THE THARK settlement had once been a great port city. Now its stonework stood weathered and chipped, towers and temples torn down by sand, time, and scavenging hordes.

Carter sprang from rooftop to rooftop, cupola to crumbling parapet, zigzagging his way up toward the listing Helium airship. He paused, darted a glance ahead. Only one thin-ledged cupola stood higher now, and it was at least fifty feet away. He hesitated.

Then the Helium airship lurched over, tipping onto its side in mid-air. The woman lost her grip, cried out, and began to fall.

Grimacing, Carter crouched and sprang as high as he could.

He rose. She fell. Carter stretched in mid-air until he caught her flailing body. She grabbed tight to him and he twisted again, managing to land on the cupola. His chain unspooled down off the platform, almost toppling him from the ledge. He staggered for a second, then recovered, still clutching her in his arms.

Time seemed to stop as they stared into each other’s eyes. For an instant, he felt that sense of purpose that had been missing for so long.

Then a gangplank slammed down onto the cupola’s ledge. Carter looked up and saw one of the Zodangan airships hovering just above. Red-garbed soldiers poured down the gangplank, swords and guns drawn.

Carter set Dejah down on her feet. “Beg your pardon, ma’am.” As she watched in surprise, he grabbed the sword out of her hilt. “If you’ll kindly stay behind me…this might get dangerous.”

The soldiers swarmed off the gangplank. Carter grabbed the chain still leashed to his body and cracked it like a whip, slamming into the first two soldiers.

With his other hand, Carter swung the woman’s sword in a wide arc, marveling at how light and flexible it was. One soldier screamed and grabbed his slashed chest. The other was less fortunate—the blade stabbed straight into his heart.

Carter had done well so far. But as he caught his breath, the last remaining Zodangan swung his gun like a club, knocking the blade clean out of Carter’s hand. Stunned, Carter watched it fly…straight toward the woman. She grabbed it expertly by the hilt, tumbled acrobatically down in front of Carter, and impaled the Zodangan with a single quick, neat motion.

Carter stared down at the dead man, then up at the fierce woman. “Maybe I ought to stay behind you,” he said.

She smiled; it was a warm smile, very unlike the monstrous grins of the Tharks. “Let me know when it gets dangerous,” she said.

She reached down and wiped her blade clean on Carter’s baby garment. Only then did he realize he was still wearing the loincloth Sola had dressed him in the night before. He felt briefly embarrassed.

Then a great shadow fell on them both, and Carter looked up to see the other two Zodangan warships converging on their position. One of them, the highest, bore the strange black weapon he’d seen before. The Helium ship still hung next to it, smoking and listing on its side.

Aboard the nearest Zodangan ship, a fresh contingent of soldiers appeared at the top of the gangplank. Their leader pointed, and they started down toward Carter and the woman at a run.

“I’ve had about enough of these boys,” Carter said. He pointed to a spiral ramp leading down the far side of the cupola to the settlement below. “Ma’am, may I suggest you run?”

Without waiting for her reply, Carter charged the gangplank and vaulted over the astonished soldiers, landing just above them. Another leap took him onto the deck of their ship, where more surprised Zodangans whirled to face him, drawing their swords. But Carter was already airborne again, springing to the roof of the ship’s bridge. He gazed out toward the second airship and hissed in a deep breath.

Then he jumped through empty air toward the second ship. He banked off its deck, then leaped up to that ship’s roof in turn. Without letting himself think, Carter sprang up again toward the biggest ship, aiming straight for its weapons deck.

The startled gun crew saw him coming, pointed, and struggled to swivel their weapons in his direction. Too late. Carter arced down like a missile, landing with a flurry of punches and kicks. He knocked the gunmen off the deck, not even turning to watch as they fell. Then he grabbed a mounted gun, pivoted it, and aimed it downward.

The mechanism was unfamiliar, but simple enough. Carter peered through the gun’s sight, centered it on the airship directly below, and fired. Once, twice, three times.

