_____After a moment, I started to take note of the damage. Aside from a searing pain in my side which was probably a fractured rib, I wasn’t too hurt. I had plenty of cuts and bruises, but nothing deep. Being in the doorway of the cockpit must have sheltered me from slamming into things too hard. Obviously that hadn’t been the case with the marro, but it was dark in the SRV, and I couldn’t tell if they were injured or not.
_____A light finally switched on behind me, its beam shining through the dust sifting down on top of us. Mijiek appeared to have turned his chest armor into a flashlight. He was directly below me, still keeping me off of the shattered windshield, A marro, Seraga I think, was on top of me, trying to get her legs under her. Garokna was on my right, pinned to the wall by the chair Mijiek had been in, which had been bent on top of him by… a rock.
_____I squirmed around until I was facing Mijiek and the windshield. It was completely shattered, and blocking the gap where the glass had once been was a giant boulder, filling up the space entirely. The boulder had crushed the delicate panels and levers Mijiek used to fly the SRV, and a jutting side of it had slammed into the chair, pinning Garokna to the wall with it. The boulder looked to be deeply embedded in the ground; we had simply had the ill luck to land on top of it.
_____“Good news is,” Mijiek said, “… no one’s dead. Bad news… I can’t disguise myself. That rock hit in exactly the right spot. Not that it will matter much if the soulborgs find us. Anyone hurt?”
_____“I’m fine,” I said.
_____“Cuts and bruises, nothing more,” Seraga said, finally moving off of me and going to Garokna.
_____“I think”—Garokna paused—“I think I nearly got impaled by this chair. Other than that, I seem to be mostly fine.”
_____“Then we need to get out of here,” Mijiek said. “Whoever fired the missile which took us down will be looking for us.” He heaved himself off of the rock and crawled to Garokna. I could see that his armor was dented and scratched, long white lines tracing crisscross on the metal plates.
_____Mijiek reached the chair, and with one mighty heave, wrenched it free of the rock. Garokna slid down, clutching his chest. “Okay,” he said, between gasps, “maybe I’m not as okay as I thought.” Seraga knelt next to him, trying to see where else he was hurt.
_____“We can check for injuries later,” Mijiek said. “We have to get out first.”
_____Easier said than done. The cockpit was small, but there was sufficient distance between us and the room beyond to make it impossible to climb out. There were no handholds, just smooth metal walls. I could see that Mijiek had spotted the problem.
_____“I’m going to go up,” he said, “then I’ll pull you out one by one. Just try not to move around too much. Anything could make this craft fall over.”
_____It was at that point I realized the craft was actually still nose-down. It was buried in the ground, nose first, with its tail sticking up in the air. Unless there was anything propping us up from below, it could fall over at any moment, and then we might be trapped for good. I had known that before… but now I realized just how precarious the situation really was.
_____I could see that Mijiek was getting ready to jump, and backed up to join Garokna and Seraga. Mijiek gathered his legs beneath him, flung his arms upwards, and leapt… with an extra boost from twin jetpacks hidden somewhere in his back. I remembered what Mijiek had said about flying like a kyrie. This must have been what he meant.
_____Mijiek shot upwards, and clamped his hands on the edge of the wall above us. He pulled himself up, struggled to get his leg up over the edge for a moment, and then disappeared. The craft groaned. I felt it shift a few degrees towards the right. We didn’t have much time.
_____Mijiek appeared over the edge. “Laura, you next,” he said, holding down a hand. I would have to jump to grab it.
_____I crawled to a point directly beneath his arm, and shakily stood up. My feet slipped on the glass-covered rock beneath me. I gathered my legs, focused on the hand in front of me, and leapt, stretching for Mijiek’s hand.
_____I missed.
_____Mijiek didn’t however. He reached down and grabbed my arm before I could start to fall. The sudden halt jarred my body, and I felt my ribs sear with pain. Something was definitely injured in there. Mijiek was just getting a better grip to haul me up when there was a grinding sound from above us. I looked up and saw that the door of the SRV was opening. It was being pulled aside, slowly, like something outside was pushing it away. It finally slid open, revealing a dark patch of ruined and smashed pine trees, with a quickly darkening sky beyond. I barely had enough time to register this before a face appeared in the doorway.
_____A human face. A man was hanging onto the side of the doorway, looking down on us.
_____The man was accompanied by a very formidable-looking gun, which was quickly aimed at us.
_____“Who are you?” the man shouted. “State your names!”
_____Before I could reply, the man shifted his position, and caught sight of Mijiek.
_____“A soulborg!” he cried, quickly aiming the gun at him. He brought the weapon up to his eye, squinting down it.
_____“WAIT!” I cried.
_____The man had clearly been about to shoot Mijiek, but he looked up at the sound of my voice. A hint of confusion showed on his face.
_____Mijiek took the opportunity to heave me up, launching me sideways into the room in a burst of speed. He let go of my arm and turned to face the man.
