BETWEEN THREE ROGUES
By Eric 'Erico' Lawson
Forty-Nine: A Man's Worth
It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't. They had won, they had escaped, had returned home with all five of the unaccounted for Moon Crystals and her ship which - to her relief - wasn't all that badly damaged even after hitting the side of a Deep Sky mountain range and sliding down the side of it in an avalanche. She'd chalked it up to being carried and cocooned in the softer muds rather than being dragged along the hard rocks underneath all the heated, moist detritus.
Without Enrique, the celebration of their long victories were a touch muted but no less heartfelt. Clara and Gilder were back also, and brought news of their successful journey to Ixa'taka. Centime had been thrilled about the new radio technology, and there'd even been Yafutoman merchants and emissaries escorted by Tenkou ships in the Green Lands, so getting the schematics to Daigo and their Yafutoman allies was made much easier. The Primrose and the Claudia had stayed on station in Ixa'taka long enough to resupply their foodstores and help Centime train up a few dozen more sailors on modern ship operations before turning back for Crescent Island, bearing the fond wishes of King Ixa'taka and his people for the Blue Rogue's continuing success. In short, everything was going their way for once.
It shouldn't have been like this.
Even with as much work as there was to be done on repairing the Delphinus in their underground drydock, the Blue Rogues still found time to celebrate. Some of the crew mistakenly asked Fina if she was going to go home and stay with her people. She was polite at first, and her responses grew shorter and more irritable as they kept on. Eventually, the gossip spread around the crew and they stopped asking her that. No, she wasn't leaving. This island, this crew, Aika and Vyse? They were her home.
Not everyone concerned themselves with the festivities. Ryu-Kan the swordmaker and blacksmith settled on a single meat and vegetable skewer and a pot of tea that he took back to his forge deep within the mountain, eyes aglow as he considered the massive pile of Velorium waiting for his craftsmanship. Her caring 'Uncle Ilchymis' was equally distracted for equally good reason, as he had his herbalist's garden to see to and beakers upon beakers of bubbling admixtures to be started up again. The surprising member of the crew who shied away from the impromptu 'victory party' was the fortuneteller from Maramba. The woman had made it a point to speak to everyone on the crew, gathering their stories and accounts and writing them down, but had yet to speak with Fina. When Fina approached her once, in the days of the Deep Sky Expedition's refit, the woman had shook her head, a funny look on her face, and told her that 'your story is not finished yet.' As the party began, the woman who hid behind thick glasses and veils looked more troubled than ever, and a touch feverish as well. Wild, with her gaze darting in every direction as though she were seeing something just out of sight. She'd fled into her tent when Osman had touched her arm, and didn't spend a moment at the party. She just lingered on the edges between trips from her tent to the underground confines of the base.
Fina should have taken it as a sign. She'd put it out of her mind and only cursed herself now.
While the others went on celebrating or turned in for the night so they'd be fresh for the mountain of repairwork that waited for them in the morning, Fina joined her lovers and Clara and Gilder in the conference room overlooking the island's basin. Perhaps, in another life where the three of them might never have worked up the courage to open their hearts, Fina would have struggled with her feelings here. Perhaps in another life, Fina would have saved the secret of the Silver Shrine's location until the very last, but they already knew of it. She had told them all of it, wanting no secrets to pull them apart. She ventured out onto the balcony while Vyse spoke with Gilder and Clara about Salas and the other Nasrad orphans that they'd taken to Centime to look after, and wasn't the least bit surprised when Aika followed her. Fina was all too grateful when the wonderful woman she loved put her arms around her and rested her hands over her stomach, kissing the back of her neck.
Above the noise of the celebrants, there'd been a satisfied quiet that lingered around them in the warm evening air.
"Nervous about going back?" Aika had asked her. Fina had hummed softly in the negative. "What's got you on edge?"
"Why do you think I'm on edge?"
"Because usually when I'm holding you in my damn arms you melt like a pad of butter over fire-toasted bread." The analogy had gotten a laugh out of her, and Fina consented to a kiss when she turned around and embraced her Valkyrie fully. "Hm, good. You're not stiff as a board now. So what's going on in that funny little head of yours?" The question came.
"I'm nervous because I've made my choice and I know that the Elders won't agree with it." Fina had confessed to her lover. "I'm nervous that they might try to make me stay."
"Good thing we're going with you then. If they want to raise a fuss over it, we'll stop them. They cared enough about the world to send you haring after the Moon Crystals, right? Then they'll care enough to accept that you're in love, and you want to stay with us."
Fina had hummed at that. The Elders would understand. What was left up in the Silver Shrine for her? Nothing. She and Ramirez had been - they had been the youngest. It had just been them and the Elders in a space station which had room for so many more people.
The pause had brought up old memories, a warning that had made her fearful in the final minutes before she'd descended down to Arcadia. "They told me, you cannot trust anybody in that world. They told me that I would be on my own, friendless, a lone agent holding back the apocalypse." Aika had looked at her in surprise then, and Fina had laughed. With relief. "They were wrong."
"There, you see?" Aika'd hummed then, smirking. "So maybe they don't know what's right all the time after all."
"I want to show you, though." Fina had said to Aika. "I want to show you where I grew up, how I lived. I want you to see the world as I saw it. Down here, everything seems so incredibly large, but up there...Up there, Arcadia's just a big blue marble with the six Moons locked in orbit around it. Up there, you can see the black canvas of the rest of the universe broken up only by stars, and you realize just how small everything is."
Small, but precious. Like their love was. Like their band of Blue Rogue and friends were.
She should have known, should have expected what was coming. Of all the stories she loved to read, romance had been her focus. But there was a fair share of adventure tales she'd appreciated as well, stories of imaginary worlds dreamt up by long dead authors, and there was a lesson that seemed to run in all of them.
You had to hang on to what was precious, because it could be stripped away from you all too easily. But Fina had dismissed the warnings. Those were stories after all and this was real life.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not like this, two hours after that talk with Aika, cuddling in her lover's strong arms. Crescent Island was supposed to be safe.
It wasn't supposed to be under attack by Valua.
Her life wasn't meant to be burning down around her.
Crescent Island
360 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Evening
A pair of ships that had the same silhouette of the Delphinus hung in the skies above Crescent Island. Their opening salvos had struck every aboveground structure on the island, but they weren't pointed nose-first at the island. If they were like the Delphinus from top to bottom, they weren't using their Moonstone Cannons. If. There was every possibility that they didn't have that weapon, Enrique himself had said that the Delphinus was meant to be the flagship of a new class of warships and had been in the final prototype stages when they broke loose some 250 days before.
As complex a technology as the Moonstone Cannon was, Fina prayed that they'd left it out of the design of these ships, placing speed and mass production ahead of the complex and intricate assembly. Even in the course of a year, the manufacture of a single warship in the style of the Delphinus would have been considered a complex task full of chances for error. To have two…
No. No, they couldn't have that terrifying weapon perfected by the Old World. Two ships of that class were still devastating enough on their own, Fina knew. The Delphinus had fought off the Chameleon under far worse conditions with only standard armaments.
Crescent Island was not a fortress stronghold, it had no defenses. Against those ships, they stood no chance. If they had wanted to, those Valuan ships could have blasted Crescent Island to rubble and condemned everyone to death by fire or tunnel collapse. But they didn't. No, once the tavern and the barracks and all the other structures along the main pavilion were nothing but burning rubble and barely standing walls, the guns fell silent. The night air that had been so full of dancing and laughter rang with echoing screams instead, and…
Moons. Fina could see the crew running around, bringing out bucket after bucket of water in vain attempts to quench the fires. Those capable of casting blue magic put it to use, sprays of condensed moisture exploding in rough waves over parts of the damage as they searched for their missing comrades. Fina jarred herself into motion, turning Cupil into a jagged-ended climber's hook and using it to slow her fall as she slid down the side of the mountain's face. There was no other way, one shot had smashed the lift rails to pieces halfway up, and it was either a miracle or a choice on their part that had spared the overlook deck next to the conference room from being blown apart as well. Aika followed her lead, her boomerang gouging a furrow into the cliffside. Vyse and Gilder didn't even bother slowing their momentum, they slid down the mountainside wearing out the soles of their boots, while Clara unfurled her parasol and jumped off the edge of the balcony, drifting down at a much slower speed. When they reached the bottom, there was a moment of held breath while they took in the sight of the carnage up close.
