Page 72 of The Sunlit Man

It was also great, because the ship had managed to cross over the tip of the mountain before running out. So as they plummeted, they slipped into the mountain’s shadowed shelter.

He wasnotready for an uncontrolled descent, though. Storms. They’d run out of water far faster than he’d planned. Everything he and the engineers had done involved enormous amounts of guesswork. That considered, they were lucky it had gone as well as it had.

In growing darkness, he crossed the deck of the ship. At least up here he didn’t have to worry about being swept off by the wind. He fell at the same speed as the ship, and though he had to use Auxiliary at some points to give him handholds, he eventually made it back to the hub and climbed up to reach theDawnchaser’s door.

He’d anticipated hitting the mountain on the way down, but sofar, nothing. The steep, craterlike cliff on this side was a tiny blessing. He hauled himself through the door, noticing Elegy unconscious—hopefullyjustunconscious—in the corner. In his absence, the cabin had depressurized completely.

He pulled himself through the room, now fully in free fall, gravity meaningless for the next few moments. Engines. He had to get the regular engines going. He was starting to hear wind whistling outside the still-open door. Once they got back into thicker air, the regular engines should work again. Only, once he reached the control panel, he found them stalled completely. Running out of water—which had also been acting as a coolant—had caused them to lock up.

Storms. He looked at the button that Jeffrey Jeffrey had explained, in passing, was for reigniting the system. It all came down to this? After all his effort, it was about pushing a button?

That, and waiting.

The engines wouldn’t start if he pushed it too soon. Storms, they might not start anyway. Running out of coolant while superheated in a vacuum…that was the sort of thing that completely destroyed machinery.

He resisted the urge to pound that button repeatedly. Warning lights indicating overheating flashed all across the panel. Air. They needed air. That would cool the engines as they fell. Allow the heat to dissipate.

Nomad, the knight asks with marked hesitance, what are you doing? Push the button.

He waited, watching the readouts, his feet hooked under the chair to hold him to the seat. He tried to explain, but there wasn’t enough air yet. So he waited. Excruciatingly he waited.

Nomad, I really think you should push the stupid button.

Outside the window, he could see the dark slope of the mountain moving faster and faster as their descent accelerated. Thatwasair rushing outside.

Nomad. Please.

He took a deep breath of actual air—and spoke. “Not yet.”

When?

He watched the indicators on the dials crawl from the red toward the orange for a few seconds. As soon as they hit the line, he slammed down on the button.

Four of the ten remaining engines fired up. With blasts that made his teeth rattle, they strained to slow the ship.

And then Beacon crashed into the ground.

He slammed theemergency release button, which would unseal the doors of every room holding the people of Beacon. They could open the doors from the inside, but there was a good chance many of them were unconscious. It depended on how well the rooms had been sealed and how much the occupants had hyperventilated. One of the great ironies of life was that people running out of air often worried so much, they used it up faster.

That done, he checked Elegy—still alive. At least, the cinderheart was still glowing, and he thought she was breathing. No heartbeat, of course. No heart. He wasn’t sure how that worked for her—there were different ways an Invested body made sure its cells were being sustained.

Time to see how much damage had been done to the ships. He stumbled to the door, but then immediately realized a dangerhe hadn’t yet considered. He was standing on top of a containment unit housing extremely volatile, incorporeal Invested beings. Ghosts. Shades. Whatever one wanted to call them, they were among the most dangerous entities in the cosmere.

He’d just crashed their enclosure to the ground, then hit the door release button without a second thought. He hesitated on the threshold of his ship, wondering if he’d have time to get the vessel disengaged and flying on its own before they came for him, eyes red, hungry.

Fortunately he soon saw a few unsteady figures stumble out of the main hub ship just below. They didn’t look likethey’dbeen eaten. He descended, passing the majority who chose to quickly settle down on the deck. Inside, the ghost enclosure looked solid, not even cracked. Wisely they had built it out of their strongest stuff.

He checked to make sure all the other doors had opened, and found that two of the ten had leaked badly. The people inside had fared worse than the others, but there were no dead—just a few unconscious people, a lot of bumps, several broken limbs. At his suggestion, the Greater Good had been separated across three different ships, and all had survived the landing basically intact.

Rebeke emerged from a different ship, helping an older man Nomad didn’t know. The man looked up at the stars, tears in his eyes, and began a quiet prayer of thanks. Noticing Nomad, Rebeke stepped over, clearly still dazed.

“It worked,” she whispered. “I…I doubted you. I thought it wouldn’t work. Why didn’t I believe?”

“Because you’re smart,” Nomad replied. “It was a crazy plan.”

“It wasyourplan.”

“And I’m an expert on how risky my ideas get,” he said. “I’m amazed we’re both standing here right now.”

---