The Learjet hovered in place, its landing gear a foot off the ground. Sasha gave it a shove, and it drifted a foot before stopping again, perfectly level. “There we go. That’s what I’m talking about! Nice and stable.”
Duncan chuckled wryly, back in their cracked-crystal form now that the Moon had risen. “Took a few tries. But it should balance itself now. What about when you want to maneuver? It’ll fight you.”
“If it’s active. We won’t need it while flying, except maybe to extend the range. I doubt they have tanks of jet fuel waiting for us in the Disney parking lot.”
Duncan waved their hand with a soft creak of shifting crystal. “Taken care of. Your fuel tanks are self-refilling while the Moon is up.”
“Sweet! Are you ready? Our takeoff slot is in fifteen, we should get out to the taxiway.”
Duncan patted their crystals into a slightly more humanoid shape. “It’ll do.”
Sasha chuckled. “Don’t worry, you look fine. Your wife’s not going to care, as long as you’re there.”
Duncan sighed and nodded. “You’re probably right. Hard to believe it’s almost over.”
“Set her down and let’s get aboard.”
Soon they were idling on the taxiway, and not much later they got clearance for takeoff and were soon soaring into the air. The US border was not far away, and they were still climbing as they hit it. Duncan tensed up, but nothing happened.
“You okay?”
“Just worried about the border spell. Apparently I’m allowed in. Or the mess last night broke it.”
“Good.”
A little later, Sasha frowned at the radar display. “I’ve got four Washington Air Guard planes on approach.”
Duncan tensed, crystals grating together unpleasantly. “They were fucking warned. We see them. They’re... not headed toward us?”
“Nah, they’re doing some kind of figure eight track that keeps them pointed away at all times. Let’s see if I can raise them on the radio.”
After a little back and forth, Sasha started to chuckle. “Apparently they figure you’re good for your threat, they were trying very hard to not look threatening. They’re up here because they want to fly as an honor guard for you.”
Duncan relaxed, crystals slumping in the seat. “Oh. That’s good, I guess... why?”
Sasha relayed the question. “They say you won the war. There was a war last night?”
“Yeah. Half the world died, didn’t you hear? Of course, you should see the other guys. Oh right, you can’t. They’re all dead.”
Sasha stared at Duncan for a long time. “Holy hell. And you were...”
“I fought and killed millions of demons then helped sterilize their homeworld.”
“So the fuckers are all dead?”
“Yep.”
“Good.”
Sasha was quiet for a bit. “Oh, right. You okay if they fly beside us to the Oregon border? Apparently there’s a team that’ll meet us there, and a couple in California.”
Duncan winced. “We owe a few of the latter an apology. Yes, go ahead.”
The fighters formed up sharply around the Learjet. Duncan watched them, still not sure what to make of it. “I don’t deserve this kind of attention.”
“Did you not just say you single handedly won the war?”
“Wasn’t alone,” muttered Duncan.
“You were still in the thick of it, fighting. You’re not the only one who didn’t come home the same.”
Duncan tilted their head to look at Sasha. “What do you mean?”
Sasha stared determinedly forward as the plane droned through the sky. After a while, he sighed and started to speak. “Lot of pilots come up through the forces. I’m no exception. Not that what I went through is any comparison at all... I never had to fire a shot, never took a life. But we were all prepared to, should it come to that. Couple of the guys I flew with had been in Somalia when that went down.”
“The whole Black Hawk Down thing?”
Sasha chuckled wryly. “Sure, you remember the movie.”
“It’s referenced in a song that’s still stuck in our head, despite everything else that’s missing. Never saw the movie. Or at least, we don’t remember watching it. May have read about it.”
“Odd. Anyway, they weren’t big on talking about it, but once in a while, when drunk enough... Sounds like it was hell on Earth.”
Duncan snorted. “Until last night, we’d have agreed.”
“Okay, yes, literal demons and all that. Psychologically, it wounds you to do what they did. What you did.”
“What was done to us was worse. Damage to the mind, the...” Duncan hesitated.
“Soul?” asked Sasha.
“Demons destroy souls. We did something terrible and necessary, and put our soul away for safekeeping while we fought. And now it’s stuck there until next month.”
“Ouch. Want to talk about it? It’s a long flight...”
Duncan sighed softly, a gentle creak of crystal on crystal. “There isn’t much to say. A person without a soul is incomplete. An essential part – the most important part – is missing. We have no idea how dangerous it is, but our most trusted peer thinks it’s a terrible idea. But she had no better alternative. We should probably turn ourselves off for the next month, like she did, but...”
“Too much still to do,” finished Sasha.
“Yeah.”
“Look. The world will still be here next month. Really it will. How much can you do without the Moon?”
“More than you’d think... but in the bigger scale of things, not that much.”
Sasha set the autopilot and leaned back in his chair. “Then let the world do its thing for a while. You’ve done more than your share.”
The droning of the engines was the only sound for quite some time as Duncan chewed on that. Sasha seemed content with the silence, broken by the occasional radio communication. Before long they were at the Oregon border, and handing off to another flight of fighters.
Duncan shook their head. “We still find this... alarming, befuddling. We did not grow up immersed in military culture. To be honored like this feels very odd.”
Sasha chuckled warmly. “Get used to it. Any vet finds themselves in a bar with you, you won’t be buying your own drinks.”
“Such an odd thing...”
“Don’t let it go to your head. You seem like a good person. Dave spoke well of you. But don’t turn humility into... whatever this is. You did something amazing, and only a few people will ever understand what it cost.”
Duncan nodded, and watched the scenery go by. They tried waving to the planes in formation around them, but the pilots’ attention was focussed on keeping their planes in position at what was, to them, an unusually low speed.
This time the silence stretched on until they were approaching Disneyland. “We’re going to need that hover soon. They say they’ve marked out a spot for us with flares, hopefully it’ll be obvious enough when we get there.”
Duncan stirred from their reverie, and nudged a little power to the enchantment. “You’d probably like an actual control for this.”
“It would help, yes.” Sasha indicated a narrow blank spot next to the throttle. “Is that enough space?”
A gem-marked slider appeared there. “Forward is full lift, rear is off. Simple enough? The gem illuminates to show if you have enough power.”
Sasha slowly engaged the lifter, and nodded. “Nice and stiff, won’t hit that by accident.”
As they approached the parking lot, Sasha lowered the landing gear and reduced throttle. They circled a few times, bleeding speed until they were drifting along like a leaf on the wind. Gently lowering the lift factor brought them to a slightly ungentle landing, but still well-absorbed by the shocks. “Thank you for flying Air Sasha, you may disembark when ready.”
Duncan flew from the plane, not even bothering with niceties like the door when direct teleportation was so much faster. Waiting at the edge of the parking lot was a small cluster of figures. Duncan moved toward them slowly, wonderingly. The little ones were held back by two familiar, older adults.
Sidney moved forward hesitantly to meet her husband. “Is that really you? You look different.”
“I might have gotten a little dinged up along the way.”
“A little? You think? What is it with this broken crystal look?”
Duncan’s crystals squealed as they shrugged. “It’s what we can manage right now.”
“No. You’re supposed to be a shining perfect crystal. That’s who you are, not... this.”
“We don’t remember how.”
Sidney shook her head. “How can you not know what a singular crystal is like?”
“We are broken, and reflect it.”
“No. You are my shining perfect crystal. I wish...”
“Honey, you know what that does...”
“I wish you were whole again.”
And just like that, they were. A shining, perfect crystal settled into Sidney’s hand. Dia breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”