The convoy arrived at the break of dawn, with no one there to witness her departure. Chilly air hugged her skin as she stepped outside, untouched by the fire lit behind mount Itai, where soon, the sun would begin its ascent. Pen watched the amazing display of colors, lusher than any hydelia she passed on the stone steps, and felt grateful.

Today was a gift, she had realized during a night scant of sleep. She took not one look back at the house whose every nook and cranny she knew like the pages of father’s books knowing that it would be there when she returned, same as always. Only she would have changed. While Glane opened the gate, she gazed at the mountain wondering what sights awaited her beyond.

The guards lining the sidewalk were the same that had brought them, though their protocol seemed to have changed. Now, they didn’t say a word, just waited as Glane stored her luggage in the trunk and entered the van after her with a wobble. Only when his back was turned did they dare to glance at his wrist. The convoy drove off, and she let her head fall back on the cool leather to rest her eyes for just a little while.

When she opened them again, her neighborhood was long gone, and so was the mountain. A different cascade of colors rushed by her window, plastered on the walls of apartment buildings and stores lining the street. She spotted many new jinoas, assortments of clay shards, sea shells, and pieces of trash stuck to the walls with sealer’s glue, soon to be taken down by the City Watch out of fear that they may contain codes. They did, more often than not; though where the watchmen expected a call to arms in support of the Liberation, a far more frequent message was this: ’Pity the soul that cleans me up’.

The few people on the sidewalk scurried into entrances and alleys at the sight of the convoy, most of them not much older than her. Their tumbling steps made her think of Yuri. He had described to her what it felt like, being drunk, and looking at this sorry lot, she agreed that it seemed a pitiful thing. One man jumped and fell right when they drove by as if the cars had appeared out of thin air, ripping half a jinoa off the wall. He flailed in his bed of shards and shells reminding her of an upended tortoise.

The plazas of the inner city were already bustling with life. The vendors had set up their stalls and were chatting amongst themselves as they waited for the day’s first customers. The van drove faster now, she realized, rushing past the parks, banks, school buildings, until they made a turn. And another. And another, and yet another one. Had they circled the block just now?

After the turns had cost her all sense of direction, they came to a stop behind the brick walls of the municipality building. The driver spoke brief words into his radio while keeping the engine running. A breath later, the heavy back doors spilled a dozen guards onto the sidewalk whose shoulders formed a tunnel between the door and the van. Wellan emerged followed by Rannek, they hurriedly entered the rear seats, and the engines revved up before the door was even fully closed.

“Morning,“ Pen said.

“Morning!“ Rannek said. “You’re both ready?“

She pointed back to where the tunnel of guards dispersed on the sidewalk. “Not like that… A bit much, if you ask me.“

“Wellan, please ask her.“ He sounded upbeat enough, but when she caught a glance of him, his eyes looked tired, and a slight film of sweat crowned his brow. In his lap laid a newspaper. Rannek shrugged. “He wouldn’t even let me close my bedroom door last night.“

“Don’t you sleep in one bed, anyway?“ Her jape reaped a snicker out of a guard up front; it never hurt to know which of them understood Tahori.

“Very funny. I’m glad you sound so lively today—could it be that our trip has you in a good mood?“

“No.“ It did, but she didn’t want to admit that. Looking out the window, she noticed the van’s long shadow riding far ahead of the convoy. The freeway curved softly in the distance, leading past the western suburbs, Lilahiem Hill, and the rail yard depots. “We’re going the wrong way.“

“Driving would take three days at least, we don’t have that kind of time. The Bitaabi grow restless. Their own have been trapped in the tunnels for days now waiting for help. We need to get there fast.“

“Meaning…“

“We’re going to fly.“ A smile appeared on his face, and he looked up as if to ask, now are you excited?

Pen turned around without acknowledging the obvious truth. How could she not be? With the mythical beasts of the jungle and the Cursed either extinct or banned, the Krissins were perhaps the most feared creatures left in Tahor; big metal beasts with stubby arms that claimed the skies by nothing but pure, deafening, Ore-extracted force. Few civilians ever got to ride inside them, and when they did, then most often as prisoners. She wondered if a machine could even come close to the sensation of a bird’s flight. It couldn’t be nearly as good without the wind bristling one’s feathers, she reckoned.