And then Vyse slipped into the role of commander, spurring them and those closest to them into action.
"Fire crews, just worry about the buildings that might have people in them! Everyone else, get the wounded out and get them inside the mountain!" In the midst of the smoke and the fires and the noise, his authority cut through all of the noise, and what had been frantic motion became focused. "Gilder, Clara, help get everyone inside!"
Gilder chanced a look up at the two ships hovering over the island and made a face. "Vyse, what's stopping them from bombarding the island and burying us alive when we're holed up inside the mountain?"
"If that was their goal, they would've done it already." Vyse snapped, glancing over to Aika and Fina. "They came here for something else."
Fina's blood ran cold, and her eyes shot to Aika. Her lover's hand came down and dug hard into the satchel at her side - a satchel containing the five precious Moon Crystals that they'd spent blood and treasure recovering. Of course. If the Valuans destroyed everything, then they could easily have destroyed the Crystals themselves, or buried them so deeply in the mountain that it would take them months or years to dig them out. They could not get the Moon Crystals.
"Give them to me." Fina blurted out, letting go of Cupil and allowing him to transform from climbing hook to his normal hovering, plushy self. "We'll store them in Cupil. There isn't a weapon Valua has which could cut them out of him." That was one of the great secrets of Cupil, his mutable and transformative nature allowed for the shifting of mass and space. Aika warily pulled the Crystals out and handed them over one by one, and Fina fed each of the glowing, manufactured pieces to her pet. Cupil expanded and became more rigid with every one until he resembled a satchel much like the one Aika carried - but a satchel that hardened beyond the durability of moonsteel in moments, once the last Crystal was stored within it. With Cupil's black, beady eyes blinking on the exterior of the bag, Fina handed him over to Aika and nodded.
Her Valkyrie had always carried them before, and she would again. Cupil gave them one last layer of protection that nobody save Fina could remove.
They raced into the blaze and Fina poured her magic into the rescue efforts. She sent water as crashing waves over the structures and the open ground that could take the added weight of it, and where it couldn't, she and Aika combined their magics into Pyri fireballs contained within Crystali icicle bombs - a result that caused explosions of bitter cold, snowflakes and frost that doused heavier blazes and snuffed out pockets of fire by air displacement. It wasn't enough, though. For all the people they could save, they dragged others out of the fires burned or blinded or screaming with blood pouring from their ears and nose, damaged by the explosions. She saw members of the crew stumbling out with arms that hung wrong, others that begged for someone to make the pain stop from burns and worse…
Others, unconscious or...that didn't move or speak at all.
There was no time to treat them as fully as she wanted, not when there were still so many that needed them. Vyse and Gilder kept tearing through the rubble and ruin of their home, moving as desperately as the other uninjured members of the crew to get to as many of their friends as possible. To Fina's relief, the burning barracks had few people inside of them. Their island tavern was far worse off, with Robinson pulling his wife Polly along and shouldering the bulk of her weight as she bled from a head wound that had left her dazed. Merida and Kirala and Urala had been struggling to get the last few patrons out safely in spite of their own wounds, and the scent of spilled ale and burning high proof alcohol was powerful enough to overcome the woodsmoke around the rest of the island. There was so much to do, and there just wasn't enough time. Not to save the buildings, or to save their people, and definitely not enough time to do both.
One of the other rescuers - Marco, Fina thought vaguely - shouted out a warning and pointed to the dark sky lit up by the fires of Crescent Island's destruction. Two troop transports were descending down from the lead ship. Everyone went still for a moment as they turned to Vyse. Illuminated by the conflagrations and looking more haunted than she had ever seen him, Vyse clenched his hands into fists.
"Get everyone inside of the base and close it up. Clara, I'm putting you in charge of that." He ordered solemnly. "We'll hold them off."
"No, Vyse!" Clara cried out. "They'll kill you!"
"They'll try." Vyse rumbled. "And they might succeed, but Blue Rogues never back down from a greater danger. And a captain looks after his crew. We can still fight, Clara. The others can't, not after this."
"You don't have Enrique to round up your formation." Gilder pointed out, stepping over to Vyse. The older air pirate gave him a nod. "Guess I'd better tag myself in."
"Gilder!" Clara screamed, more panicked than she'd been when it was just Vyse holding himself out as the sacrifice. Gilder sighed and looked to her.
"Clara, our ships are belowground too. There's nowhere for us to run. Vyse is right. Please. Go with the others, seal off the mountain."
"Clara." Vyse repeated, jerking the woman's focus around. "Go. Go."
The adopted daughter of Centime swallowed hard twice over and didn't quite manage a nod. There was no color in her cheeks as she finally turned and helped the others bring the last of the wounded inside of the base.
Aika, Vyse and Gilder drew their weapons, and Fina breathed in slowly, trying to slow her racing heart. Gilder finished loading his pistols and charged them with as much spiritual energy as he could muster without blowing them out.
"I don't suppose you have a plan for getting out of this alive?" He asked calmly.
Fina watched Vyse feed a trickle charge into his Gigas-forged cutlasses. "Kill 'em." He answered resolutely. "Kill 'em all." Maybe he'd wanted to say more, there was that squint in his eye he got when there was something more on his mind, but that was when the two troop transports settled into place up by the now ruined flagpole that had once proudly flown their Blue Rogues colors. Whatever else he'd wanted to say, Vyse had cut off for lack of time.
A wave of Valuan soldiers poured out of it, dressed in gunmetal gray armor and red and purple uniforms, shouting for their deaths.
After that, there was no time at all.
The Valuan invaders were skilled, a cut above the rabble that they'd fought elsewhere over the course of their adventures. Wielding dual armblades and showing no mercy with sword or spell crystals, they tried to fight past Fina and the others. They tried.
Fina had read more stories about heroes pushed to their limits because of adrenaline, who found hidden strength in desperation. They were the last line of defense between their battered, wounded crew and the aggressors, and those stories felt like truth. Aika's explosions of fire burned hotter as she leapt and spun past the swords of the Valuan shock troopers and unleashed fireballs that engulfed them all. Gilder's bullets, real and concentrated spiritual power alike, picked off the ones on the edges. Fina hurled spell after spell, keeping them from becoming surrounded as Vyse led the charge and proved just how much of a swordsman he'd become under Enrique's expert teaching. He parried and counterattacked against the horde with his aura burning blue all the while, summoning specters to intercept blows meant for them and giving back the pain twice over. There was a flow to their movements, a give and take that felt like the Little Jack had when they'd cut back on their exhausted engines after the Southern Ocean crossing and relied on tacking in the winds. The Valuans tried to overwhelm them and they moved with the tempo of battle. The few occasions where one got a spell off, Aika quickly snuffed it out with her impressive shielding ability. The four times that Gilder and Vyse took a hit, Fina or Aika traded off tagging their comrades with healing spells to seal up the minor wounds and keep them from flagging.
Once, just once when the final wave of reinforcements closed in on them, Fina's rage burned cold enough to call upon her most dread magics. A spell of Eternes blew out of her and grasped for the glowing embers of life that hummed in their hearts, gleaming bands of coruscating silver light fluttering and coiling around them. Half of the six she targeted clutched at their chests and fell to their knees, gasping. The other half just collapsed dead. The sight of it was wholly unexpected to the Valuan survivors, who all stumbled back if they were able, reassessing the four of them. It caused a pause in the battle, a chance to breathe, a chance for Fina to look up at those ominous Valuan airships and wonder if they might open fire on them anyways.
