Page 67 of Xerxes Ascendant
“The rest of our guys will join us in the air on a second craft,” drawled Miguel easily. He smirked as the engines roared to life around them.
Kyle flinched. Flying wasn’t anything like he had expected. They sharply rose, wavered, and then touched back down so hard they were all thrown sideways in their seats. Kyle reached for Akira’s hand, threading their fingers together and hoping his nervousness wasn’t on display for all to see.
The Master gave their companion a long, exasperated sigh. “You said youknow what you’re doing?”
Miguel’s posture tensed, his grin vanishing. “You realise these things haven’t been flown in decades? It wasn’t like we had spare aircraft to practise on.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Kyle soothed, squeezing Akira’s hand to convey that he was only keeping the peace and not taking the Carrion’s side.
“Want to lay bets on that?” Akira muttered back at him, quiet enough that only he could hear.
Bets...oh, that reminded Kyle of what he’d learned earlier, only to have become distracted by Akira’s keen submission and sleek, willing body.
Two million credits spent to protect plain old Kyle? His pet had beennaughty.
“No,” he said, and booped his boyfriend on the nose. “You are no longer allowed to spend money without my permission.”
Akira eyed the offending finger with distaste. “I’m supposed to surrender my financial control to the man who donated nearly a week’s salary to the biggest crime boss in the city?”
Kyle made a low noise in his throat. “Wait until you find out who I gave the rest of it to.”
“I don’t think I want to know,” Akira said wearily, but his expression was fond. “You’re not getting near my money.Sir.”
“Fine,” conceded Kyle. “But the next time you want to throw a million fucking credits at something, which apparently happens with alarming regularity, you have to speak to me first. And that’s an order.”
“Very well. I shall comply.”
Kyle made a noise of approval and let go of Akira’s hand so he could wrap an arm around his shoulders instead.
They stayed like that as their pilot eventually managed to get the craft to permanently hover and then propel itself shakily forward, navigating by inches towards the open hangar doors. Kyle began to hum the chorus toDanger Zone.It seemed appropriate, and it made Akira snicker.
Through the scratched and mildewed windows Kyle saw a cluster of Carrions hanging around a craft over ten times the size of theirs – good, it seemed the task force would indeed be of significant size after all – but his attention was soon drawn to the vista they were emerging into. Darkness, a kind of darkness Kyle had never seen before. Not complete, but near enough, for it held none of the neon illumination that littered Lower Xerxes’ streets nor the more subdued emergency lighting relied upon during rune outages.
It was only when the craft emerged from the bay and growled its way fully into the night air that Kyle spotted the pinpricks of light in the sky.
Stars.
Actual, real-life stars!
They were less defined than he’d imagined, not resembling in any way the five-pointed shape he’d so often doodled as a kid...but maybe that was because of the thick windows he was viewing them through. And yet, those glittery, smudgydots, projecting their light from an impossible distance, were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Kyle dragged his open-mouthed stare from the window to the man in his arms.
Make that thesecondmost beautiful.
Thankfully, in this moment he got to enjoy both at once, and Kyle rested his chin on Akira’s shoulder as he gazed out of the window and tried to ignore the occasional stomach-lurching jerks of the pilot manhandling the craft into acquiescence.
Then they turned, bringing something else into view through the windows on the right side.
Xerxes.
Observing his home from the outside was an even odder experience than finally seeing real stars. Their city may have once been a thing of beauty but the immense construction looked severely beaten and battered, streaks of rust across its metal surfaces giving the impression it was bleeding. It was shaped like a turnip: circular on the horizontal axis but elongated on the other, with a wide middle and the bottom curving to the smaller Level H penitentiary located at the city’s base. At a certain distance, the outer catwalks blended in with the rest of the struts and made the sides look smooth, but while this turnip would have had bountiful skyscraper leaves bursting from its top edge a month ago, now the structure was torn in two.
Kyle’s breath caught at the sight. Suspended in the air next to the uglier and larger chunk of its Lower counterpart, Upper Xerxes was pristinely elegant on its surface level with the littering of towering skyscrapers and bridges spanning between them. Yet the underneath was torn and ragged where it had been severed. One huge engine, carved from the inside of the city, hung from below to keep Upper Xerxes in the air.
Kyle stood and moved to the window to take more of it in.
He could see pylons, struts, and wiring still connecting the two parts of the city; such fragile threads that undoubtedlywouldn’t have been enough to hold Lower Xerxes aloft if Benedict Mackenroth’s plan had succeeded. If not for the acts of his cousin and her fellow Runic Engineers, the mayor’s explosives would have ensured thatbothof the city’s engines ended up attached to Upper Xerxes, leaving its counterpart destined for a fiery collision with the planet below.
