[1.1] Limit Break

Silence in the lobby, and all the airships docked for the night, their cargo processed – all of them, save one. Outside, the sun set in a profusion of amber and gold.

Four dozen pilots, crew members, and mechanics crowded the status platform as Camilla Rosen uploaded the flight data of the Camalus to the two main screens. A digital array of graphs and wildly fluctuating percentages appeared, and an even greater hush blanketed the room. Even the service staff stopped their chores at the periphery of the hall, turning their attention to the usually lively spectator's lounge. Not only was this a possibly record-breaking flight, but also a possibly fatal one.

Camilla keyed herself into the Camalus’ onboard computers and touched the radio button on her headset.

“How are you on fuel?” she asked quietly, turning and walking unnoticed to a spot to the side of the platform.

“Why do you ask? You can see it, can’t you?”

Yes, she could. The fuel gauge was but one of the many ominous readouts flashing across the screens, along with real-time reports of particle-pressure, shield status, engine strength, full operating capacity, and of course, turbine capacity – the number the audience was certainly paying the most attention to as the Camalus sped through the Triskan Monument Storm in mind-boggling formations.

“I mean,” she said quietly, “what do you think? Can you do it?”

He had less than 20% fuel left.

Particle pressure to the airship’s body was at 35% and building.

The lumia shields were on their last legs.

And the sound of the engine firing when he gunned it nearly blew out her headset.

“Sure,” said Conlan Sterling, primary pilot of the Efferis Fortress fleet.

On screen, the operating capacity graph maxed out.

But turbine capacity was at 234, and the record was only 61 nodes of lumia away.