It created enough of a pause that there was silence, save for the burning of the fires of their home - and soft, intentionally audible, hair-raising footsteps that Fina knew.
She whirled about with widening eyes as a silver-haired figure stepped out of the dark of the night and into the flickering mixture of shadows and firelight, more dangerous than she'd ever seen him in a black, gray, and red Valuan uniform with an Admiral's bars. His silvery sword was held in his hand and low by his waist, but Fina knew how little that mattered.
If Ramirez was serious, his sword would be up and he'd be two steps into his charge before any of them could finish an eyeblink.
There was a smug smirk on his face, and Fina thought that if he'd had both hands free, he might have given a sarcastic clap. "I recall a time when you swore you would never use that spell."
Every other time that she'd heard his name or seen him or been in his presence here on Arcadia, fear and freezing disbelief had been the emotions of the day. In that moment, as Ramirez stood in the violence of his making, the only thing that Fina felt was rage.
Her hand snapped out towards him and a lance of pure silver death screamed for his chest. Ramirez's eyes went wide and his sword snapped up in defense. It gleamed brightly and caught the dagger of her Eternum spell along its edge. The spell that she had once used to give Plergoth the peace of death screamed and threw off splinters as the only other living Silvite on Arcadia struggled to hold it back. He was surprised. Against that single lance, Ramirez strained to hold it back.
He didn't look up and see the other eight circling like vultures until Fina raised her free hand to the sky and screamed. She brought them down all around him and speared him through with that formless power that blinded everyone as they combined and detonated.
"By the Moons…" One Valuan soldier gasped, as Fina gasped for air and felt her strength begin to ebb away. She'd been casting magic nonstop, and that spell had left her dizzy with no time to prepare for its cost.
Her heart sank when the light died down and Ramirez was still standing. He was battered with his uniform torn in places where those jagged slivers of magic had pierced through and was gulping down lungfuls of air himself, wide-eyed from the shock of it, but he was still standing. He'd taken the most powerful spell of absolute death, the one that severed the spiritual from the physical entirely in his face and come out of it unharmed.
"You would have killed almost anyone with that spell." Ramirez declared, his breathing still ragged. "Almost anyone. But I was learning about Silver's absolute judgment while you were still playing with coloring books, Fina." He bit the words out at the end, his shock fading away.
"Killing De Loco must have really pissed you guys off." Vyse growled out. "How long have you had scouts on the border tracking us?"
Ramirez swept his blade out around him in a few practice sweeps, stretching his arms. "At first, Galcian did. It became a moot point, though. You might be delighted to know that we've known where your base was for nearly two months now." His eyes that were forever cold gleamed with satisfaction as he considered Vyse. "Did you really believe that Komullah's pledge of secrecy would hold for every member of his crew? If you really want to keep a secret, you kill everyone who knows it. A lesson that your father must never have taught you, Vyse The Hero."
Fina's heart stuttered. Secrets furrowed out…
"Belleza?" She asked shakily. Ramirez hummed and his cold smile widened.
"It forever amazes me how many secrets spill from a sailor's lips when he's trying to impress a woman in port. Once we knew the location of the base, it was just a matter of waiting for the right moment. After all, why bother trying to beat you to the prize when we could simply take it from you afterwards?" He leveled his blade at them and his smile faded back into blank disdain. "Surrender the Moon Crystals."
"Never." Vyse snapped at him. "I'd die before handing them over to you!"
Ramirez made a point of looking around their intimate circle of allies and enemies, considering the four that stood against him. "Does he speak for all of you?"
Gilder leveled his pistols. "You bet your ass he does, punk."
Ramirez nodded, and without looking gestured to his men. "Stand down. Take the wounded and the dead back to the transports. I'll deal with this myself."
"You think you can beat all of us?" Vyse demanded, as the Valuans recovered their fallen comrades and trudged back to their skiffs. "Before Enrique left to warn his mother about your treason, he trained me to fight you."
"The spoiled prince trained you to fight Galcian too, and if it hadn't been for Gregorio's idiotic sacrifice play, you would have died in Dangral's corridors." Ramirez countered.
Aika must have had enough of talking, because she hurled the pinprick of a Pyrum spell at him. Ramirez deftly jumped to the side and avoided the whole of the blast, and his eyes shone with backlit silver as he considered them all.
"Allow me to finish your education, Blue Rogues."
Desperation could drive heroism to new heights, but fury and wrath had to be focused and directed. Without that outlet, they only caused a loss in focus. They only caused mistakes.
They had fought and trained alongside Enrique and he wasn't here, and while Gilder did his best to fill in as the missing fourth, the man hadn't stared down the threats they had. He didn't know their timing or the flow of battle. Their formation was out of synch, with one piece rubbing in places where it absolutely couldn't.
Vyse took up the vanguard, but without Enrique he bore the brunt of it himself and was forced on the defensive. Ramirez, who was not weary from the fight or weighed down by a celebratory dinner and drinks, moved like lightning, his sword blazing silver all the while. His battle awareness was even stronger than Fina remembered from long ago days when she'd watched him spar with the Shrine automatons. Through the whole of the engagement, she found herself struggling to hold off a growing feeling in her heart that they were doomed from the start. That he was toying with them.
Oh, they tried. With what little energy they had left, they gave it their all. Aika swung in at Vyse's side as his switch partner, which allowed Gilder to fall back out of range of Ramirez's sword range and put his guns to work. But every time he took a shot, Ramirez somehow jerked up his sword in time to deflect it. Fina bided her time and fed low-grade healing into Vyse and Aika to reverse the minor wounds that they suffered. When she could, she took a shot at him with an Electri spell, keeping to the lowest tiers so it didn't drain on her reserves. She might have tried for more, but hesitated. Ramirez had held off the most devastating spell of absolute death that she knew, cast in a moment of blind fury. It hadn't been enough.
It was four against one, and it still wasn't enough.
Sparks flew along Aika's boomerang where the edge of Ramirez's sword scraped along it. She was breathing hard and her arms were shaking from the exertions of battle. Ramirez barely seemed to sweat from the heat of the fires all around them, and the jolt of electricity that Fina snaked past his defenses into his shoulder while he was busy defending against one of Aika and Vyse's pincer attacks only made him flinch a little before he spun away from the boot-heeled kick Vyse tried to nut him with.
"Honestly, such disrespect. After all I did to save you from the Admiralty's...hostility. Is that how you treat a friend, Fina?" The renegade Silvite asked. She wasn't sure if it was said mockingly or with full seriousness, and she had no patience for either. Not after everything. Not here.
"My friend died a long time ago. I don't know who you are!" She snarled at him. The look of surprise he wore was incredibly satisfying, but it didn't last. With Ramirez, nothing ever did but heartache.
His eyes narrowed and he drew himself up. "Then let me show you."
It all happened so fast. Gilder brought his guns up and fired one while he had a clean shot, and Ramirez somehow ducked it. Before the air pirate could loose the bullet from the second, Ramirez threw something from his belt while staring down the gunfighter with hyper-focused eyes. Once, Fina had watched Enrique core a cracked silver moonstone in Lapen's primitive automaton with a thrown dagger. Ramirez somehow plugged the barrel of that second moonstone pistol in the same way, and the result was just as devastating. It went off and backfired, throwing the force of the explosion into his face, and Gilder fell back grasping for his eyes with both hands screaming himself hoarse. Ramirez used the shock of it as his opening and charged Vyse and Aika. The red-haired Blue Rogue let out a shout and swung at him with the sharpened edge of her weapon only to stumble to the ground when Ramirez ducked under the blow and swept her legs out from under her with a sweep kick to the back of her knees. Vyse fired twin arcs of blue spiritfire from his cutlasses at the Admiral of the 6th Fleet, but Ramirez snapped his sword up and deflected them skywards before whipping around and smashing the crossguard with all the weight of his fist behind it into the back of Aika's skull.
