"Wow, this thing has power," Kiana said, poking the HHI helm controls with quick, practiced motions. "Maybe we should've installed some inertial dampeners."

"Too late now," Airo said. "We will have to endure the acceleration."

"Uh... Commander, I don't think you understand how much g-force we're talking here."

The FTL shuttle was lumbering through the sky, slowly making its way toward the exit of Ilsorin's sub-fractal region as Kiana was getting familiar with the flight controls. The nolreck was cramped; a short, claustrophobic accessway along the main engines, a pair of airlocks, and a small bridge was all there was. The bridge had only five seats, two in front of the helm and fire control consoles, while the other three were equipped with the bare minimum of feedback systems as a form of emergency redundancy.

"I feel strange," Veralla remarked, twisting in her seat and craning her neck to look at her custom made vacsuit. Her voice had a faint tinny quality over the commlink. "Can I take it off? Tehalix told me dragons are able to survive in vacuum."

"We are taking no chances," Airo said before anyone else could reply. "You are still a juvenile, not a fully-developed dragon." He checked for the third time if all systems were green.

"Yes, fledglings are very vulnerable compared to adults," Lylana quietly added. Her armored bulk dominated the limited space. "Hardier than baseline transhumans, but not by a significant margin."

"Y'all ready to get this show on the road?" Zuckeroff called excitedly. The FTL shuttle was entering the large tunnel leading to the exit.

"I'm ready!"

"Not you, Cloud! The others!"

"Ugh, this is the first time I'm piloting in a heavy-duty PPG," Kiana grumbled, trying to shift inside her power armor. "Seriously, Zuckeroff, how can you like to spend any amount of time wearing these things?"

"Um, 'cause I look badass?"

"Unbelievable." Kiana opened a channel to the base. "Homefront, this is Star Angel. Requesting passage through the exit."

"Understood, Star Angel," came a calm, measured response from Magus Dei over the commlink. "Granting you clear passage."

"Roger that, Homefront. Cutting radio contact in fifteen secs."

"Copy. Be swift, Star Angel. May the Great Cosmos watch over you all. Homefront, over."

The dark wall of the tunnel's exit glimmered away, revealing a softer darkness outside. The FTL shuttle flew out and began to ascend rapidly in the night sky. The mission was chosen to be performed during the night, in order to gain whatever meager advantage the absence of light could provide, making any Revenant more visible to visual observation.

"'Kay, I'm gonna keep it slow and steady until the bastards jump us," Kiana said. "Enjoy the ride while you can, folks."

"But I cannot see much of anything," Veralla complained. The FTL shuttle was pointed straight upward, and the bridge's viewpanels showed little else besides the black heavens and the ominous, omnipresent energy beam of the Reality Vortex.

"I was speaking figuratively, whippersnapper."

"Oh."

"No boogies detected by the sensors so far," Zuckeroff reported.

"Boogie-woogie!"

"Uh, what's happening to Cloud today?" Zuckeroff asked in an undertone.

"The copy we're bringing with us glitched or something? I dunno, gamebrain. Leave me to pilot this heap of scrap."

Airo cut off the commlink's general frequency, tuning out any further chatter. Waiting passively for the FTL shuttle to reach orbit, he again entered a fugue state as he became absorbed in his thoughts.

When he first heard Ferrtau's name after awakening from cryostasis, he had imagined a thousand ways to end his archenemy's life. They all involved blood and destruction. Most of them envisioned him just reaching wherever Ferrtau was and striking him down on the spot.

None of those ways saw him saving lives, or becoming a hero. He never imagined the road to revenge would lead him anywhere but on the path of war. Yet here he was: still at war, yes, although not as an avatar of death, but rather as a beacon of hope, builder of bridges, and protector of innocents. It confused him. His inner rage, the blazing fury which drove him forward so far, wavered in the light of such circumstances, and made him for the first time since re-awakening to be unsure about the future. To question his fate, and to glimpse reality again with the tiniest amount of rekindled vigor.

A short signal interrupted his musings. The FTL shuttle was entering low orbit. Airo restored his commlink connection.

"Uh-oh, sensors are picking up something," Zuckeroff said with alarm.

"The party's starting," Kiana muttered and gripped the helm controls harder.

"Incoming vectors?" Airo asked.

"Multiple headings, coming from thirty-dash-forty starside-zenward, eight-nine-dash-thirteen starside-nadward, three-dash-eighty portside-zenward," Lylana reported in rapid, clear tone.

"Cloud, zoom in on the nearest signal," Airo ordered. The screen before him displayed feedback from the external cameras. The chosen target was still too far for the lens to magnify it fully, yet the distinct golden outline was enough to identify it as a Revenant dragon. Five of them in total were approaching the shuttle from three different directions.

"Shit! Contact!" Zuckeroff yelled.

"Kiana, get us out of here."

