Infiltration

A thousand fight-or-flight micro-impulses prickled along Chandra's spine as she followed clouds of raw aether down into the ship's hold. Mist swallowed the base of the stairs, and she heard a whistling hiss—the kind of sound she never wanted to hear when aboard an aether-powered vehicle, hundreds of feet in the air.

She didn't see the interloper until she got down into the hold with Hope of Ghirapur. There stood Dovin Baan, almost everything else obscured with aetheric steam.

"When I first came to you and your compatriots, Monk Nalaar," Dovin said, "I had planned to recruit your help. I see now that that my plan was badly flawed."

Through the steam, Chandra could see the access plug. Some sort of mechanical grippers had cut a neat hole in the airship's belly and allowed a single person into the ship. The grippers had then sealed the hull off again, but a fuel conduit had been severed, and the cracked pipe was spraying aether everywhere.

Chandra pulled her gloves tight and advanced toward him. "Get off my dad's ship."

Dovin held up a pair of pliers. Gently held in the thin jaws of the pliers was a piece of torn metal, a tiny filigree cage that housed a compact, powerful module. It was from the aetheric disruptor—the crucial piece of Hope of Ghirapur. And just as Chandra recognized it, Dovin crushed it.

***

"This airship has lost significant fuel supplies," Dovin said calmly. "For your safety, I would advise to land the ship soon."

***

Breaking Points