The convoy took an exit onto the southbound freeway. “So where are we going?“

“The only place one can hatch a Krissin. It won’t be long, don’t worry.“

“… You’re joking.“

“Colonel Syrkanan filled in, he won’t bother us.“

“That’s not the issue—you should have told me! “ Pen raised her voice, but righteously so. Rannek had no right to make her go back to the base knowing full well what that place meant to her. The dreadful block of cubes, the polished bars, the smell of disinfectant… And Syrkanan, most of all.

“I haven’t been completely honest, true, but I’m not alone in that, am I?“ Pages crinkled softly behind her. “Perhaps, we could have a chat about today’s headlines.“

“I didn’t give them the scoop. Hells, I wasn’t even there!“ She had only glanced at the Koeiji Herald, whose title page contained an unseemly photo of him underneath the headline ’PREFECT LORNE LOSES YOUTH VOTE’. She thought it mean, but also quite clever—after all, five years ago, he had been put into office per decree, not per election.

Rannek’s newspaper flew over the backrest and landed in her lap. She opened it to the title page, but there was nothing about the attack written there—instead, a photo of an umum assembly showed about forty men and women, each proudly holding three bulging drums stacked under their left shoulders.

“Page six,“ Rannek said. When she turned the page, Pen found a picture taken from a poor angle, corners filled with blurry shapes out of the camera’s focus. Between them, people bowed in some kind of religious ceremony towards a shrine obstructed by a scrawny-looking girl her age, with hair and a pouch just like hers.

That was her.

Damn me, Pen thought. She had jumped out of bed thinking about nothing but the ride and the forest, forgetting that Wellan would dutifully inform the prefect about her ’riot’ the day before. Her eyes flew across a scarce caption underneath the picture:

Market-goers paying respect to Penroe Kyetana, daughter of Faroe Kyetana, at the Koeiji harbor on WY 119.

Nothing else, no headline, no further comment. It must have been all they dared to write. Pen scrutinized the photograph, tried to discern where it was taken from. She couldn’t remember seeing any flash or camera in the crowd that moment. The picture was crude, and liking it would have been a vain sentiment; yet her cheeks blushed enough so that Glane took notice beside her, and heaved a soulful sigh.

She closed the paper and flung it back at Rannek. “Oh yeah, I got lost.“

“You have never gotten lost unless you wanted to. And that is not the part I’m concerned about—Wellan tells me you drew Kuth letters?“

“Wellan tells me there are no forbidden letters. Isn’t that so, Wellan?“

The Head of the Guard kept his eyes on the window like he hadn’t heard and twisted his braid between his fingers. His understanding of her language was fickle, depending highly on whether he needed to.

Rannek started scratching his neck. “He would have been right. Regardless, whether what you did was illegal or not, it was most certainly foolish. Why on earth would you challenge a soldier like that?“

Because she was right, and he needed to learn. “Because he hurt Aphun. And he would’ve kept at it if I hadn’t distracted him.“

“Well, he would have faced the appropriate consequences. Seargent Khron has been demoted to private and will not be serving within city limits for a year. Some soldiers don’t know the customs of your people, as unfortunate as that is. But there are measures in place to make them learn. We have to trust in those measures.“

“My customs?“ Pen felt her anger welling back up. “Is it Gralinn custom to assault children? Or old men? And don’t tell me he would have faced any consequences if it hadn’t been me, we both know that’s houndshit.“

»Mind your tongue,« Wellan said without taking his eyes off the window. So he was listening.

“It is not ’houndshit’,“ Rannek said, patiently. The word sounded wrong coming from his lips. “It’s the order we have, and you of all people should choose carefully when to challenge it.“

“I challenged his reason, not the Empire.“

“That is not what people see.“

Pen suddenly felt tired. The journey had barely begun, yet already, her good spirits were fading. She knew well she’d made some poor decisions at the market—what made her want to fight him, then? “Whatever,“ she said, “you said we’d discuss it when we got back.“

“I did, and we shall.“ Without turning her head, she just knew he was smiling an annoyingly understanding smile. But Pen left him be, and instead decided to do like Wellan and scan the outside.

