Starsong

Part VI - Storm

Several hours into their journey, they arrive at the Findara mountains.

"We're here!" Chia yells over her shoulder to the plane behind them - the one Allioni is piloting. In the seat behind her, Tam still has the book - The Legends of Stars - in hand, making notes and looking for more information, all three of them too full of adrenaline to even think about sleeping. "We need to slow down - going too fast will results in crashing."

"Got it!" Allioni calls back.

Tam puts down the book for a moment, rubbing at his eyes and squinting out at the looming mountain ranges, then frowns. Because, despite it being the middle of the night, between the full moon shining overhead and the planes' headlamps and taillights, they should have more than enough light to see by - so why does the sky seem so dark -

"Uh-oh," Chia says as she spares a glance towards the instruments displaying temperature readings and the like as they pass into the mountain ranges. "Mercury's dropping. I think -"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me -" Tam begins.

A clap of thunder, a bright flash of light arcing through the night sky suddenly full of dark clouds, and Chia yelps, lifting her hands off the controls to clap over her ears on instinct as the plane begins to tilt downwards in the beginnings of a nose-dive -

"Chia!" Tam yells, and she just barely manages to remember where they are in time to grip the controls and wrestle the plane level -

"Sorry! Sorry, I lost control, I -"

"Doesn't matter! Just - can you or can you not do this? Otherwise we can try to switch midair -"

She takes a deep breath, grits her teeth and grips the controls tighter.

Her friend needs help.

She will not falter now.

"I can."

He hesitates, nods before turning to Allioni's plane behind them, the blurred glow of its headlamps still visible through the howling wind and rain. "We need to go faster! And fly lower to the ground!"

"Got it!"

She tilts the plane downwards, squinting through the rain lashing at her goggles, the engines screaming as she pushes them as fast as they can go, knowing that behind them, Allioni will have no problems following.

Another clap of thunder, lightning flashing way too close for comfort and she veers violently to the left, flinching but not letting go of the controls.

Do not let go.

Whatever you do, do not let go.

Behind her, Tam swears. "Visibility is low! Can you see clearly?" He pauses, eyes widening as he spots something. "Wait wait wait go right -"

She jerks the controls to the right just in time to avoid the cliff face seemingly appearing out of nowhere to meet them.

"Guess we know, the answer now," she wheezes out, before letting out a yelp and yanking at the controls again, hurtling the plane to the left -

Tam curses again. "How much further do we need to go?"

"I don't know! I think we just passed the Arch so we're about halfway through, but I'm not sure -"

There's a third crack of thunder and lightning, blindingly bright and so close that she swears it nearly catches their wing tip -

She blinks the spots out of her eyes, trying to focus her vision, blurred by tears, and pushes the plane harder still, the engines screaming their protest now -