* * *

  Even before the rider was sure in the saddle, Theo was hoisting Caesos up to him, lodging the sobbing child snug between the officer and his mount’s long recurved neck.

  The sky behind them flashed bright.

  Even the bird ducked in anticipation. But the crash that followed was distant. It drowned out all else for only a moment, before the cacophony of smaller fires re-enveloped the soundscape.

  “Make sure he’s safe aboard one of them,” Theo said, pointing to the still-distant transports. “But then return here. You won’t be able to find us, most likely, so just attach yourself to the nearest squad in need.”

  The soldier nodded and kicked the spurs, and his bird lurched. Across the broad plain, other parallel trickles of mounted riders rode away toward the transports just the same.

  “Rifles ready, the rest of you,” Theo ordered the rest of her squad, as the rider grew distant. “The civilians here should have a handle on the birds, at this point—”

  “What, rifles?” her sergeant cut in.

  “…Yes? The civilians can evacuate themselves, from here on. We’re to reinforce Tanhkmet’s line.“

  Light flashed again. That impact fell closer, and after its thunderclap they could hear the screams. The sergeant quailed, eyes wide.

  “Their first landing ships have already touched down,” Theo said. “There’s probably two squads of white-coats in each of them. If Tanhkmet’s overrun, and those rifles reach our ranged vis-wielders here in the rear, there won’t be anything to keep their faster gunships from massacring the evacuation corridor.”

  She started toward the outcropping’s redoubts before the sergeant could muster a response. Better to pre-empt even the chance for argument, and lead by example. Allowing them to dwell on dissent was just how Tanhkmet had lost control.

  Not that the sergeant didn’t have a point, she thought, looking up at the sky once more.

  The behemoth warship above was so vast as to form a stormfront all its own.

  * * *

  Kera followed Roskvir into that final chamber, still staring at the floor.

  An almost pleasant warmth surrounded her there, otherwise absent in the corridors. And the warship’s siren quieted by half, as they shut the door behind them.

  But Roskvir stopped in the entryway, despite his earlier frantic haste. Kera dared to look up.

  And at last, she saw the princess.

  A girl, perhaps seven, knelt on the floor in the center of the chamber. She wore a dirty white dress stained with blood around the hem. A tome bound in old leather lay on the floor in front of her.

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  Kera dropped to one knee, bowing her head before her sovereign.

  Roskvir had been telling the truth.

  She’d never seen a member of the royal family before in person. But she’d passed enough portraits in the halls of the Academy to recognize the princess Aurelia. Even if she hadn’t seen those portraits, though, Kera thought she might’ve somehow known, anyway.

  She held her bow, sensing some interpretation of body language between the other two.

  “Rise…” said the princess. The soft near-whisper was almost lost between the klaxon’s screeches. Kera did as she was told.

  A rumble felt through the floor reminded them all of the present.

  “…Aurelia—" said Roskvir. "I had to go… some time ago. But now… I returned…”

  The girl frowned. He took a deep breath.

  “And… and I think… you are in danger, here. So I came, to make you… safe. Maybe to take away… to place… safer.”

  “She is of my people,” said Aurelia, pointing to Kera. “You found them… you met them.”

  Roskvir nodded.

  “And then you… came back?” she said. “For— for…”

  The princess wiped tears from her eyes with a dirty sleeve.

  Roskvir approached with slow care, as one might an injured animal. Kneeling before her, he bowed his head. Not just in a gesture of royal deference, but as if in some form of apology, as well.

  Aurelia sniffled loudly, at that.

  “But… then… you’re not safe, here, either,” she said.

  Roskvir swallowed, and nodded.

  “And the… the noises…“

  “Yes,” said Roskvir. “There is… fighting.”

  The princess closed her eyes like she was in pain.

  “Then… how can we…?”

  “Well, I dismissed guard… outside of chamber,” said Roskvir. “But—“

  He blinked, returning to his feet. Kera met his pleading eyes.

  “Have you… did you…?” he asked her.

  Kera didn't know what to say.

  She’d known the whole attempt would’ve had to rely on improvisation. They’d both known that. But it only then truly sank in: with their swift destroyed, Roskvir had no other way to get them off that warship. As their time had run out, they’d both just continued on, hoping a plan would come to them.

  Roskvir’s expression fell. As if he was giving up on his last hope that one of them might be overcome with some miraculous stroke of inspiration.

  It occurred to Kera then that they needed to try.

  Suddenly, that much was clear to her. Whatever it might be, they needed to attempt something. She couldn’t give up on Roskvir, not after it’d turned out he’d been telling the truth about the princess. About everything.

  It wasn’t that they had truly no options, she realized. Rather, it was that all of their options seemed equally sure to result in failure. But perhaps she would be wrong, about one such option. Perhaps one would surprise her.

  But the siren changed, then.

  Long and steady bleating gave way to a new pattern. Up-tempo, higher pitch, as if warning of a danger twice as urgent. A more imminent fight-or-flight fear came over Roskvir’s expression, and he said something to the princess in his own language.

  “He says it means, ‘intruder on-board,’ miss,” said Aurelia. “Its code for descriptions… and a location.”

  Like an ambush, then, in the space of an instant, Kera felt them appear.

  Countless presences of hostile, alien vis at once flared to life through the walls and the floors, as if so many torch flames lighting around her on a pitch black night.

  And so, sensing them, she realized at last what final alternative remained, that they might stlll try.

  Along any other desperate course, those soldiers would come for them, and she and Roskvir would perish all for naught. The sheer number of presences made that certain.

  But there was still yet one last other way ahead.

  "...An initial energetic electron is needed to start the process. In ambient air, such energetic electrons typically come from cosmic rays. In very strong electric fields, stronger than the maximum frictional force experienced by electrons, even low-energy ("cold" or "thermal") electrons can accelerate to relativistic energies..."

  Wikipedia