Even as Aika collapsed onto her side, Ramirez had turned his full attention on Vyse. Fina let out a scream and tried to run to help him, but froze when she started to gesture for Cupil to take on the form of a weapon. She couldn't, not when Cupil was hanging from Aika's side as a satchel. Not when the Moon Crystals were protected by him.
Vyse had his teeth grit and grinding as he dueled Ramirez with everything he had. One final burst of reflective energy from his aura conjured a ghost that intercepted a stab which made it past his guard, but Ramirez absorbed the counterattack and kept on coming. He pressed Vyse in spite of the two to one sword advantage and forced the Blue Rogue back one step, then another. And another, draining the momentum of their engagement until Vyse was completely on the defensive.
Running on fumes, Fina reached for the one weapon she still had - the dagger that Ryu-Kan had forged for her. She threw it and prayed for a hit, but she was no knife-throwing expert and her aim was off. She didn't strike him in the back at all, but instead the blade dug lightly into the side of his right leg before falling out, a light wound at best. The only reason Ramirez stumbled was that he hadn't been expecting it, the grunt he let out had little pain in it. He shot a look back at Fina of shock and betrayal.
It all happened so fast. Ramirez blinked and his eyes blazed silver, and he spun around in time to block the double overhead swing that Vyse tried to finish him with. Favoring his left leg, Ramirez lunged up off of the ground and threw Vyse back, grabbing for his arm at the wrist and clamping down hard. The pinch caused Fina's beloved Pirate to drop his primary cutlass, and he tried to stab Ramirez with the other. Then Ramirez spun them around, caught the wild stab along his crossguard, and shoved the blade away with his off-hand still holding Vyse's right arm up in the air above them.
The silver sword of Ramirez punched through Vyse's chest far too easily, and the greatest Blue Rogue in all of Arcadia could only let out a single truncated gasp as his eyes went wide. The tip of Ramirez's blade hung in the air behind him, dripping wet with bright red blood.
"Lesson over, Vyse." Ramirez snarled, tearing his sword out of Vyse's body with a vicious slice. Amidst the noise, Fina watched her beloved Pirate blink twice, take two steps back, and collapse dead.
It was only when she saw the light in his eyes fade that she realized the noise wasn't the crackling of the fires, or Gilder's anguish.
She was screaming.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
It's not supposed to END LIKE THIS!
Aika, badly concussed and vomiting as she tried and failed to get up from her sidewards lie-down. Gilder, battered, burned, blinded. And Vyse…
By the Six Moons, she ran towards his body, one hand already outstretched and glowing with the bulk of her reserves. A spell that she felt no shame or hesitation in using. Riselem.
But then, there was Ramirez. He didn't strike her with his sword or hurl a spell at her, he didn't need to. The snap of his arm, a twist on her wrist as he jerked the aim of her spell up and away from Vyse's still warm body and the pain made her lose her focus. The energy drifted back into her body, subdued. Blurry as her eyes were, she turned to look at him and saw that unnerving disbelief returned to his face.
"The greatest gift a priestess of the Silver Shrine can wield, and you would waste it on the likes of them?" Ramirez uttered lowly.
"Let me go!" Fina shrieked, jerking her arm back. It did no good, his hand was like a steel cuff around it. "Damn it, Let Me GO!"
"Why?!" Ramirez snarled at her, pulling her in until their faces were only inches apart. "The people of this world don't deserve to live!"
"THEY DO!" Fina screamed right back at him, and swung her body far enough away to allow for her to slap him full across the face. The shock of it made him release her and stumble back, no injury but to his pride, and it bought her a moment's time.
Not enough time to cast Riselem. That spell was too big. Too exacting. Too precise. It was never meant for the battlefield. But that was why spell crystals existed.
The ones in Aika's first satchel. Fina dove for it and rooted around blindly, reaching through the supplies that tingled with stored magic. They reached out and spoke to her as she touched them. Pyri, Sacrum, Sylenis…
"Now what are you doing?" Ramirez demanded, an exhaustion clinging to his words that hadn't been there before. She looked over her shoulder and watched him look bored in the face of it all.
Her fingers froze as they passed over the next spell crystal in Aika's satchel. Riselem. She gripped onto it tightly and pulled it out…
If only she hadn't been looking at him when she'd found it. If only her face hadn't betrayed her. If only Ramirez hadn't interfered. But he'd seen her. He'd reacted.
As her hand bled from the shallow cut across her knuckles, the Riselem crystal flew away from her, dancing across the ground before rolling under his boot.
And he crushed it. The gasping whimper of the spell's power faded without a target, the miracle denied.
"Enough." Ramirez hissed, his aura burning a terrible silver, flickers of endless death hanging from him as the mantle he'd earned in training so long ago. "The Moon Crystals, Fina."
"Please!" She sobbed openly now, cradling her bleeding hand even as she stumbled on her knees towards Vyse. Moons, she didn't have long now, if she didn't cast Riselem soon, his spirit would pass on entirely, and...and…
"The Moon Crystals!" Ramirez repeated angrily. "You know what I want. I know you've hidden them. I will stand here and wait until enough time has passed and he's beyond even your reach! What is this man's life worth to you, Fina?"
There was the question. It had only one answer.
Everything.
She looked at Ramirez, cold and furious and implacable. Ramirez, who had never made an idle threat when they were children, who made no idle threats now. Vyse would die and be beyond her reach, and…
No. No.
Damned for it and unapologetic, Fina stretched her hand towards Aika's other satchel, the silvery thing lying limply on the ground beside the groaning, concussed woman. Cupil quivered in response and shifted, reverting from his bag form and siphoning away. Where he'd been, the five Moon Crystals that they'd fought and suffered for lay glowing in the night.
Ramirez stowed his blade and walked away from Vyse's breathless body, and Fina stumbled towards it. They passed by each other like silent negotiators in a twisted hostage exchange, and Fina's intact hand glowed brilliant silver as she summoned up that precious Riselem spell again. Even as she forced it into Vyse's body, hand pressed over the wound through his chest and lung, she heard the unmistakable sound of Ramirez pocketing the five greatest prizes on Arcadia.
The wound sealed over, color returned to Vyse's face. Life flowed in his body once more, and he breathed again.
"Thank you for your cooperation." Ramirez said, politely cold. Fina's hand moved to cover Vyse's heart, and she trembled when she felt his heartbeat steadily growing stronger.
"...Why?" She asked, hunched over her lover's body as her voice cracked. She didn't look but she could feel the rogue Silvite's attention turn to her. "Why would you tempt the heavens to bring the Rains of Destruction again? Was the treachery of Mendosa enough to condemn the entire world in your eyes? Why did you betray the wisdom of the Elders?"
A pause. A snort. An incredulous, barking laugh quickly cut off.
"Naive." Ramirez uttered, a sadness in his voice that had never been there. "You have no idea, Fina. You were lied to. The Elders long ago gave up any claim to wisdom."
"You'll forgive me if I don't trust the word of a traitor who sided with fascists." She cradled Vyse's face with her good hand and held the bleeding one away from his body. Moons, it had been too close. She'd almost...almost…
"Don't believe me? Then ask the Elders." Ramirez concluded, and she heard him walk away. Loudly.
Her grief gave her courage enough for one last parting shot. "What, you're not going to finish the job?"
"I have what I came for." He retorted, not stopping. "Your precious Blue Rogues can no longer stop us."
