Wake up! Wake up! Paranoid screamed in Ingrid's mind.

Ingrid's eyes jolted open and she groaned. She attempted to sit up in her bed, however she was being held down by Vaska.

"What is it?" Ingrid asked.

Another portal has been opened, to the south east.

The south east, that would be somewhere in Ayaru, maybe just across the border. Vaska moaned and released Ingrid from her vice grip, rubbing her eyes. Ingrid hopped out of bed and opened the shutters to the porthole. It was dawn outside, and the sky was mostly clear with only the occasional wispy cloud floating past the airship.

"I need something a little more precise than 'south east'" Ingrid said. "How far away in nautical miles, and what heading?"

One-hundred and twenty nautical miles, heading one-five-one degrees, as you would understand these to mean.

Elementals were very strange. It turns out they could speak in any language, and none at all. They seemed to be able to communicate directly using meanings, according to the way the listener would understand it. They could even be used as a translator.

Ingrid activated her magenta Colored Orb embedded in the wall by the door.

"Ingrid," the voice on the other side said, "this is an emergency channel..."

"Portal in Ayaru, distance one-two-zero nautical miles heading one-five-one."

"Copy one-two-zero nautical miles heading one-five-one." The Colored Orb deactivated.

"We were supposed to sleep for another hour at least," Vaska complained. Ingrid walked into her personal bathroom and started the shower. Having her own quarters, or at least her own in theory, was a huge step up from her experience the day she joined the Taisian Air Navy, where she had to share the showers with a hundred other women. She even got to pick her own soap, which was perfumed with lavender and lemon peel.

Now that Ingrid was one of the leaders of her own paramilitary organization, she felt even more obligated to not make exceptions for herself. It was a quick shower, no longer than the ones the soldiers would take, and Vaska helped her shave her legs. She went straight into a pilot's uniform, a black skirt, a white shirt with epaulets, and a leather helmet and goggles. She stuffed her crown, with the Light Crystal still embedded in the metal, into her pack.

The officers in the hallways were hurrying about with their tasks as Ingrid emerged alone from her quarters. "All hands on deck! Captain's orders, all hands on deck!" The voice boomed through the hallways from Colored Orbs, amplified by Wind Elementals. The officer's quarters were thankfully close to the stairwell leading to the command deck. Ingrid climbed effortlessly up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, like a little boy.

Captain Elizabeth was sitting in her chair on the command deck. An aide stood nearby holding a silver platter with a cup of steaming coffee and some pastries. "Is it true?" Elizabeth asked. "Or are you just testing Vaska's protocols to measure our response time?"

"Paranoid," Ingrid said. "Tell them."

I hate it when you call me that name, Paranoid said as she revealed herself to the others. It is true, another portal has opened. I do not know where it leads, but I know that it has opened.

Elizabeth nodded. "Rudolf is encountering resistance from within the government," she said. "This will be the perfect chance to demonstrate to the Taisians just how effective we can be."

"Heading one-five-one," the Helmsman barked. "Full power, airspeed twenty knots, estimated time enroute six hours."

"We will send scouts up ahead to judge the enemy strength and give visual reports about the portal," Elizabeth said.

"I will go with them," Ingrid said. "Otherwise Paranoid will spend the next six hours screaming at me."

"I will go as well," Ivan said as he stepped up to the Captain's chair. He grabbed one of the pastries from the platter and devoured it.

"You should take one of the fighters," Elizabeth said. "That old warbird will take at least an hour to make the journey. The fighters can be there in just a few minutes."

"Knowing how long it takes those fighters to just get ready and take off," Ivan replied, "I might already be at the portal by the time they arrive."

Ivan was correct. His warbird was in the air in less than a minute after he strapped himself inside and summoned his Elemental. Ingrid stood by her fighter for at least twenty minutes as the other soldiers fussed over the missiles and inspected the landing gear.

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"An unfortunate oversight," Vaska said as she arrived at Ingrid's fighter. "This airframe was only intended to be an experiment, but you've been flying it every day for weeks now. The landing gear was based on the old model, and it is beginning to fracture."

"I guess you'll need to get me a new one," Ingrid said. "Maybe one with two engines, like the one we took from Dren."

"I've spoken to my team about that," Vaska said. "We are still not sure exactly how the excess heat from the two engines can be managed without making sacrifices in other areas. It could take months for the engineers to design a solution to the heat problems in a way that we can integrate into our own designs. Plus, I have higher priorities right now."

Ingrid took the opportunity to find a bathroom while she waited for the maintenance crew. By the time she had waited in line for takeoff and actually left the deck, forty minutes had passed since Ivan left. She flew high and fast over the snowfields of southern Taisia, towards the border with Ayaru, following a delta formation of fighters in the lead. It took less than twenty minutes to reach the portal.

