//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 // Story: Hegira: Eternal Delta // by Guardian_Gryphon //------------------------------// Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) March 21st, Gregorian Calendar The tac-con center was absolutely silent, save for the thrum of the air filtration systems. Normally, when the entire command section of the HLF was in the same room, there was a constant buzz of hushed conversation. The five men and women were usually only within a thousand miles of each other on two days out of every year. There was always some aspect of business that needed tending to. Some unfinished plot, or favor owed. From his position beside the main control console, Mr. Stalin surveyed his four silent comrades, and the veritable army of communications and telemetry technicians surrounding them. Something on the scale of Ragnar required simultaneous co-ordination down to the minute for fire-teams, infiltrators, and conventional attack assets across the entire globe. Ragnar was undoubtedly the single largest operation the Human Liberation Front had ever undertaken, and easily the most important. The gravity of that sentiment pervaded the mood in the room. From the central holotank console, it was easy to see the room's eight walls. The four that pointed to the cardinal directions of the compass were given over to three-story tall holoscreens. The remaining, much smaller interspersed wall segments housed the entryways. The giant screens were each taken up primarily with maps of portions of the earth. Surrounding the cartographs was a bevy of data from helmet cameras, sensor arrays, and computer infiltration programs. Mr. Stalin watched intently as the large digital clocks in the lower left corners of each screen rolled over on the hour. He cleared his throat, instantly garnering the attention of every person in the room. "My fellow Humans. Never before has our way of life faced such a dire threat. And for decades, you have all fought to protect Human interests. To defend the status quo that our species has earned with blood, sweat, and tears spilled over millennia of struggle with ourselves, and our planet." Mr. Stalin's voice was firm, striking a tone somewhere between fierce defiance, and strong rebuke. He gazed out across the room, hands clasped against the edge of the holotank for emphasis as he leaned forward. "Finally. After all these years. After all the lost souls, all the dark days, and sleepless nights... After watching beings from another world take away our choices. Our lives. Our assets. Our political influence... Tomorrow, we take back what belongs to us." To emphasize his words further, Mr. Stalin slammed one fist into the surface of the holotank, generating ripples in the three dimensional translucent data suspended above it. "Tomorrow, we will put a permanent end to the threat. We will kill the snake, by cutting off the heads. For a long time, the devil's own angels have led our populace astray, dictated the policies of our government, brainwashed our media, and sent their allies and lackeys to lay waste to any who would not bow to their diseased herd mentality." There was a muted, but emotional round of nods, grunts of assent, and fists slammed into open palms. Mr. Stalin gestured up towards the schematic displayed in the holotank. "Well tomorrow? Tomorrow we raise up the hammer passed down to us by those who inspired our ideals. Tomorrow, we put an end to the so called angels of the sun and moon. Tomorrow? We send them back to the devil." Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) Fourth Month, Twenty Second Day, Celestial Calendar Fyrenn shook himself violently, eliciting a yelp of surprise from Skye. He glanced over his shoulder, flattening his ears sheepishly. "Sorry. I almost dropped off for a second there." The Unicorn giggled nervously, squeezing at Fyrenn's shoulder blades with her front hooves to maintain balance. "I thought you guys could sleep in the air." Kephic nodded, chuckling slightly as he explained. "Sure. But when we do, we have a tendency to roll and yaw unexpectedly with the breeze to maintain direction without waking up," He glanced back at Carradan, who was still fast asleep between his wings, "And that's not great for anything back there that isn't strapped down." Skye snorted, "Fat lots of good that does me if you shake me off into the ocean in the process of staying awake." Fyrenn glowered, "You try flying for this many hours straight in my condition." Varan abruptly rose to a position between Kephic and Fyrenn, "I thought you said you enjoyed pain." The red Gryphon rolled his eyes skyward, taking in the pure baby blue of the dawn-lit vault. "I said that's what my drill instructor tried to instill in me. I never said it worked." Kephic chuckled, "You signed on for a position in a dangerous protective detail, harbored ambitions of flying dangerous aircraft into combat zones, signed up for an experimental possibly lethal program, and and you intentionally spend the majority of your free time since then either getting beaten to a pulp by Brelik in the training ring, or out and about with us looking for impossible odds to beat." Fyrenn stared at his brother for several seconds, an expression of abject confusion plastered to his face. Finally, he perked up one ear, and spoke. "How is any of that painful?" Skye groaned, "That. That right there is your problem." Fyrenn was on the cusp of phrasing a witty reply, when Kephic raised a claw, and pointed towards the horizon. Speaking of rest, it looks like we might get some sooner rather than later." The Gryphons turned their eyes back to their direction of travel. A faint glow was slowly rising over the sea. Unlike the natural golden-red tones of the rising sun, the light possessed a strong halon-orange artificiality. Fyrenn murmured to himself quietly, "I wonder just how close they are to loosing the first buildings..." Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) March 21st, Gregorian Calendar If sound could propagate in space, then the ESTeS satellite would have been subjected to a thunderclap loud enough to shatter every window in a thirty mile radius. Despite the absence of a medium for the auditory shockwave to travel though, the intense burst of blue-green light went completely unhindered, blinding the satellite's visible-light cameras. Less than a microsecond later, a wave of invisible radiation swept over ESTeS' sensors. As the onboard computer began to sift and compress the data for transmission back to Earth, the external cameras finally managed to adjust to the dazzling display of aquamarine, which had begun to show signs of fading. From the spray of color a sleek silvery-gray swoop of a shape emerged. As soon as the radiation had died down sufficiently, Sylph established contact with the satellite and dumped a massive stream of in-flight telemetry data to the transmission buffers. ESTeS was not designed to analyze the information. The ship might have been whole, or split into a dozen pieces, and the onboard computer wouldn't have internally registered the difference. ESTeS existed only to provide external data recording functionality, and a reliable transmission platform. Once it had taken in data, both from Sylph and from its own instruments, for over a minute, ESTeS compressed everything in the buffers, and sent the entirety of it as a giant burst transmission. "Receiving data packets!" Martins stiffened as a tense moment of relative stillness dawned. Astris shuffled his hooves impatiently, staring up at the main holoscreen with wide, expectant eyes. The Flight Director paused, then pressed a series of keys slowly. As the last stroke fell, an image blinked onto the main screen. The view was slightly distorted, as a result of radiation, aperture overexposure, and the amount of compression used in the transmission. But the picture was clear enough to speak for itself. Framed against a dazzling bed of stars the silver-gray curves of the Sylph dominated the center of the screen. The Flight Director smiled as he glanced up at Martins. "Initial readings indicate all systems are nominal. Radiators have deployed, and the coolant system is functioning at capacity. It looks like there are no serious cautions." Before the man could finish speaking, the room erupted into frenzied bouts of applause, spontaneous embraces, and deafening shouts. Martins smiled down on the revelry. Once the majority of the group's initial adrenaline rush had been expended, she raised her hands for silence. "Ladies and gentlemen! Congratulations on what seems to be a resoundingly successful test flight. As valuable as the remote data we have collected will no doubt prove; Ultimately, we still need to bring Sylph home before we can make a complete assessment. Strap in, and start the pre-return checklists." "Good morning swabbies. What's it look like outside?" Sorven stifled a yawn with one clenched fist as she mounted the final set of stairs into the Blue Ridge CIC. The Captain raised an eyebrow, glancing over his shoulder with a mixed expression of mirth, and mild disapproval. He shifted in his seat, and then gestured to the main bank of windows as the general moved to stand beside the command chair. "Pea soup is what it looks like. Gray fog here, a little smog there, and just to make you even more grateful for the roof, a touch of patchy drizzle." Sorven glanced down at the main holotank, which was fixed to a zoomed-out tactical display of the city. Small colored icons indicated the presence of fire teams, protection details, tanks APCs, patrol VTOLs, and even a pair of Scythe fighters circling high above. She sighed and tilted her head slightly, trying to inject a sense of chipper relaxation into her tone. "Look on the bright side. Terrorists hate being out in bad weather too." The Captain snorted, "Yeah, almost as much as they love forcing us to go out in it to find them. Did you know that under-equipped enemy forces are over ten times as likely to act if they have the cover of foul conditions?" Sorven strode down towards the bridge's lower deck, and flopped into an empty seat. "You are such a ray of sunshine skipper. I might even have to crack open a window." The helm officer, a young woman who couldn't have been more than twenty four years old, shook her