Gray noise barriers zoomed by on both sides of the freeway protecting the suburbs. Some segments had been broken, or simply taken, revealing a sea of unstable-looking huts behind them, most of which looked narrower and more cramped than the shed in her backyard. Some of their walls bore an astounding resemblance to the gray plastic of the barriers. The thought of people living in there made her feel no better about her pettiness.

She’d just begun tracing the upper edge of the sun about to break through the barriers when suddenly, Pen was blinded. The barriers had ended, and so had the suburbs. After passing a few auto shops and gas stations, the convoy halted at a monitored turnoff. A soldier walked up to the rover driving ahead, inspected IDs held out through the window, and rolled up the boom gate soon after. She watched him hold on to his beret as the convoy spit up dust rolling past him.

A gentle incline carried them to the burnt fields. They spread out before her like they had five years ago, a wasteland still void of life decades after the fire had stopped raining down. Tree trunks lined the roadside, blackened, reaching no higher than the van’s windows. A maze of cracks ran through the barren soil crawling with crannybugs. It made for a depressing sight.

Yet what bothered Pen most of all was the plateau rising slowly ahead of them, its watchtowers and searchlights looming high above the fields. She seldom lingered in the memories from that short chapter of her life; for none of them were good ones, and all it ever brought her was pain.

Base Klinngen was abuzz with noise and its men shiny with sweat even though the sun had barely risen. Lined up in a square across the central yard, they whirled up dust doing pushups, crunches, and squats under the shouted commands of colonel Ghuren H. Syrkanan, who helmed the assembly from the top step of the brick central command building. His voice sounded hoarser than it once had, but still cut through the air as effortlessly as Glane’s blade.

Pen watched the black berets atop the soldiers’ heads bob up and down in remarkable unison, and felt misplaced. It wasn’t a new feeling; five years ago, on her first visit, it had irked her just the same. Only now, she had the sight to see it for what it was: she was a foreigner here.

The fields had once belonged to her people, but the Cursed of the First Order had changed that. Now they lay burnt and broken, ruled from the plateau the Earthen One had raised to house Base Klinngen, a nation of its own, Klinngen Country, where the buildings were brick, the borders mesh wire, and her kind unwelcome. A sea of pale faces billowed to the rhythm of the colonel’s voice, faces of a hundred shapes, only not hers. Looking at Rannek and Glane standing beside her, and Wellan and his men further back, she wondered if they felt as foreign walking the streets of Koeiji.

The sun had risen a good bit further when the drill came to an end. The men scattered at the colonel’s command and streamed into the white barracks and cantina lining the tall fence to her right. Glances shot all over the party of strangers, her in particular, but the only thing that drew their open contempt were the blue berets of Glane, Wellan, and his men. Whispers found their way to her ear; ’city trash’, ’coppers’, ’halfmen’ they called their brothers in service. One man near the size of Glane spit on the ground only a foot from where she was standing. Soon, the bulk of them had disappeared, and a tense peace returned to the yard.

Colonel Syrkanan appeared without warning, stepping out of the barracks’ long shadow. Two soldiers walked alongside him, each wearing a star on their lapels matching the four stars gracing the colonel’s uniform. She could swear there had only been three last time she’d checked. »You need to be more punctual.«

»I need to get in shape, from the looks of it.« Rannek waved around the yard whose dust had not yet settled. »Very impressive.«

»A poor lot Ullston has granted me. Talkers, mommy’s boys, artists… They have to sweat out the weakness.« He took a look at Wellan’s guards. »Or else they don’t learn.«

The two men shook hands, then stopped shaking hands, then just stood facing each other. Looking at both, Pen had no doubt that Syrkanan could easily outrun, -squat, and -crunch Rannek despite being his senior by at least ten years. He was the only pale Pen had ever met whose skin refused to weep under the Tahori sun.