She lingered at Vyse's side for several seconds more, stroking his face and finally kissing his forehead before pulling herself up and wiping her tears away when he finally began to stir. While Vyse took his time in waking up from his demise and resurrection, she made her way to Aika and Gilder, crushing one of her Valkyrie's prized Sacrum crystals to pull them all back from injury and heal their wounds. To her relief, Aika's breathing evened out, and the trace of her fingers across the redhead's skull revealed that the worst of the concussion's effects had been reversed. The cut on Fina's injured hand smoothed out, leaving drying blood behind without any stiffness at all. And Gilder by some miracle hadn't lost his eyes, his pince-nez glasses having taken the worst of the blast. There were shards of metal and glass around his eyes that fell out of his face as his wounds healed, but he would still be able to look at Clara and marvel at her beauty.
"Fina?" She heard Vyse's voice behind her, but didn't stop moving. Didn't stop healing. Didn't stop shifting between Aika and Gilder until Vyse's hand came to rest between her shoulder blades. "Fina, what - what happened?"
"...We lost."
"Fuck." Aika groaned, opening her eyes again and rolling over to look up at them. "How bad?"
"...Fina? Where are the Moon Crystals?" Vyse suddenly asked. His voice turned fearful on the repeat. "Where are they? No. No, please don't tell me that he…"
"I surrendered them to save your life." Fina confessed with a heavy heart. She looked past the ruins of their barracks to where the two Valuan troop transports hovered just off of their once proud flagpole. Ramirez was the last to step aboard and he took a glance back in their direction before climbing on. The transports lifted off and moved back towards their waiting ships.
"You didn't." Vyse said faintly. "Fina, you couldn't have. Not now! Not after all of this!"
And let you just die for nothing? She thought.
"If Valua uses those Moon Crystals and brings on the Rains, it'll be the end of the world!" Vyse panicked.
It was all too much. Too much to deal with, too much heartache, too much grief, no good place to put it or vent it. It all came bubbling up out of Fina in one desperate sob.
"Maybe I don't want to live in a world without you in it!"
It wasn't supposed to end like this. As Gilder sat up and threw away his ruined glasses, Fina wept and a few seconds later, Vyse hugged her from behind. Aika, horrified and just as defeated, joined the hug not long after, without a shred of condemnation in her eyes. Fina was glad for the understanding, which confirmed that Aika didn't want to live without him either. If Aika had turned on her, it would have broken her, even if she meant every word of it. She would have given anything to save him from death. And she had.
She'd surrendered the fate of the world for him.
361 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Morning
When morning finally came, Crescent Island was no longer burning. The buildings had either burned down completely or partially, and what was left was smoldering wood and broken glass, stone and metalwork. By the time the sun came up and drowned out the glow of embers, Ilchymis had made a full accounting of the casualties from Valua's raid. Injuries had been expected, and there were plenty of those to go around. The more severe cases were still lying on pallets in the underground space between Ilchymis's laboratory and Osman's island storefront. The less injured were already back up on their feet with the rest of the crew.
But they'd lost people last night as well. Good people. Two members of the Claudia's crew, who'd been celebrating with everyone else while Gilder and Clara feted with Vyse and the command crew. From the Delphinus? Gutierrez, and Timmons, who Aika had saved in the Deep Sky. For him to die here while off-duty was a sick joke. And Izmael. Moons damn it all, Izmael.
Ilchymis had been beside himself when Fina and Aika finally joined him in healing duties because of his failures. He'd tried to cast Riselem and couldn't. He'd tried Risan, the base form of the spell, and even that hadn't taken. The secret of silver magic's greatest mysteries, for all of his training under Fina and alongside Aika, still eluded him. By the time Fina and Aika had shown up, it was too late. Not even a priestess of the Silver Shrine could restore life to a body dead for so long, and that had been a hard thing to learn in her training.
It was harder still to admit to the rest of the crew, who had looked at her with such hope when they saw her come in, at least for the second before they saw how beaten and ragged and pale the four who had stood against the invaders were. The Esperanzans had gone so very long without suffering casualties that the deaths of their own left them shaking. Don had reached for a bottle and would have fallen into it if it hadn't been for Robinson knocking it out of his hand and pulling his friend in for a hug that never stopped.
The death that hit everyone the hardest, though, was Izmael's. The saucy and cavalier master builder had been one of the heaviest drinkers at the party, reveling between groups and calling out his catchphrase to get laughs as everyone told it. If he and Brabham had been telling the truth about their ages, the man had lived a century and a half before he was pinned beneath falling debris. By the time they got him pulled out and inside of the mountain, his broken ribs had pierced both lungs. He'd died before Ilchymis ever got to him. Izmael had been smaller than most, a hand and a half taller than Marco when they'd first picked him up from Crescent Island, but he'd been a giant among the crew. He'd almost never flown with them, there'd always been too much to be done back at the base. He'd stayed with Brabham to build it up the first time during their voyage through the Dark Rift and Yafutoma, supervising the Nasrad Home Fleet's helpers, and afterwards there'd always been improvements. He had died on the island where his final months had been spent.
They buried him along with the rest of the half dozen that had perished in a small ceremony before anything else aside from breakfast and healing was tended to. Interred in a grave next to the final resting place of Gonzales the sailor, Izmael was sent off with words of grief and wishes for peace as his soul traveled to the eternal sea of stars above them, guided by the Moons. Fina had trained in Silvite funerary rites, and they had been acceptable to the gathered.
Brabham, the tall and wizened engineer who had forever been Izmael's shadow, had been the first to speak on the deceased builder's behalf. "He was the best friend an air pirate like me could ever have, and we saw the world change as we sailed together." He'd tried to say more, but choked up and stepped away.
When everyone else left to deal with the cleanup, Brabham stayed next to the graves, and his teary eyes never left Izmael's tombstone, a hastily made wooden placard shoved into the ground carved with his name, the year of his birth, and the year of his death. In time, they would undoubtedly build him a better one, as he'd renovated the grave of Gonzales so many months before.
It would be a while, though. Izmael had always, with a few exceptions, been the one that had spearheaded such works.
Half an hour after the ceremony finished, Fina found herself returning there, standing close to Brabham. The rail-thin engineer had sunk to his knees, sitting on the freshly overturned grave dirt while he stroked the wooden tombstone with one hand. Behind him and watching, Fina felt her guilt come racing back.
"I'm sorry, Brabham."
The old blond-haired man snorted, not turning around. "You weren't the one who attacked the island, Miss Fina. You don't get to carry that weight." He finally turned around and she saw the red in his mostly dry eyes. "And a little of it's his fault too. I always got after him for drinking too much. Maybe - maybe if he'd been a little more sober, he could've gotten out of the way of that piece of building that crushed him." Brabham sniffed. "Or maybe he couldn't have, and it was going to happen like this no matter what."
"If I'd been able to save him, Brabham, I promise you I would have." Fina confessed. "Is...is there anything I can do for you?"
Brabham slowly shook his head. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. We were supposed to go out together. Now he's gone, and…" The man's voice cut off with another sob, and he closed his eyes. It was several seconds before he could recover himself. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."
A possibility that Fina hadn't fully considered before clicked into place, and she swiveled her head between the grave of Izmael and his last mourner.
"What would he want you to do?"
Brabham drew himself up a little taller at the question. "I don't know. We argued over damn near everything. Kept things fresh, at least."
"He was your husband." Fina said, a suggestion she couched as a stated fact. Brabham looked up at her again, gutted and raw.
"Men can't marry other men." He mumbled. "But he - he was precious to me."
"I'm glad." Fina said, and the acceptance caught him off guard. "It's a stupid thing to forbid. You love who you love, and as long as there's consent and balance, then...it's not wrong. Love's never wrong."
She could tell that Brabham didn't quite believe her, but he kept talking regardless. "We didn't get a lot of people who believed we were as old as we said we were. We - he was, though. I'm 147. We wondered about that sometimes, what kept us going when most folks would've been dust for decades. I never could come up with an answer. Izmael liked to say that we were so Moons-damned stubborn that death didn't want us." The laugh he let out hurt to hear, and likely hurt to emanate. "Guess he was wrong."
