An alarm? Jace spun around in his seat. There was nothing obviously wrong—no gashes in the starship’s hull or exploding pipes—but he also didn’t know what to look for. He turned forward again. They were too high above the lavender surface of Lyvarion. A crash landing would be deadly, and he didn’t want to think about what would happen if the viewscreen glass shattered and exposed them to the void outside.

“What does that mean?” Lessa exclaimed. “Are we going to die?”

Kinfild’s hands tightened on the control yoke. “It’s an internal malfunction. If we fix it, we’ll live.”

“What’s the problem?” Jace asked.

“The jumpstart accumulator is damaged,” said Kinfild. “A metal dish embedded in the central machinery trench, if you saw it on your way in.”

Jace didn’t know what a jumpstart accumulator was. But…he had broken a dish free as he scrambled into the starship. He winced, then feigned innocence by shrugging.

Urgently, Kinfild explained, “The starship’s hyperdrive uses Aes to drag us into the Great Way Between Worlds—hyperspace, Splitspace, whatever you should call it.”

“Not the hypercore?” Jace tilted his head.

“The hypercore is a part of the larger hyperdrive system. We carry fuel cells of Aes, which continuously powers a jump, but they need an extra kick to get started—to activate the Wrath’s built-in technique card. That’s where the accumulator comes in handy. It draws a little Aes out of the energy fields of the universe and pumps it into the technique card and hypercore, giving us the kick we need.”

“And if we can’t do that?” Jace asked.

“The thrusters will rip apart the moment we try to enter hyperspace, and the rest of the ship will collapse,” Kinfild explained. “Lessa and I will be incinerated, but you will survive with your hypercore—for a while. You’ll drift through a realm of endless golden light until—”

“I get it, I get it,” Jace said. “How do we fix it?”

“I could activate the technique card remotely. But we also need to get the thrusters up to speed. It’s a basic particle propeller system—hence the driveshafts and pistons. The accumulator would’ve used a different Aes-system to give it the kick we need, but it’s not easily accessible. Unless you have a way to give the thrusters a kick without the accumulator’s help, we need to head back and repair it ourselves.” Kinfild set a hand on the engine telesignal. “If I cancel the jump, we’ll survive, but the Luna Wrath will take costly time to repair.”

“Wait!” Jace hissed. They couldn’t waste time, and if they returned to the surface, it just gave Kinfild more chances to leave him behind.

Kinfild kept his hand glued to the telesignal’s handle, but he didn’t pull it yet. “What?”

“I think…I think I have an idea,” Jace said.

Both Kinfild and Lessa looked at him expectantly.

Jace sighed. “I can travel through hyperspace. There has to be a way I can boost the ship.”

Kinfild’s eyes widened. He nodded, and his beard shook. “There might be. Read me your technique card again.”

Jace conjured the technique again. When he tried to get the sheets of golden dust to alter and let him view its description, they first read: [Alert: Unassigned Attribute Shards: Six (6)]

“Yeah, I’ll assign them when we’re not about to die…” Jace whispered, pushing his hand through the sheet. A moment later, the dust transformed, displaying the description of the card.

[Once every two (2) minutes, allows the starship to trigger a hyperspace jump in a chosen direction. Limited by fuel cell Aes output.]

Jace wasn’t a hyperdrive, but he acted the same way. His fuel cell Aes output? He figured that was how much total Aes he could channel into his techniques. “But there’s nothing in here about interacting with other hypercores or accumulators.”

Kinfild said nothing.

Jace tightened his grip on the armrest, then added, “If I could smash through the darkling and use a sword in hyperspace, then I should be able to interact with other items, too.”

“If you could get the thrusters up to speed, the Wrath’s fuel cells could maintain it,” Kinfild said. “There are ion propellers in the thrusters. We burn starcoals and use the fire-aspect Aes superheat a boiler system and make them spin. You need to make them spin faster than light.”

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“I…know what to do, then.” Jace nodded.

“How strong is the rigging wire?” Lessa asked. She pointed to a coil of it hanging on the wall outside of the engine room—spare rigging, Jace assumed

“It’s bivarke-herdine,” Kinfild answered. “Strong enough to hold up a solar sail in even the fiercest of particle winds.”

Jace threw off his crash harness. By now, Lyvarion was far below, only a subtle purple curve beneath the viewscreen. Kinfild tugged on the control yoke and turned the Luna Wrath away from the planet—and towards a bright band of stars in the sky. They were heading toward the center of the galaxy.