The edges glowed with a dark emerald light. "Green," Ingrid said into her Colored Orb. "The same color as the Life Elementals."

"Are there any enemies there?" Captain Elizabeth asked.

I do not see anything, Ingrid's ocular demon reported. Nobody, not even an airship.

Ingrid reported this to Elizabeth. "See if you can't get a look inside," she replied.

"I made it inside already," Ivan said. "There are no enemies at the portal right now, but there are some airships far ahead. My demon reports they are in a bad way. Something is attacking them."

"Scouting unit," Elizabeth said. "Go through the portal and try to get visuals on the enemies inside."

Ingrid pointed her nose at the ground and descended rapidly. Out in the countryside of northern Ayaru the snowy highlands gave way to a vast steppe filled with brown and pale purple brush. Dusty dirt roads extended off into the distance, with small towns at the crossroads. Moving at an alarming airspeed, Ingrid took a long arc over the steppe to bleed speed before deploying the air brakes. The ocular demon had been correct, the sky was empty.

Ingrid flew through the portal behind her formation. Beyond the portal, the sky was a very pale green color, almost white, and obscured by massive brambles. A single dark emerald moon dominated the horizon, and those brambles in the sky were even farther away than the moon itself. The brightness of the pale sky was a sharp contrast to the Plane of Wind, which had been dark. The ground, instead of being made from sand dunes, looked like an extremely dense jungle. Gigantic flowers, with stalks thousands of feet tall, were spaced out through the vast jungle.

The altimeter did not misbehave at all when crossing into the Plane of Life, so presumably the air density behaved the same inside. Ingrid saw Ivan floating around in the sky just ahead, practicing maneuvers. "The air seems normal," Ingrid said.

"I agree," Ivan said. "Gravity and air density both act normally."

"Go up," Elizabeth said. "Try to get a better look at what the enemy is doing."

Ingrid pointed her nose up and went full throttle. The altimeter spiraled and the jungle began to shrink far below. Directly up in the sky there appeared to be clusters of flying trees, tethered together by their roots. She eyed them suspiciously as she flew past them, and she got the feeling that they were eying her suspiciously.

Contacts, the ocular demon said. In the trees. Be careful.

"Contacts! Contacts!" the commander of her squadron cried. "Stay in formation, move away from the trees!"

Ingrid followed the men as they retreated. In her mirrors she could see dark shapes following through the sky. They were quite large and moving very, very fast.

"Descend! Use gravity to gain speed!" Ivan cried. They did so, but this went both ways. Their pursuers were also gaining speed flying down at the ground. Ingrid was behind the others, with the dark shapes approaching fast.

"Dark-Three missiles, do they have souls?" Ingrid asked. "Can you target them?"

NOTHING TO HUNT, one of the missiles replied.

They were close enough to see clearly now if she craned her neck around to look at them. They were a mix between an eagle and a hummingbird, with wings that flapped blazingly fast. They had long, needle-like beaks and massive talons. The muscles in their wings must not be constrained by the normal laws of physics for wings of that size to move fast enough for the birds to be able to pursue a fighter jet.

One was approaching her, fast. It was right behind her, dancing in the sky around the flames of her engine, trying not to get burned. It must have realized that the engines in the back were what was creating the heat, because it flew up to one side and overtook Ingrid. Its long beak was just outside her canopy, and its beady black eyes seemed to see her just before it reeled back to strike. Its beak shattered the canopy glass.

A flash of light blocked the beak. It tried again and again, poking holes in her canopy like a woodpecker, but each time its beak was repelled by the barrier of light.

"It's attacking her!"

"What do we do!"

"Our missiles can't target them!"

"Commander?"

Voices of panicked men, distant and barely audible over the sound of shattering glass. A second bird rushed up alongside and started scratching at Ingrid's wings with its talons.

Blood, exploding blood washed over her wing. With a whirling whoosh and the sound of cannon fire, Ivan rocketed past into a merge, taking out the bird on Ingrid's wing with perfect shots. The propeller whirled close to the bird that was attacking her canopy, and it panicked and fled. Indeed, the other birds seemed to be terrified of the propeller, even as Ingrid fell out of the sky she could see them trying to avoid Ivan's warbird.

Ingrid pulled up, hard. The bird on her wing had taken out one of her ailerons, however the elevators and rudder still worked. Not ideal, trying to use the rudder to straighten up after pulling up so hard. In fact, the rudder didn't seem to be working very well at all for rolling. Indeed, she was going down. Fast.

"Punch out!" Ivan screamed. "Red lever, below you! Pull hard! Punch out!"

Ingrid reached down and found the lever just in time. She pulled with all her might. It was surprisingly solid, unwilling to budge. Finally it gave way.

Explosives in the canopy launched it open. Then the cabin was consumed by flames.