CHAPTER 7

There Was Only A Void

"Ready?" Makhai said, standing at his usual position at the helm, Maija just to his left. The windwall in front of their ship dipped just below the void, its wind pushing the fog away from it, allowing them to see it despite still being hidden. The ship was right in front of the wall, ready to pass through it. It had been two days since they had first dipped back into the void and Maija was eager to leave it.

The only issue was, to pass the windwall safely, they needed to bring the ship up to the top of it, leaving as much room as they could from void just in case the wind pushed them back down into it. And New Unity's ships were still orbiting the island. They were waiting for them. Maija and Makhai would be spotted as soon as they left the void. Speed was important. Speed was key.

Maija nodded, nerves finding her voice. Because of the lift power of their atlas skycore- compared to the relative size of their ship- their ship rose quickly out of the void and within minutes, they had traveled hundreds of feet towards the sky. They appeared as a black dot in front of the white canvas which was the windwall. Easy to spot out. Nowhere to keep hidden.

The New Unity ships were still slowly, almost unnoticeably, rotating around the island now a size Maija could fit in her outstretched palm, seemingly having not noticed them yet. Maija watched carefully, patiently, nervously, as their ship kept gaining altitude, the metal hull and frame groaning as its skycore pushed it upwards.

Then something happened. They had moved halfway across the height of the wall when the ships flying around the island stopped moving, cannon fire trailing behind each one, black streaks of smoke covering the island as they exploded. There was no doubt, Maija had been found. And Kaius was proving his destructive power.

But they stopped, the distant, faded sound of explosions ceased and the world returned to silence. The air felt different. Rather than feeling and even tasting fresh, it felt almost… coppery. Maija smacked her lips and slowly stepped towards the cabin behind her. Removing the fingerless gloves from her right hand, she reached out to the metal wall and lightly brushed her knuckles against it.

A soft zap met her touch, and she quickly snapped her hand back. It felt as if the air was charged with electricity. A blue glow surrounded a ship in the distance, the biggest one. Far bigger than the rest, it stood out from the fleet despite the glowing blue light that consumed it.

The hair along Maija's neck stood on edge. It felt like there was so much energy coursing through her body just from the air that another spark from touching metal would be enough to hurt her. Then it disappeared.

The light, the energy, the coppery taste to the air vanished. Then it came back with so much force, all focused from that one ship. A shockwave burst from it, filling the entire sector. The shockwave created so much force that Maija's ship was pushed back, knocked clean out of the air. Their skycore completely disengaged.

Falling away from their feet, the ship fell. Then them with it. Maija screamed, finding her stomach lurching and jumping around inside her. Makhai was already in action as both them and the ship came to a freefall.

"We need to get the skycore back on!" he yelled over rushing wind. Both the sound from their falling and the swishing and rumbling from the windwall deafened Maija.

She shouted again, flipping upsides down, grabbing the deck of the ship with her hands over her head. Her hair filled her vision, quickly ripped from the tie that had kept it in a ponytail. Within seconds, it almost felt as if they were floating, if only it weren't for the wind.

Breathing heavy, Maija stole herself from fear, from the pit of her stomach and followed Makhai, pushing with her arms along the deck of the ship which was now completely upside down above her. She grabbed the side of the cabin and flung herself around to the back, catching herself and using that momentum to swing around and up the stairs that would have led down below deck.

Her thumb found the button along the surface of the grappling hook and pressed it. The hook shot out and struck the core, anchoring itself to it. Maija pulled her arm back, pushing her body forwards. She slammed into the core, barely able to catch herself. Electricity shocked her just from touching it, burning the skin along her hands and arms.

Maija cried in pain and pushed herself away, the smell of singing skin burning her nostrils. There was a lever along the side of the core, flipped up and painted a fading red. Maija grabbed it, fighting through the heat of the electrified metal. Yelling through the urge to pull her hand away, she pulled it down, feeling the muscles through her arm tense to the point of fatigue from the amperage of energy coursing through it. And then it all disappeared.

Switching the lever back up was far easier and the skycore activated instantly. Maija- to her completely skewed sense of direction- fell upwards, back slamming hard against the floor, knocking the wind from her lungs. She coughed hard, sucking in each breath of air as if it was it her last as she stumbled to her feet, already calling for Makahi.