Rannek gave a shrug. »… Should we get going?«

»No. We need to clarify a few things. First: What is that?« The colonel’s finger pointed at the ground beside him, where the soldier’s spittle sat in a bed of dust. »Did your men—«

»My men don’t spit, sir,« Wellan said.

»Yet they do speak without permission,« the colonel returned, never taking his eyes off Rannek. »What he’s implying is true?«

»… It likely wasn’t intended as a slight to us, we—«

»Who?«

Rannek shrugged once more. The general turned to Wellan, and gave a quick nod. »Tall guy, yea high, like private Kirhonen, sir,« Wellan said pointing at Glane, who scoffed at the comparison. »Freckles.«

One of the colonel’s assistants stepped forward to whisper something in his ear, and walked off at a wink by the old man. »Noted,« he said turning back to Rannek. »Second: What is this?«

Pen saw his finger up close, as it was now pointing at her. He didn’t grace her with his eyes though, and instead kept staring at Rannek, who looked just as confused as she was. »That is the young miss Penroe, colonel. You must remember her, she spent quite some time on your base a few years back.«

»Fifty-nine days, correct. Did that make you think I run a day-care facility?«

»I put it in the request, colonel—she’s the civilian asset accompanying us.«

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

»She’s neither a civilian nor an asset. Does President Yut know about this? Does Ullston?«

»They’ve been informed.« Rannek’s voice started to sound tense, but then again, Pen could feel her own hands balling into fists. Syrkanan hadn’t changed at all. »Look, you have men coming with us. We’ve both read the reports; don’t you think we need all the goodwill we can get?«

The colonel scoffed. »You think parading around a little girl will get you goodwill?«

Surprising herself as much as anyone, Pen stormed off with stomping steps, away from the guards and soldiers and the men talking like she wasn’t there. Fuck Syrkanan. If spitting constituted an offense, clearly a rogue little girl would, too, so she stomped across the dusty canvas of foot- and handprints and dried sweat kicking up new clouds of dust.

After a while, she heard steps coming after her. Pen hoped it was the colonel—may he wag his finger at her, give her a lecture, at least he’d acknowledge her. Having him point at her face blindly felt worse than anything she had anticipated, although it was just like him. Ruthless. She kept stomping, sped up even so he would have to chase her. But the steps stayed behind. When she looked at the ground, a gigantic shadow loomed over hers, nearly swallowing it.

She stopped and turned to face Glane. “Leave me alone!“

“I cannot,“ he said. “Is not duty.“

She looked back to where Rannek was still arguing with the colonel. A trail of dust lingered where she and Glane had walked onto the yard, undisturbed. An eerie quiet had descended on the base. Suddenly, with a bang, the doors to the cantina flew open up and two men walked out, the taller of whom immediately planked down on the ground and started doing pushups at a slow, exhausted pace. The other one just watched and took notes.

Her fists were still clenched, but there was nothing she could do. He didn’t dislike her. He didn’t even see her. To Syrkanan, she was less of a nuisance that a gob of spit. »What did he say?« Pen asked.

Glane nodded, grateful for the return to his tongue. »The colonel remarked that you know your way around.«

He wasn’t wrong. As her fists simmered down, Pen searched her surroundings for new buildings, equipment, but all she found was a large radio dish rotating back and forth atop the communications building like another inconvenienced tortoise. She turned towards the armory and its guards throwing long shadows across the western road. If the layout had remained the same, the road would still end at the landing zone. Five years back, little Pen had enjoyed free reign of the premises a couple of times, yet the big metal beasts had always frightened her. How childish, big Pen thought to herself. If the colonel was bent on keeping her from flying, she could at least take the chance to finally see the Krissins up close.

She entered the paved road and walked briskly followed by Glane. Guards manned the doors of the infirmary, various workshops, the garages, all eyeing her like the foreigner she was. Inside the narrow gap between a garage and a host of lavatories, she spotted four soldiers kneeling in the shadows around a pile of cards and torek bills. Their fearful eyes flashed at her for just an instant before recognizing her lack of threat.

