“Sera, secondary shield is up. We’re good to proceed.” Bella says, flipping the sphere case shut with the flick of a finger.

Sera glances over her shoulder at the lieutenant, hands clenched around the wheel. They’re approaching what they believe to be Aranek’s capital from the east, using the wind fresh off the name ocean to speed them in. Yesterday morning they had at last entered the airspace over Aranek, and had been working their way steadily inward since then. They’ve passed over a handful of cities, each quieter than the last, but late last night they’d spotted lights weaving between roads and forests. They didn’t recognize the things, but they were obviously transporting something, and something they didn’t want anyone to know about. She’d be able to trace their movement onto one of the Navs room maps, and it seemed that most of them were headed to this one area, so now they followed the route themselves, hoping to find something more than they had encountered so far.

Unfortunately, if this was a central city, most likely they’d have some means of detecting even ships that had their primary shields up. Fortunately, Bella was perception-based, so on top of their secondary shield, she would be able to, hopefully, further conceal them from discovery.

As they broached the hill line, a massive network of roads and buildings spread out below them like a gigantic maze. Here, here things were different.

“We safe to go in lower?”

“One way to find out.”

Sera signaled to Tully and Mel and almost immediately Skaoi began her smooth descent. As they sail directly over head the outer edges of the city, Sera can see what looks suspiciously like a parade square, and more of those blockish transports. She brightens the light illuminating it just slightly, poking it into shadows, around corners, and the image that presents is horrifying. She gasps, and hears it echoed by the others, and what the hell are they going to do?

Soldiers, they can only be soldiers, are loading into the transports, which are moving out of the square in a constant stream or movement. She can see them spreading out down the streets and out of the city, into the forests, where they disappear from view, and there are more, many more, to take their place.

And then they have flown out of sight of it, and there are more horrors to greet them. More transports are being loaded here, but not with people. She doesn’t recognize what exactly is being loaded, but anything that colorless can’t be something good. What ever they are, they’re metal and shining in the sun, and the people handling them are being very careful, and that’s never a good sign.

Someone far below them is shouting, and they’ve seen enough.

“We’re turning back!” Sera yells, and her throat is tight, and her eyes are prickling, and she thinks maybe she’s terrified.

Previous: Scene 5-III

Scene 5-IV

Next: Scene 5-V