Page 51 of Star Bright
““We have to get them, now.” The teen’s voice was steady, low over the tear of the wind. “Don’t stop for anything.”
But when they burst between the severed tree trunks to where the ship was half buried in snow and melt, the girl’s grasp around Darcy’s middle clenched hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs. She would need that strength.
A small figure rose from the wreckage, waving above the snow. “Yaya! Darcy!”
“Atsu!” Yadira launched herself toward her brother even before Darcy could bring the hover cart to a stop. The girl floundered in the snow, but between her gangly teenage limbs and her natural drakling lightness, and maybe partly the overly puffy clothes, she quickly crossed the small clearing to her brother. She scooped him up out of the snow, hugging him. His dusky skin was blanched from the chill, and Darcy quickly shrugged out of her outer layer to wrap around both of them.
The boy was shaking so hard, the words chattering out of him made almost no sense, but between his gasps, Darcy caught the gist. “Your father is still inside?”
“Trapped,” Atsu sobbed. “Fire… He pushed me out, but he couldn’t follow. Said to come get you.”
Vash had known they’d be right behind him. Sucking in a breath, Darcy turned toward the downed ship. Maybe she shouldbe more afraid, or maybe she was getting used to crashing spaceships. “I’ll be right back.”
Stinking black smoke billowed out of the hatch, so thick she couldn’t tell if the ship had broken again or if maybe monstrous claws had ripped it apart to set the little boy free.
The interior was wrecked. It seemed as if the explosion had ripped the ship apart from the inside.
“Something fell on him,” Atsu said from behind her. Because they had followed, of course; they would always be there for each other. “He couldn’t get out.” At least the boy’s voice was clear as he warmed up, and probably because he wasn’t alone anymore.
No matter what happened, she’d make sure the fledglings were not alone.
Rejecting the wretched thought, she plunged into the ship. Pieces of the new fabrication had buckled and ripped, warping into a confusing maze. It didn’t help that small bursts of fireworks kept going off. If any larger shells exploded…
She wanted to send the fledglings away, but she knew they wouldn’t listen to her, and why would they? She just had to find Vash and get them all out of there.
Somehow, through the haze and choking smoke and her panic, she sensed him, like a guiding star, always there, never mind the smoke or snow. Ignoring the dangers of the serrated rubble, she clambered and crawled and pushed her way through the wreckage. It wasn’t even that far but it felt like light years.
“Vash!”
A twisted arc of jagged metal had pinned him against a crumpled section of bulkhead, trapping him. A few boxes of unexploded fireworks were strewn nearby, their festive colors mocking the desperate situation.
His eyes fluttered open, the dazed gray as hazy as the smoke. Just as well there were no rings of fire here. But she couldn’t rely on that.
“Darcy?” He only had one arm free, but he strained toward her.
“Don’t move. I need to make sure nothing else is going to fall on you.” A quick glance around told her how precarious the situation was. Between the broken metal and unexploded shells, everything could go horribly wrong at once. He couldn’t shift without impaling himself, and from the glazed look in his eyes, she wasn’t sure he had the strength or control at the moment. But she knew she didn’t have the muscles to bend the lancing remnants away from him.
“Darcy,” he whispered. “Get the fledglings out.”
“No,” Yadira said, in a clear, unwavering voice. “I let you bring us here without saying anything. I won’t let you send us away again.”
“I smell the fuses,” he said in a pained voice. “Not everything is burned and could go off at any moment. Get out.”
“I don’t suppose you can shift smaller.” Darcy cupped her hand around his jaw. “We just need to move you enough to slide you out.”
“Yadira can do it,” Atsu piped up. When they all looked at him, he linked his fingers together and raised them over his head. “Like this. Her beast is strong enough but still small enough to get underneath and push on those girders.”
“No,” Vash said, the tone stern but the emphasis behind it too breathless, as if something was broken inside him.
“I can’t,” Yadira cried. “You know I can’t.”
“Yada, it’s all right.” Vash cut a hard look at Darcy. “Take them out. I will shift and push everything aside.”
If he could do that, why hadn’t he done it already? But she couldn’t call him out, not in front of the fledglings.
His eldest child had no such compunction. “Then do it,” Yadira challenged. “But you can’t do everything, can you? You couldn’t save Ammi, and now you won’t let me save you.”
“Yadira.” His voice broke and whatever else he was going to say was lost.