head, "With respect ma'am; They don't open." Sorven snorted, "What kind of sham-boat are you people running here anyways?" The Captain smirked, "The kind where if a smarmy landlubber officer gets keel-hauled 'accidentally,' no one is going to testify as a witness on behalf of the prosecutors at the enquiry." The general rolled her eyes, "You folks really know how to take the fun out of a bad morning." The helmsman smiled, and murmured into her console. "Go navy." Fyrenn whistled a long, slow, descending tone of emotional shock. Given the whipping westerly breeze, and the altitude, he didn't even bother to damp the volume. From her position between his wings, Skye craned her neck to get a better view. As she saw the subject of her friend's thoughts, she repeated the whistling tone, and spoke softly under her breath. "You said it." Spread out below the group, a five-hundred yard strip of shallow ocean water terminated abruptly on one side with the Barrier, and on the other side at the port of New York. The ceaseless shimmering expanse of space-time differential was so close to the city, that sunlight, and even weather effects, were passing unimpeded into Manhattan. A two-block perimeter near the wharves had been almost entirely shut-down, save for the essential structures and systems connected to the port. The dark band of abandoned, cordoned-off buildings left Fyrenn with a distinct lump in his throat. There was an eerie, oppressive, fear-laden aspect to the myriad darkened windows. It looked almost as if some sort of creeping black tumor had sprouted amidst the otherwise life-filled bustling halos of light and motion. The image had, on the other side of the barrier, been too distorted to make out the true nature, and scope, of the situation. But now that the group was through to the Earth-side, the scale of the crisis was fully apparent. To the north, the curve of the barrier swept away to a point where it had already intersected with the uninhabited lands around Maine, and Nova Scotia. To the south, it curved away into the Atlantic, increasing the gap between the glittering energy field, and the coast with every mile. New York's harbor itself was nearly devoid of ships. With space at a premium, the military had clearly opted to lock down the area to prevent collisions. A pair of destroyers sat at the entrance to the sea-lanes, guns pointed watchfully out over the water. Fyrenn smiled wistfully as he spotted a familiar designator on the tower of the second ship; DDG-3257 - UES Indianapolis. He gestured with a claw, and glanced back at Skye. "Look! It's my old office." The Unicorn wrinkled her nose, "Looks cramped. And gray." The red Gryphon chuckled, adopting a slightly defensive cadence in his response. "Sure. But she can go invisible under hundreds of feet of water for months on end, throw a shell hard enough to pierce a mountain, and her armor is twice-again as durable as solid granite." Kephic pointed towards another small group of craft, "It looks like they're not letting much through besides newfoal transports and critical shipments." The Gryphons watched with fascination as a small hydrofoil tugboat guided an Equestrian galleon towards the barrier. Due to the extreme nature of the spatial lensing effect, an error of even a few meters when entering could result in a change in position of dozens of miles on the other side. As a result, a pair of large buoys had been set up just before the edge of the barrier. Guided by GPS, and sporting enormous flashing red light beacons, they marked the best entry vector to avoid becoming unnecessarily displaced upon transit. Varan jerked his head towards the still-inhabited portions of the island. "Where to then?" Fyrenn pointed to a dip between two immense mega skyscrapers. "The Fort. They've got a dedicated combat net connection." Kephic raised an eyebrow, flattening his ears against a particularly sharp, cold gust of rain-laden wind. "I don't think we can trust the information we have to the wider world just yet." Varan shook his head, "No, but we can certainly appraise ourselves of the current situation." Fyrenn nodded, "Exactly. Besides, Hutch is probably there. We know we can rely on him to get us transport, equipment, and anything else we're gonna need." Carradan smiled, "I wonder how the old Rambo is doing these days." Kephic snorted, "Probably being driven out of his mind by the responsibility of evacuating a city this size." Fyrenn banked sharply to line up with the direction of a large thoroughfare. As the others swung into line behind him, he tensed the muscles in his shoulders. "Hang tight, and keep your head as low as you can." Skye obliged, tightening her grip on Fyrenn's neck with both front hooves, and pressing her head against the joint between his wings, "You're not gonna make me regret coming with you... Are you?" The red Gryphon smiled wolfishly. "Nah. Everyone likes to go fast. Some people just don't know it 'til they try it." Before Skye could question the meaning, or veracity, of the words, Fyrenn tucked in his wings and began to trade altitude for speed at a blistering pace. Air began to pass over the pair at howling speeds. The