A loud banging on my door woke me up before dawn.

I was called to duty before I had time to groom myself.

A team of nine gathered around the table in the dining room. We shared rough bread and stale cheese as breakfast.

There was no coffee.

“Is Lady Fiammetta going to join us?” I asked, wondering where she was.

The table roared with laughter.

“The great one who calls himself Captain Thumb Song wants to dine with Lady Fiammetta,” Rocky said. The axe-wielder had green scales on his massive arms.

I couldn’t pinpoint his species either. Angels had conquered two-thirds of the universe, but not this part of the world.

I shrugged. “She has to eat, right?”

“She’ll freeze your balls if you don’t watch where you’re going, trainee,” said a male with a tattoo of a wild boar on his bald scalp.

Had he just called a mighty Archangel, who had traveled to thousands of worlds in the universe, an intern?

His companions guffawed some more.

Any other Angel would strike them down. Perhaps I should do the same.

My hand went to the hilt of my sword.

Kaara strode in, and the vulgar laughter died.

“Get your gear,” she commanded. “We’re heading to the arena.” Her gaze swept to my wings draped awkwardly behind me.

The group pushed aside their half-finished dishes and rose.

They feared the witch, but they respected their violet-haired commander.

We moved away from the Witch Tower and hurried toward the city blocks ahead in three groups. Rocky led one group in the front. Kaara kept me in her group in the middle. The bald, tattooed male brought up the rear with another group. I’d learned his name was Boar.

“You’ll follow my lead and do what I tell you,” Kaara said. “Try not to do anything rash and stupid that will get you killed. I can see you’re the reckless type, but this place isn’t like anything you’ve ever experienced. We don’t expect or respect kindness, but we value the will and discipline to survive. Our mistress saved you and brought you out of the jungle. It’s up to you to prove yourself worthy of her protection.”

I laughed. These amateurs treated me like a fledging. And this little girl, who hadn’t lived for a drop of my immortal life, was lecturing me on how to stay alive. She’d also played the events that had transpired in the jungle backwards. I’d defended Fiammetta and torn an opening for her to escape. But I wouldn’t argue with the little girl. It was beneath me.

This experience was both comical and infuriating.

“What’s the drill?” I asked lazily.

For the time being, I would play the fool.

“We scavenge every day,” she said, “and hope for a ship to fall while we’re in the field.”

“Sounds fun,” I said.

Her assignment and my goal matched. I needed to reach my crew as soon as possible.

Last night, I’d tried the device on my uniform a hundred times, only to find I had come to a planet in a dead zone. The only way to get to them now was to sweep the city block by block.

Kaara shrugged. “I hope you’ll still have that spirit after being stuck here for a week.”

A low whistle rose from the team in the front, and Kaara waved for the rear team to move closer. We weren’t in the witch’s territory anymore.

The streets were eerily quiet and spelled danger. 

We hurried through the shady streets lined with half-burned buildings and vacant shops.

“Watch out for hostile hordes,” Kaara said in a hushed voice. “We’ve lost people with every run. You wear a space uniform, so you probably don’t understand how a planet that’s full of unlawful monsters works.”

“I look forward to meeting the colorful characters.”

I didn’t tell her that Angels were known as the worst virulent monsters on all colonized worlds.

I spotted a vast spaceship flapping through the dark clouds high in the sky.

Anxiety surged in me until I was sure it wasn’t ThunderSong.

“A ship’s falling,” I said. “I estimate it’ll crash in about two minutes. We’re relatively safe where we are.”

Kaara gave me a look before calling her team to halt. A minute later, they saw the spacecraft plunge toward the land.

“Take cover!” Kaara yelled.

The whole city shook at the impact. I turned to look at the Witch Tower in the distance, and my gut twisted. The tower might fall and Fiammetta was still sleeping.

I wouldn’t get to her in time without my wings.