Page 13 of Sixth
Emmy had heard those exact words when things were not trying to kill them. They’d sounded like poetry then, an arrogant promise wrapped in velvet. Now they sounded like survival. He set the ship’s nose into a seam, fingers light, heel pressure measured, eyes on the gradients rather than the bright threat. Breath by breath, motion by motion, he placed them inside a space that didn’t look like space atall.
For a heartbeat she believed they might make it cleanly through. The stars wheeled. Gravity pressed them down hard. Another flash raked their flank and the cabin went dead dark for half a breath before the backup grid throbbed into life, weaker and more honest.
“Apex—”
“We will clear it,” he said. “Hold on.”
Something in his calm steadied her, even as the ship roared. She connected herself with the rhythm of his hands, in the way his knuckles blanched then flexed, in the line of his mouth—hard, focused. The Valenmark at his wrist pulsed again, brighter, and the sound in her blood changed. The hum outside the ship answered in a tone she could sense along herskin.
This world hears you.
The Core didn’t say it this time. The planetdid.
“Do you feel that?” she whispered.
Apex didn’t answer. He took them lower.
They hit atmosphere like a fist. The nose vibrated and heat shimmered across the view as clouds tore open. Lightning bled sideways in sheets of pale green and indigo. The drones followed, three now, angling sharp, relentless as sharks. One dove too close to the bright wake of their descent burn and spiraled. The other twoheld.
Apex dragged the ship through a lateral slip that made the world shear and slide. Emmy’s stomach bottomed. She swallowed bile and kept her eyes on her work. The environmental readouts were crying for attention. She muted everything that didn’t matter and shoved power at whatdid.
“Voss won’t quit,” she said, hating how breathless she sounded.
“He will make a mistake,” Apex said. “We will not.”
Another hit. The sound this time wasn’t a crack. It was a tearing, an ugly rip somewhere under her feet. The lights blinked and the right-hand console sparked violently and went dark. Aflash of heat grazed her leg through the deck plating, closeenough to sting, but she forced herself to stay focused on the controls.
“Emmeline,” he said, sharper. “Status.”
“I’m fine,” she replied. “You’re losing hydraulics on starboard. I’ve got manual control.”
“Keep it.” He shifted. “Core, flare on my mark. Three. Two. Now.”
The Core threw a savage burst of light from the belly of the ship. The nearest drone overcorrected and kissed their wake like the first one. It exploded in a violent bloom that shook the cockpit. Emmy flinched. Apex didn’t. He took advantage of the opening and slid them through anotherseam.
The planet rose up to meetthem.
She saw it then between cloud breaks, an ocean of color, aforest that wasn’t green so much as shifting. Slow, tidal pulses of turquoise, amethyst, and violet-blue bled through the sky, more waves of light moving under a forest of leaves. The sight stole her breath, as fire skittered along thehull.
“Core,” Apex said, “mark me an open ridge.”
“Ridge located. Vector one-one-three. Warning: resonance intensity increasing. This world hears you.”
“We hear it,” Emmy whispered.
They didn’t have time to aim for anything like a landing zone. The last drone slashed in on an intercept course. Apex rolled hard to starboard to protect the cracked forward shield, then reversed so violently that her vision tunneled. He swore in a language that made the air sharper.
“Can you shake it?” she breathed.
“We will break before we shake it,” he said, and then, in a voice she’d never heard from him: “Emmeline. Brace.”
His use of her full name came like a hand closing around the small bones of her wrist. This time it came possessive. Certain. She curled forward, forehead nearly to her knees, arms locked across her chest, breath held against the pressure.
The drone hit themhardright where the hull was already weak. The ship screamed. Everything tilted.
Then the world hitback.
It wasn’t a single collision so much as a chain of them. The ship chewed through something like a living net—fibrous, flexible, so saturated with light it smeared across the cockpit in luminous streaks. The keel slammed down, bounced, slammed again. Asupport strut snapped with a sound like a thunderclap. Emmy’s teeth clicked and she tasted blood. Gravity punched her down and then flung her sideways as the ship rolled. Ahard shape—console edge?—caught her ribs. Pain blazed white.