He didn't reply. "Makhai! Are you okay? Get us out of here now!"

Maija darted up the stairs, the weight of gravity now having a grip on her again. Makhai was there and standing but he wasn't moving, staring up at the island they had been on only two days prior. The sight stopped Maija right where she was and forced her to stand and watch, nothing but shock filling her mind.

The island was crooked.

She frowned, stepping up next to Makhai, still catching her breath, adrenaline pumping through her blood. Since the first one she had ever stepped foot on, every island had been firmly anchored to its position, not even to sway in the wind. Never had Maija ever seen an island move. The whole thing shook and dropped, as if the atlas energy keeping it afloat was failing.

Just like their skycore. Whatever that pulse had been, it had sucked up every bit of energy in both their skycore and the island's interior. The distance had probably saved Maija and Makhai, only shutting the core down, not completely draining it. But the island…

It buckled again before falling, two of the massive stone towers breaking off and crumbling to pieces. It tilted completely on its side. The temple ripped from its foundation and fell beyond the island, taking ships and people with it before the island crushed it from above, all the stone and wood falling into the void and vanishing. Everyone with it.

Maija stood in silence, only the soft breeze whistled in her ears, mouth agape. She moved to cover her hand with her mouth but gripped the side of her head instead. A whole island. Gone. Destroyed. Fallen to the void, somehow knocked from its stone strong grip on the world and sunken to its grave in the void. And that ship- the biggest one- was coming straight for her.

"We need to go," Maija said, her heart getting quicker and quicker with each beat. "We need to go now!"

A cannon blew from the ship, soaring through the air and striking the top of their ship. Heat washed over Maija as the ship jolted downwards. She was thrown off her feet and rolled along the deck, slipping off the side before she could catch herself.

She was falling again, tumbling through the air unable to stop herself. Maija screamed, reached out and grabbed for anything but nothing came. The ship above her came in and out of view, twisting and turning only visible for fraction of a second.

Thinking of no other solution, Maija reached up- trying her best to confirm which direction was up- and fired her grappling hook. The hook contacted the bottom of the ship and her fall dissipated immediately, snapping her body straight and whipping her head back.

The ship was already moving forwards, towards the windwall. Maija quickly forced herself over the fall and pulled herself back up towards the ship. Cannon fire filled the sky, all trained for their ship, but few missed. That ship wasn't trying to destroy them, it was trying to capture her.

Maija pulled herself aboard right as the ship entered the windwall. It hit the ship just like a wall (hence its namesake). It shot the ship up and then pulled it drastically downwards, bouncing Maija along the ship's side. It was as if a hand of wind and clouds had gripped onto their ship and shook it, violently trying to pull it down into the void with the island now behind them.

But the ship's engines were fast and its wings, strong. It broke away from the hand and within a single minute, burst through the other side of the wall, revealing a completely new section of the world, islands floating in random places, some big, others small.

They had little time to marvel at it before a sound rose louder than the windy wall behind them, the sound of engines. Jets louder than all else, deafening and ear piercing and more than anything else, terrifying.

Makhai was already a step ahead of Maija who was still dizzy from her near-death fall. He pointed the ship back down, using the power of the ship's engines to push it quicker into the void.

But there was another ship there. Makhai swore, his voice whisked away by sound that gave Maija even more of a headache. He pulled the controls back up, the ship just barely moved fast enough to fly over the ship that had appeared under them. Maija ran to the back of their ship and grabbed the back facing cannon, ready to fire but the ship now behind them fired first, their cannon fire not trained on her.

Their cannon hit the New Unity ship, exploding along its side. Not much damage being done. All they could do was watch. And use the distraction.

Maija waved Makhai on, keeping her eyes locked on the two ships. "Get us down to the void."

But they weren't going to get that lucky. Four men from New Unity grappled to their ship and swung over, boosting off their ropes using the same technique Maija had to escape from her first cell, orange sparks shooting off the back of their grappling hooks. The boost flung them up from underneath the ship, over the top deck and all four landed hard against metal. The men were dressed in their usual New Unity attire, dyed black, black cowls hiding nothing but angry eyes.