noise was intensified by the strange pattern of drag Skye's body created. Fyrenn could feel the peculiar changes in his flight characteristics grow more acute, proportionate to his increase in velocity. For her part, Skye squinted fiercely and tried to resist the attempts of air friction to rip her off the Gryphon's back, and send her plunging to the streets below. Even though the Unicorn's presence severely hampered Fyrenn's usual top speed, the city still rushed up to meet the pair at nearly a hundred miles an hour. Skyscrapers that had previously been relatively no larger than a thumb talon were suddenly incalculably huge walls of an awe-inspiring steel and glass canyon. As Kephic, Varan, and Carradan did their best to keep pace, lower Manhattan passed in a streak of beautiful lights and reflections. To the Gryphons, and Stan, it was a fairly familiar experience. To Skye's less speed-tuned eyes, it was a mesmerizing elongated blur of color, light, and sound. VTOLs above, road vehicles below, and windows lit by a billion LED light fixtures to either side, formed their own strange and wonderful kaleidoscope. Less than a minute after it had begun, however, the experience was over. Fyrenn altered the cant of his wings, slowly and subtly, allowing his drag characteristics to bring him down to a manageable landing speed at a rate that put almost no strain on his bones and muscles. By the time he was going slow enough to land safely with the extra weight of his passenger, the roof of Fort Hamilton's central building was directly beneath him. As he dipped one wing, and spun lazily down to a soft landing on the steel and concrete surface, his brothers followed suit. After a moment, Carradan likewise came rocketing down, having had considerably less success controlling his fall in Earth's magic-deprived environs. Fyrenn chuckled. It still left him with a sense of wonder to consider the way in which magic affected Pegasus flight characteristics and abilities. While even the best Equine flyer was many orders of magnitude short of a Gryphon's agility and endurance, the raw speed they could attain in a brief sprint put some hypersonic aircraft to shame. Assuming they had access to ambient magic. To say nothing of the fact that their lift-capacity was unparalleled, thanks to their ability to alter the relationship between the mass of any object they touched, and gravity itself. Amusingly, placing an inexperienced Pegasus in a magic deprived environment often led to highly entertaining and unforeseen results. Skye rolled off Fyrenn's back, and gasped for air, staring up at the sky from whence she had just come with wide eyes, and a heaving chest. "I'd forgotten just how... Insane that was." Kephic chuckled, raising an eyebrow as he came to rest. "You should see him when he isn't carrying anything. I don't know how he does it, but somehow he gains an extra burst of speed here in Human cities." Fyrenn winked, "Skyscrapers aren't just for living in. Go read up on ground effect, and induced drag. Instincts will teach you a lot about flying, but Humans have learned a few nifty tricks too over centuries of building aircraft." Varan nodded, leaning over to speak to Skye in a faux conspiratorial whisper. "He already learned that the hard way when he bet Fyrenn two weeks of extra meat rations on the outcome of a friendly race." Fyrenn smiled, and inclined his head at Kephic, "If you want to try again, you're welcome to give it your best shot." Kephic glared. The way in which a smile tugged at one corner of his beak, his ears remained vertical, and one eyebrow lifted ever so slightly, betrayed his suppressed mirth. "Sure thing. Just as soon as I figure out how you're cheating." Skye giggled, still wheezing from the adrenaline rush of her unique passenger experience. "It's not cheating. It's Physics." Kephic redirected his friendly glower at the Unicorn, while Fyrenn and Varan moved to open the roof access hatch. "Don't try to use your fancy science terms on me Pony. In a flat out race in open Equestrian skies he and I are dead even. But whenever we come here? He's always pulling ahead. Cheating." Skye snorted and trotted lazily over to the open accessway. "Science." April sighed morosely, and squinted up into the vaguely acidic mist of raindrops. She pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders, as if the gesture would somehow make up for the thin worn nature of the fabric, and generate a small increase in trapped body heat. Sonya paced quietly behind her sister, glancing out over her shivering form every so often towards the roof of the building they had been tasked with observing. Night was falling, and she knew that they would have to find better shelter soon to avoid hypothermia. She turned to survey the landscape of the roof they had been assigned. She was so lost in thought that it took her almost three seconds to respond to April's insistent voice. "Sonya! Look! Look!" She spun around to see April, dancing on the edge of the roof, outstretched finger pointed at the building they had been instructed to protect. Sonya darted forward, and squinted into the rain. She expected to see some sign