Chapter 10
Whoever said that navigating Inbetween was easy had clearly been out of their Void-damned mind.
The fact that it had been her only proved her point.
The Fold had seemed stable, and she had gotten complacent. Now it was going to do its best to kill them, or at least remind them that they were very unwelcome visitors.
Stars blinked in and out like faulty memories and colors exploded in front of them as space tore sideways in a way that didn’t have even a glancing acquaintance with physics.
She spun the Banshee 180 degrees, dove through before they collided with the breach.
Sound didn’t travel in space. Nor in the Void. But she heard the crash behind them, nonetheless.
“What the fuck was that?”
And so, apparently, did the Major.
“Rift collapse. It’s a domino effect; we have to outrun it.”
To his credit, his voice was calm, assessing, “You can’t just punch out?”
“I can, but the odds of us surviving aren’t good. Better for me to try to find a stable exit point.”
“And if you can’t?” His voice was calm, mildly curious.
“Well, then we’ll have to risk it. Now shut up and let me fly.”
He shut up and let her fly.
He’d never appreciated, until that moment, just how good a pilot you had to be to survive Inbetween.
He’d heard the stories. Read the reports. Even interviewed some survivors.
But the reality blew them all out of the water.
It was terrifying.
And weirdly compelling. Like a song in his bones or a pattern he could almost understand.
The Banshee shuddered as Wraith yanked the yoke, maneuvering it in ways he was sure the engineers had never intended.
Another crash sounded. Way too close to them.
There shouldn’t have been sound, but there it was. Like the Fold didn’t care about the rules… or had rules of its own.
She seemed to be aiming for a darker patch ahead and to the left of them, but the escalating instability meant that the route was becoming increasingly circuitous.
She pulled the Banshee into a sharp upward trajectory and evened out over what looked like a rupture through the fabric of the fold. He could see the stars of real space inside it, but instinct told him it was deadly.
Like staring into the heart of a black hole.
They sped forward like a lightning bolt, Wraith somehow getting even more speed out of the craft.
Almost there.
He let himself take a breath, and immediately cursed himself for jinxing them.
Ahead of them, between their Banshee and the spot she’d been aiming for, an Other Ship sailed into view.
Massive. Angular in ways that hurt to look at. And it didn’t flinch as reality buckled around it. It rode the chaos like it belonged there.
“Shit!”
Wraith’s curse echoed his internal one.
“Hang on, Golden Boy, we’re punching out of here. No other choice.”
He braced as best he could as the Banshee shuddered like it was about to fall apart and reality came pouring in.
The light was too bright, and the Banshee screamed as Wraith realized her mistake.
She’d been so Void-damned close to the exit point before that Other Ship appeared. Flying like she hadn’t in years, and by the Void, it felt amazing. Like being alive again.
Just her and the Inbetween. One vs the other. Winner takes all.
Then a new player entered the game, and she had to change her plan, make a split-second call.
And if she hadn’t just punched out onto a Void-damned planet then they might have survived.
She fought with the controls as hurtling spacecraft met air friction. Flames consumed them, heat slowly sinking into the cabin.
She had to slow it down, or die trying.
She braced her feet and pulled on the yoke. Forcing the Banshee’s nose up.
The force was going to pull them apart. Or they were going to crash and make the point moot.
Just a little more.
Too slowly, it inched up. The heat was increasing, but the G-forces lessened slightly. She smashed the Emergency Brake. Not intended to be used for this purpose, but she figured any port in a firestorm.
They slowed further. She could see through the flames now. See the ground coming up way too fast.
Nothing for it.
She pulled the shrieking Banshee into a horizontal spin, barely keeping control, but shedding some of the velocity. They’d barely regained horizontal orientation when the craft hit the ground, bounced, and skidded forward.
A hell of a long way.
When they finally came to a stop, she just rested her head back and closed her eyes for a minute. The console was dead. Acrid smoke was starting to curl from the side panels. Her hands shook.
She had no idea how Helios was doing behind her. But seeing as she was still alive, she figured he had to be too.
Then his voice echoed through the cabin, sounding giddy and amused.
“Hell of a landing.”