A hand caught her wrist.
She looked up.
Strain contorted Zane’s features. His arms were stretched as far as they’d go; one clung to a metal pole, one gripped her wrist. A forcefield fizzled to life around the boarding ramp, pummeled by bright lasers.
Zane’s mouth formed words, but she couldn’t hear them.
They rose higher. Her sweaty wrist slid from Zane’s grip. A vicious hurricane whipped around them, slamming her against the ramp’s metal edge. Kalie screamed as her ribs cracked.
Azura, Mother above, please.
Zane screamed soundlessly. His grip reached the heel of her hand. Any second, she was going to fall.
So she swung.
Her fingertips barely grazed the edge of the ramp, but she had it.
Kalie gasped for air. The stench of gasoline knocked into her like a brick wall. She spluttered, and the metal slipped from her fingertips. Scrabbling for purchase, she dug her fingers into a groove between the metal plates. Then she pulled.
Her fingers were crushed between the plates, but she hauled herself up. Zane’s grip on her other wrist tightened. She strained her muscles as he tugged on her arm, dragging her up, until she collapsed on the ramp. The metal plates tipped upwards, folding into the hull. She crashed onto the steel floor inside. Zane landed on top of her, crushing the air out of her lungs.
The ramp clicked into place.
Violent blasts rocked the ship, but Zane was already racing into the cockpit.
Kalie rolled onto her back. Her chest heaved as she struggled for air. Every gasping breath brought an inferno of pain.
Alarms wailed. Thrusters sputtered.
She couldn’t stop yet.
Pushing herself up, she staggered into the cockpit.
“Holy Azura,” she breathed.
Radars wailed, and red screens flashed. The forcefields were down. Smoke gushed from a hole torn into the metal as Zane wrestled with the controls, swearing like a drunken sailor.
Dropping into the seat beside him, Kalie fumbled at the harness with half-numb fingers.
Warplanes streaked past them, leaving puffy white jet streams in their wake. Zane let go of the sticks and squeezed the cannon’s trigger. Direct hit. Without his hands on the controls, their ship veered down, down, down, through a shower of scrap. He caught the sticks. Kalie’s stomach lurched as he pulled the ship up, pointing the nose towards the sky.
He let go and slid the controls to her.
“You fly,” Zane thundered, “or we die!”
Kalie’s pulse pounded in her ears as she stared at the vibrating control sticks. With a trigger in each hand, Zane fired the booming cannons. Warplanes exploded, but a blast slammed into the hull and they spiraled down.
She grabbed the sticks. She barely felt her arms, and the levers quivered in her grip, but she used all her strength and tugged. The forests below the viewport disappeared as the ship pulled up, revealing a bright sky peppered with lasers. Explosions erupted like fireworks.
She glanced at the flashing radar. Warplanes loomed behind them, explosions ahead of them.
“Where?” she cried, as another blast rocked the ship.
“Anywhere but here!”
Kalie gasped for air. There was nowhere to go, no one to trust.
As they shot into the sky, her eyes landed on a metal ring floating beyond the clouds.