"Aye-aye, Fearless Leader." The Conduit turned up the throttle, and the powerful acceleration pinned everyone to their seats.

"Zuckeroff, prepare micromissiles for fire upon my command."

"You've got it, Boss!"

"Ow, my tail got stuck!" Veralla said.

"Commander, I've detected three more hostiles heading your way. All subjects are approaching at near-relativistic speeds."

"Sir, we have to break pursuit immediately," Lylana said urgently. "We're nearly within range of enemy attacks."

"But– they're barely in sensor range!" Zuckeroff blurted.

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Airo remembered clearly the combat prowess of the nigh-invincible draconic Revenant. He didn't need to be told twice. "Lieutenant Kiana, engage FTL jump!"

"Duh! I did that, like, ten seconds ago!"

"Make the jump then!"

"It's not so easy! FTL starfall is like taking off on the runway of reality! Gravity's a major factor how long said 'runway' is! This close to the planet, the drive's going nuts trying to figure out how to enter SUHN-space!"

"I'm assisting as best as I can with parallel computations," Yeoman Cloud chimed in.

"Elder Darkovitz, what is your estimate on the enemy's effective range?"

"Sending data now, Commander." An image of the shuttle appeared on Airo's screen, situated in the center of a red circle, with a group of golden triangles quickly approaching.

"ETA for contact?" he asked.

"Twenty seconds," Lylana replied gravely.

"Zuckeroff, fire all missiles as chaff!"

"But, Boss, we're–"

"Just do it! Kiana, full throttle, now!"

"What?! Dude, we're going at almost 6g! If I push this thing on max, we'll become paste without inertial dampeners!"

"I can protect us," Lylana said. "As an aethereal."

Airo craned his head to gaze at the Radiant Knight. Her expression was hidden behind the helmet of her red-gold armor.

There was no time to lose.

"I trust you," he said curtly. "Kiana, full acceleration, or we die."

"Void damn." Kiana shook her head. "Cloud, control the curve!"

"Acknowledged, Lieutenant Kiana."

"Here goes..."

The FTL shuttle suddenly surged as if coming out from a standstill. The furious acceleration ground Airo against the seat. At the same time, a strange, palpable softness wrapped around him like an invisible layer. Visual and auditory indicators signaled the weapons module release as Zuckeroff fired away the micromissiles.

"Twelve g. Hostile targets still approaching," Yeoman Cloud intoned.

The dots on the sensors representing the Revenant dragons were getting closer to the red zone, inside which they could employ their devastating beam attacks.

The shuttle surged again.

"Twenty five g. New hostiles on scanners."

It was nearly impossible to move. If it wasn't for the power armor, Airo wouldn't have been able to even lift his finger. The commlink was filled with gasps and grunts from the others. Everyone struggled with the g-forces, despite Lylana's protective field.

"Forty g. Micromissile chaff bypassed. Red zone nearly breached."

Airo grit his teeth against the crushing pain. His vision began to fail. He couldn't see the screen before himself anymore, yet Cloud re-routed the relevant sensor data to his armor's heads-up display. The Revenant dragons had become a dozen in number, and were a monomolecular-breadth away from being in range.

"Eighty g. Hostiles still on approach. Warning, crew vital signs failing."

"Why is it... taking so long!" Veralla was practically screaming in pain.

"Can't... find... starfall... point!" Kiana replied in breathless agony.

"One hundred twenty g. Engaging automatic throttle control.

"Notification: FTL drive ready for starfall."

"J-j-juuump!" Airo cried out on the verge of consciousness.

"Entering SUHN-space."

Something bright flashed. A low thrumming sound reverberated across the whole starship. The g-forces suddenly disappeared. Airo nearly blacked out from the abrupt release, but the power armor injected him with stimulants. Everyone else breathed audible sighs of relief. Airo opened his eyes, and for the first time in his life saw how SUHN-space looked upon observation.

He could only think of describing it as a primeval plane gone utterly wild. Geometric, fractal patterns swirled and spun chaotically, somehow fabricating shapes of sheer non-linearity which nevertheless formed linked structures. Color was entirely absent in this empyrean domain, light and all emission spectrums superseded by a deep, overwhelming glow, both completely non-illuminating yet brighter than any known light source in the universe. Time and space themselves felt separated, taking upon new meanings. Endless folds of causality, probability, matter, and energy all converged into what felt like naked singularity, threatening to engulf all identity into a vortex of pure indivisibility.

It was the raw essence of the cosmos itself.

"It is so beautiful!" Veralla rawr–ed with unbridled joy.

"I think it's kinda terrifying," Zuckeroff gulped.

"Cut the chatter," Airo ordered. "Everyone, report in."

"I am fine!" Veralla squeaked.

"Me too," Kiana muttered.

"Ten-four, Boss," Zuckeroff quipped.

