HAD THEY BEEN under gravity, lugging Attendant Spear’s dead weight to the cockpit would have taken far too long, and the strain put on his injuries might have killed him. Though the lack of gravity helped, every bump sent him spinning and drifting. After she finally got him settled, with Spear’s calm and precise instructions, she maneuvered the dropper’s trajectory toward the Pyramid Ihvik-Ri and steadily pushed its engines harder. Somehow, the Gods continued to see them, and neither side’s weaponry targeted the dropper.
The constant drone of the warseer’s transmission scratched at her nerves. The countdown neared the four-hundred-second mark as the pyramid grew closer in the holo displays.
“Conqueror sees us,” Spear croaked.
“We did it together, Attendant. Just like you said. First round of diggers beer is on me.”
Then the Zol-Ori blew up.
Their dropship lurched. Decompression alarms blared. The holo display reeled dizzyingly with twirling images of the Ihvik-Ri, the massive fireball that had been the Zol-Ori, and the purple-green crescent of the target planet. Daggeira’s guts slammed into her throat. The screech of multiple, desperate alarms grew to a deafening pitch.
The blast of overwhelming sensory input suddenly crystallized. Like a finely crafted machine, each sensation and data flow found their precise niche in her awareness. The dropper rotated on multiple axes, causing the vast hull of the pyramid to slide into view from a new direction every other moment. Her mind fell into sync with the chaotic pattern, predicting where and when the pyramid would appear. In some distant part of herself, Daggeira recognized her shift in consciousness as being similar to the effects of pitters brew. Except she felt no burning aggression driving her, or acidic scorching in her belly, as sensory input and physical reflexes coalesced into a sublime wholeness.
The lower holds of the dropper were decompressing, but the cockpit remained sound. Next to each seat, a compartment opened to offer emergency breathing masks and oxygen tanks. She fit the oversized mask over her nose and mouth as tightly as she could and strapped the tank over her back. From the edges of the mask, a transparent membrane unfurled and sealed itself around her head and neck. If the cockpit decompressed, at least she’d have a few extra moments before her eyes crystalized in their sockets.
A new message replaced the retreat countdown transmission. The disembodied voice called to them directly, saying that the dropper was tumbling toward the pyramid at a dangerous velocity. They must get the ship under control within seventy-two seconds or be vaporized.
She released her harness, but centrifugal forces held her to the pilot’s seat. Pushing off with her legs, she managed to reach Spear’s station. His one open eye rolled up in its socket, and she couldn’t tell if he was conscious. She put his mask on, released his harness, and pressed the membrane of her mask against his.
“Live or die, Attendant,” she said.
Spear’s biomech eye rolled down to meet hers.
“Together,” he said.
Fifty-four seconds.
They pushed and pulled their way to the port. All the while, part of her continued to flow in synchronicity with the rotating appearance of the pyramid. It loomed so large now, it was impossible for the holo to display more than two edges of its rectangular hull at once. When they turned away from the Ihvik-Ri, fiery blossoms of orange and green streaked through the black from where the Zol-Ori had been.
Forty seconds.
Daggeira wrapped her arm around his thick back close and held tight to his tunic. He gave the slightest of nods and interlocked his arms around her.
Daggeira let the synchronicity envelop her completely. A fraction of a second too early or late and they’d be lost, frozen and falling forever. Even with perfect timing, they could still die from hypothermia before the pyramid picked them up. Not that they had another choice.
She held up three fingers before Spear’s eye so that he could see them through the membrane.
Two fingers. They each took a deep breath in.
One finger. They pushed all the air from their lungs.
Fist.
Without having to look, she punched the release, and the port blew open. The rush of decompression kicked them out of the cockpit and into open void.
Daggeira quaked and shivered from the terrible cold, even as the exposed skin of her hands burned from the unfiltered rays of the local sun. Panic flared when she couldn’t see the pyramid. At this range, it was too huge to miss. Had she drilled the timing after all? Through the membrane, she saw the dark silhouette of the wildly spinning dropship, backlit by the burning shell of the Zol-Ori, and realized she faced the wrong direction. She tried to crane her neck to look where they were headed, but her muscles were locked and frozen. The gilded crimson edge of the Ihvik-Ri’s biomech hull just touched her peripheral vision.
Barrages of searing heat and crimson light flashed from the pyramid’s cannons. The silhouette of the dropship exploded into vapor and white-hot shrapnel.
The mechanical precision of her thoughts and senses turned hazy, stuttering. Daggeira no longer felt her arms or legs, only the reassuring pressure of the old man’s body pressed against hers. All she could hear was the thrum of her pulse. She focused all her will on not inhaling. If she did, her lungs would explode inside her chest.
Shrapnel from the dropper shot through her lower belly like a jagged bullet. Blood spat from between her hips. She gasped, involuntarily sucking in air. The hit sent them rotating, and the towering hull of the Ihvik-Ri finally came into view as her chest burned.
Oily blue light enclosed the pyramid in a vast shimmering eggshell—the battleship’s aku-vayk engines slicing them off from the surrounding void. Thank Mother of Life’s mercy, they were on the inside of the shell. Sealed within the egg of warped space along with the pyramid, they hurled motionlessly through the cosmos, faster than light itself.