Page 71 of The Sunlit Man

NEVER AGAIN,Nomad thought, reaching the bottom of the ship and slamming the other end of the chain into a more secure position. He dangled there as sweat beaded on his face and instantly vanished, fleeting kisses of cool.

Thank you,Auxiliary said,for caring.

Nomad tried to send an impression of anger—of insistence that Auxiliary never bring up this topic again. He swung once moreto reach the proper lock, then unwound the tow cable. It looked like all four of the locks on the bottom side had frozen closed. But hopefully he wouldn’t need to undo them all before the weight of the ship snapped the others.

Now what? the hero asks hesitantly.

In response, Nomad used the tow cable to tie himself into place. He gave the line a little slack, so he hung down four feet beneath the ship. Then he formed Auxiliary into a large metal pole with a flat end.

Nomad wedged the flat end into the lock, then heaved, putting his entire weight on the bar. Auxiliary’s physical form was literally deific—and wouldn’t break or bend under any natural circumstances. But the Beaconite engineers had done their jobs well, and this wasnota good angle from which to pry open the mechanism.

Worse, friction was working against him. Above, the locks had popped free easily, but that was because the angle of the ship detaching had helped pull them free. That same angle was putting weightonthese locks, making them difficult to wedge apart.

Nomad. The mountain.

He didn’t need to look. Yes, they were close—and drifting closer. Only a few dozen yards from collision. Moving slowly, but inevitably. He heaved harder, but nothing happened. And he worried he’d made a miscalculation again. These ships, when they locked into place, probably had mechanisms at the sides—not just the top and bottom. The latches he was trying to open, they might not even be the most important part of what kept the ships together. Too flimsy.

There might be reinforced clamps or docking mechanisms he couldn’t see. If that were true…

He tried again, angling the long crowbar differently. Nothing. He needed something better.

Storms. The people. Theyneededhim.

But he couldn’t…he couldn’t make a weapon. He…

Not a weapon,Auxiliary seemed to whisper.Just another tool. To protect the city, Nomad.

The end of the crowbar sharpened.

In that second, he held something he’d not held in quite some time. A symbol from Nomad’s past. The implement of a warrior, practiced in secret, then displayed in grandeur. Sharp enough to slice through metal. He rammed it upward into the gap, slashing free the lock and something above, a bar or mechanism locking the ships together.

That was enough. The ship lurched, then broke free and crashed to the barren stone beneath, tumbling along the mountainside, ripping up stone as it went. Nomad hung on as Beacon shook, its primary engine roaring and spraying heat in a column of light and fury. He felt the ship rise faster, though it was almost imperceptible from his vantage.

Heart pounding, Nomad unhooked himself and used Auxiliary to reach the perimeter of the ship. Soon after, he climbed onto the metal deck. He stood tall, looking toward that terrible horizon. Sunlight trying to break free as the ship rose to meet it. Higher. Higher.

The right side of the shipgroundagainst stone, sending tremors through the entire structure. Nomad fell to his knees, still looking west at that terrible light.

The grinding stopped as the ship finally, barely, crested the top of the mountain.

We did it, the knight rejoices. Nomad, we did it. But we’re still rising.

Storms. Nomad turned and scrambled for the control building, terrified that they’d get this close to their goal, only to end up rising so high that—

Sunlight bathed him as the ship left the shadow of the planet. Calm, warm,ordinarysunlight.

What the hell?

He stood there for a long moment, suspended above the mountaintop, but nothing happened to him or Beacon. He’d noticed earlier that the Night Brigade ship had approached without its shield being overwhelmed. What was going on? Why could they hang there, in the light, and not be destroyed?

Damnation. He hated working on so little information. If the solar strength was extremely high, it would have ripped away the atmosphere of this planet, so far as he understood. And why were there always mountains at the poles? Shouldn’t the planet, constantly being melted, form a sphere? Or was it naturally an oval, with gravity pulling more air to the equator, making it seem like there were mountains at the poles when, in reality, those were just the edges of the oval sticking out of the atmosphere? Was that even possible?

As he pondered, Beacon stopped vibrating. He frowned at the strange stillness. The engines had cut out. What did that mean? Why would they…

They were out of water. No more propellant.

With a sickening twist deep in his core, he felt the entire Beacon complex begin to fall down the back side of the mountains—with no engines to slow its descent.

This was bad.

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