Maija reacted, immediately, pulling the gun from her hip and firing it at the man in front of her, he dodged and lunged towards her, grabbing the barrel of the gun and pointing it to the sky. She grabbed to the man's throat, knowing she lacked the strength to choke him, and instead rammed her elbow into his face, grunting as she did. He dropped her arm and backed away, reaching to his face.

She aimed her gun and fired but someone grabbed her from behind, the bullet missing. The next man pulled her back, wrapping his hands tightly around her arms like vises.

"No!" Maija screamed as the man pulled her back, her lacking the strength to resist.

She shouted, grappling the floor right by her feet and pulled her arm back. The same sparks flew from her hook and instead of boosting her upwards, it launched both her and the man to the deck. Maija grunted as she landed hard against the ground, already flipping around to find the man beside her, struggling to get to his feet. She lunged up and shoved his side, him falling forwards and off the edge of the ship.

Without thinking about the doom, she might have just condemned this man too, she swung back up, quickly analyzing what had just happened. Two men remained, Makhai struggling with them both. One man lay dead on the ground, blood pouring from a bullet wound in his chest.

Makhai fought like he was young again. He dodged punches, jabbing with his own, most making contact. One man grabbed to his body, trying to rip him away from the other as Makhai twisted his arm up and beat the man's grappling hook with his knee until it cracked.

He kicked the man now with a completely unusable grappling hook and grabbed the man behind him, twisting him around to his front and throwing him hard to his back, firing a bullet to his forearm, damaging the grappling hook and pouring blood across the floor. Maija could hear his bones crack.

"Quick, help me get them off," Makhai shouted as he grabbed the closest body and started dragging it to the edge of the ship, blood now staining the ship's metal. Both men completely unable to avoid their long, very painful death. Crushed by the weight of the void.

Maija stood in shock, unable to believe what she had just been forced to do. The man she had thrown over the side had yet to reappear meaning she had succeeded. He hadn't managed to catch himself and fell miles and miles before being consumed by the void. Dead.

Her knees felt weak, and she reached out to the cabin for support, not finding any.

"Come on Maija," Makhai shouted, dragging the last man over the edge of the ship. "I know it's hard but now's not the time."

Something slammed to her right, two steps on metal. Her heart jumped into her throat, and she spun around, yelping. It was him. Kaius. He wore his usual clothing, but a long thick cloth cloak covered his head and draped down his back, blowing viciously in the wind.

Maija jumped up straight, panicking.

"No wait!" he shouted, stretching an outstretched hand to both her and Makhai, almost as if taming wild animals. "Please, Maija I need to talk to you."

After every interaction she had had with Kaius, never had his face looked so desperate. But she knew now not to trust what his face told her.

"Never!" Maija screamed back, the adrenaline and panic coursing through every inch of her body pushing her forwards harder than ever.

"Don't do this," he said. "I want nothing but the best for this sick, war-stricken world."

She shouted and charged towards him. Kaius pulled a device from his back and pointed it at her, firing. A seemingly small piece of metal shot from the device and soared towards Maija, a thick metal nail about six inches long. It contacted Maija's left palm, piercing through it and pinning it to the cabin behind it.

Blood poured from her hand as she screamed, falling to the ground. She was unable to move. Lifting anything brought nauseating pain through her hand now pinned to the wall above her head.

The next struggle between Kaius and Makhai was quick. Kaius latched onto Makhai's shoulder, slid something from his leg and pulled his arm back. Maija caught the sight of light reflecting off a silver blade before she could even realize what it was. Kaius pushed it forward, the knife cutting deep into Makhai's side. The fight ceased between them as Makhai stumbled backwards, clutching his side with his hands, bright red blood everywhere.

Maija just sat, blood from her own wound dripping down her arm. She couldn't say anything. Couldn't think. Tears glossed over her eyes, but they didn't sting. Everything was cut off, distant. She could only feel the pain now as a dull pressure in her palm as something struck the side of the ship, pushing it away.

Kaius fell, intentionally, backwards off the front of the ship, keeping eye contact with Maija the entire time. His face was completely void of emotion. Except his eyes, his eyes were lit brightly with determination, certainty and anger. He was going to have her, and there was no one that would get in his way.

The New Unity ship left as Maija's ship slowly came to a stop, now sitting completely still. Resting, the vibration of the atlas skycore able to be felt throughout the ship almost making it feel alive.

