Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Shadow Tide

"Adam!"

"ADAM!"

He awoke to a distant muffled noise, an insistent sort of beeping that wouldn't go away coupled with a sort of roaring like he was standing next to a blast furnace. At first he thought that might be the case as he was hot, and getting hotter, but in his addled state of mind he couldn't think why he would be taking a nap next to a blast furnace.

Personally, it seemed like a very bad idea all things considered

"ADAM!"

WARNING CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE: RESTART ENGINES

He was so dizzy, and the dizziness wasn't going away, with every second it seemed to get worse as the heat rose.

"ADAM COME ON!"

Was that Sunny's voice, and she sounded in distress.

If there was anything in the universe that could get him to wake up, it was the sound of Sunny, a scared sunny, and that wasn't something that tended to happen very often. Adam's eyes flickered open, and when they did, he wasn't entirely sure he could make out what was happening. Lights flashed in his vision, and beyond that, everything was spinning in a kaleidoscope of fire and earth.

His head churned.

What was.

WARNING CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE: RESTART ENGINES

VELOCITY: 120 MILES PER HOUR, ALTITUDE 300 FEET

Altitude?

Velocity?

Huh, that was odd, he was pretty sure terminal velocity was about 120 mph give or take wind resistance most of the time. He just wished the world would stop spinning and- damn it was hot.

90 FEET

Why was,

Oh shit!

Adam turned holding his arms out to either side, and pulling himself out of a tumbling spin, the ground was fast approaching, or less the ground and more a burning lava field shedding sparks into the air, some of them high enough to catch on his clothing as he fell. The heat was incredible.

The ground was approaching fast.

"ADAM!!!!!"

WIth a roar his engines caught.

He slowed.

And shouted in pain as the heat around his legs rose to unbearable heat, one of his pant legs caught fire, and then he was rocketing back into the sky on a trial of golden light. When he was finally high enough, he reached down and batted at his pant leg quickly putting out the flames before they could do any real damage. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his breath was coming in slow, ragged gasps.

As far as burns were concerned, he couldn't be sure. His adrenaline was pumping so hard, he doubted he would have been able to tell, but at least the rest of him was in tact.

He was just going to have to pray to the Architect that he was fine. If he came back to the ship with a single scratch on him, Krill was probably going to beat him to death with a bedpan, which in his view was a pretty ignominious way to go.

He turned on the spot trying to find the facility from whence he had come, but he didn't see anything, just lava fields in all directions. He must have been blown partially off course during his flight. Inside his helmet Fealty helpfully provided a map for him dragging it onto screen in the guise of a little cartoon wolf. The animation was kind of cute, and he had never seen fealty do that before.