_____I’m not sure what would have happened then. The man was only seconds away from shooting Mijiek, and I’m sure Mijiek was only seconds away from defending himself. However, neither had the opportunity, because my weight was apparently too much for the craft. It wobbled, shook, and then suddenly snapped loose of the rock holding it in place. The back half of the SRV plummeted to the ground, causing the man hanging onto the doorway to lose his grip, and disappear beneath it.
_____The sudden motion flung me upwards into the ceiling, and then back down onto the floor as the SRV landed, where I struck my already injured rib. Pain lanced through me, and red broke out across my vision for a moment. I struggled to my hands and knees through the pain, my eyes watering and blinding me further. I felt a whoosh of air, and saw Mijiek jet out past me. He flew out of the doorway of the SRV and disappeared from view.
_____It took me a moment to collect my senses. The pain in my side subsided back to a throbbing ache, and I was able to stagger for the door, crouching under the low ceiling. I reached the doorway, stepped down, and finally exited the SRV.
_____Several lights instantly shone at me. They seemed to be affixed to the barrels of guns, each held by a man similar to the one I had seen. I tried to stand up straight, but my side exploded in pain, and I was forced to drop to one knee instead, struggling just to stay upright. The pain was getting worse with every second.
_____“What are you doing?”
_____“Help!”
_____“He’s stuck!”
_____The cries sounded about me. I turned my head, trying to see what was going on through the maze of waving lights. Mijiek was behind me, pushing against the back of the SRV, despite all the guns trained on him. A moment later I realized that he wasn’t pushing. He was pulling. The man who we had first seen had fallen, and was now pinned beneath the heavy SRV. Mijiek was trying to lift it enough for the man to scramble out.
_____Some of the soldiers seemed to realize what he was trying to do, and rushed to help him. With their combined strength, the SRV rose just enough for the man beneath to drag himself out from under it. A trail of blood followed him, dripping from both legs, but at least he was alive. Mijiek let the SRV drop with a thud.
_____The man curled up on the ground, whimpering with pain. I wanted very much to do the same, but I knelt down next to him, and tried to find where he was hurt. I was a caster. I could help him.
_____His legs had been crushed. The bone broken, the muscle flattened. Blood was oozing out from several gashes along the length of his legs, thickening the dirt beneath him into red mud.
_____I felt for the point where his legs were intact, and placed my hands there. I then quickly cast my mind into the spirit about me. It’s difficult to explain, but spirit and energy are linked. Changing one can affect the other. Over time, casters have figured out how to manipulate energy through spirit. I did that now. I pulled the energy right out of the nerves in his legs.
_____The man’s cries stopped. His pain had been completely erased. It would return, as the nerves replenished themselves, but it would take some time.
_____I sat back, and did the same thing to myself. The pain in my side vanished instantly, though it left the area tingling with a deadened feeling.
_____Complete silence surrounded us. The man before me was brightly lit, and I realized that Mijiek must be standing directly behind me, shining his light where I needed to see. The man looked up, blinking, clearly not realizing what had happened. He looked at me, and I saw realization begin to dawn on his face. Then his eyes slid to Mijiek.
_____“Thank you,” he said, struggling to sit up. I placed a hand on his chest to keep him down. He couldn’t feel pain, but he still couldn’t use his legs. “Thank you,” he repeated, looking at Mijiek.
_____The soulborg said nothing. I stood and looked about me at the ring of men. They all had weapons with lights attached to the end, but every last one of them was pointed at the ground. These men couldn’t be with the soulborgs.
_____The soldiers were suspicious of Mijiek. He was a soulborg, and the soulborgs had taken over all of Valhalla, probably killing people they knew in the process. However, they decided to take us to their base and decide what to do there. Mijiek had just saved one of their own, and I was a caster. They could see that there was more going on here than they thought.
_____Garokna and Seraga clambered out of the SRV, further increasing the confusion of the soldiers. They surrounded all four of us, and together we moved into the forest, away from the destroyed SRV.
_____It was a short trip. After a few minutes of stumbling past trees in the dark, we came to a small clearing. A cement structure was embedded deep within the ground, only its thick gray roof showing. Even though I had only heard of them, it looked like a WWII bunker from earth. The only difference was that it was taller, with a long gaping doorway set in one side, high enough for us to enter without crouching.
_____Lights were on inside the bunker, and I could see that it served as some sort of hanger. I saw several SRVs, plus some smaller crafts I did not recognize. People were milling about the crafts, repairing them, talking to each other, or running from one place to another.
_____The soldiers surrounding us led us into the clearing, and then into the bunker. Several people stopped to watch us, but the soldiers kept us moving. I figured they were going to put us – or Mijiek at least – somewhere secure while they figured out what to do with us. I just hoped they didn’t take too long. Andrew had already been with the soulborgs for more than a day.
_____We had made it about half way across the floor of the hanger, when I happened to glance to my left, and stopped dead. Three people were standing near the closest SRV. One was working on something beneath the wing, and the other two were standing in front of it, discussing something. I didn’t recognize the one on the right. But the one on the left… I looked closer. It couldn’t be.
_____“Keep moving,” one of the soldiers said behind me.
_____I ignored him. There was no mistaking it. Standing twenty meters away was my dead brother, Dave. And he was very much alive.