Seven to one, sixty seconds to the ring. The djamori in my veins whispered that the AGA\LAG 81 interceptors were nothing and that I was invincible! But the rest of my body was not in accord. My scrotum retracted, my chute tightened around the output pipe. My hands were poised to wrench at the controls and fly back the way I’d come. My cowardice was opposed by Tsuros’ ghost, screaming in my ear:

“Dicta Six! If you get caught, fly at the danger!”

How fast could the Yama really go? How much acceleration could my body withstand? There was only one way to find out. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with compression fluid. Then I hammered down. Full throttle.

I was crushed into the flesh of the Yama, and my weight doubled, then quadrupled. My body was a lump of pure suffering, amplified by djamori hyperawareness.

I was flying directly into the sun. My canopy had grown as dark as welding glass. Ten seconds from the ring, I could only see outlines. Pinpricks of light flickered from the waiting interceptors.

They fired at me!

The AGA/LAG 81s had been designed to protect their carrier by shooting down incoming missiles. I was no missile! With leaden hands, I twisted the spurs, heedless of the pain. I darted behind a line of freighters like a squirrel hiding on the far side of a tree. The shots flew wide. They hadn’t expected me to be so nimble. I wanted to smile, but my grimace was too heavy.

Dicta three: Fire only at close range, and only when your opponent is properly in your sights.

My Yama flew faster than anything they’d ever seen. They still fired, but I was already upon them. Our paths crossed for a microsecond that felt like forever. I strained my ears against the screaming reactor, listening for the crack of doom against my diamond hull.

They missed!

But then, a flash of titanium white at three-o-clock caught my eye. The seventh interceptor! He’d waited in reserve, holding his fire until I was in killing range. The djamori screamed in my veins, time dripped by in heartbeats. My canopy lensed towards the ruby gleam of his cockpit, a viper’s eye. I clenched the spurs for my final gamble, remembering the moment when RAMP first kicked in. I had to wait until the instant before he fired.

Twin cannons flashed. I was a heartbeat faster, ramming my spurs into a spine-crushing vertical juke. My Yama sprang like a flea, bounding above the spray of tungsten slugs. My battered brain was crushed against the roof of my skull once more, and my vision flared white-orange.

It hurt so bad, I wished I’d just let him shoot me. The interceptor pilot fired his jets and gave chase. He had me in his sights, but I was flying faster than his bullets.

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Celeritas sum!

I laughed into the fluid, half-crazed with djamori and adrenaline. I’d outrun them all! Then the space around my ship erupted with energy, coruscating rays of dazzling violet-green light. Polyphasic beams! A purple nova burst against my canopy, and everything went black.

I clenched my jaw, preparing to disintegrate. Instead, I felt pressure at the back of my head. More acceleration. I hurtled even faster.

It was just dumb luck. At this range, the polyphasic beam couldn’t penetrate my phase-diamond skin. Praise the inverse square law! My exchangers drank up the beam’s energy gladly, converting it into thrust.

I was flying blind. My canopy was still blacked out, and I was afraid it had been damaged. Eventually, the Yama let light in, facing the sun with a drunkard’s reluctance. We screamed into the Starmine, surrounded by silver rails that vanished into infinity.

My chest hurt, and I was acutely aware I was underwater. Even in the throes of a djamori high, I was drowning in G-force. Satisfied I’d found the absolute limit, I eased off the throttle. Color crept back into my vision, and terrible cramps racked my body. Everything hurt, but I was alive. I could feel myself becoming more lucid with each heartbeat.

I had to work up the courage to check my six. Yawing backward, I could see the seven tiny candles of their jets in hopeless pursuit. Without RAMP, they could never catch me. Without compression fluid, they would be torn apart in the attempt. I was free! It was an insane way for a man strapped to a bomb to feel, but I felt it anyway.

Sol grew ever-larger as I sailed across five million kilometers of corona. The rings whipped by, and I had time to ponder the filament cavity they maintained. The interval between rings shrank as I flew deeper, and the pitch of my exchangers climbed. As the corona became more energetic, more rings were needed to keep its fury at bay.

A million kilometers out, Sol filled my canopy completely. This was my cue to begin deceleration. I had reached the limit of our intel. The Hezo didn’t know what was inside the Starmine, or if the Yama 10s could survive entry. My orders were to do whatever I could to try and reach the tachocline. If my ship failed, I was to deploy the baryon bomb.

It would be a delicate balance. If I was too slow, I would overwhelm my exchangers and burn up. If I flew too fast, Icarus.

During the long deceleration, I wondered if anyone else had gotten this far. I realized I might be closer to the sun than any human being had ever been. Through my canopy, I watched world-swallowing gouts of plasma arc into the corona as dark rivers of relative-cool wove through burning oceans of swaying spicules.

What incomprehensible power! How vast, how eternal! Yet, somewhere beneath my awe, a voice whispered I was the one who could end it all. I’d outlived the others, outflown the destroyer, outrun the interceptors.

What would my last words be?

Semper Solus? Let there be night? Will the last surviving prisoner please turn off the sun?

I blinked at the insipid tenor of my own thoughts. The vertical jukes must have given me brain damage. My head was full of nervous babbling. I was afraid, stung by the scope of the sun. I was flying into the mouth of a monster. This ifrit was large enough to swallow every human being who’d ever lived, everything we’d ever built, and every planet we’d ever set foot on.

I was drugged to the gills, scourged with deceleration agony, and quivering with terror. I loved every moment of it. I had arrived.