The second Zodangan airship lurched, cracked in half, and burst into flames. It began to plummet, towing the still-tangled Helium ship in its wake.

For a sick moment, Carter thought the two ships might strike the Thark settlement. The Tharks’ ways were barbaric, and they’d treated him like a child. But he didn’t want them slaughtered.

He sighed in relief as the ships swung wide, striking the sand just beyond the settlement where, in centuries gone by, the sea had once been. The ground shook with the tremendous crash.

Carter thought he heard something else from below, too: the cheering of the Tharks.

Then he turned to see a fierce warrior facing him. Cruel human eyes, a golden breastplate fringed with fur, and the red cape of Zodanga. Carter reached for his weapon, realized he had none.

The warrior raised a hand. It was covered in a strange, glowing blue weapon unlike anything Carter had ever seen.

“I am Sab Than, ruler of Zodanga,” the man said. “And I sentence you to…”

He trailed off and seemed to cock his head at some unknown voice. The weapon’s glow faded, and Sab Than looked down at his own hand in dismay. “What? Take him alive?”

A trio of soldiers swarmed Carter. He swung his chain, knocking them back, slashing deep.

Sab Than cried out. “Leave him!”

Then Sab stepped forward, drawing his sword. He smiled, almost a leer. “This should be fun.”

Carter snatched up a sword from one of the fallen Zodangans, raising it just in time. The two blades clashed, glancing off each other with a bright spark. Sab Than pulled back, grinned, and thrust forward. Carter parried, but just barely.

“What are you?” the Zodangan asked. “You aren’t a red man. You aren’t quite a white ape…”

Carter had trained with blades, but the weapon was unfamiliar, and Sab Than was clearly a master swordsman. Slowly, the Zodangan backed him up against the gunwale.

“Whatever you are,” Sab Than hissed, “you will bleed like a—”

The Zodangan stopped, gaping over the deck past Carter. “Tharks!”

Carter turned, looked down, and caught a splitsecond glimpse: the green horde stood massed atop the ruins, heavily armed. Every weapon aimed straight up at the airships.

Carter slashed out wildly, forcing Sab Than back. Then he leaped, bouncing off the remaining airship’s roof just as the Tharks opened fire.

The airship burst into flame, exploding in a huge conflagration. Carter felt the heat on his back as he soared through the air, swimming and flailing, trying to aim for a soft area on the sand below. It was a long way down.

Above him, the sole remaining airship—Sab Than’s vessel—took hit after hit, but remained aloft. Sab’s gunners recovered, firing a few rounds back down at the Tharks. But the ship was clearly damaged.

Carter braced himself for a hard landing, looked down…and saw a small red figure, followed by a flash of green, running out on the sand away from the Thark settlement. It was the red woman, the one from the Helium ship. He crashed down on a sand dune directly in front of her.

The woman watched him land and held up her hands.

Carter looked past her and saw her pursuer: Sola. The Thark female stopped in her tracks, unsure.

In the distance, the wreckage of three airships burned, filling the air with a charred smell of wood and human flesh.

The Helium woman handed her sword to Sola, but her eyes never left Carter. She spoke with the terse confidence of a commanding officer. “You may take me captive now.”

Sab Than burst onto his bridge. Soldiers lay dead everywhere, slumped over smoking equipment. As the ship lurched beneath him, Sab heaved the Light Master’s body off the light meter and checked the readings. He moved from one station to another, slamming levers hastily.

The surviving Navigator stared at him with frightened eyes.

“Prepare to turn about,” Sab said. “We’re going after the princess.”

Then he felt the familiar tingling in his mind, and Matai Shang was there again. In his thoughts, on his bridge, always with him. Always in control.

The price Sab Than paid for unlimited power.

“No,” Matai Shang said. “The Tharks have her. This opportunity has been lost.”

“Why did you want him alive? The white ape—man—whatever he is?”

“Go home, Sab Than. Another chance will present itself.”

“How will you find them again?”

Matai Shang smiled a thin smile, and Sab Than winced at a brief, sharp stabbing in his brain.

“We can find anyone.”