“Granted, but not your practical experience.” His barb stings.
“Smerth off.” Amye grips the joystick controller. She’ll have a second to pull the Dragon out of the rocket dive into the atmosphere. “Shouldn’t you put Doug in the transporter room to acquire a target lock? It would add seconds to our needed escape window.”
“Efficiency is key.” Scott activates the comm. “Doug, report to the transporter room controls.”
His voice crackles over the commlink. “What am I beaming?”
“Target lock onto Reynard and Samantha. Transport them as soon as you have them.”
“I’m smerth’n on it.” The comm cuts off.
“Will we be able to detect them this time?”
“I think. I fixed the transporter.” Scott checks his seat belt harness. “Princess, buckle in. It’s going to get bumpy.”
Michelle follows his advice.
JC runs her thumb on the inside of the straps, making them retract tighter. The forthcoming stop will be nearly as abrupt as the crash on Ki-Ton’s planet.
Anticipation of the event causes Amye stress. Moisture forms on her palms.
••••••
FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD AMYE PUSHES on her cage bars. They crumble into dust. The lifeless control panel activates no motor movement when she touches it. I’m free. She smiles.
Boney fingers pinch her shoulders. The damaged masked Sandman shoves her from the room, slamming the door behind her. As it closes, sulfur mist steams from a chest cavity. Deadbolts click, locking her out of her own mind.
Amye bangs on the door. As she pounds, her fourteen-year-old self grows into her current twenty-five-year-old self. With each year adding to her face, the door fades and she forgets why she was even punching the wall, desiring a drink.
No drink.
Got to pilot.
Reynard must be rescued again.
••••••
IT’S BECOMING A habit. Amye’s full attention focuses on the hyper drive cutout. Nothing about the Sandman remains in her memory as she applies full concentration to the impending second she must prevent the Dragon from being ripped to shreds by hyperspace tidal forces acting on the gravity of a planet. Guess I’ll find out if I’m half the pilot Kymberlynn was.
The joysticks vibrate. The shimmying slip from hyperspace lasts the millisecond before the violent thrash of ejection. Amye banks right to trim shear off the left side, but her hard port maneuver causes a tailspin normally only possible in an atmosphere.
I won’t allow us to crash. At least not and live.
“Die and you’ll never be able to save Reynard,” Kymberlynn whispers in her ear. “Now when I say push down, jerk back on the joystick with all you have.”
Amye nods. Despite her annoyances, Kymberlynn did earn the highest possible pilot rating.
“Now!”
The Silver Dragon skips across the outer thermosphere. Heat from the failed reentry glows red, flaring around the ship’s belly. The living skin blisters.
••••••
AMYE LEVELS OFF the Dragon, keeping her steady. The intense jounce reverberates through the hull structure. Too concerned with avoiding turning the ship to atoms, none of the bridge crew notices the drop in power reserves by a full percent.
“Impressive,” JC compliments, resisting the urge to point out that Amye pilots well sober.
“I’m impressed we didn’t die,” Scott adds.
“Trip’s not over yet,” Amye barks. “Scan for Reynard.”
“Long-range sensors detect a course correction from the Throgen battle cruiser,” JC says.
“It knows we’re here,” Scott says.
“It knew we were coming. The question is how.” Amye points out, “We didn’t know the cat had been switched.”
“Throgen sensors are more advanced than ours, and a superior hyper drive engine accounts for most of how they beat us,” Scott speculates.
“Scary if they have the ability to adjust courses in hyperspace without dropping out.” JC operates the sensors.
“Keep scanning as I bring us in orbit above the ruins.” Amye fails to notice another percent loss in reserve power.
REYNARD CRAWLS FROM the ruins above the gate system providing his escape before. Surrounding the exit are hundreds of the were-ape creatures, all with skulls cracked open and empty.
Samantha sprawls on a rock sunning herself with the occasional flick of her tail. “The Sandmen grow stronger as the Hex Darmight dies.”
“Archaic riddles are of no help. If you know where fragments are, then tell me. I’ll recover them so we end this menace.”
“The universe won’t allow such simplicity.”
“Of course not.” Reynard plops next to the cat. “What happened here?”
“A powerful Sandman—made more powerful by all he consumed.”
The sword flashes into existence in Reynard’s hand as Archimago floats toward him. The mask bubbles with wear-ape souls scrambling against the inside of the ivory in hubristic attempts to escape.
“You ate all these minds.”
“I prevented them from devouring you. Your existence is paramount to mine,” Archimago bellows.
Doubting a Sandman’s capacity for truth, Reynard draws his magnum and fires. Three slugs sink into the massless robes, sputtering forth streams of sulfur. The azure powder burns itself through Archimago, leaving a trail of blue cracks weaving webs across the mask.
“You’re more resourceful than I estimated. I understand now why the higher Sandmen have taken an interest in the Commander.”
Not the dying monologue Reynard expected.
“Meow!” Samantha’s warning reaches his ears too late as the forearm of the hellish dream sends Reynard spiraling down the rubble. Nimbleness doesn’t counteract the force of the impact but does allow him to keep his gun in hand. Half in a recovering crouch and half in a duckwalk tumble, Reynard draws his gun as he slices the blade across the demon’s abdomen. Cracking skin like a porcelain vase produces a primordial ooze fouler than the sulfur aroma. Two sword thrusts spill out more gunk. The magnum thunders, but the durasteel ricochets off the skin.
“Smerth’n fuck!” Out of azure bullets. Scott only made—
“Destroy them!” Samantha cries.
The demon slithers to the convulsing Archimago melting into the cobblestones. Flesh drips from the demon as he drags himself along.
Reynard swings the blade, slicing through the clawed hand. More foul goop splashes out.
Plumes of sulfur hiss from Archimago as his black robes deflate.
Reynard helicopters his sword, bringing it above his head with the blade facing down. With both hands, he drives
