Rane
“This ship is incredible.”
I know I’ve already said that. Multiple times. Probably out loud. But I don’t care because it’s true and Kree doesn’t seem to mind.
He looks up and grins at me. He’s been moving nonstop since we boarded — checking gauges, adjusting brass fittings, tightening something near the wing controls, muttering to himself about calibration and flow ratios and a dozen other things I only half understand.
Okay, fine… I don’t understand anything that comes out of his mouth about it.
I’m following him because watching him work is better than sitting still with my own thoughts.
“So this rune here—” I point at one of the glowing symbols etched into the hull. “What does it do?”
Kree doesn’t even look up. “Stabilizes the lateral current when we bank. Otherwise the whole thing would spin like a top and we’d all die screaming.”
“Cool.”
“Very cool. Also that one—” He gestures at another symbol three feet away. “That one keeps the altitude runes from overheating and exploding. Which is also important if you like being alive.”
“Noted.”
He hops down from the ladder he’s been perched on and lands in a crouch, already moving toward the engine housing.
“The trick is balancing the magical load across all the primary nodes so nothing gets overworked. Too much stress on one sector and the whole grid collapses. Then we fall. Then we die. Very bad day.”
“You say ‘then we die’ a lot.”
“Because it’s a very real possibility.” He grins over his shoulder. “But that’s what makes it fun.”
Declan grunts from somewhere near the navigation console. He’s been there for the last twenty minutes tightening bolts that probably don’t need tightening just so he has an excuse not to participate in this conversation.
“You good over there, Declan?” Kree calls.
“Mm.”
“That’s a yes,” Kree says to me. “He’s having a great time.”
I grin. “I can tell.”
Kree moves to the next panel, fingers flying over switches and dials. “Okay so this gauge measures fuel pressure and this one tracks the resonance frequency and if they don’t match within point-three variance we have a problem—”
He stops mid-sentence. Tilts his head.
“Huh.”
“What?”
“That’s weird.” He taps the gauge. The needle flickers. Drops. Comes back up but slower than I’m guessing it should.
“Is that bad?”
“No. Just weird. Probably nothing.” He moves on. “Anyway, the wings are self-regulating as long as the primary runes stay active, which they will unless something catastrophic happens, which it won’t, so we’re fine—”
Another flicker. This time from a rune near the engine. The glow stutters for half a second.
Kree frowns but keeps moving.
I follow him up another ladder to the upper deck where the propulsion array sits. He’s explaining something about rotational velocity when one of the brass gears rotates out of sequence. Just once. Then back into rhythm.
“Did you see that?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He adjusts a lever. “Magic’s acting weird today. Probably atmospheric interference. We’re close to the border zones and sometimes the resonance gets choppy.”
“Is that normal?”
“Define normal.” He grins. “It’s not abnormal. Just annoying.”
Declan climbs the ladder behind us. Doesn’t say anything. Just gives Kree a look.
“I know,” Kree says. “I’m watching it.”
We keep moving. Kree keeps checking things.
Adjusting. Recalibrating. The whole time he’s talking — to himself, to me, to the ship, sometimes all three at once.
I catch maybe sixty percent of it but I don’t care.
The energy is keeping me from thinking too hard about where we’re going and what we’re flying into.
Nova’s in there. Somewhere in that facility. Alone. Scared. Thinking we’re dead.
We’re coming.
I focus on Kree instead. On the constant motion. The controlled chaos. The way he moves through the ship like he’s part of it.
“So what happens if we lose power mid-flight?” I ask.
“We glide for about eight seconds and then we don’t glide anymore and then we become a very expensive hole in the ground.”
“Great.”
“But that’s not going to happen because I’m extremely good at my job.”
Another flicker. This time the whole ship gives a wrong vibration. Just for a second. Like a note played off-key.
Kree stops moving.
That’s the first time he’s stopped moving since we boarded.
He looks at the gauge in front of him. Then at the rune array. Then at Declan.
“That’s not supposed to do that,” he says.
His grin is gone.