Morwen stood in the small bridge area of the tramp freighter Rusty Raven. It reeked of oil, musty air, and charged ozone. Somewhere a live wire was sparking. She bit back the urge to fuss with her uniform, instead pulling her dark hair back into a severe ponytail. Now that she’d brought herself out of her personal torment, it was time to get back to business. Tedious as it was, she was thankful to her father for issuing this second prophecy. She had her purpose back. Details be damned. And honestly? That suited her just fine.
Arjun rounded the corner behind her, wiping his hands off on a dirty rag before stuffing it into a pocket in his coveralls. “I’ve done the work that needs doin’ to see to it we get airborne, ma’am. The rest is up to you mages.” Arjun gave her a friendly salute.
She responded in kind and nodded, thankful for his casual friendliness. It was a refreshing change of interaction compared to her own people. “Thank you Arjun. Best find yourself a place to buckle in. The take off could get bumpy.”
Akamori, Sirsir, and Amara flowed into the bridge, and it became very cramped, very quickly. She longed for the Cadaver Crasher’s bridge. Spacious, efficient, and mage friendly. There was far too much tech on this bridge that she neither understood nor knew how to manage. Thankfully, Arjun kept most of it under control.
They all took seats, and Morwen’s brow furrowed. “Where is Corporal Yasiin and Private Sala?”
Sirsir and Amara exchanged deferential looks to Akamori. The crimson haired warrior sucked a breath in slowly and let it out through his nose. “They won’t be joining us. They opted to stay back in case we failed. We thought it’d be better to post a rear guard just in case.”
Morwen swallowed hard, trying not to let the sting of hearing her two eldest mages wouldn’t be joining them. She sniffed and nodded. “Very well. We’ll carry on without them as the mission needs. Are preparations completed?”
Akamori glanced at Arjun, who nodded. “She’s as ready to fly as I can make her, ma’am.”
Morwen turned back to the scry screen and tried to focus on orbit, but it remained static, staring straight ahead. After a moment of confusion, she turned back to Arjun. “How do I adjust the scry screen display’s angle?”
The mousy ship technician shrank in his harness and blinked. “Oh. That’s because it’s not a scry screen. It’s powered by cameras placed on the hull across various sensor banks. You just select which sensor pack you want and it’ll show what it’s looking at up there.”
He reached down and pushed a series of buttons on a console in front of him, and the view obligingly changed. Morwen resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She would not dismiss this kindness. They had a job to do, and she’d just have to adapt. She gripped the control stills and felt the ship and her magic link. Then the engines rumbled to life with a slow whine that grew into thunder.
The cumbersome craft rocked from side to side as the spell drive whined to full power. She fed the controls void magic, and the turbulence smoothed out. She let out the tense breath she’d held and shook her head. Resolve poured through her, white hot like molten steel, and she rode the controls forward. The boxy engines at the front and rear sides of the ship angled skyward and then nuzzled open completed as the Raven blasted off in plumes of lavender and black exhaust.
A loud whine issued from behind them, and Arjun sprang up free of his restraint harness. “I got it!” The technician scurried off with a tool in each hand around the corner. Several moments later, the whine stopped, and he came back and took his seat. He took his seat casually and smiled as a few of the crew gave him concerned glances.
“Oh, the fluid pressure builds up a bit high on take off because of the extra g’s. I just shunt it into a bleed chamber till the pressure equalizes.”
Morwen felt comforted by the blank nods the others gave Arjun, following his explanation. At least she wasn’t the only one who didn’t really understand any of what he’d just told them. Shrugging the idea off, she turned her attention back to the takeoff procedures. The last white wisps of the upper atmosphere blew by, revealing the unsurrendering void beyond.
She banked the ship gently, setting a course for the planet’s shadow where the light wouldn’t touch. The Raven had just pried itself free of Eryn’s gravity well when a powerful white bolt of electricity lanced out and smashed into the ship’s shield. Wards discolored and flickered under the brunt of the spell. Morwen gripped the control sticks tightly as the ship rocked violently. Their course shifted horizontally several meters before the reaction control thrusters flared to compensate.
Sparks rained down from a console that blew out behind her shoulder. The smoke that followed filled the room with an acrid stench. Melting plastic, rubber, and metal stung at her nostrils. She flicked a quick glance back at Arjun to gauge his reaction.
“We should hold.” He stated hesitantly. “I think.” Arjun patted the armrest of his chair encouragingly. “You’ll hold. Wontcha girl?”
Morwen turned back to the main screen. “Can you focus the cameras on the source of the attack?”
Arjun input a few commands behind her into a nearby console. The main screen adjusted its view to the starboard side sensor suite and there, looming large enough to fill up the entire view, sat an enormous white dragon with crackling bolts of lightning for eyes. Arjun squeaked and shifted in his harness.
“I think I might have just peed a little.”
“Get used to the feeling. It’ll come a lot with this group.” Sirsir said.
Akamori raced to an adjacent set of controls. The metallic sticks were silver, and etched with runes, though less decorated than the controls on the Crasher . “The dragon is using air magic, which I think I can help the ship resist. But I can’t ward us.”
“On it.” Amara said, snapping up out of her restraints and settling down into the empty chair on Morwen’s left. She missed Yasiin’s absence keenly right now. His ability to counter spell could have been very handy right now. Instead, she had to count on the ship being able to take the punishment, and she wasn’t confident of that at all.
Amara fed the bronze controls magic and directed the spell drive to reinforce the wards using Akamori’s air magic. A second bolt of lightning lanced out of the dragon’s maw. The width of the bolt was almost as large as the ship itself. The attack crashed into the reinforced wards Amara and Akamori had helped to erect. Wall after wall collapsed until the final ward remained and it too discolored before fading.
