Page 14 of The Sunlit Man

It was…like four smaller cycles had been attached to a larger core. Three of the spots were taken, and while there was a seat for Nomad at the front right, he was instead clinging to the center of the machine—holding tightly to an improvised handhold with one hand, using his shield with the other to protect his driver’s back.

The sharpshooter’s blast had hit about three feet away fromNomad, farther along the core fuselage. His driver cursed, looking back past him. He turned his shield transparent to let her see—because the sharpshooter fired again in the same spot, blowing off a piece of the cycle. This exposed some of the underlying mechanism, which glowed brightly.

Nomad, sensing the driver’s panic, slid down the fuselage and blocked the next shot—which exploded into sparks against his shield. He’d positioned himself directly behind the place the sharpshooter had targeted, hanging on with one hand to the slick side of the metal housing.

This gave him a good view of what the enemy had targeted: a small hatch on the fuselage. That, blown free, showed a compartment that cradled a brightly glowing chunk of stone…or maybe glass? Roughly the size of a grenade, it had the same red-orange glow as the engines and the blasts the guns were firing.

“Power source?” Nomad guessed, blocking another shot.

Almost assuredly, the knight says almost assuredly.

“Thinkthatis powerful enough to get us off of this planet?”

Doubtful.

“It’s powerful enough to fly these ships. That’s a lot of energy being expended.”

Yes, and that is a valid point, but different technologies across different planets are more efficient than others at converting energy to Investiture or vice versa. And your own efficiency at absorption and usage is less than many. My best guess is that you’d need twenty or thirty of those to achieve Skip capacity, but we’ll know better once you absorb it. Which I suggest you do only after we land. Unless you’d rather said landing be a little more abrupt than is normally desirable.

“Noted.”

Ahead of him, the driver somehow leaned even lower behind the short windshield, the throttle shoved forward as far as it would go. The gap-toothed man Nomad had rescued clung to his seat, eyes wide, hair fluttering in the wind.

Nomad glanced ahead of them, hoping to see a fortress refuge, or a line of reinforcements speeding to their rescue. Instead there was only deep blackness. Above, the rings of the planet appeared to have moved in the sky. But they hadn’t actually moved; Nomad’s ship was flying forward so fast that it dramatically shifted the angle of the rings from his perspective. They were not only outpacing the rotation of the planet, but changing their orientation compared to stellar bodies.

Storms. They weren’t flyingthatfast. How small must this planet be, if flying a short time could round it so quickly? He should have seen from the horizon line, would have seen if he’d been less distracted. But the gravitation was relatively normal, which must mean a dense core, perhaps beyond natural levels for—

Stop, he thought at himself. The man who made calculations like that…you’re not that man any longer.

Either way, they were quickly approaching shadows ahead. A place under oppressive cloud cover, where even the reflected sunlight off the rings didn’t shine.

The sharpshooter had pulled back inside the cabin, but the enemy ships were gaining on them; Nomad could hear the ember people hooting and shouting. They crowded the front of their platforms, preparing to jump as soon as their ships got close enough to Nomad’s cycle.

So, the knight asks, how are you going to survivethiswithout fighting?

“I’m hoping the Torment will relax a little,” he said. “Maybe take pity on me?”

Good luck with that, the knight replies with an exhaustive amount of rueful skepticism.Nomad missed the days of inflection in that voice. Aux might have started their relationship hesitant to show his true self, but after decades together, his expressiveness had grown and grown. Until…that day.

Nomad refocused on the task at hand, keeping his shield in place. The transparent metal let him watch the approaching ember people as four prepared to leap. Even if he could fight, he’d have trouble handling four at once—particularly with four more coming up on the second ship behind.

Fortunately he had one advantage. Everything he’d seen so far indicated that these beings didn’t expect anyone to be as strong as they were. So Nomad took a deep breath, stood up, dashed along the length of the hovercycle, andjumped.

It felt familiar.

Wind against his tattered clothing.

An infinite expanse above.

Land below, looking up, aspirational.

Nomad and the sky weren’t currently on speaking terms. But they’d been intimate for some time in the past, and he still knew his way around her place.

He felt…stronger now. Where he’d struggled to make the leap onto that box earlier in the day, this time hesoared.

The ember people watched with shock at the distance he covered. He soared over their heads, hitting the wall of the cabin behind them with enough force to shake the vessel. He slid downit to the front deck of the ship, grinning, summoning Auxiliary as a sword…

Oh right. No swords.

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