of attempted forced entry, or struggle, or sabotage. When she realized what she was actually seeing, she sighed and shook her head slowly. Three Gryphons, a Pegasus, and a Unicorn, had landed on the flat portion building's roof, and were conversing as two of them unlocked one of the access hatches. April stared down at the group, transfixed to the point that she seemed utterly immovable. As one of the Gryphons chuckled, she smiled wistfully, and turned to glance at her elder sister. Sonya knew what was coming before the words even left April's lips. "Come on! How bad could they really be? They seem so... Happy together... If we run now, we can catch them before they close the---" Sonya reached forward, and softly placed one finger on her sister's lips as her voice began to edge dangerously close to tones of hysteria. She placed an arm around her younger sibling's shoulders, and guided her gently towards the shelter of an air duct overhang, "It's going to be a long, cold, night." As she quietly followed Sonya into the relatively dry space, April did her best to hide the tears amongst the droplets of rain on her cheeks. "My God. You are a sight for sore eyes." Hutch grasped one of Fyrenn's forelegs firmly in a medieval style handshake, leaning forward into a warm half-embrace to complete the gesture. Fyrenn smiled widely. "The feeling is mutual. In more ways than you know." Hutch caught the implication in the Gryphon's tone, and took an abrupt step back. His eyes narrowed as his gaze swept across the rest of the party. "I've seen that look before. What have you gotten yourselves into this time?" Kephic shook his head, "Not just us." Varan inclined his head, "We are the bearers of dire and urgent news." The General sighed, and collapsed into his desk chair. "And here I thought I couldn't possibly find anything more pressuring than trying to move a gazillion people inside two months. Go on then. Fire away." Fyrenn edged towards the window to get himself some breathing room. Hutch's office was large, but not quite large enough to comfortably accommodate three Gryphons, two Ponies, and a Human, simultaneously. "The whole story is a lot longer, and more involved, than we have time to re-tell. But let's just say that in the course of chasing down some leads, we ended up in a very very thorny spot. In getting out of it, we came by some very very high level intelligence." Hutch leaned forward in his chair, and steepled his fingers, his tone dropping into a low octave that betrayed his concern readily. "Just what kind of intelligence are we talking about?" Fyrenn grimaced, "Nothing that will help you sleep any easier at night, I can promise you that." The red Gryphon paused, inhaling deeply. Hutch shifted uncomfortably, picking up on the group's somber mood as Fyrenn continued. "First, you have to understand something none of us saw coming. You remember a few years back when the HLF sent in a slew of infiltrators? " Hutch knit his brow, "You mean the gray-goo guys? The sole reason that every security-cleared non-Gryphon person in any sensitive position has to have a quarterly blood sample taken?" Kephic nodded, and allowed his tone to invite speculation as much as the words themselves. "Ever wonder how they came up with that technology?" The General shook his head slowly, "Some bastardized form of Potion, probably." Varan grunted, "If only." Hutch's eyes widened, "What are you suggesting?" Fyrenn sighed and pinched the bridge of his beak between two talons as he explained. "We're saying we have evidence... Definitive unquestionable evidence... That the HLF are working directly with the Changelings." The General sat back slowly. His eyes widened, and he let out a long, low whistle. "Damn." Carradan shrugged, "Yeah. That's one way of puttin' it." Hutch raised an eyebrow and held up a hand, "Wait, wait... Why would a self-proclaimed 'homo sapiens only' club decide to get into bed with a bunch of shape-changing aliens?" Fyrenn flared both wings slightly, "Well that's kind of obvious. Each has something the other wants, and their end goals are not mutually exclusive." Varan paced in the small space between the desk and the window, slowly but steadily continuing the thought. "Both the Swarm, and the Front, would like to see Celestia and Luna dead, and their kingdom reduced to ashes." Hutch leaned forward and pointed at the Gryphons, "Yeah, but you just said they had something that..." He abruptly sat back once more as realization finally dawned on him. "...Something that other wanted... Are you saying...?" Kephic finished the unspoken statement harshly, "That they're trading captive Ponies for the substances and intelligence information they need? Yes. That's exactly what we're saying." Hutch buried his head in his hands, groaning, "This changes everything... Everything we thought we knew about their tactics, their connections, their game plan..." Fyrenn sighed sympathetically, "Oh, we haven't even gotten to the bad news yet." The General raised his gaze, and twitched slightly, "There's more?" Skye muttered to herself morosely. "Like you would not believe." Astris reached out and brushed one hoof against the