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“We aren’t going to last another strike. I need options and I need them now.”
“Can’t we make a run for the shadow so we can open a portal?” Akamori asked.
She shook her head. “This ship is too slow.”
“Shoot back?” Sirsir asked.
Morwen couldn’t help the amused smirk despite the situation. Leave it to the sergeant to suggest violence. Again, she shook her head. “This ship isn’t strong enough to do any reasonable damage. We’d just be wasting aether points.”
“What about stealth, then?”
Morwen frowned, “A good suggestion, but that’s an elder dragon. There’s a strong possibility it could see right through any illusions.”
“Then we run without running.” Akamori said.
All eyes turned to him slowly. “Explain quickly.”
“No time. I just need everyone to follow my lead.”
Morwen reluctantly nodded. She stood, and he slid into the command seat and took his previous spot at the second control matrix. She watched, her body growing more tense as the dragon’s maw opened and glowed with the pooling raw aether. Then the spell was released. Morwen’s dread deepened as the arc of raw electricity lanced out for the ship. The temperature dropped sharply and then the ship was a solid 150 meters ahead of its previous position.
“You jumped the ship,” she said in realization.
Akamori fed the ship raw void and the engine nacelles all opened to full exhaust. He gripped the controls tightly as void magic rolled down his arms into the golden control matrix base. The dragon snaked closer, wings flared to help maneuver. It opened its maw and fired off a quick spell, prompting Akamori to jump again. As soon as the ship finished its improvised teleport, it was struck by a follow-up shot. Several panels surged out and a few surge fires boiled out of blown out wall panels, spurring Arjun to action.
“Awe gods damnit, I better not buy it on this rusty bucket!” Sirsir shouted over the chaos.
Arjun shot the sergeant a wounded look. “She ain’t easy on the eyes, but she’ll get us where we need to go.”
Akamori glanced back at the sergeant who had himself braced in his seat with both hands and feet splayed out like a spider trying to secure itself in an unstable area. He would have chuckled if he wasn’t trying to dodge powerful kill spells with cheap tricks. Damage indicators were still springing up and blocking his view and he smashed the small display console at his side so he could focus on his flight.
The Raven bled debris, fire, and smoke from the puncture wound in its flank. The front left nacelle all but stopped function. The remaining three struggled and threatened to lose all power completely.
“Come on. Don’t die on me now.” Akamori whispered in a silent prayer to whatever god may be listening.
Morwen fed the ship a large quantity of void magic and opened a massive portal in space to the Umbral Plane. The ship tumbled through end over end, all control lost as Akamori continued to fight for control.
“Close it!” he shouted over his shoulder.
With no light in the void, all the sensor units became useless save for the light that spilled in through the portal from the side they’d just came from. He couldn’t tell, but he was sure the dragon had spilled in through the portal before Morwen could seal it. The ship lurched violently hard to port, confirming that suspicion. Alert klaxons wailed in protest as Akamori struggled to straighten the ship.
The titanium hide of the Raven groaned as the massive white dragon coiled around the ship like a massive boa constrictor, tightening its grip. Alert warning popped up all over every available control surface. “Arjun, deal with these warnings!” Akamori shouted. Frustration mounting over being unable to focus on piloting. They had an immediate threat to deal with, and they were in the umbral realm. All conventional thinking said not to create a commotion here, lest one tempt the Voidspawn.
“Screw it,” Akamori growled. “Sirsir, get on the bronze controls. Throw as much light magic as you can into the spell cannon.”
Morwen gave Akamori a scandalized look. “You’re going to fire off light magic in the void?”
“Why not? We’ve got a big problem. So I’m going to make a bigger problem for that dragon.”
Morwen paused, considering, and nodded. “Understood, I’ll contribute. I think I know just the spell.”
Through the spell drive, Akamori could feel light and fire magic being pooled together and taking shape. Morwen molded the magic into a massive incendiary detonating shell that fired into the dragon’s face. The intense light forced the dragon to blink and rub its eyes, irritatedly. The dragon’s grip on the Raven loosened and Akamori could slip free. The Dragon roared, ignorant of its position in the Realm, and lunged again.
Before it could pounce on them, though, a figure steeped in void magic flew into its path, drawing a large scythe in challenge and allowing the Raven to power away. The dragon and the voidspawn exchanged blows. Sparks flashing off of blade and claws. Each flash of contact growing more distant the further the Raven traversed from the conflict. After several minutes of no further contact, Akamori finally sighed, tension bleeding free of his shoulders.
“I think we’re clear.” He said in a hushed voice, not daring to tempt fate. He plotted the course that Morwen provided and turned around. The ship was a mess and Arjun was scurrying about patching up damage like a hyper active squirrel.
“Best settle in folks, we’ve got about a week of travel ahead of us.”
“Suits me fine. Been meaning to hit the rack and push some iron anyway.” Sirsir said.
“Think I might join ya, if that’s ok?”
The ebon skinned NCO shrugged his broad shoulders. “Always happy to have a spotter.”
“Amara, if you’re interested, I’d like to do some more studying and see what we’re up against. Who we’re visiting and what might better prepare us.” Morwen said as everyone rose from their harnesses.
“I’d love to. Mess hall?”
Morwen nodded, and the two left, leaving Akamori and Sirsir to follow along in their wake. The Bridge cleared out when Arjun returned.
“I’ll keep-oh. They all left already.” Arjun said, deflating a little. The little technician shrugged, fishing a tool from his coveralls and took a seat near a damaged panel and got to work humming a tune from New Tera.