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Partch groaned. A shot caught them, burning across the wing, inflicting light damage and giving the Longsword a worrying wobble. The atmosphere was thinner now but they still hadn’t broken free of Reach’s gravitation.

“How long until we reach our rendezvous?” asked Soren.

Teach gave a hearty laugh. “Astronav is unstable after that hit,” he said. “I can’t say that we’re likely to go anywhere we want at all, even once we’re free of the planet’s gravity.”

“Oh God, oh God,” said Partch. “We’re going to die!”

“We’ll have to turn back,” said Soren. “Teach, let them know we surrender.”

A blow caught them from behind, spinning the craft almost all the way around. Black smoke, Soren realized, was billowing around them.

“Never surrender,” said Teach, his hologram flickering. “Besides, too late for that. Systems are being shut down before they go critical. A pleasure knowing you, lads.”

He vanished. The lights flickered and went out. The craft spun and spiraled, slowly stabilizing. Then gravity began to sink its claws into it and it started down.

“Buckle in,” said Soren to Partch. Backup power kicked in, stuttered once, then went out again. He flicked the controls over to manual. The engines were gone but, unlike some of the other USNC spacecraft, the Longsword had enough of a wingspan that he might manage to bring it down even without the engines. The flaps he could manually control—at least in theory. He’d never flown one before, but he’d flown sims of the Longsword’s various predecessors and variants, back when he was a Spartan, and crash-landing was one of the scenarios. It should work. With a little luck, they might even survive.

HE ENGAGED manual, grabbed hold of the stick with both hands, and pulled back, trying to level the craft out and bring it down as softly as he could. The fighters behind him were no longer firing, able, no doubt, to see that the Longsword was in trouble.

They were going faster now, a slow whine building around the aircraft. It was hard to hold the stick in place. Partch, he saw, was passed out from fear, g’s, or a combination of both.

They were just above the clouds now, then moving down and through them, the Longsword buffeted back and forth by odd crosswinds. He let the craft settle a little further until they burst out of the bottom of clouds, and then he banked, trying to get a clear view of what was around them. Kilometers of farmland in most directions, more inhabited towns and districts in others, but there, in the distance, almost out of sight, a shimmer of green that he hoped was one of Reach’s vast swathes of deciduous forest.

“Teach,” he said, “Any life left in you?”

There was no response. He would have to try to eyeball it, figure out how to come down in a way that would get him close enough to the forest for a quick escape while still letting him land on open ground.

He circled once and saw the pursuing ships still there, just coming through the clouds now, hanging back a little distance, waiting. He pointed toward the green line and started down.

He was, he quickly realized, too high, but better too high than too low. He dipped and corrected. There, that was more or less right. Yes, he saw as they came closer, definitely forest. He’d have to come very close and then try to bring the Longsword along its edge, keep it there more or less once they hit the ground. Then, if he survived the crash, he’d simply disappear.

Lower now. Nearly able to make out individual trees. This was the tricky part, banking just right and then correcting and then descending, trying to keep it all straight. Partch awake and screaming now. Ignore it if you can, he told himself. No, not quite, coming in too close to the trees. Starting away again, but too late, the wing clipping the treetops and starting to come asunder. Out of control now, shaking and shuddering, the craft falling to pieces around him. An engine torn free and crashing through trees as if they were toothpicks. Hold on, Soren, he thought, hold on. One part of his mind was screaming, screaming.