She was boarded, not by New Unity, but by the people of the other ship. The first man aboard Maija recognized instantly. It was Luke. Now out of New Unity garb, dressed in tan pants and a dirty green poncho that hung off his right shoulder. He helped Maija- along with a few others- work the nail from her palm. She bit her tongue the enter time, tasting blood. She tried as hard as she could to stop from screaming.

Now clutching her hand to her chest, refusing the berries given to her, Maija slowly stepped up to Makhai's body. She didn't have to look for long to see that he was-

It hurt. Maija knew it hurt deep in her chest. To finally see that Makhai had been killed. For real this time. No trick. No ploy. There was no faking it and there was no lying her way out of it. Makhai had been killed. He lay here, on the ground, dead, still warm, blood oozing from an open knife wound.

But there was only a void where there should be pain. Again, tears filled Maija's eyes, but they didn't sting, they didn't fall. She just stood there, looking down at his body, an expressionless look painting her face until his body was thrown to rest in the void, forever.

Someone lightly touched her shoulder, their hands cold against her bare skin. She spun around, looking Luke in the eyes, hers wide and still wet with unfallen tears. Her lips were squeezed shut and straight, but her chin was trembling. One of her hands had a gaping, still bleeding hole but she couldn't even feel them, could barely feel them shaking.

"You okay?" Luke asked, motioning down to her hand.

Maija lifted her injured hand up and put it between her face and Luke's, staring at it as if she had forgotten how it had gotten there. It hurt, but not really. Only a slightly pressure that bled red blood that trickled down her forearm. Except she did know how it had gotten there. Kaius nailed her to the wall like a slave. Then killed Makhai.

"I'm fine."

His eyebrows rose, "Do you want some help with-."

"No! No, no," Maija said, spinning away from him. She turned back, muttering to herself, rubbing her forehead with her hands, smearing blood across it. "No, no. Why are you here?"

"Maija, I'm," he started. "I'm trying to help you."

"Bullshit," Maija spat as she turned to face him again.

Silence sank on the ship like a stone in water. Luke just looked at her.

"Tell you what," Luke finally said. He took a deep breath in and sighed it out. "New Unity- Kaius- wants you. You. There is no changing that. Help us find out why, and you'll be free to go. No more than that. You will be free to run from Kaius for as long as he lives, reaching for every small chance you are given to exact justice although you will never be able to.

"But you will be left alone by us."

Maija stepped back, turning her face away from him overcome by embarrassment burning in her cheeks. They hadn't locked her in bars like Kaius, but she felt just as trapped. She wanted to be free again. It hadn't been the best life being a nobody, but she couldn't have longed for it with any more passion. To be a no one again. Nothing.

But the thing about all of it, was that Maija had never been nothing. From her very mysterious beginning, there was something in her that was important to not only someone else but possibly even more. She wasn't going to give herself to anyone, wasn't going to let herself be used, but at that moment, there was nothing else she could do.

"It doesn't look like I have a choice."

Luke rose his brow, nodded away. "It doesn't look like it, does it."

Maija sighed, propping her hands up on her hips. "Fine." Now she lifted her index finger and pointed it at Luke. "But you will not stop me from killing Kaius and anyone else who comes in my way."

He smiled, looking back into the windwall, where they had both come from. "Well, good thing we want the same thing. We'll fly back to Cliffside immediately. Our ship is pretty beat up, so we'll take your ship."

He paused, looking back at her, their eyes meeting. Maija resisted the urge to fiddle and glared back at him instead.

"We're happy to finally see you."

Luke's smile was warm. Genuine. It- along with his words- took Maija off guard and he left little time for her to question it before he took control of her ship and activated the engines. Slowly taking in her surroundings, Maija found also that everyone else had left her ship and had returned to theirs. They were alone.

She turned and left, her steps heavy against the metal floor and dropped below deck, finding a spot behind the fuel tank, tucked between storage lockers. Maija collapsed to the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest. In the darkness of the fading sun, Maija expected herself to cry. She had lost everything that had ever meant to her. Her world had been tossed around and thrown upside down, but no tears came.

With each labored breath out, her eyes grew heavier and heavier until they closed, sealing off the world from her sight. She fell asleep.