"Reporting, Commander," Lylana said. Her voice sounded hoarser than usual, yet stable. "I'm able to continue."

"Team is battle-ready," Airo nodded. "Proceeding as planned. Kiana, take us out of SUHN-space."

"I'm trying," the Conduit said irritably. "I'm missing half the astrogation sensors that are usually present, and Cloud isn't responding. Something on your front, Fearless Leader?"

"Hmm." Airo looked at his power armor's heads-up display. For unknown reasons, the SAI had experienced a hard crash, and was in the process of restarting. "Stand-by. Cloud should be back online within thirty seconds."

Suddenly, the whole shuttle rocked violently. A worryingly urgent alarm echoed over the bridge and lit up the screens.

"Fuck, I thought we had more time," Kiana shouted. One of her gauntleted hands flew over the helm's HHI, while the other held the controls tight. Beyond the viewpanels the primeval, twisting nature of SUHN-space darkened. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, I need a manifold sidepath now!"

"Uh, Ki, what's happening?" Zuckeroff asked anxiously.

"Fucking warpstorm's happening, that's what! If I don't change the local tensor field asap we'll–" The shuttle's alarms screamed afresh as a multi-dimensional phased lightning blinded the bridge. The lack of perspective made it impossible to judge distances. "HANG ON!!!" A halo of crackling energy enveloped Kiana's armored form as she sharply pulled the helm controls. The shuttle barely seemed to move, yet the chaos outside collapsed into pure entropy.

Airo averted his eyes from the surreal kaleidoscope, and tried to orient himself via the shuttle's sensors. A hopeless task: streams of data scrolled furiously in more than a dozen clusters, while complex, bizarre graphics kept approximate track of position in topological spaces exceeding two hundred dimensions. And according to the system, those were the simplified calculations.

The shuttle made another nearly-unnoticeable hard turn. Airo felt his senses becoming liquid. Zuckeroff shouted, his words becoming a distorted moan.

"What's happeniiiing!"

Another signal lit up on the screen. "Reporting for duty, Commander!" Yeoman Cloud had become operational again. "Engaging emergency exit-vector calculation routines!"

Another voice, annoyed, chimed over the virtual channel. "Move over, bone-code! Can't you memory-detect I'm piloting now!"

"Ki???" Zuckeroff's head whipped to look at the Conduit's aura-blazing form.

"Don't act supernova, gamebrain! How do you think I kept us alive for the past thirteen point two seconds?! Now, care to give me a hand with these calculations?"

"Already on it," Lylana reported. "Monitoring negative temporal arrays and quantum collapse fronts."

"I'll discard junk data from the sensor feeds, Lieutenant Kiana. This should improve information flow and reduce computational load."

"Uh, I know a bit of hyperlane mapping," Zuckeroff said. "Maybe I can help with that?"

Airo realized he couldn't do anything. His life – indeed, the fate of this whole mission – now rested in the hands of others.

The shuttle weaved and slipstreamed its way through the unfathomable cosmic bounds of SUHN-space for what felt like hours. According to the onboard chronometer, only ten minutes had passed.

"Hey, why did we not take that fractal branch?" Veralla called. "It seemed safe!"

"Guess again, whippersnapper! There was a hidden boundary collapse three regions down that route! We would've been doomed had I surfed there."

Outside, SUHN-space had distorted again, perceivable as an infinitely-stretched, silvery line, surrounded on all sides by dark regions of chilling nothingness.

"Lieutenant Kiana, I suggest finding an exit point ASAP," Lylana said, working her console. "This hyperlane leads to the outer edges of the star system."

"Girl, I've been looking for a starrise point since the moment we entered SUHN-space. And wasn't the dreadnought hidden somewhere at the outer edge anyway?"

"It is, but this–"

"Proximity alert!" Yeoman Cloud warned suddenly. "Massive gravity well inbound!"

"OH FUCK!"

The hyperlane ended at a sheer wall of scintillating exotic geometry. To Airo's vision it seemed the wall wasn't coming closer at all, yet from what he could gather from the frantically scrolling FTL drive data, critical collapse was seconds away.

"CLOUD, I NEED EXIT POINT RIGHT NOW!"

"Searching..."

"Found one!" Lylana rumbled. Her voice was strained, yet remarkably composed. "Resonance window is very brief, but we can hit threshold if–"

"GOING!"

The shuttle veered sharply, this time the motion feeling much more tangible. Alarms rang and the screens went red. Beyond the viewpanels, the fractal non-linearity of SUHN-space twisted into a giant vortex, and the perceived reality itself began to distort.

"Kiiiii!" Zuckeroff yelled.

Veralla roared in fright. Lylana kept silent.

Kiana's Conduit aura flared with the intensity of a small sun.

Airo had time to grasp his closed fist with his other hand in the ancient praying sign the warriors on his homeworld used.

The shuttle exited SUHN-space.