Caine leaps forward into the steel gray gloom. His wings snap open. His eyes narrow and his sights aim upon a thin blue beam of light too far ahead. Angling his flight, he swoops low, only to pull sharply sideways to miss a cable so thin he nearly missed seeing it. He swoops low beneath a large, fat sagging, one, then loops upward and over an array converging like mating snakes. He drops to skate beneath a group woven into a crazy not, alighting onto one thick cable, but it sags beneath his weight and so ruins his graceful leap into the next flight. Thick glowing liquid stains his wings with drips of blue.
His eyes grow frantic as he realizes that a number of forms are already ascending the grav beam into what must be a ship waiting above.
A cry of warning, and he snaps his energy shield before his face, but not before a blast sings past his ear. A thin line of blood trickles down the side of his neck. With a swing sideways, he manages a full loop in the air, rapidly righting himself and angling beneath the main tangle of cables. Just as he lifts back up, shield glowing against the blank gray of the corridor, Jupiter enters the beam. Catching sight of Caine, she leans forward, bathed in blue. His vision narrows to that sight of her, only her, and his body surges forward, but she is already rising, trapped within the beam. She raises her hand slightly, one finger as if asking him to wait, and she mouths two words, then disappears from sight.
Redoubling his efforts, he uses his hands as assists to pull and push as he scrambles through the last tangle of cables, emerging into a wider space where the cables all curved upwards, following the height of a shaft stuffed near to bursting with the shimmering belly of a single, small shuttle. converge, s his effort, engaging his gravity boots to push him even faster forward.
Wings pulsing, Caine pushes himself forward, reaching the ship just as it begins to rise. He scrabbles to find anything more solid to cling to as the ship speeds it rise. His fingers slide, and the forces of wind push his wings askew. Refusing to fail, he rapidly powers on his gravity boots, and begins to run. He pushes off against the cable laden walls, wings spread for balance, straining for lift, around and around, spiraling upward faster and faster. Closer and closer, he stretches out one hand, then leaps with all his remaining strength out into the center of the shaft, aiming for the belly of the small ship. He touches, close enough to note the silver chevron stamped into the closed grav beam portal.
His grip slips, and the winds circling around the shaft and the shift spin him like a crazed top. His head bounces against the wall of the shaft, and dazed, he tumbles. Just as he would plunge between the cables into the black goo below, his wings snap open, his hand snatches at the wall beside him, and he pulls up hard against the unyielding cables.
Looking up, the ship still rises along the shaft. With a mighty shake of his head, Caine surges upward, but it is a very long shaft. Wind buffets him from all sides. At last, he emerges from the shaft, alighting on its thick lip. Below him, rust colored clouds obscure the city levels. All around, massive structures pierce the grimy cloud layer, towering above him into space beyond. And above, a myriad of twinkling ships of every size, shape, and direction glitter in the cold sun, but if one of them contains Jupiter, he can not tell.
He kneels, his head lowers, and a frustrated growl of anguish escapes his lips.
An Aegis black shuttle cruises low, Stinger's face just visible behind the glass.