Jace bolted upright in the cot, then rolled off the side. He tumbled out onto the deck and fell at Lessa’s feet. Quickly, he pushed himself up, then patted down his body. He was back in the main hold of the Wrath.

“Are we there?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Lessa answered. “Ten minutes. Just…relax, now. We can name your sword.”

Jace scrunched his eyebrows.

“Assuming you still have the engraving needle,” she added.

“I kept it,” he said. “And it’s been recharged.”

“Wonderful!”

Jace pulled the Whistling Blade out of its sheath an inch. Its fuller was awfully empty, and he agreed—it was about time. A knight’s sword was always named, right? He unveiled the full weapon, then set his finger on the flat side.

“We’ll need to warm it up a little,” Lessa said. “Otherwise, nothing’s getting through the Whistling Glass.”

They walked back to the engine room—if they needed heat, that’s where they would find it. Kinfild still worked to keep the engine running, and he barely looked at them when they entered.

“Dip the blade in the fire,” Lessa instructed. Jace stepped up to the open furnace and dipped the blade in the flaming Starcoals. The flames licked the glass and seared the crossguard. When the ambient heat was too much for his knuckles, he pulled it out. The glass glowed white all the way down the blade—it was slightly malleable, now, like hot steel. He set it down on the floor, and he and Lessa both bent down overtop of it.

“What should it be called?” Jace asked.

Kinfild must have realized what they were doing, because he provided, “The first worldjumper’s sword was named Arbiter of Fate. You are the first of a new generation.”

Jace pressed his lips together. It was a little bit of a mouthful, and a little too…fancy. He had no plans to dictate what fate was. “How about just Arbiter?”

“If you wish,” Kinfild said.

“I think it’s good,” Lessa whispered. She set to work with her carving tools. Her hands shifted back and forth along the blade, etching foreign symbols into the fuller. They were elegant and swirly, and while they still resembled the text that he had seen written on signs and labels and equipment here, it was somehow more artistic. Each was unique without being messy.

When she finished, the letters didn’t dim. They remained bright white and glowing, even as the blade cooled. Jace lifted it, then stared at it for a few seconds. A tag appeared above it: [Whistling Blade: Arbiter]

He slid it back into the sheath at his hip. “Thank you, Lessa.”

“Glad I could—”

Before she could finish, the starship rattled. Jace’s head whipped toward the cockpit, and ahead, he spotted a planet approaching. “I think we’re there.”

“To the cockpit,” Lessa said. She began to turn away, but before she could, Kinfild grabbed her shoulder.

“Ms. Kendine,” the Wielder said. “If it means anything, I hope you know that I’m sorry, too. I am sorry that I could not save your father, and I am sorry this happened to you. I hope you understand.”

“I understand, Kinfild,” she said. “Now, let’s just get ourselves down there in one piece.”

Kinfild tapped his shovel against the side of the furnace, then wiped his brow. “I will manage the thrusters. You two must get us down to the surface.”

Jace and Lessa both ran to the cockpit. He paused between the two seats and glanced in her direction. “Are you flying, or am I?”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“You’ve got more practice than I do,” Lessa said. She leapt into the copilot’s seat, then pulled her crash harness on. “And I’d rather you be responsible for getting us killed than me. Makes it less embarrassing.”

“You won’t be embarrassed if you’re dead.” Jace jumped into the pilot’s seat and pulled his crash harness on, then unlocked the control yoke and gripped it tight in his hands. Ahead was the planet—Celacor VIII, or Eight.

Starships duelled in the planet’s orbit. Jace recognized the Koedor-Terginian battleships immediately (even if they carried no flags or obvious identification), and he picked out Starrealm battleships as well. That must have been the local defence fleet of Eight; there was only a spattering of them.

“So…uh, what’s our plan?” Lessa asked. “How are we going to get through the battle and down to the surface?”