smooth gray surface. Martins smirked as she came to stand beside him. "Having a moment?" The Pony nodded slowly, "I... I just can't quite wrap my head around it. This thing that I'm touching... This machine... Was on the other side of the sky just this morning." Martins crossed her arms and nodded, "Earth to Neptune and back in six minutes." The pair stood in silence for several moments, gazing out at the Sylph. After return to Earth's sphere of influence, and a parachute-controlled splashdown in the southern Atlantic, the vessel had been craned aboard an immense cargo ship sent to retrieve it. Martins and Astris had arrived on the ship by VTOL mere minutes after the recovery crews had finished lashing the craft to the gargantuan multi-acre deck of the salvage boat. The Sylph would be returned to Africa for disassembly, testing, analysis, refit, and re-assembly. Martins hoped that the data would be encouraging. If it was, crewed flights might follow within months. Astris spoke, as if to voice her thoughts, "So much of your people's future is caught up in this ship. And what she has done." Martins nodded, "If we're lucky, she will validate everything we think... Everything we *hope* we know about faster than light travel. We're gambling the entire program on the results of this flight. We simply don't have enough time left to take any other course." Astris offered his friend a comforting smile, "Well Councilor, if what happened today was any indication, then luck seems to be with us." Martins raised an eyebrow, and placed both hands on her hips. "I don't believe in luck Astris." "Then what do you believe in?" The Pony cocked his head and squinted. Martins grinned once more, "Stubborn determination." Fyrenn sighed deeply as he flopped down onto the twin seats. The cabin of the aircraft felt somewhat small for a Gryphon, but it was long enough to accommodate the entire group without too much inconvenience. Most of the party had raised the arms between seat pairs, and elected to take up prone positions on the impromptu couches. Carradan was already snoring, and Skye looked as if she was having trouble keeping her eyes open, despite the fact that everyone had already spent nearly ten hours sleeping on the floor of Hutch's office. Fyrenn took a moment to glance around the airplane's cabin before resting his eyes on the open door to the cockpit. While it felt slightly cramped and spartan, whatever the Northrop Javelin lacked in comfort and luxury accoutrement, it more than made up for in pure unbridled speed. As a result of the vast fuel consumption rates of the twin ramjet engines, the Javelin was exclusively used as a military secure courier aircraft. Most were painted jet black with a lone orange, red, or green tail stripe, depending on which branch of the armed forces they were attached to, and what their primary mission was. Hutch had wasted no time in seeking the fastest mode of transit available when he had heard the news the group had come to deliver. With a maximum cruising speed of Mach 4.5, the Javelin fit the bill for the fastest non-spacecraft in existence. Though it had taken the General the better part of the night to secure the use of the plane, as well as several crates of standard issue JRSF combat gear, the Javelin's blistering speed meant that Vancouver was merely a one hour nap away. By Fyrenn's calculations, they would arrive just after dawn, local time. Kephic and Varan had already closed their eyes. For all Fyrenn knew, they were fast asleep. The red Gryphon lowered his head onto his forelegs, and allowed his eyes to droop to a half-closed position. He perked up his ears, and listened in as the pilot and co-pilot prepared for takeoff. As much as he wanted to squeeze rest out of as much of the flight as possible, he also wanted to indulge his aviation fascination. The pilot tapped her microphone twice. "Farmingdale Tower, Tango Seven Victor Two Three Three; Requesting priority departure clearance." "Roger Tango Seven, proceed to runway Thirty-Two Right and hold short, squawk three four three nine." Fyrenn twisted one ear to get a better angle on the sound of the engines, as the long, thin aircraft made its way down the taxiway. By the time the Javelin arrived at the runway, clearance had already been granted. "Tango Seven, cleared for priority departure, Thirty Two Right. Proceed heading two six zero and ascend to flight level six hundred, contact center for further vectors. You are cleared for takeoff." "Roger tower. Thirty Two Right; Departure pattern confirmed. Heading two six zero west, flight level six hundred before going supersonic, contact center for final vectors." The plane made a sharp turn onto the runway, and Fyrenn noted the distinctive click as the co-pilot pushed the throttle levers all the way up to their maximum subsonic setting. As the roar of the engines doubled, and doubled again, in volume, the plane began to speed down the runway, kicking up vast fantails of moisture from the night's rain showers. "V-one. Rotate." Fyrenn closed his eyes at the co-pilot spoke, shifting to adjust his position as the plane tilted back sharply, and rose into the night sky.