I ran toward the crowd and drew my blade back.
The guards shoved the first row of audience members aside and turned to us.
“Hey!” they growled and seized their blades of darkness like the masters they were with them.
“Would you like me to intercede, sir?” Computer said.
“Intercede how?” I barked, eying the guards as they edged closer.
“Well, sir, if I can unload in a load-bearing column, I could—”
The guards were getting too close.
There were too many of them and only two of us.
It didn’t help that the audience looked about ready to skewer us in the back too if we turned on them.
Not that they hadn’t been doing that with their eyes already.
“Just do it!” I hissed.
“Firing torpedo now.”
I didn’t see my ship open fire and I didn’t see it strike the Citadel either, but I heard the huge explosion and the entire building shuddered in response.
The audience panicked, screamed, and bolted for the nearest exits.
I grabbed Emma’s hand and sprinted after them.
I followed the largest crowd toward the main entrance.
A Shadow came rushing out from nowhere with a blade hissing toward her throat.
I swung my sword up, blocking his blow, and kicked him firmly in the balls.
He bent over double, clutching them in both hands.
We continued on our way.
“Firing second torpedo,” Computer said.
Another huge crash.
Dust drifted from the beautifully decorated ceiling.
A chunk of rock the size of my head thudded to the ground at my feet.
We skidded to a stop and hustled around it.
We raced toward the exit and raced down the steps two, three at a time—they were wide things that made it difficult to traverse quickly.
We were both barefoot from the ceremony.
I didn’t know about Emma but my feet were already sliced to pieces with random shards of rock.
Nothing the medical bay couldn’t fix, I thought.
I kept on running, pulling Emma behind me, not that she needed much coaxing.
The crowd screamed.
Some stood watching the Citadel as a section on the western side sloughed, collapsing in on itself.
Others raced to the awaiting ships.
Three held onto the external hatch that whirred shut.
Two let go before they got crushed and fell to the sharp rocks below.
The last one, well, I don’t think I’d ever seen so much blood from a single Shadow before.
Others raced toward the city to get as far from the Citadel as possible.
Others tried to leap onto an open ramp that hung open like a lolling tongue.
It was my ship and I steered Emma toward it.
Computer had taken off and floated over the cliff’s edge by ten feet.
An easy jump if you knew you wouldn’t plunge to your death if you missed it.
Craggy rocks tended to mess with your perceptions like that.
Some tried to reach it anyway but Computer pulled away each time they made an attempt.
“We’re going to jump the gap,” I said.
Emma eyed it and seemed unsure but didn’t say a word to the contrary.
I sprinted across the launch pad and hurled myself across the gap and landed on the ramp.
But I wasn’t alone.
A Shadow had seen me make the leap and come with me.
He grinned at me sheepishly before reached for a dark recess to withdraw a weapon.
I punched him in the grill and kicked him over the edge.
If he’d thought to conjure a parachute rather than a blade, he might have fared better.
Emma stood on the edge of the cliff, coiling her legs but lacking the resolution to leap.
“Computer!” I yelled. “Take us closer!”
“We might crash into the cliff!” Computer said.
The wind was strong and shoved the ship side to side.
It was a miracle we hadn’t crashed already.
Three Shadow teams descended on our position, each opening fire with Shadow pistols.
“Just do it!” I ordered.
I stood up and hooked my arm around the pneumatic arm.
“Emma!” I shouted. “Jump!”
“I can’t!” she said.
She looked terrified and couldn’t take her eyes from that precipitous fall.
After everything she’d been through, she couldn’t let it end here like this.
“Emma,” I said softly.
And despite the whining engine and the screaming crowd and the wind blowing her skirts, she heard me.
Her eyes locked onto mine.
“Join me,” I said.
A steely resolve slid across her face and that confidence I had long since fallen in love about her came to the fore.
I extended my free arm toward her.
The guards had covered half the distance already.
Their aim was getting sharper, closer.
Emma pulled her arms back, coiled her legs, and leaped toward me.
She sailed over the edge of the cliff.
A sharp wind buffeted the ship and Computer struggled to keep the ship’s ass down.
Emma wasn’t going to make it.
I needed all the length I could get.
I released my elbow from its fortified position around the stabilizing arm and extended my free hand.
We moved toward each other, inch by inch, and the noises and the screams and the firing pistols faded to silence.
Her eyes locked onto mine.
Mine locked onto hers.
And I could see she knew just as well as I did that no matter what happened in the next couple of seconds, whether the wind blew the ship’s ass down and allowed her to reach me or performed the opposite movement, we were going to end up together.
If she made the jump, we would sail off and live the rest of our lives happy.
If she failed, I would release the strut and sail to oblivion below.
I was going to be with her one way or the other.
But boy, did I have a preference.
Her hand missed mine and instead caught my wrist.
She swung forward and I moved with her.
Her grip loosened so I shifted my hand position and snatched her wrist.
I pulled her up with a single heave that I should never have been capable of.
I drew her inside, wrapped my arms around her, and lost my balance.
We fell back onto the floor.
The Shadow guards maintained their fire but as Computer raised us into the stratosphere, their shots were nothing but desperation.
“Raise the ramp!” I said.
The ramp rose and thumped into place.
The ship rose so fast the
