A few minutes before Leonora made her way to the balcony, the Tartarusios was gliding through the ash-choked skies of Fansilia.
"Captain, I'm picking up new heat signatures at the palace," Bjorn said, his eyes fixed on the data streaming in from the radar. "Looks like someone's on the balcony."
"Guards," Oscar replied. "They're not stupid enough to leave the place unprotected."
"I don't know." Halley frowned at the readout. "Something feels off. Until now there was no movement there at all. I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Can we get a visual on the balcony?" Oscar asked.
"Not from here," Bjorn said. "We'd have to get closer, and we'd risk showing ourselves too early."
"How close are we to the palace?"
"At this pace? Five minutes."
Oscar didn't hesitate. "Take us lower. Let's see what's going on. We're almost there anyway."
"You got it, Cap. Descending," Mario answered the moment the order left Oscar's mouth.
The deck tilted gently forward as the Tartarusios dropped through the smoke. Halley and Oscar moved to stand behind Bjorn's chair, leaning over his shoulder to watch the screen. The camera feed was still a smear of grey and orange, but the closer the ship came to the palace, the sharper the image grew. Spires took shape. Then the wide stone curve of the balcony. Then figures on it.
And then the picture snapped into focus.
Bjorn shot up out of his chair. "It's Youri! He's on the balcony!"
At that exact moment, they watched him drive his head into the barrel of Leonora's gun.
The bridge went dead silent.
"How long until we reach the palace?" Oscar shouted, spinning around.
"ETA two minutes, Captain!" Chris called back.
"Shit!" Oscar slammed his fist against the console.
It was as clear as day on the screen in front of them. Knights were pouring onto the balcony. Youri was surrounded on every side, and there was nowhere left for him to go.
"We won't make it in time," Oscar breathed.
At that moment, a voice crackled through the comms.
"Don't worry, guys. I've got this."
Youri fell from the balcony, and his eyes slowly closed.
In that moment there was nothing but him and the wind.
When he had looked out over Fansilia earlier, he had seen the Tartarusios moving through the smoke. He knew his friends hadn't come all this way just to fail. But he wasn't going to let them walk into their deaths for him. If saving them meant sacrificing himself, he was ready. Hope had crept into him the moment he saw them drop out of the sky, but long before that hope arrived, he had already made his peace. In his mind, everything he needed to do was done. Dying on Terria was a decision he had accepted a long time ago.
But, as always, fate had other plans.
A purple streak tore down past the front of the palace, falling so fast it was barely visible.
Youri knew the numbers. From that balcony, a falling body would hit the ground in about ten seconds. And somewhere in the back of his mind he knew those ten seconds had passed long ago.
Yet he was still alive.
He opened his eyes slowly. He was surrounded by darkness, but not the darkness of death. It was the closed, cramped darkness of a box. Wind whistled in through narrow gaps around him. And then came the last thing he needed to understand: the noise. The deep, thundering roar of thrusters.
He was inside the hands of an Orbiton.
Light began to seep in from the edges as the massive fingers holding him slowly uncurled. Youri squinted against it. The machine cradling him was one he had never seen before. It was clad in deep purple armor, and it was still climbing, higher and higher, the wind ripping past them both as the city shrank away below.
With a hiss he could barely hear over the gale, the Orbiton's chest began to open. The hand carried him closer, until he was right in front of the cockpit.
Youri knelt in the giant's palm and looked inside.
The pilot rose from the seat, walked to the edge of the hatch and reached a hand out toward him. Youri stared at the hand without moving. The pilot raised his other hand to his helmet and pulled it off.
A long silver beard came out first. Then silver hair, whipping wildly in the wind.
It wasn't just anyone standing there. It was a face Youri hadn't seen in two years, and one he never expected to see here.
"Come on, kid. It's me." The old man grinned from ear to ear. "Tarko. The old fool who decided the future was a better place than the past."
Youri grabbed his hand, and Tarko pulled him into the cockpit. For a moment Youri just stood there staring at him. Then Tarko yanked him into a warm, crushing hug.
"I knew you were still out there, kid," Tarko said. "It's good to finally have you back."
Youri pulled away and looked him up and down. "Is it really you, old man?"
Tarko laughed and dropped back into the pilot's seat. "I understand the confusion. It's been two years. I've put on some weight and some muscle since then. But that's not important right now. We have to rendezvous with the ship."
Youri let out a disbelieving chuckle. "I can't believe you got an artifact implant. You're a pilot now!"
"A lot of things have changed, my friend," Tarko said with a grin as the cockpit sealed shut around them. "But everything's still the same."
Back on the balcony, Johan had rushed to the railing the moment Youri jumped. Before he could even look over the edge, a massive blast of force surged upward from below and hurled him backward. He hit the stone hard and lay there, disheveled and gasping, until the royal knights rushed to his side and hauled him to his feet.
His face had gone dark. "What the hell was that?"
Leonora hadn't moved an inch since Youri had whispered to her. The gun slowly slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the stone.
Johan whipped around at the sound. He stormed across the balcony and seized her by the collar.
"What did you do? What was that light?" He shook her. "Leonora! Leonora!" His voice cracked with fury. "What did he say to you? I know he whispered something in your ear right as we came in!"
He threw her to the ground and dropped onto her, his hand closing around her throat.
"If you value your life, you'd better speak. Or you'll die alongside that cockroach, by my own fucking hands."
"Emperor!" the knights shouted, lunging forward to pull him off her.
But it was already too late.
A crimson Orbiton now hovered just beyond the balcony. Its shoulder mounts were already open. In an instant, lasers swept across the balcony at the height of a standing man's waist and cut through everything in their path.
The royal knights who had been leaning over the Emperor to restrain him were sliced in half where they stood. Blood burst into the air and fell back down like rain, drenching the balcony in crimson.
Johan survived only because he was on his knees when the Orbiton fired. He stayed there, frozen, sprawled over Leonora, who lay beneath him just as stunned. Blood covered her face too.
In all his life, Johan Adrin had never imagined himself in a position like this. Nothing in his mind could have prepared him for what he was about to see. He knelt there, shaking, and could only watch.
The Tartarusios rose out of the smoke and came to a stop right in front of him.
The crimson Orbiton drifted back to hover behind the ship. Then the deck doors slid open, and they walked out together, in perfect step.
You couldn't have made them lower their heads if you'd put them under a guillotine.
There they stood, face to face with him: the source of all this trouble. The bear the Empire had poked once too often. All thirty-one members of the crew lined the deck and looked down at Johan, their heads held high. Behind them a massive flag snapped in the wind. It bore no crest and no emblem. It was a single color, drenched in darkness.
And in that moment, Johan Adrin truly understood what people are capable of when they are cornered against a wall.