Jace turned his head side-to-side. The starships formed a screen in front of the planet, but otherwise, it was hard to tell what was happening. Colourful flashes tore through the clouds of black smoke swirling around the fleet, and he had to squint to make out most details. The blasts dissipated before they hit the Luna Wrath, but any moment, the freighter would draw within range.

“It is likely that they plan to capture Fedar City first!” Kinfild shouted from the engine room. “That’s where the majority of the resistance will be, and it’s where any of their defence starships that haven’t yet launched will be.”

“Not everything got off the ground?” Jace asked.

“It takes time to launch starships,” Kinfild answered. “Enemy ground forces might have locked down hangars.”

And there was still the problem of Elder Stenol. If Jace encountered him again, he’d have to fight.

It’d give him lots of Aes, too, that much was certain. If he won.

“So we need to get anyone friendly to us in the air and direct them towards the ship with the queen-core,” Jace said. “We take the queen-core down and deactivate the kobolds!” And claim the rewards from the subquest, of course, though he didn’t say that aloud.

“We just have to slip through that mess and find some hangars,” Lessa muttered. “Then get back up here, preferably without dying.”

“Sometimes, the little starfighters will have an Aes-link,” Kinfild said. “Once you reach the hangar and get aboard a starfighter, you will be able to feed it some of your own Aes. Its weapon and thruster strength will improve with your output—you will be making a circuit with some of its internal systems.”

“I don’t suppose the Luna Wrath has any of that,” he said, clutching tight to the control yoke. The freighter vibrated and shuddered. They passed through a debris field at the edge of the battle.

“You suppose correctly.”

Jace leaned forward and peered out the viewscreen. Near the edge of the fighting, on the other side of the battle, was a gray speck hanging back from the rest of the battle. It was the shape of the rest of the Koedor-Terginian battleships, but it was slightly larger, and rather than thrusters, it had deployed shimmering golden solar sails on its spars. “That’s the one we saw outside of Ten. That’s gotta be it, right? The one with the queen-core?”

“That’s it,” Kinfild confirmed, looking forwards all the way from the engine room.

“Why the sails?”

“Enormous starcoal furnaces can cause too much spiritual turbulence,” Kinfild said. “It’s unwise to use them right next to a powerful and precious queen-core—they might damage it.”

Jace’s eyesight wasn’t bad, but he had only barely spotted the speck. Kinfild’s eyes must have been enhanced as part of his advancement, just like the rest of his body.

“I don’t mean to interrupt your staring contest with the void,” Lessa began, “but we won’t be at a safe distance for much longer.”

A blast of magenta light seared past the cockpit, leaving streaks in Jace’s eyes. He flinched, and the Luna Wrath rumbled.

“Scratch that—we’re in range now!” she exclaimed.

Jace reached for the power shunting levers and delivered a touch of extra power to the shield generators—and just in time. A bolt of plasma diffused across the shields just in front of him, and for a moment, the hexagonal pattern of energy rippled. Jace gripped the control yoke tighter. They just had to make it through the fighting and get to the surface.

“Where are you going?” Lessa exclaimed. “Just a straight line? You can feed the generators all the power you want, but if we run out of shield-Aes, then we’re out. You’re just telling it how much Aes it should pump.”

“A straight line is the fastest,” he said. They would skirt around the edge of the battle. “We just need to make it to the surface.”

“If you’re not going to evade, you’ll need me on the guns, then…” she groaned. She ripped off her crash harness and stumbled out of her seat. “There’s a turret here somewhere…somewhere!” She stumbled back through the cockpit, looking down at the ground.

Jace clenched his teeth. Another two bursts of plasma rippled off the shield in front of them, and it took all of his effort just to keep the Luna Wrath heading in a straight line. His hands stung, but he gripped the yoke tighter and tighter until his knuckles turned bone-white.

Then, the scanners began to flash. On the small readout, an orange light chased the Luna Wrath. It was gaining. “Lessa, what’s that?”

She turned forwards for just a moment, and her eyes widened. “Missile!”