»Miss Penroe,« Glane said, »I am truly sorry for the colonel’s disrespect.«

»Why?«

»He does not act just as himself, but as a man of the uniform. When he mistreats you, we all mistreat you.«

»Syrkanan cares for his men, and his men only,« she said. The words weren’t hers, but father’s, stammered years ago in his cell. She arched her neck, but couldn’t find the holding facility between the other buildings.

»I dearly hope the young miss does not assume the same about me.« He was oozing sincerity, yet she did not care to respond. The shame he felt, the slight to his honor, she knew them to be real; nonetheless, they also tended to blur things. Why on earth were they talking about his pains all of a sudden?

Beyond the buildings to her right, the southern road ran parallel to hers. She spotted the shooting range, the post office, the cemetery, and a small village of tents she did not know the purpose of, yet suspected to serve as some kind of punishment to those out-of-line-soldiers and spitters that did not deserve the bunks. As she was still counting the tents, Pen saw it. There at the end of the southern road stood the holding facility, a small cube that seemed forever in the process of being devoured by two other, larger ones. The only sentinels she could see were a trio of birds cleaning their feathers on the canopy above the front and only entrance. A new coat of paint glistened on the walls, but other than that, it looked almost the same. Only smaller somehow. Like it had shrunk.

She had no desire to pay a visit there. Apart from her yearly visits to Emair, the days inside the cell had been her last with father, days without room for closure, or talks about his deed. All there was was death. The sound of it. The smell of it. The writhing of his limbs and face as his body fought the poison. Unfit for transport, the soldiers called it, but what it meant was that he would die from being moved. She hadn’t been able to understand their reasoning, as they seemed just fine with letting him rot in a cell like there was any chance he could have even gotten up, let alone escaped. Seeing him being dragged before the colonel day after day to be questioned, unable to string together more than a few words, it had broken her heart, yet that didn’t spare her the final tragedy of his recovery. The day father managed to stand up and hug her back had been the day he was declared fit for transport. She still remembered him waving before entering the Krissin, leaving behind this strange little land, and her in it.

Pen spotted the turbine’s peaks sticking out behind a maintenance shed ahead, and quickened her pace to a slow jog. Watching from below as the machine took off would hardly make her cry this time. She had grown, matured, and if Syrkanan took even one look at her after forcing her to stay, she would make sure he’d see resolve, not weakness.

She slowed down. A man had given her pause, standing near the shed with his back turned. It wasn’t a soldier, but a Tahori like her, wearing a stained cotton shirt and pants frayed at the hems. A possible nuisance, judging by the two black berets smoking beside him. Suddenly disinterested in the landing platforms and the monstrous machines they stood by, Pen approached the three of them ogling her foreign brother.

It wasn’t long before he turned and yawned, and met her stare. He was a few years older than her, yet not a man grown, though he tried to hide it behind a rugged beard. The features underneath were hard, and scars on his forearms matched the workers’ clothes. Only his eyes told the truth: they were dark, and friendly, and currently a bit confused.

“Greetings,“ the young man said.

“Greetings,“ Pen said. “Do you by any chance know where I can find explosives around here?“ His eyes grew wide with shock, but neither of the smoking soldiers reacted. Syrkanan’s men hardly ever spoke her tongue. “Just kidding. Who are you?“

“… Ibiko.“

Pen bowed, as did he. “Umi.“

“Her name Penroe,“ Glane said in his usual butchery of her language.

The young man nodded, then paused, then looked at her. Looked at Glane. “And who are you?” he asked. There was a funny slurring to his words, like that of a man just woken.

Glane just looked at him with an amused smile. “You know what day is?”

»Shut it,« Pen said. “Just ignore him, Ibiko.”

But Ibiko kept staring at the Cursed, at his height, his thick arms, the blades on his back. Pen shook her head. It was only a question of time until a wrist was turned, a scarred mark unveiled, and a deep fear driven into the young man. He stiffened up. Stared into the distance. Ignored them for a long frag. Yet then, slowly, his head turned back towards her. “He’s a guard. Your guard.”

“He’s a tool.”

