28

- Charlotte -

She'd never seen anything like it. First Cori'ax had run faster than she thought possible, coming right for the shuttle. Then the huge warrior had seemed to fly as he leaped easily onto the roof.

And now, as far as Charlotte could tell from the sounds and the dragons she could see outside the window, he was winning. She'd seen Acerex warriors battle aliens before, but this was something else entirely. She knew she was witnessing something that shouldn't be possible. The sword had a life of its own in his hands. Already a couple of the dragons had turned tail and were flying away.

The shuttle had powered up its engines and now trembled with vibrations. She could do as Cori'ax had ordered and engage the autopilot's emergency program, and then she and Elerea would be safe. But Cori'ax would fall off, and they would leave him behind forever.

And now, Charlotte would rather die than leave him.

She grabbed the power lever and pushed it back and forth a couple of times, like revving the engine of a car to let him know from the sound that he should get in.

But she saw the problem. All the dragons needed to win was to rip a tiny little hole in the shuttle or to break a window. Then they couldn't leave the planet, because they had no way to pressurize the cabin. If they went into space in a damaged shuttle, they'd suffocate. If Cori'ax gave the dragons just one second of respite, they'd pounce and rip the craft apart.

She somehow had to get him in without him having to stop fighting.

Well, she'd once done the opposite.

Still holding Elerea with one arm, she engaged the vertical thrusters as softly as she could, increasing power until the shuttle was hovering unsteadily an inch above the ground. In her own Earth-made dropship, she could have done it with one finger. But this was an old and primitive craft without fly-by-wire functionality, and she had to handle all the little nuances herself.

It took all her experience and feeling with the craft to keep it hovering steadily like a helicopter, something that it was not designed to do for more than a few seconds at a time. It wanted to go forwards, not stand still. One turbine was already starting to protest, sounding strained.

What she wanted was to increase speed and height slowly while Cori'ax was still on the roof. The shuttle had many handholds and bars up there, especially made so warriors could hang off them. But even so, she couldn't make any sudden movements, and she couldn't go so fast that he would be blown off.

Still she heard his war cries and the clang of his sword striking hard dragon scales, and still the dragons gave off angry screams that now definitely had some puzzlement in them, like question marks at the end of their shrieks.

She let the shuttle drift forwards and made it ascend to a few feet above the grass and bushes. She couldn't leave too much air underneath it, either – while on the roof, Cori'ax couldn't defend it from an attack from below.

“Hold on,” she yelled, hoping he would hear and that the baby wouldn't be too distressed by the sound. She accelerated steadily until the shuttle was flying four feet above the ground at fifteen miles an hour. Still she heard him up there, but the clangs from his sword were now much further apart, and she could see that some of the dragons were hanging back and not attacking. Another couple of them had lost interest and were flying lazily away.

The shuttle accelerated to thirty miles an hour, and she wouldn't dare go much faster than that. She hoped he would have the sense to hang on to the handholds. He was strong and could hang on with one hand while he held his sword with the other one. At least that was what she was hoping. There was no camera up there.

She tilted the engines more downwards, making the shuttle climb faster, hoping he would get it – he had to hold on!

She could only hope he was getting the message and that he wasn't still standing upright up there. Because this was it – she could see five of the dragons circling beneath the shuttle, coming closer. The underside was unprotected and she just couldn't let them get closer.

“Hold on!” she yelled again, then gunned the throttle and climbed faster. There was no sound from the roof, but she also hadn't seen the helpless shape of a person falling from up there. He was still hanging on.

She had left the dragons behind, but that was only for a second. She would make full use of that second.

She slowly rotated the shuttle, tilting it halfway on its side, then looked around to both sides.

Ah. That was the powerful legs of the man she loved, hanging down past the window on the right side.

She hit the releases, and the hatch on that side flung open. Again she hoped he realized what she was planning. The dragons were catching up fast, and they were coming in with their talons first.

“Yes! That's it, love!”

Cori'ax was making his way to the rear of the roof, so that he would be right above the open hatch.

As soon as he was in the right place, she quickly rolled the shuttle the other way in a mirror image of the move the autopilot had made way back months ago, when she had fallen out of her dropship. Except this time, someone would fall in.

Cori'ax easily swung in through the hatch back in the crew compartment, helped by the shuttle's rolling motion.

As soon as she saw that, Charlotte hit the button that would close the hatch again and slammed the throttle lever all the way forward.

The turbines caught for a moment, surprised by the sudden power they were allowed to develop, and then they roared and the shuttle shot upwards at the greatest speed she could squeeze out of the old craft.

Charlotte heard a thud and a rattle from further back in the craft. “Sorry!” she yelled over her shoulder. “We just have to get out of there.”

She kept climbing hard. The shapes of the dragons were growing smaller down and behind them, but not as fast as she would wish.

“That's okay,” a deep voice said at her shoulder.

Charlotte was so surprised she yelped. “Cori'ax? How did you ...?”

The shuttle was climbing hard straight up and the floor was almost vertical, but still he had made his way to the cockpit in the front of it. He must have been using every handhold and seat and nook and cranny to climb up, and now he was hanging from the back of the copilot's seat with his strong arms.

Charlotte leveled off a little.

“Nothing will keep me away from my love and my child,” he said simply and sat down in the copilot's seat. Then he leaned over and kissed her cheek, fastened the harness around himself and gently took the baby from her arms. “I have a lot so say to you, but right now we have our hands full.”

She glanced over. He was pale, and his old burn scars were redder than before. He had some small wounds oozing blood, but nothing worse.

“Not really,” she said. “All we have to do is get into orbit and then aim for Gideo Station so you can get some medical treatment. The autopilot can do all that on its own.”

He gently tucked the fabric around Elerea's face with hands that seemed to be three times the size of the baby. “I'm sure it can. But only you can deal with those.”

He motioned back and to the side with his head, not even bothering to look away from his child's face.

Charlotte turned in her seat. “Shit! I didn't see them come that close!”

There were at least ten dragons on their tail, coming closer, beating their huge wings hard. She pulled back on the controls, and the shuttle shot upwards.

“They're shrewd,” Cori'ax said, seemingly totally unconcerned. “They've approached the craft from the blind angle where you can't see them.”

The dragons were still coming closer.

“How fast can they go?”

The warrior smiled at Elerea's little face, still not looking up. “They can go fast. And now they're not playing anymore. They're furious and humiliated. They'll use their fire.”

Charlotte adjusted the fine trim of the shuttle's angle against the air, wanting to eke out as much speed and climb as possible from the old craft. “How far will they chase us?”

“To the upper reaches of the atmosphere.”

The dragons seemed to have absolutely no problem keeping up and closing. Their long tails flowed behind them, and now the predators looked more determined than elegant. “It will take us ten minutes to get there in this old kite. They'll be on us in less than one.”

He glanced up at her and his yellow eyes flashed with amusement. “Only one person in the universe can get us out of this. But luckily I'm very well connected. I happen to know that person. Indeed, for the past few minutes I have been engaged to her.”

For a moment she just stared, trying to understand what he meant. Then she smiled. “Yes, I believe you have.”

There was a brilliant flash behind them, and Charlotte reflexively threw the craft to the side. A sharp flame the size of an apartment building filled the space where they'd been a split second before. She knew that if just one of those flames grazed the shuttle, it would disintegrate.

“Yeah, now they're not playing. Fine. We'll stop playing, too.”

She pulled back hard on the stick and forced the shuttle into a loop, and suddenly they were going towards the approaching dragons at full speed, upside-down. She saw their confusion and smiled tightly. “Didn't expect that, huh? Let's see what else we can do.”