow her through the side-entrance to the main gate. "Gwynn, do be a dear and lock up behind you. I don't need any thieves rummaging through my property."
"Yes, Madame."
Sorrel took Coppelius's hand again and pulled him along with her. "Are you sure it's a sky-faring ship, Madame Abelard?"
"Just as sky-faring as those monsters above us right now, I won't have you doubting my craftsmanship." Madame Abelard led them around heaps of scrap and junk to a small ship in the clearing. "I've been running this scrapyard since you were born, and before that I was a well-seasoned spacer. I know how to make a sky-worthy ship, don't you worry about that."
"It's also wise not to look at a miracle too closely," Celine added with a knowing look at Sorrel.
Sorrel bit her lip. "You're right. Thank you Madame Abelard."
Madame Abelard smirked. "That's much better, child."
She grew solemn then as they approached the open door to the vessel. "Now, I hope your friend is also somewhat well-versed in piloting?"
"What do you mean?" Sorrel tilted her head.
"Well, you didn't think I'm going to fly it, did you?" Madame Abelard laughed. "Stars above, no, that's what I needed you here for."
"I knew there had to be more to it," Sorrel muttered. She turned to Coppelius. "You said you piloted your own ship for a while?"
He nodded. "But it sounds like I'll need a co-pilot."
"You've got one."
He smiled at that, in spite of everything.
"Alright, what are we working with, any weapons? Shields?" Sorrel scanned the control panel in front of her.
Madame Abelard stood behind her, gripping onto an exposed pipe in the ceiling. "Of course not! I'm afraid to say I didn't build this thing with this dreadful scenario in mind!"
"It's alright, we'll manage." Coppelius's hands started flying across the control panel, the lights and screens coming to life. The metal of the ship's floorboards hummed beneath Sorrel's boots. "At least we have fast-travel—once we get clear of the atmosphere, we can make the jump and head to Lemuria."
"Why Lemuria?" Sorrel asked as she started turning the dials and pushing buttons. She'd previously only dreamed of flying a true spacecraft like this, but all of her years of flight-simulators and studying manuals was paying off.
"They're the furthest from here, and in the heart of the Society of Worlds, Annwyn's going to have a lot harder time pulling anything." Coppelius pulled a lever, and the ship started to lift off of the ground, the metal creaking and groaning from the pains of first flight.
"The Governor of Lemuria also announced that she's taking any refugees from the crisis, it was our Governor's last transmission before we were left to fend for ourselves," Celine added.
She and Gwynn were standing around a pole in the cramped cabin. Technically, there was a toilet and a small cargo area behind them, but Sorrel suspected that none of them wanted any separation from each other. At least, not right now. Not when survival was on the line.
"Let's do it then." Sorrel hit the booster button, and threw the gear-lever into full power.
The makeshift spacecraft zoomed forward, and Coppelius yanked the gear back a few notches.
"Let's build up to that!" He grabbed the steering just in time to swerve around another escaping ship.
Sorrel nodded and started flipping switches to prepare the orbital shield. It wouldn't be enough to deflect any hits from the Annwynese ships—but it would provide some reinforcement from exiting Perrault's atmosphere.
Another ship pulled up beside them, and Sorrel couldn't help but glance at it. It was one of the larger passenger ships, the ferries used to traverse routes between planets and moons in the Society of Worlds.
One moment, it was gliding beside them.
The next, the fire was all that remained.
"We've got an Annwynese fighter on our tail!" Coppelius glanced at the rudimentary sonar screen acting as a rear-view to his left. "Everyone hold on tight!"
With that, he plunged the ship down into a dive headfirst.
"What are you doing—the atmosphere is up, there's no survival on the ground!" Madame Abelard screamed.
As if to answer her, Coppelius then threw the ship back up and turned sharply to the right. As they turned, Sorrel could see the Annwynese ship struggling to pull up, and continuing straight instead of turning with them.
"Okay, now's the time for full power!"
Sorrel eagerly slammed the throttle forward, and Coppelius began to execute spins and swerves upwards, further than Sorrel had ever been before. All while avoiding the others attempting to flee and the Annwynese ships, whether they were the greater warships raining down fire on the place Sorrel had once called home or the smaller starfighters meant to pick them off.
