Skyreign

23: Going Bentorii

If the sun had begun to peek over the horizon, the fog created by smoke and fire and weapons exhaust had blocked it out almost entirely.

While it severely reduced visibility, Saferon and Ritana found more advantage in the cover. The two had taken a break from the seemingly endless carnage, hiding in what must have been an ancient office building, its innards exposed by a gouging crater in its side.

How many had they killed? Dozens? Hundreds?

One slept while the other kept watch, taking turns in roles to survive the night.

Ritana was bundled up in her own wings, one eye half-open and an ear up to passively listen to the ongoing battle just metres away.

Saferon just finished polishing off the last of the score marks on her shield, while working out the kinks in her sword. She had been carefully maintaining a number of paltry mirages of herself, or false, illusory bomb explosions for the Ma'guul to deal with. Just another advantage the fog of war granted her. It was all about whatever kept their attention away from her and her resting friend.

Her eyes grew wary from never being allowed to blink. Every sinew of her body burned hot from overconduction, a common side effect of using too much energy to cast and not resting properly. Her nerves tingled as if she bathed in needles, another nasty side effect. Even her skin began to take a blue hue, around her fingers and joints, from all the casting, commonly called spellburn.

The seconds she counted between the cacophony of weapons fire became longer and longer, even as the sun began to cut through the fog. Less and less shadows moved about, and the skies cleared of airships and fighters, leaving only the battered Nywanese fleet and its stout defenders.

It wasn't all over, not by a long shot. The battle simply changed scenes. The frontlines were re-established.

But it would do. Once Saferon was certain the coast was clear, she tapped Ritana lightly, whispering, "Wake up. Time to go."

While the black-winged woman did not respond right away, she did shortly thereafter open her eyes, stand, stretch and nod to her, "so it is."

"Try to keep up," Saferon smirked as she slung the shield and sword onto her back and leaped out of the nearest window, allowing herself to fall nearly all the twenty storeys down.

"Try to keep quiet," Ritana retorted. Sighing, she followed suit into the fog below, leaving a few shed black feathers behind.

"I can't figure it out," Rose pulled her pony tail out and let her brown hair fall to the sides so she could run her hands through it, staring at a gaping hole in the floor of the engine room where electrical panels were removed, "it's all fine. I checked and double checked it. The break isn't here!"

"Then where the plug is it, Rose!?" Laura shouted, at the entrance.

"It was fine for a while," Darrick added, also in the room, "if the circuit wasn't gonna work, the systems would never have turned on."

"Okay, so why's the primary not working?" Laura said.

"I don't know!" Rose shook her head, "everything seems to be connected properly!"

"Darrick," said Janeth from the rec room, "run through the processes you did to start the ship up this morning."

"Well," he sighed, "Standard startup procedures. I started the lifters, the core warmer, the field, the--"

A moment passed as everyone awaited him.

"I remember seeing a single line of script before I powered up the field. I thought it was a cautionary snag as part of the start-up, but it disappeared so quickly."