"Until death parts you. Isn't that how the vows go?" Fina asked conversationally, repeating what she'd gathered in her year here on Arcadia. "But the Silvites...our beliefs aren't so limiting. He loved you, yes - and he still loves you. It's a bond, tying you together, like quantum-linked particles at a distance. This isn't the end, Brabham. You'll find your husband again."
"He wasn't my husband. Who would've ever married us?"
"I would have." Fina insisted. Brabham blinked and looked at her again, and she kept her face as open and inviting as possible. "I would have. Priestess, remember?"
Brabham huffed and managed a weak smile. "That woulda been something to see, all right. Too late now, though."
"You never needed the words or a ring to know that you belonged to each other, Brabham." Fina pointed out.
"So what now?"
We rebuild, Fina thought, looking back towards the rest of the crew as they moved debris away. A flicker of movement in the sky drew her attention next, and when she looked up, it was in time with a shout of alarm from Tikatika on the balcony overlooking the island's bowl. With the elevator down he'd climbed up with a rope on a grappling hook at first light, and helped in setting up a temporary rope ladder for everyone else. He had taken the raid especially hard, cursing at himself for his lack of vigilance. Crescent Island had become the second home raided because he wasn't in his perch watching the skies, and he'd barely stirred since.
His vigilance had paid off this morning, sighting a ship on the horizon from the south coming in. "It's Nasrian!" Tikatika crowed to the gathered Blue Rogues below, and Fina's blood froze. She turned back to Brabham to excuse herself, and the man waved her off with a darkening face.
"Go on, girl. Komullah's got a lot to answer for." Gilder had been quick to spread the news of what Ramirez had said about the island's location being leaked, and the crew, including Khazim, was already at full boil. The Nasrian Home Fleet had picked the worst possible time to show up again and if Fina and Aika and Vyse didn't move quickly, then even more blood would be spilled.
Fina ran, and was thankful that a year of fighting and training alongside Aika had made her swifter.
24 Minutes Later
The approach of the Nasrian ship had been leisurely at first, but after they got in range enough for their lookouts to presumably get a better look at Crescent Island, it flew in at flank speed. 'Too late,' one of the surviving Esperanzans muttered, pressing a hand to the bandage along the side of his arm. 'Hours too late.'
By good fortune or a complete lack of it, it turned out to be Admiral Bast Komullah himself who was in command of the mighty Dunebreaker. They swept around the island with their guns ready for trouble, and finding none, sent a smaller boat to investigate.
Komullah had been devastated to find Crescent Island so ruined. What happened after could be traced back to one innocent-seeming comment, and the reactions that it had caused.
"How did those Valuan dogs find you?"
It was Khazim who had screamed and punched the man, which Vyse was grateful for. If anyone else had, it could have devolved into a more worrisome diplomatic incident. Once Komullah was seeing straight again, he was too busy gaping at the former Nasrad gunnery officer to bother with taking offense immediately, and the rest of the crew was too busy holding Khazim back as the man bellowed and ranted and screamed to try and attack the man themselves. They still stared with anger in their eyes, but no further blows came about. Watching Khazim slug him in the face hard enough to leave the beginnings of a bruise seemed to have been enough for them, and Vyse had quickly ordered everyone back to their duty stations. He'd dragged Komullah and his men over to a corner of Crescent Island left untouched - the torched ground where Kalifa's tent had once stood. There'd been nothing left there to recover, she'd moved everything she had inside of the mountain before the attack.
Fina's musings over Kalifa ended when Vyse let out a small sigh and dragged a hand through his hair. "Admiral. Do you remember what you promised me when I offered the use of our base here for the repairs of the Home Fleet?"
Bast Komullah frowned. "I remember giving my oath on the Red Moon to keep the location of your base secret. And I have."
Vyse shook his head. "No, you haven't." He raised a hand to forestall the protests Fina saw growing on the Nasrian admiral's face. "You, yourself, may have kept that secret. But did you take steps to ensure that your sailors did the same? Because when Ramirez attacked the island, he told us exactly how he found us." The captain of the Blue Rogues didn't glare, he didn't need to. His words were damning enough. "One of your men couldn't help bragging about our home to one of Belleza's spies while they were in port."
Komullah drew in a breath. "No. That's impossible." He stammered.
"What's impossible?" Aika asked acidly.
Komullah shook his head. "My men wouldn't. They couldn't. They would never reveal that secret!"
"It's been my experience that Belleza's able to weave a very convincing lie to put her marks at ease." Vyse explained, and Fina thought of his self-loathing from long ago, the confession from long ago about how she'd offered to take him to her bed ("I refused," he'd said, "Even when I didn't know what I was feeling, or what we could have, I knew she wasn't what I wanted") and how he still agonized over how easily she'd fooled him, fooled them. "I think she's more than capable of training her agents to do the same Moons-damned thing. Nasrad isn't the city it was, Bast. It's full of desperate people just trying to survive. We dragged an entire building full of orphans out of there and sent them on to a better life and nobody else in Nasrad cared. Trust me, all that Valua's agents had to do was flash some money around and they'd find informants willing to trade a few whispered words of gossip for the chance at a warm meal."
"My men wouldn't." Bast repeated, shakier than before. Maybe it was a cognitive disconnect on his part, disbelief ruling over everything and keeping him from reaching acceptance. Maybe he truly believed that there were no traitors among his crew. Fina knew enough about mental theory to see his words as a poor coping mechanism instead of blind refusal.
Vyse had no such understanding and no desire that morning as he brewed under heightened emotions to try for it. He jerked his arm up and pointed across the ruined courtyard. "I have half a dozen dead Blue Rogues that say otherwise!" He yelled, and Fina only just kept herself from wincing. Komullah did wince, and Vyse scoffed, not looking away until the other man followed his hand and saw the new graves next to Gonzales's. "I told you, we told you that this was the one secret Valua wanted more than any other. And guess what? The Moon Crystals we've been gathering? The ones we've struggled to keep out of their hands, the ones we got by the skin of our teeth and the luck of the ancients? Ramirez has them now. Valua has them now. We had a plan, we were going to take them and hide them where Valua couldn't follow. Take them off the board completely. But we can't do that now, because they found us. Because of your men." Vyse sucked in air through his teeth and used the moment to try and calm himself back down again. Fina could see how wet his eyes were, and how he was holding it back. She knew it wouldn't last. He'd cried last night, when it was just them. She had. He would likely weep more yet, when they were alone again.
"So what happens now?" Komullah asked, defeated and reeling as the weight of a preventable tragedy finally settled into place.
"How can I trust you, Admiral? After all of this, why should I tell you anything?" Vyse countered flatly. Komullah's lips pressed to a tight line, and he glanced to his escorts.
"Return to the boat. I would speak with Captain Vyse privately."
"Sir!" One of the Nasrian naval officers protested, but Komullah slashed his hand through the air, ending the argument.
"Go. I will be safe here."
"They attacked you, sir!" One of the Nasrian sailors argued further.
"Under the circumstances, I think I can forgive Fasha that punch." Komullah shook his head. "This is an order. Go. Wait for me at our transport. I will be done...soon?" He questioned, looking to Vyse for confirmation. Vyse nodded once. "Soon."
The Nasrians weren't happy about it, but they followed their orders. Komullah blinked and waited, and Vyse relaxed a little. "Aika." Their Valkyrie focused on him. "Do we still have that package underground?"
Aika started, and Fina was in full agreement when she scowled. "After all of this, you're going to trust him with…"
"I'm not trusting the Nasrians." Vyse interrupted, glaring down Komullah. "Komullah. You dismissed your men, which means you're beginning to fathom just how much you screwed up. The next time that we saw you, I was planning on giving you something. I'm seriously reconsidering doing so now. Your crew cost us the Moon Crystals, and if you get this next part wrong, you could cost us everything else. I could tell you to piss off, never bother us again, and I'd have every reason to. So here's my terms, and if they aren't acceptable? Then we're done with you, and you can fight Valua on your own."