His eyes looked her up and down with uncertainty. “Your name is Penroe.”

“Plenty of us out there. Quit staring.”

“… So you’re not the daughter of doctor Kyetana?“

“She is,“ Glane said with a warning face. Pen punched his kidney, but somehow she was the only one hurt by the impact.

“Really? It’s—it’s an honor,“ Ibiko said. His posture stiffened abruptly, and he performed another bow. “I’ve met your father as a child—the men of Bitaab owe him a great deal. He counseled us when the strikes escalated, treated our sick—even me once, when I got sick! Has he—“ He paused, and looked embarrassed. “Did he ever mention the name Gota Yairo?“

“… I’ve heard it once or twice.“

In truth, it wasn’t familiar. But the pride in the young man’s eyes justified her lie. “My father! They were friends, back then—if he knew I met you! He talks about you sometimes. He’s worries for your wellbeing, all alone and imprisoned in the city…“ He looked at her with pity. “Are you well?“

“Quite well. Koeiji’s a good enough prison.“ She smiled as best she could. “Sometimes, I get to take trips.“

He smiled back, and looked about the dusty road. “To more cheerful places than this, I hope.“

Pen chuckled as a crew of mechanics rushed by and started fueling the tanks for the impending takeoff. The Krissins lined up before her looked less imposing than she remembered, but then again, she had been smaller last time, and where there had been a low-hanging, spiky head with eyes of glass, she now saw just a cockpit. Stumped arms became turbines. The arching belly turned out to be nothing but a metal box. She felt silly for ever having feared the machine. “I was going to hitch a ride to Bitaab, actually,“ she said.

“You’re coming with us? By the gods, what a blessing!“ Ibiko’s hand touched Pens shoulder only for an instant before Glane got in between. »Lennyn!« he said, backing up. “I apologize. Truth is, that’s the best news I’ve gotten in days. You will get a grand welcome, I promise you!“

“I likely won’t be able to come.“

“… Why?“

“Syrkanan.“

He seemed to understand. With a fading smile, Ibiko stood beside her inspecting the Krissins, and occasionally glancing back at Glane. After a while, he sighed. “A shame. I don’t mean to burden you, but Bitaab could need a ray of light right now.“

“It’s bad, isn’t it?“ Pen asked. He nodded. “I may not get to go, but I’d like to hear what happened from someone who saw.“

Ibiko shuffled his feet. “Bad doesn’t begin to describe. It’s like the mountain grew a mouth to devour us all. Rocks splitting, earth moaning, swallowing everything, every thing… And the noise, it won’t let me sleep. Cranes, towers, people crushed inside the mouth, that’s all I see every time I close my eyes. And I’m one of the lucky ones. A third of our men is dead. Our stores are empty from last year’s drought, and the mothers go hungry so the children don’t. If it wasn’t for all the farmers helping out, we would have lost so much more already…”

“That’s horrible,” Pen said.

“It makes you doubt, you know. Doubt the things you thought you knew best. Our fathers taught us to trust the rock, understand what it can take, and when it gives. But… everything gave that day. It wasn’t right.“ He looked at her with unblinking eyes. “They don’t like to hear me say that, so I don’t. But I know what I saw. What I felt. The earth doesn’t cave that way, Penroe, and I fail to understand why they won’t listen. There’s something down there.“

“… What?“

“Beats me.“ He kicked the pavement. “I don’t like to blame the gods for things I don’t understand… but ever since, I don’t like joking about them either.“

“I’m sorry for your pain. It can’t be easy leaving behind your people in times like this.“ To deal with the likes of Syrkanan, no less. “Only I doubt I’d be of any help.“

“The collapse was only the beginning of our troubles. We’d rushed to complete the drillings for mine five because the suits from the GMC kept threatening to dock pay if we fell behind schedule. I may not know what happened, but I do know when. They started up the drills seconds before the collapse. Which leaves many of us wondering why five days later, the Empire still hasn’t sent shit to help us.“

“Your tongue,“ Glane remarked.