For all the races Sorrel had flown through her teen years, or the wistful watchings of ships taking off and coming in at the spaceport, she'd never seen flying like this. What Coppelius was doing was a whole new level of mastery. The way he moved his hands across the control console and adapted to the haphazard space ship looked like a dance, natural as breathing, beautiful even.
Sorrel could only hope to fly like that someday.
For what it was worth, she found herself falling into a rhythm of sorts with him, anticipating what switches needed to be flips, what dials needed to be turned and where before he could call it.
Working in tandem, Sorrel felt a surge of triumph rush through her with the adrenaline as they hit the black.
But what greeted them in the black wasn't empty but for stars.
What greeted them was a bloodbath.
The Annwynese ships had them surrounded, and were picking off refugee ships. Explosions like their own small stars were born and died within seconds, all without a sound. Only the debris remained, drawn to the atmosphere of the world they had all fought so hard to escape.
"Hold tight." Coppelius began flipping switches. "We're jumping to fast-travel."
"With all these ships around?" Sorrel was drawn out of the horror unfolding around her by Coppelius's plan. "That would kill us!"
"It won't." He paused, hand hovering over the blue crystal. "I think we have a chance. I can't explain it—but I can feel it."
He looked into her eyes. "Just like I could feel that you were safe, that you would help me."
Sorrel found she couldn't argue with that. And she knew that if she did nothing, it would only be a matter of time before they would fall victim to the same horrible fate burning around them.
"Do it."
Coppelius didn't hesitate. Sorrel shut her eyes as the metal whined around them, preparing for a sudden impact and the end.
But to her surprise, there was no such thing.
The whining ceased, and gradually returned to hum, and she opened her eyes to see the stars streaking in lines around her, forming a rainbow of colors in the signature sight of space at light-speed.
"Whoa." Sorrel could not help herself. It was a wonder unlike anything she'd ever seen before, and with it came a sense of calm, of serenity.
Coppelius sank back against his chair, strands of his white-blond hair falling in his face. "We're safe now."
He glanced at the mapping screen, a more advanced piece of tech than the radar. "We're en route for Lemuria. We should be there in about eight hours."
Sorrel looked back out at the stars streaking by her. "It's so beautiful. I hadn't realized. . ."
However, she was drawn out of her reverie of admiration by the soft pattering of footsteps. She turned her head to see Gwynn and Celine disappearing into the back room of the ship.
She stood up and turned the chair to Madame Abelard. "Here, why don't you take a seat for a little while?"
Madame Abelard stared her down with her sharp silver eyes. Sorrel knew from her encounters with the master of the scrapyard before that she was sizing her up. A valuable skill for an older woman living on her own and running a business.
Something in her gaze softened. "You're a sweet child, Sorrel."
With that, she took Sorrel's seat, and Sorrel headed to the back.
Her mother and sister sat on the floor close to the wall. Celine was clutching the larger of the two boxes, tears shining in her deep blue eyes.
"It's all gone," Celine whispered over and over again. "Everything is gone."
Gwynn reached out to touch her mother's arm in an attempt at reassurance. "We're still here. And you saved Papa's things. That's not nothing."
"I know." Celine swiped at her tears with the sleeve of her coat. "But the Bed and Breakfast—I put everything into it. I made it a home, I built that place with your father into what it is—was."
Sorrel felt as if her heart were in her throat. Her eyes began to burn as she locked eyes on the box beside Gwynn, where she'd tossed her precious box from her father aside in the chaos of the escape.
That was now all that remained of her childhood home and of her father's legacy.
Sorrel silently joined her mother and sister. She opened the box of her father's things and pulled out the rose-red silk flight scarf. Her father had left it to her in hopes that she would do what he had not—become a pilot, a spacer, an adventurer.
What price had she paid for the wish to come true?
One of the largest empires outside of the Society of Worlds had fire-bombed her home, reduced it to rubble and ash to smoke out a boy like starlight. She'd helped the boy, but now everything was uncertain.
No, it was as Celine had said. Everything was gone.
Sorrel felt a hot tear roll down her cheek, and then one joined the other, then another. Soon, all three of them were crying for the home they had lost, the home to which it was likely they would never return.