Fina watched and listened. She saw in Vyse's words and his stance a captain reeling from loss, forced into hard choices, and yet one that still tried to do the right thing. A man worthy of the respect and trust placed in him. Komullah thought it over and nodded.
"Crescent Island is no longer safe, even if the underground docks were spared their wrath. For all the shelling, they didn't try to collapse the mountain on us. As soon as we've finished repairs on the Delphinus, we're leaving. I'm not telling you where we're going. Even if you vowed to never tell a soul, the news would get out. So while that's going on, I don't care what your previous patrol routes were. Until the Delphinus leaves Crescent Island, the Home Fleet is going to protect us. Consider that the first part of your penance for what's happened here. Once we sail, you're free to take your merry band of Nasrian marauders and do whatever your burning hearts want. And I can already hear your argument, 'how will we communicate with each other if I don't know where to find you?' That's the secret of the gift. But before I tell you anything else, I will have your word, for whatever value it still holds, that this secret you will tell no one. That what I give you will be kept under lock and key, that nobody else no matter their rank aboard your ships will know of it. This is for your eyes and ears only, and you will not screw us over a second time because of sloppy words and gossip."
Komullah gave his solemn vow, and this time he took out his dagger and drew it across his palm, dripping droplets of blood on the scorched ground as he did so. Vyse was appeased enough to continue, and sent Aika into the mountain for his waiting package. While she was gone, he explained to the Nasrian admiral about what he was giving him. About Valua's newfound wireless telegraph communications...and the upgrades Fina and Aika had developed which gave them not only the ability to listen in on the coded signals, but to broadcast and receive voice communications through Amplitude Modulation beyond Valua's ken. Komullah looked suitably croggled during the whole of the summary, and when Aika returned dragging a steamer trunk behind her, he took it with a sense of respect. And paused.
"Is there anything I can do?" Komullah asked. "Anything to - to make amends for the thoughtless actions of my men?"
"Find the leak and plug it. Don't let Valua capture that radio, scuttle the ship before it comes to that." Vyse told him curtly. "Beyond that, follow my instructions. Deviate from them in any way, and don't ever count on our help again."
Komullah bowed, accepting Vyse's terms. "May the Red Moon light your path, Captain Vyse. Good luck to you." Vyse nodded, and Komullah walked through the burned out village, dragging his personal radio and the instructions to install and run it with him. The rest of the crew cleared a path and glared at him the whole time until he boarded his transport.
"You're taking a hell of a risk giving him that." Aika pointed out. "After everything that's happened, how can you still trust him?"
"After everything that's happened, how can I not?" Vyse replied wearily. "He used us to repair his Home Fleet. Now we have to use him as a buffer. We need him pounding away at Valua, because we need breathing room. We need time, and I'm going to make Komullah pay in blood to buy it for us. After last night, he owes us and he knows it."
"Where will we go?" Fina asked him. "This island isn't safe anymore."
"North." Vyse said. "The Frontier Lands, unexplored islands with fertile soil. Hell. Maybe we'll tell Don to take the ship to Daccat's Island. There was a village there once. We may as well make use of it." He tapped the side of his black hat, tracing the blue ribbon through the brim. "I don't think, all things considered, Daccat would mind."
"Daccat's Island sounds like a perfectly good place to hide out in the short term." Aika agreed. "But what do you mean, tell Don? Aren't we going too?"
"Not immediately." Vyse shook his head and looked to Fina. "Fina...for once, I'm fresh out of ideas. I don't know what we're supposed to do next, if there's some other way we can stop Valua from tapping into those Moon Crystals. Your people - these Elders you keep speaking of - maybe they can help." He looked lost and miserable then, and she reached out to grab his hand. "Even if it's only a scrap of lost knowledge about how to contain them so Valua doesn't anger the heavens enough to bring the Rains of Destruction all over again. Maybe we'll get lucky. After all, three of the Gigas are dead, and the two that are only sleeping are land-bound."
Fina squeezed his fingers. "We can ask. If Aika helps me, I should be able to get my skyship ready soon."
"How soon?" Vyse demanded.
She thought it over and nodded. "If we start now and went without breaks... late tonight." She shrugged. "And we can leave in the morning."
Vyse lifted her hand up and kissed her knuckles. "Don't let me keep you then."
"Will...Vyse. Will you be all right?" She asked hesitantly.
He mustered a weak laugh. "No." He admitted. "But I can hold myself together long enough to keep everyone else from falling apart. That's what a captain does."
You hold us together too, Fina thought, and it's up to us to help you after. Thank the Moons they were three. If one broke, there would be two to put them back together. If two broke, the third could hold it together long enough for them to recover. Like Vyse and Fina had helped Aika after the Grand Fortress. Like Vyse and Aika had helped Fina after the truth of Ramirez was finally, undeniably known.
Aika took her other hand just as Vyse released her first one, and the Silvite looked to her lover. Aika looked as tired as Fina felt, but she managed a smile. "Come on, babe. One step at a time, right? Let's go get that ship of yours put together again."
One step at a time. Fina thought the aphorism worked quite well here. They had buried their dead, mourned them, and worked to protect those still living.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, she told herself. But they weren't finished yet.
Blue Rogues never give up.
362 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Morning
Her skyship was back in working order after the night's cleaning and repair, hovering off of the nose of Crescent Island. Aika's electrical engineering equipment was a touch primitive, but Cupil had been up to the task of working as a finer screwdriver and Lunmeter, and the Silvites had built the ship to last, trading off speed and offensive capability for durability. The bulk of the crew was busy helping the engineering teams get the Delphinus back in working order after the Deep Sky Expedition, but more than a few who were off-duty or weren't quite so critical to the work had lingered around to see them off.
Marco sniffed and rubbed his nose on the back of his sleeve as Vyse knelt down next to him. "Don't worry Marco. We're coming right back."
"You'd better." The boy mumbled, squawking after Vyse grinned and rubbed the top of his head. "Geez! Lay off the hair, old man!"
"Old man?!" Vyse exclaimed, raising his eyebrows. That got a few chuckles out of the crowd, and Vyse grinned before nudging Marco in the shoulder. "Keep an eye on things for me, would you? I'll see you at Daccat's Island."
"Count on it." Marco nodded. Fina turned away from their exchange to focus on her own. Princess Moegi was looking composed and more put together than she had been when Enrique left, at least. The tension hadn't completely left her, but she was the ship's diplomat for a reason. Her time as the temporary heir of Yafutoma had forced her to learn how to put up a brave front.
"Has there been any word about Enrique on the wireless?" Fina asked her. "I haven't had the chance to listen in or read the intercepts lately."
"We know he made it to the Grand Fortress." Moegi said. She shifted her arms inside of her sleeves before adding, "But nothing since that."
"Whatever's going on it's probably not the kind of thing that they want the whole Armada knowing about." Fina reasoned. "I'm sure he's fine. The Empress has other things to worry about besides a wayward son, after all. They have to deal with Galcian."
"I feel like Galcian will be all our problem." Moegi pointed out. Fina sighed and nodded.
"You may be right."
The Yafutoman princess tipped her head to the side just a touch. "Will your people have an answer to our trouble?"
"That's our hope." Fina said, and hid the slight sting she felt when she remembered what Ramirez had said about the Elders lying to her. 'Don't believe me? Ask the Elders.'
She hadn't hidden the stormcloud of her thoughts well enough, because Moegi frowned. "Are you all right?"
"No. But none of us are." Fina admitted. She shoved all of her doubts, that terribly long list, down as far as it could go. "But if there's anyone who can help us overcome the threat that the Moon Crystals represent, it's the Silvite Elders."
"I hope you are right." Moegi bowed to a forty-five degree angle. "May the Blue Moon protect you." Fina recalled the two miracles Moegi had worked aboard the Delphinus and thought, It already has.
