48

They're…they're all dead," Vecla says. Then the airship screams and twists in midair, threatening to rip itself apart.

"Then we'd better become pilots right now!" Alexius says.

You race up the swaying steps to the wheel, a crude apparatus of local wood lashed to the steering mechanism, and hold on for dear life as the forest rushes up toward you.

"Port twenty-two degrees," a controller says, her voice calm and in her element as the other units swarm over the lines.

She's steering you between two rocky outcroppings, and though it's not clear if you'll fit, you crank the wheel and feel the rough wood bite into your hands.

Treetops lash the doomed airship as you try to cling to the crude wheel, but at the last moment it tears free of your grasp and frantically spins around. People scream as the airship comes down hard. A controller tumbles past you and shatters like a thrown bottle against a mast. You hit the deck and for a moment lose consciousness.

But it's only a moment. Somehow, you're still alive, and looking around, you see everyone else is as well. The airship is sideways but substantially intact.

"Well," Alexius says, "that wasn't as bad as—"

Then the airship's engine explodes.

You manage to get everyone off the ruined vessel before fire consumes it, but then you can only watch as the airship, its irreplaceable cargo, and the corpses of its insane occupants burn.

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