“They’ve overridden his system,” Matt said. “He can’t shoot.”
“I’m going in,” Rylen said. “I’ve got the ICBM.”
I’m sorry, but what the actual hell did he just say?
“Fite,” Sean said. “Hold on, man.”
“There’s no other way, sir. And you know it.”
“Going in?” I asked. “What is he talking about?”
Sean’s response was grave. “He’s got an intercontinental ballistic missile on board.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“A nuclear weapon,” Matt said. I made a choking sound. This could not be happening.
“We put it on his ship as a last resort,” Sean told me.
“But he can’t even shoot anything,” I said.
“It can be detonated by a remote location.”
We stared as Rylen’s ship began to gravitate toward the master ship’s belly and upward.
“No,” I whispered, then cried, “Rylen, get out of there!”
“It’s opening its hatch for him,” Matt said. “Maybe we can shoot.”
That was the most helpless moment of my life. The man I loved was flying a fucking spaceship right into the mouth of a monster. Other jets circled the vessel at a distance, but Sean told them to stand down.
“Damn it, his craft is right in the way of the opening. We can’t get a missile past without hitting his ship. It’s all on him now.”
“—ontrols—dow—” Rylen said. “—aking me in.”
Matt shook his head. “Controls are down? They’ve taken over his system completely.”
I held the heavy binoculars and couldn’t stop watching. Why? Why did he have to play the hero? There had to be another way. If he’d just given us another minute to think. But now he was being sucked toward the underbelly of their ship like a magnetic beacon.
“We have to get him off there,” I said, desperate.
“What can we do?” Matt said. “We can’t fire again with his ship that close.”
“His ship is aligning with theirs,” Sean said.
My body became heavy. So heavy. I didn’t know how I was still standing.
“The master vessel is lifting,” Matt said, and he was right. I thought it was a trick of my eyes, but as it pulled Rylen’s ship upward, it got higher in the sky, like it was going to take off.
I couldn’t stop staring. Rylen’s ship was halfway inside the belly, and I was more than halfway to a breakdown. I had to raise my binoculars as the two vessels raised upward. And then I squinted. The bottom of Rylen’s small ship had something dangling from it.
“What is that?” I asked. Then the dangling thing fell.
“He’s jumping!” Matt yelled. “But he’s too low for his chute to open!”
It happened so fast. Rylen, dropping like a dot in the sky, then his chute opening partway and him sailing down out of sight. It didn’t fully open. My stomach clenched. The Baelese mother vessel closed its belly around the smaller ship and shot heavenward.
I dropped the binoculars and grabbed my medic bag.