Close by, Gilder shared a tender embrace with his beloved Clara, who nuzzled into his chest after their kiss ended. "No tears now." He chided, brushing a finger underneath her closed eyes. "I'll be fine. Got my pistol fixed up and a brand new pair of eyeglasses, right?" He managed a smile that stretched the new and healing skin on his face, and Clara mumbled something Fina couldn't hear. "Of course I have to. You know these three kids. If they don't have a competent adult looking after them, there's no telling what kind of trouble they'll get into."
Clara pulled her head back to look at him and uttered something with a wicked grin, and Gilder rolled his eyes. "Yes, I count. I'll get you back for that, my lovely." She mouthed a word - promise? - and Gilder smirked. "Yes. Just look after my boys until I get back."
There were others who spoke with them. Lapen was neck-deep in the armor reconstruction and doing a fair job as foreman, so his foster brother Hans came up to wish them well on behalf of all the engineers. 'We'll keep an eye on Brabham, Miss Aika. He's burying himself in his work but even I can tell his friend's death hit him hard.' Fina had bit her tongue to keep from blurting out the truth of Brabham's grief. It wasn't her secret to tell. Miss Polly and Urala had moved to cooking on the ship full-time after the loss of the island's tavern, and the young Yafutoman chef brought them a pair of bundled sack lunches, wishing them well in crisp Yafutoman and bowing as she did. Fina gratefully accepted them, and Urala spared her a smile before wandering back the way she'd come. Khazim came up and gave Gilder and Vyse bone-crushing hugs while Belle, who accompanied the wounded man, gave much calmer ones to Aika and Fina, telling them that they'd meet up soon.
But of all the fond farewells and meaningful words, there was one member of the crew that couldn't bring herself to smile at all. Mistress Kalifa had always been a nebulous presence within the ranks. She'd elected to come along uninvited when they stopped to visit her in Maramba and she'd always defied expectation. They had thought her nothing but an entertainer peddling harmless trickery, but on the side she'd taken to writing down the crew's stories and becoming the unofficial bookie for a betting pool that the crew at large still thought the three of them didn't know about.
The Maramban fortuneteller looked horrible. A tremor ran through the whole of her body as she walked up to them and sweat was beaded across her forehead even though Fina had never seen her sweat in the Maramban heat. Her features were gaunt and pale, as though she hadn't eaten anything for a day and drank nowhere near enough water. She stumbled over a bit of small debris on the ground and tipped forward, and Fina just barely managed to catch her and keep her up on her feet.
"Are you all ri -" Fina started to ask, and froze on the word. For a moment, the glint of the morning light cut through Kalifa's glasses, which almost always reflected light away and kept people from seeing her eyes.
Her almost completely black, blown-wide, red from burst capillaries eyes. The woman looked at Fina for a long second before she tilted her head back and restored the hiding glare of her spectacles.
"Came to wish us well?"
Kalifa opened her mouth. Said nothing. Closed it. Then she reached for Fina's hand, squeezing it hard enough to make the Silvite wince. The fortuneteller's words came out hoarsely. "When secrets give way...hold fast to your Truths."
She let go of Fina as quickly as she'd clutched at her, and whipped around to stare down Aika next. "Your heart beats red, but it must bleed silver."
"What?" Aika got out as she blinked widely. Kalifa shook her head and stepped away. Vyse coughed and rubbed a hand on the buttons of his coat.
"I don't suppose you've got any cryptic but helpful advice for me too?" He jokingly asked. Kalifa just turned around and walked away, trying her best not to fall over in the process. Vyse looked to Aika and Fina with a question in his eyes, then shrugged. "Hm. Well, I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually. We figured out how to dance in the wind after all. Are we ready, Fina?"
"Preflight checklist is completed, all systems are go." Fina said, gladly changing gears. Just remembering Kalifa's eyes made her shiver. "Everyone aboard who's going."
With their sack lunches in tow, Vyse, Aika, Fina and Gilder piled aboard her skyship. It was a bit of a tight fit with four of them, but no worse than some of the smaller lifeboats and launches that Fina had used during her time on Arcadia. Powering up her skyship for flight was wholly unlike the engine of the Little Jack, or even the more complex assembly of moonstone reactors, reciprocating engines, and the primitive electrical systems of the Delphinus. The Little Jack had made a swoosh-swoosh kind of a sound when it flew. The Delphinus had a low level vibration that carried through the whole of the ship when it was moving, and the lack of it was keenly felt while it was docked or stationary.
But her skyship just hummed, with no vibration passing through it. "Everyone, hold on." Fina said as she keyed up the antigrav drive. The second thing she did was to disengage the kinetic lockout which held it in place. The third? A warning for her passengers. "This might feel a little weird."
She activated the electrostatic friction plating, and Gilder and Vyse both made a little surprised noise. Fina giggled; the sensation of your feet sticking in place and keeping you from sliding would have felt weird if you weren't prepared for it. Still, during some of the maneuvers that this ship could do it was very much a needed safety feature. "Relax. If you want to move, just pull your foot up like you were trying to unstick it from a mud puddle. Like the ones we bumped into back in Ixa'taka. That sticky feeling's there to help keep you from falling overboard." Before they could ask how they might fall overboard, Fina accessed the slider bar for the forward thrust and ticked it up three points. Her ship reported a 63 percent charge remaining in the fractal moonstone supercapacitor bank, even after her descent from the Silver Shrine and close to a year resting at the bottom of the world. Not enough to circumnavigate the globe, but more than enough to get up to orbit and dock with her former home.
"Moons!" Aika gasped, looking over the side and then behind them. She must have been watching Crescent Island disappear behind them in the distance. "How fast are we moving?!"
"Fast enough." Fina said with a faint smile. "The Delphinus could probably overtake us for raw RPMs, but my skyship doesn't have as much mass. And we're not fighting against gravity."
"We're not?" Gilder got out, his voice a little strangled.
"We'd never make it to orbit if we had to." Fina explained.
"ORBIT?!" Gilder squeaked.
It was a moment of wonder as they sailed up and away from Crescent Island, something she'd wanted to show to her two lovers for a long while. When they passed into the bottom edge of the Upper Sky, Fina hit another switch and a glowing dome of silvery hexagonal panels manifested over the upper part of the hull and crew compartment.
"What's this, then?" Vyse asked, poking at one and wincing when it pushed back against his finger.
"Energy shields. Also doubles as a life support enclosure." Fina explained. "Where we're going, there isn't any air to breathe. So we take it with us." And of course there was the onboard atmospheric tanks, which stored, purified, and recycled their breathable air.
Vyse and Aika were drinking it all in with the same wonder that Fina held for all the discoveries below. Gilder seemed...less enthused about the whole matter, really. He was even turning a little green.
Eventually, the blue sky turned darker and darker as they approached the edge of the atmosphere, and finally when the curve of the world could be observed directly...they were swimming in the black. Right on the edge of space.
Vyse made his way up beside her and set a hand on her shoulder. "In all my travels...I never thought I'd ever see anything as wondrous as this." He told her softly. "You lived up here?"
"Above the world. Above it all. Watching at a distance...and wishing I was below, where the people were." Fina admitted.
Then Aika joined them off of her other shoulder and huddled in. "I just hope your Elders can help us."
So do I, Fina thought with a shiver. The further they went, the more the novelty of it wore off, the more Fina's thoughts turned to the words of Ramirez, and her own doubts.
The Elders had sent her to retrieve the five Moon Crystals from the world below, with nothing but Cupil for support. She was returning without the Crystals, but with her lovers and one of their most trusted friends to stand beside her as they tried to find a way to save the world from the wrath of the heavens. The Silver Shrine appeared as a glowing dot in the distance, and following the radar beacon, she hit her IF/F transponder and started them in.
She felt so tired.
