"Cole!" Daisu's voice roared over the ship's com system, garbling her name through a crackle of electrical interference. With so much interference they must be close to their destination, though why Daisu felt the need to scream at her—

An explosion rocked the ship, spilling her from her seat as her scanner smashed to the ground. Alarms peeled, piercing her sensitive ears. Through the high pitched whine of the ship's emergency bells, Cole heard the slam of the sectioned grid, metal walls designed to contain hull breaches.

"By the Veil, who's blowing holes in my ship?" She levered herself off the floor, running for the bridge as another crash knocked her feet out from under her. How could they be under attack? The mercenaries couldn't have found them already, they were days out from where they found the Per Pacem. Cole hugged the wall, scuttling along until she reached her destination. She threw herself through the door as another explosion caused the power systems to fluctuate. From the ground she saw Daisu hunched over the central console, scrambling to operate all of the ship's systems at once. No wonder he yelled for her.

She crawled to the nearest console, the readout on the screen sending a stab of dread through her gut. Their pursuer appeared to be a Nisseri Scrapper, a salvage vessel that targeted the dead floaters, picking them over for spare parts. It surprised her to encounter one here. The Nisseri gave Mal'th a wide berth since their corrupted technology attributed to the planet's current condition.

Whatever their reason for risking the planet's volatile atmosphere, this was clearly not the first Ark the Nisseri had encountered. Their first shot took out the ship's weapons systems, while the next hammered on the shields over the propulsion drive. A couple more good hits and the Per Pacem would be defenseless.

She went to stabilize the shields first and discovered the automatic controls maintaining the ship's basic functions, like shields and life support, were offline. Daisu operated everything manually.

"I'll take over the ship functions," Cole looked up, catching a flicker of annoyance on her friend's face as he attempted to shift partial control to her. She knew the moment he succeeded as the snarky comment reached her ears.

"So good of you to join me," he said through his teeth, his arm muscles straining as he pulled on the manual control, forcing the massive Ark to veer out of the path of the Nisseri blast. The ship rattled and Daisu spat a stream of curses as he tried to correct course.

"Blasted sonic cannons, how can they even function this far off?" Daisu snarled, punching commands into the console.

Cole registered the information. "They wouldn't unless they had some sort of gravity field to pull from." She scanned the area around them, searching for an answer. "There's an asteroid belt between us and the planet, scans didn't initially pick it up because—"Cole gasped, her eyes wide. "Daisu we can't go through it."

"We're running out of options here."

"The debris is too small. It will riddle this ship with holes." The belt of rock and dust was a deadly barrier, the asteroids were too small to avoid, and too large to simply break apart against the ship's shields. Coupled with the light gravity field the cluster gave off, their bulky vessel would be shredded.

Daisu went silent, staring at the faint discoloration of the field against the stars. Through the belt, Mal'th sat, half shadowed by its nightly rotation, the violent volcanic atmosphere a swirl of black and red at this distance.

"Cole," his voice was so quiet. "Strap down."

She would never see the Veil again. Cole buckled herself into the chair's harness; her fingers fumbled with the latch. She couldn't watch the approaching disaster, her eyes focusing on Daisu's calm face, his body relaxed. Always so calm in these situations, the perfect soldier, so far from the parbreed youth she met long ago. Memory shifted, dragging her from the moment.

"Cole'th?" Her father's tone was beyond irritated. This was the fifth time she'd disappeared amid the trees of the atrium this week. Her father threatened to raze the place if she continued, but it was an empty threat. He would never hurt her so, though he insisted on introducing her to every half wit noble's son who came calling.

Of course the visiting nobles brought their spoiled whelps, the prospect of scoring a marriage to the ambassador's daughter was a political advantage they couldn't resist. Never mind she was barely fifty cycles old, her body hadn't reached maturity yet. All the noble's sons were easily twice her age or older. Disgusting.

"Cole'th!" His voice was much further away now, which meant she could relocate to a better hiding spot to wait out the visitors. She started to climb down, snagging her skirts on a branch with a ghastly rip. Cole cursed, thudding her forehead against the smooth bark of the Calyip tree. Hiding her father could forgive, but wrecking another expensive dress would bring down his wrath. Now she had to try and untangle the fabric without making the tear worse.

A chuckle reached her ears, not from below, but above. She craned her neck around in disbelief, catching sight of the darkest green eyes she'd ever seen, glinting with mirth through the foliage. How had she not noticed someone there?