“Well, they haven’t,“ Ibiko said defiantly, though not without taking a small step away from the Cursed. “And not for lack of me telling ’em. Over, and over, and over, and over again. So far, the only one who seemed to give a damn was the prefect. And even he could only spare a couple minutes.“

“He’s a very busy man.“

“You know him?“

“He’s—“

The sound of Syrkanan’s voice made Ibiko and her turn. A party was approaching them on the street helmed by Rannek and the colonel, still in discussion; though it was more of a monologue now, held by the colonel as he walked briskly with his hands behind his back. Rannek refrained from interrupting him, only nodded after every other instruction like an eager puppy. “Tell me, what do you make of him?“ Ibiko asked.

Pen lowered her voice. “He’s as good as they come.“

»… say three days, I mean three days and before sundown,« the colonel went on. »You will not linger, nor occupy the infirmary with anything but a fatal wound. And lastly, you can be sure that regardless of the outcome of this rescue mission, my report will include a section about your disregard of protocol and common courtesy throughout the planning stages. Understood?«

»In all aspects, sir,« Rannek said. He waved at Pen as they arrived at the landing zone, but quickly yanked down his arm again. Despite the pain from his wound, his face bore signs of a smile, the kind reserved for the aftermath of a battle weathered and won. “I am glad to see you two have already become acquainted. We will be taking off shortly!“

“I can go?“ Pen asked.

Rannek nodded, and gave her a look that said not to ask any further. Commotion burst out around her as the mechanics hurried to uncouple the hoses from the fuselage before saluting the colonel. He stepped past her and Ibiko without any acknowledgment of their presence and circled the Krissins scrutinizing every screw in the cabins’ hulls. Then, Syrkanan raised his hand with his thumb palmed.

Immediately, Ibiko’s watchers sprung into action, climbing up the cockpits of the two closest machines and wiggling themselves into the tiny seats behind the buttons and levers. They were pilots, she realized. Ibiko had perhaps not been such a threat after all. Pen watched the young man smile, unsure where to point his tired eyes. When they went past her, she saw a relief that by leagues exceeded her own.

Pen jumped when the Krissins roared up suddenly, becoming live creatures for only a moment before her maturity returned. It wasn’t them roaring, but their stunted arms, exerting a warm current of air that blew rings in the dust around her. Wellan’s guards were already proceeding to the loading ramps, their blue berets matched by a group of black ones following suit. She pulled Wellan’s sleeve.

»Save me a window seat.«

»Sure,« Wellan said. He pointed at the thin slits of synthetic glass running along the cabins. »Though I would barely call those ’windows’, would you?«

He said something else after that, but Pen didn’t listen. A face claimed her attention, passing her between its black-hatted comrades. His eyes caught hers, and lingered. Smiled. Private Khron disappeared behind the Krissin without saying a word. He didn’t need to. It weren’t his words that carried the message.

Pen shoved aside Wellan and jumped off the platform. She heard Rannek say her name trying to sound imposing. But she ignored him. He could have at least pretended to defend her.

Syrkanan was standing across the road rattling off instructions to his note-taking assistant, still scanning the Krissins. He only looked down to return her stare when her feet stopped just an ell away from his. »What did I ever do to you?«

His assistant looked up for a moment like an animal in headlights. The colonel showed no reaction but a slight lean forward. »Nothing.«

»Then why bug Rannek? Why send Khron? You’re clearly—«

»Your friend the prefect needs to respect protocol, as does anyone who sets foot on my base.« He drew his brows together, curiously. »As for private Khron, I wasn’t aware you knew each other.«

»If there’s ever a lie.«

The look he gave her was one you’d give a clueless child. »Dear, you are approaching an age where such reckless talk can get you more than a slap on the wrist. You better learn your manners now before it’s too late.«

»Are you threatening me?«

»A man of my rank doesn’t need to threaten children. Neither does he hold grudges.« He snatched the pen away from his assistant, who took a step back and clutched his notepad. »You are spoilt to think me petty like that, but no wonder. I bet they still give you nothing but sad looks and compliments down in the city.«

»… People may be nicer because of father, but that’s none of my fault.«

»No, but what is is for you to think that they should.« Syrkanan leaned forward ever so slightly, but to great effect. She understood his men that moment, squirming under the old man’s piercing stare, being gifted his full, undivided attention. »I see your looks, girl, do not be fooled. You watch a man conduct his business and when it doesn’t go your way, you think he slighted you. You watch a man not watching you and think he doesn’t see you. Yet the only one who is blind is you.«

»I see you well enough,« Pen said.

