Chapter 23

“Did you get the yellow case?” Vall looked at me from the flyer’s pilot seat.

I strangled the exasperated response I wanted to give her, and took a breath. “Yes, I did, Vall.”

Vall glared at me as Pel giggled from her seat behind me. “I watched them pack our things, Vall. We left nothing behind.”

“It’s just that we’re leaving and won’t be back for a while,” my mate explained. It had taken us two weeks to gain Lirimaer’s permission for our move, and to devise a reasonable explanation that didn’t involve revealing the outpost’s existence. We were taking Pel and Ket home, which was true. It just wasn’t the sort of home everyone else had in mind when we explained it, and we were a bit vague on the home’s exact coordinates. Even Lirimaer didn’t know exactly where the outpost was, although we had told her of its existence.

“Okay, Scheherazade, we’re ready to leave,” Vall announced over the comm.

“I believe goodbye is a proper farewell, but I do hope to see you again soon,” the AI responded.

“Until then,” Vall replied. She lifted the flyer off the hangar floor, and oriented it toward one of the hangar’s small exit portals. The vehicle was rock solid on its grav lifters, and Vall brought the power up slightly on the two fanjet engines that powered the flyer. As I had learned, the sleek craft actually ran on water; it actually had a tiny cracking plant built in that would provide the hydrogen fuel, and oxygen for the craft’s environmental system.

I sat back and smiled at the thought that I actually understood something about how the marvelous technology around me worked. Oh, I had much to learn, but it was worlds away from what I knew before. One thing I hadn’t learned more about was magic. Technology was powerful, but magic was, too. More importantly, many lives depended on the magic remaining strong in this realm.

“Ornthalas, you’re even quieter than usual,” Ket said after we’d been airborne for an hour.

I turned in my seat to look at him. “Sorry, I was thinking about what the people we left behind are facing.”

“You still think we’re doing the right thing?” Vall asked.

“I think we are,” Pel lowered her book reader to join the conversation. “It’s the old saying about all of your chickens in one coop. The depot was attacked once, and there’s nothing to say it couldn’t happen again.”

“That’s true,” Ket put in. “Maybe this time, they will be able to detect and stop such an attack. They have several skilled magic users, now that more of the elves have joined them.”

I nodded and turned back to look out the flyer’s side window by my seat. We four were on our way to strengthen a secret outpost, a second arrow in the bow of our quest to save the world we knew. Granted, we had none of the heavy vehicles and large craft, nor did we have the depot’s industrial base. We had our personal weapons, armor fit to turn light projectiles like the pistols we all wore, and a selection of electronic devices that would allow us to communicate and to share information.

The flyer was about a third larger than the standard design, with a cargo compartment behind the four seats we occupied. We were loaded to our weight limit with supplies and parts that we would need. There was the risk of not having something, of course, but we did have the recourse of contacting the depot and arranging a transfer at a safe location.

As we flew south, I used the flyer’s external camera to zoom in on the ground below. Vall and I had flown south from the depot several times, but we had not flown west toward Grey’s Hall. That city was now clearly visible ahead and to our left. Now, from a high altitude to hide us from eyes on the ground, I followed the path Vall and I took northwestward toward the mountains.

“There,” Pel said. She’d been monitoring the camera feed on her tablet. “See that saddle just north of that really sharp peak?”

“Got it,” I replied.

“From the saddle, go east until the edge of the treeline. Here, give me the camera controls for a minute.”

“All yours,” I replied.

Pel manipulated the camera controls, panning and then zooming in on a rock strewn field near a fast flowing creek that rushed down from the mountain and curled southward through a series of small hills. “There, right there.”

I peered at the display. “I’ll take your word for it. Vall, come right to two eight five for forty-two kilometers.”

“Right,” Vall nodded and turned the flyer further to the northwest. “I thought we’d come a little too far south.”

A series of beeps sounded from behind me, and Pel started in surprise. “Oh! The tracker!” She took the device from a pouch on her belt. “It’s pointing straight ahead, so we’re right about the location.”