"Go on, keep laughing. Snot." Cole grumbled, wincing as the tear grew another inch. The branches shifted, revealing a boy.

"Let me help you," he said in a deep voice that didn't match his smooth face. Cole stared in open mouth fascination as he descended. She thought the boy a Fey until the light hit his face, delicate sloping features giving away his parentage, a parbreed. She'd never seen one up close. His movements didn't belie his human half, the boy slid to her without so much as a rustle of leaves. How did he move like that?

On level with her, he grinned, giving her a formal bow that looked absolutely ridiculous hanging from a tree. "Greetings Noble Hirskirt, may I assist you?" The thick accent of the capital added a twang to his words. This close, she could see the strong angle of his jawline, his thick eyelashes. His age was impossible to gage, he might be younger than her or older, the way parbreeds aged.

"Could you untangle my dress from this branch? My father would be indebted to you." Her eyes darted around, certain mention of the dress would bring him running. The boy raised a brow, reached over and snapped the branch from the tree. Cole frowned. "Well, that was painfully practical of you."

He nodded, his expression sober. "My mother says it's a terrible fault. No woman will want a man with so much common sense." He winked.

Cole giggled, taking a good look at the boy. Her father hadn't mentioned such an interesting visitor today. He couldn't possibly be a noble's son, they had no sense of humor. "What's your name."

"Daisuke Malik, my Noble," he said with another formal bow of his head. Cole gaped at him.

"As in the son of Kaito Malik?"

"Grandson actually, my noble."

Cole rapped her knuckles on his shoulder. "Enough of that formality garbage, Cole is fine. How long have you been up here?"

Daisuke grinned at her. "Saw you up here while your father was looking for you."

"Wait, you were above me," she peered at him.

"Yes, you were very distracted."

Cole smiled, seeing what treasure she'd stumbled upon. "Can you teach me to do that?"

"Brace yourself!" Daisu shouted, right before forcing the ship to veer downward, the angle so sharp it made the joints groan. At the same moment a whump emanated from the back of the ship as Daisu spun the Ark in a fluid loop she didn't think the ancient engine could pull off.

The loop continued, centripetal force plastering her to her seat as the Ark spun beneath the asteroid belt, using the same gravity field the Nisseri powered their weapons with to pull them along in a curved trajectory. The Nisseri scrapper was not so fortunate, careening into the belt. The debris punched through their hull, the rapid decompression of the ship's inner atmosphere crumpling it into a ragged ball seconds before their propulsion drive exploded. A silent shock wave slammed into the Per Pacem in a terrifying internal screech of metal.

Cole closed her eyes, certain the Ark would rip itself apart as it rent out of its projected path, veering out of control towards Mal'th. She heard Daisu yelling over the pop and sizzle of the Ark's exposed wiring.

"Cole, I order you to re-engage the gravity drive." Daisu's command shoved through her terror, forcing her eyes open. The console feebly pulsed in front of her, power somehow still on. She couldn't breathe, but her fingers moved, entering the command. She looked up into the mouth of hell.

Mal'th filled the screen, its sky aflame from smoke and ash belching into the air from the planet's numerous volcanic vents. The Per Pacem's hull sparked against the atmosphere. Daisu wrenched on the controls, the ship quaking as it tried to obey his command.

Abruptly the shaking ceased, the Ark settling into a smooth flight. Cole was too stunned to move. They were alive. Daisu whooped, tearing out of his harness. He unbuckled her, gripping her shoulders.

"It's over," he told her, gently prying her fingers off the side of her chair. She launched herself at him, wrapping her arms so tight she heard him oof as the air left his lungs. Served him right.

"You are utterly insane." She growled at him, her limbs continuing to shake. "What did you do to the Nisseri?"

She could hear the smugness in his tone. "Jettisoned one of the cargo bays. Flew right into the debris, they couldn't correct in time."

"Yes well, their exploding ship nearly killed us."

"Nonsense, I knew what I was doing the whole time."

Cole said nothing as she pulled away and swung, her fist connecting with the side of his stubborn, idiotic face.

Daisu rubbed his jaw, clearly unphased. "Yeah, alright, I'll go see how much damage we took." He made his way past her, pausing when she grabbed his arm.

"Thank you, for bringing us through this alive."

"I thought you had complete confidence in me," he teased. "Next time you could at least pull your punch."

Cole let go of him with a sniff. "I do have confidence in your skills. This makes me feel better."