»No, you don’t,« Syrkanan said, and tapped her on the nose with his pen. »Because if you did, you would see that some men simply do not care.«

He was off, and his assistant with him. Pen turned to watch him walk briskly down the road; even if she screamed, and the gods knew she wanted to, she couldn’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t prove him right.  She sullenly hid her fists in her pockets so no one wouldn’t see them shake. The colonel’s lips hadn’t smiled, but there was enjoyment there, she’d seen it. The notion that he perhaps hadn’t even meant the words was somehow worst of all.

She spotted Rannek’s shadow beside hers, wisely standing at a distance as the engines kept roaring. She stormed back to the platform without looking at his face, or Glane’s, or Wellan’s as he directed her into the first of the two roaring machines. Stepping onto the loading ramp, she glanced around at the men sitting inside. Khron wasn’t among them, thank the gods, and neither were any other black-hatted soldiers. Only two lines of exclusively blue berets facing each other over the gangway.

Wellan pointed out her place on the left bench. A dozen buckles clicked around her as she sat down between him and Glane, facing Rannek on the other side. The back third of the cabin was stuffed full of boxes and tied-down pieces of mechanical equipment, winches, drills, all the way down to tubes and shovels. Nets stretched across the ceiling holding more luggage and smaller boxes, as well as scary masks with cylinders stuck to the mouth. Along the metal wall to her back ran a sliver of window that, if she arched her neck, she could look out of. Rannek pulled out a headset from behind his bench, signing her to do the same. She found her own and put the cushioned speakers over her ears.

A tinny voice rattled off a flurry of Gralinn words into her ear. »… 31-03, controls in […] checking radar as we speak, everything seems […] colonel before we […] go-ahead loud and clear. We secure back there, prefect Lorne?«

»Affirmative, captain,« Rannek said. His voice sounded different over the speakers. Brighter. As the ramp slowly rose up and became a door again, Glane checked the belts and buckles holding her in place, and when he sat back, Pen spotted Ibiko sitting to his right, half asleep. His eyes shot open just like Pen’s only a moment later.

The floor, the seats, everything started vibrating like the municipality building, only a hundredfold. The droning sound of Ore-powered machinery swelled up until the air was hissing, muffled only by the cushions around her ears. Yanking around her neck, she saw the platform and the road outside engulfed in a storm of dust.

Before her eyes could even register it had happened, her body knew. It hit her stomach first, then spread with a shiver into her limbs. They had left the ground. Leather belts restrained her as she gazed out the window. Fast and faster they rose leaving dust and buildings and floodlights behind. Pen struggled to get a good look of the base below; on its edge, tiny bug-like men were leaving a toy cantina, passing a slightly taller bug doing push-ups. Base Klinngen then disappeared as the machine leveled out half a league above the plateau.

The burnt fields stretched out before her up to the edges of Koeiji. From her elevated post, the charred stumps looked like holes stamped into the ground by the thousand needles of a vengeful god. Her neck hurt, but Pen was too mesmerized to turn away. She felt the Krissin pick up speed, not upward, but forward, shooting across the plane away from Koeiji. Soon, the base reappeared as nothing but a sandhill atop the perforated fields, an island of pale beige men in a sea of dead earth where her kind would forever be foreign. Her surroundings still felt like a mismatch for Pen, all metal and noise and fuzzy feelings, but she didn’t care. All of them were strangers here, strapped in, flying inside a box, trying to do like the birds.

A carpet of green appeared below, pushing the fields and base toward the horizon. Koeiji shrunk until it was nothing but a speck. Then, it was gone. She rejoiced, and marveled at the trees, vines, and clearings shooting by at breathtaking speed, and at the jungle consuming all but the sky above.