But only if they could make it into hyperspace. “Stop the thrusters,” Jace said. He leapt out of his seat and turned towards the stern of the ship.

“Don’t get us killed.” Kinfild grabbed the telesignal’s handle and pulled it back and forth three times before settling on a notch in the center. “You have two minutes until we have to make the jump.”

Lessa unbuckled her crash harness as well. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked. “Actually, I probably don’t wanna know.”

They ran to the stern of the ship, weaving between the scattered equipment, cabinets, and potted plants that Kinfild kept in his starship. Lessa pulled the coil of rigging wire off the wall and unwound it.

Jace opened the door to the engine room and peered inside cautiously. Aur-Six was shovelling starcoals into the furnace, and the kyborg only paused to pull levers on the wall—he didn’t notice Jace.

Jace stared at the machinery. Above the boiler was a mess of pipes, wiring, and gears. The main crankshaft crankshaft was the biggest of them all.

“What does that spin?” Jace asked.

“The ion props!” Lessa called back. “Starcoals also emit particles when they burn, and the propeller blades redirect them out the stern! But I’ve just read about it in books!”

So have I, Jace thought. But someone was making it all up back then.

“Then that’s what we need,” Jace said.

Together, they wound the rigging around the stub of the crankshaft. As it unwound, it’d spin the crankshaft, giving the kick they needed.

“You have one minute!” Kinfild shouted from the cockpit.

Jace needed to use a hyperjump down the length of the ship—from the engine room all the way to the cockpit. He took the remaining length of wire and fastened it to his hand, weaving it between his fingers and pulling it tight around and around his hand.

The heat of the engine room was oppressive. Already, sweat rolled down his forehead, and steam billowed in front of his eyes. A distant hum built behind the boiler, and the deck of the starship shuddered.

“Twenty seconds!” Kinfild yelled.

Jace nodded, then looked up towards the cockpit. “I’m ready!” he yelled. “Tell me when you need the kick!”

Kinfild flipped up a panel in the control panel and pressed his hand against the wall. “I’m in position to manually activate the starship’s technique card!” He flipped a set of switches on the control panel, and a clunk ran through the hull of the ship. “Ten seconds!”

Jace took a wide stance. He breathed and directed his willpower, controlling his Aes. Energy swirled around his core. He concentrated on the technique in his mind and picked his target: the empty space between the two pilots’ seats.

“Three…” Kinfild announced. “Two…one…now!”

Jace stomped and called up the card, then snatched it up with his free hand. It activated. The wires pressed into his flesh. A sudden pressure built in his arm. It felt like his shoulder would rip out of its socket, but for only a heartbeat.

In a flash, he was in the cockpit. Outside the viewscreen glass, the stars melted. They sintered together, forming into a sheet of solid white. The Luna Wrath’s deck lurched and shuddered, and a deep boom rumbled through the ship.

“We’re in…hyperspace?” he asked. He took a deep breath to slow his mind, then he shook his arms out.

“Correct.” Kinfild slammed the panel shut and shook out his hand. “We are travelling through a branch of hyperspace, along the very manifestation of universal law,” Kinfild said. “Aside from the accumulator, everything seems intact and working as intended.” His hand drifted over the controls. Then, he added, “I would say ‘good work’, but I suspect that you two damaged the accumulator in the first place.”

Jace heaved himself back up and winced. “Sorry.”

“When we arrive, Aur-Six should be able to repair it.”

Jace didn’t know if Kinfild was praising or scolding him, and he didn’t care to find out. He turned around, in time to find Lessa running back to the cockpit. She followed a line of burnt metal across the deck—the path of Jace’s hyperspace jump. Golden sparks still fell through the air, and there was more smoke than usual. One of Kinfild’s plants was burning.

Kinfild groaned, “Tell me that isn’t the Phélese pearl-bonzai…”

“I couldn’t tell you what it is.” Lessa stopped beside the potted plant and pushed it over. The mud smothered the fire. “But it’s out now! And hey, hey, that was pretty cool, right? You can’t scold us if we’ve done a cool thing?”

Kinfild lowered his head and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “You two are going to cause me no end of troubles…I’m certain.”

Jace and Lessa shared a glance. She giggled, and he couldn’t help but smile. Finally, Lessa asked, “So…where are we headed?”

“To Aisèn Secundus,” Kinfild provided. “It is the home of my old teacher. He is called Elder Stenol, and he is a Wielder as well.” He looked directly at Jace. “But we have a few hours in hyperspace, and you have work to do.”

Jace grinned. “Exactly what I was looking for.”