Ash’s mental dialogue was pretty much every swear word she knew as she ran to the meet up point with Sai on the beach. She wasn’t sure that she had any way of fighting, but knew if it came to that she would have to try. With the orange hues of dusk turning to night above, Ash followed Esther until the two reached Sai, who had that box they were carrying around beside them. The swarmer ship was slowly descending on us.

“I thought we said tomorrow!” Esther said.

“Sorry, last minute schedule change!” Sai said. “If we went tomorrow, we’d get no ships.”

Sai readied a revolver, and Esther pulled out Ihli’s sword. Ash wondered if she was the only one that didn’t have a weapon on hand.

“Just stay near me.” Esther said.

A swarmer ship, a bulky, slow flying piece of machinery, slowly landed over the shoreline. Ash wondered what would have happened if the landing point was over the wreckage of Esther’s plane. She was too busy shaking to think clearly.

A door on the side of the ship opened, and Ash could see Sai’s informant was right, there were empty seats filling its main hull. But the ship wasn’t entirely empty, as a squadron of drone soldiers marched out of it.

“Conjured beasts,” Esther spat.

“Just a bit of security for the automated deliveries,” Sai said.

“Just a bit?” Ash asked.

Their skeletal bones glowed in vibrant neon colors through the metal armor. Ash didn’t know much about how the swarmers worked but it was clear they weren’t alive, just machinations held together by magic. They marched on digitigrade legs, looking almost lost without humans to guide them. When they noticed the group, though, it was like they had found purpose again. Their eyes turned to burning crimson as they charged.

Sai started firing right away, and the closest to them fell apart with a few clean shots.

“See? Nothing to worry about.” Sai said.

The others moved towards the group, with glowing green acid dripping from their claws.

“Maybe a little to worry about?” Ash said.

Like Esther said, it was a stupid plan. She was willing to overcome the stupidity of the plan though, darting forward and slicing two of the swarmers in half in one swing.

“This thing is incredible!” Esther said as she cut another in half. Ash marveled at Esther’s sword skills, finding her more incredible than the blade. Even though it was a legendary sword, it would have been useless without a skilled fighter wielding it.

In spite of the terrifying sight of the drones, Esther and Sai rushed through them. Sai blasted the last one, making it look too easy. Sai chucked the box into the ship and hopped in. Esther was close behind them, leaving only Ash.

Just a few more steps. Easy, right?

Ash forgot to count for the excitement and panic freezing her legs again.

“Ash, come on!” Esther yelled.

Like she was walking with glue stuck in all her joints, Ash struggled to move forward. She felt a chill down her spine.

Sometimes after Ash read a scary story, she’d go back home and look around every corner expecting some kind of monster built from her imagination to be hiding, waiting for her. When she turned around, something worse than every monster she ever imagined stood there.

It wasn’t one of the drones. It was a mostly human shaped being clad in Colony armor. Except it was like no Verdant Colony soldier Ash had ever seen or heard of, as shadowy smoke billowed from every crack and joint. Its entire face was made up of the shadows, but she could see teeth past them as they flowed in the wind. Sharp teeth.

The creature moved towards her, with red eyes glowing, staring into her. It looked closely at Ash as it advanced like the tolling of a bell.

A hand grabbed Ash’s arm at the elbow and pulled. She stumbled as Esther brought her into the ship, barely regaining her balance as they jumped on. Sai was in the pilot seat, frantically hitting buttons and flipping switches.

“Go already!” Esther yelled.

“One second!” Sai said, and then their next button press changed all the lights in the ship from a sickly bright light to a warmer color. “Everyone buckle up!”

Esther put Ihli’s sword on the chair between them as she buckled up.

Ash could barely look back, but had to as she scrambled into a seat. The being of shadows was deathly still. It looked in the group’s direction, and then turned toward the temple.

“OK, here we go!” Sai said.

Ash wasn’t prepared for how fast the ship would move given how slowly it approached, and felt sick as soon as they lurched upward.

“What the hell was that thing?” Ash said.

“We have a bigger problem!” Sai said.

Ash regretted assuming they’d only send one ship. Or that they would be able to fly off so easily. She cursed her optimism as she saw at least twenty more ships ahead of them.

“Alright this might get a little dicey.” Sai said. “But nothing we can’t handle!” 

The ship jerked, and then for a second it felt like they were falling. Ash looked out of the nearest window to see how far above the city they were, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Have you even flown anything before?” Esther said. 

“Yeah! Just not…this.” Sai said, frantically flipping more switches.

“Do you need me to take over? I haven’t flown one of these either, but…” Esther trailed off.

“After your last landing, maybe let Sai try it?” Ash said.

A muffled sound came out of the box.

“You cannot fly this now!” Sai said. “Stay in there until we land!”

Sai sped up, and Ash felt like her fingers were going to break from how tightly she held onto her seat. She couldn’t close her eyes, but she still screamed as they flew higher and higher. Sai went straight through the formation of ships, forcing them to turn around, moving the group farther away from the city.

“You aren’t going to like this part!” Sai said. “Hold on tight!”

Ash could see why from the troubled waters ahead. They headed toward the remains of the leviathans. Sailing through ribcages that clawed out to the sky, Ash never wanted to be done with something more in her life. Behind them, a few of the ships crashed into the bones of the long dead beasts, but there were persistent ones close behind them.

“Sai. doesn’t this thing have like blasters or something?” Ash said.

“I don’t think so, but…” Sai trailed off, moving the ship side to side to try and lose them to no avail. The enemy only got closer.

Ash wondered if Myles would ever find out if she died here and fell into the ocean. If they found her here would they tell her sister? Ash felt an eerie calmness as the ships closed in on them, ready to ram them and likely make all of the ships crash and explode.

Before they could meet their watery graves, the box Sai brought with opened up, and a small dragon jumped out.At this point, Ash admitted she shouldn’t have been surprised, but she still shot a stunned look to Esther to make sure she hadn’t lost her mind or was having some kind of near death vision, but Esther saw the small creature as well.

The dragon ran up to the front and sat in the chair beside Sai, deftly operating the ship with more finesse than Sai had, despite his size forcing him to stand on his chair to reach all the buttons. Something mechanical groaned beneath the ship, and then a wave of energy bolts came out behind the ship, barraging the enemy ships.

“I told you to stay in the box!” Sai said. 

“We were going to die!” The dragon snapped back.

“Well, we still might.” Sai said. “Those last two are persistent.”

“Blast forward when I say so!”

They dove towards a leviathan skull, its jaw barely open. Ash’s voice had gone hoarse from screaming.

“Now!”

They smashed through the bones as the dragon blasted a ship sized hole in the back of the leviathan’s skull. They barely made it through, but the other ships exploded as they flew into the bone shards.

Sai and the dragon were laughing, and as soon as Ash could see the shoreline of safe land ahead, Esther and Ash did too. Miraculously, they survived.

“The ship doesn’t have much left.” The dragon said. “We need to–”

The side door opened. Ash didn’t register it for a second, but the massive wind threatened to pull them all out, and worse yet, they had an unwanted guest. The monster that confronted them had returned.

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