Fires of Mayar

**Fires of Mayar** is a plot undertaken jointly by Etzan and Orosaur.

## Story

Ryden Karlson yanked back the Skyranger’s control stick and jammed the throttle down as far as it would go. The world pitched upwards. Hell and smoke disappeared and for one stomach-turning moment there was nothing but open sky. The engines roared and shook. Ryden’s body sunk painfully into the leather of his seat. The aircraft slowed. Then, they were stationary and Ryden let them level out. The imperiled research station below gyrated into view again. He could barely see it, clouded as it was by white and gray smoke. Where was the fire? Ryden couldn’t see it, but he knew it was just at the foot of the ridge. They had to act fast.

“Hintzen Base, this is Skyranger 2, do you copy?” he said into the mic inside his suit helm.

“Hintzen Base, copy.”

“We’ve reached the Stanhelm Lab. We’re looking at it now.”

“How bad’s it looking?”

“Bad,” Ryden said, “I’d give the station maybe five—ten minutes before the—the fire gets to it. Visibility's bad. We’re looking for a place to land.”

"Copy that."

"You did good today, Doc."

By the time Ryden plunged his hands into the sink he had filled with water inside his trailer home, it was already dark outside. Just beyond the steel-girded fence of the Hintzen Forward Ranger Base, the wilds of Mayar brimmed with the sounds of the night: the rustling of leaves in a gentle wind, the chirping of insects, the echo of heavy footfalls in the distance. The Hintzen Base, or HRB as the rangers called it, was really nothing too special: a clump of prefab buildings mounted atop a hill connected by tunnels, a fence to keep the wild things out (good luck keeping the pterocoons away, though that's what rifles were for), a one-man watchtower connected to a radio, and an area cleared of vegetation where the Skyrangers could take off and land safely and the rangers crewing them could park their trucks and trailers.

"No kidding," Ryden, the forty-odd-year old bush pilot, said as he doused his face in water, scrubbing at the places where his mask had pressed against his skin and left behind a layer of stick, crimson, and sweat; the water hung thickly in the fading redness of his beard, tinged with grains of sandy-grey, "That your first time you rappelled down into fire like that?"

He reached for a towel.

"Yessir," the man in the jumpsuit behind him said, the front unzipped over a t-shirt.

"Couldn't see shit, is that right?"

"Not a goddess-damned thing."

"Did'ja land on your ass on the way down?"

"DOC!"

Ryden half-twisted around in the pilot's seat in an effort to get the Doctor's attention while still keeping the Skyranger steady, "DOC!—shit!" The Skyranger lurched slightly to the side.

"I got it! I got it!" his co-pilot said, and Ryden felt the controls right themselves and the craft steady.

"Y-yes! I'm here!"

Ryden caught a glimpse of the doctor in the rear compartment, flattened in his seat, legs splayed, hands gripping the mic box at his belt.

"You still with us, Frost?" Ryden said, "The hell you doing?"

"Sorry, couldn't find the mic."

"S'all right," Ryden said, reining in his anger. The man was clearly shell-shocked and it would do no good to rankle him further, "Doc, listen to me. I'm gonna have to send you down there by rappel."

"Can't we find someplace to land?!"

"We tried that, but we can't — too dangerous!" the co-pilot shouted.

"Doc!" Ryden gnashed his teeth together inside his mask, "Somebody's got injured down there, somebody's gotta fly this godsdamned thing, and I can't go down alone. It's gotta be you. C'mon, we're wasting time!"

The doctor looked startled.

"How did you know?"

Ryden turned around with a grin and wrung the towel through the thickness of his fingers, "With you outworlders rappelling down in your first fire season, I give you an eighty-twenty chance of landing flat on your ass."

Doctor Sebastian Frost's lips formed a flat line, but he couldn't help but laugh. The good doctor had short-cropped dark hair matted with sweat, a clean-shaven and handsome young face, and forever-peering eyes. Ryden never quite figured out why — the peering eyes made him look shifty and like he had a stick stuck up his ass as big as a Karian skyscraper from the world he came from. But Mayar had a way of humbling even the bravest men, and Frost had chosen — without needing to — to go on base during fire season. Most did it once, to say they did it, saw the dangers men like Ryden faced every day, and never came back again. This was Frost's second season. That was something worth respecting.

"It's my second season, Mr. Karlson," Frost said with a laugh.

"Then what the hell are you doing?" Ryden grinned a half-toothed grin, then beckoned him to use the sink, "Clean yourself up."

They opened two Karstbiers, maneuvered around the cramped interior of the trailer and sat down heavily at table, their jupsuits hanging limply from their waists and their shirts sticking wetly to their backs.

"So what'd you want to talk to me about?"

"It's about your daughter, sir," Frost said, nervously gathering his fingers together.

"Keri?" Ryden's face scrunched into a scowl, "Aw, come on, don't tell me."

"What?" Frost's eyes widened.

Ryden's finger went up in the younger man's face, "Don't tell me you banged up my daughter and you're here to ask if you can take her away — far from here — where—"

"What?!" Frost's cheeks had turned a bright red, his eyes wide with horror, his mouth agape, "I don't even know how —"

Ryden's eyebrow shot up.

"You're saying you wouldn't know where to stick it? How the fuck did you manage if you didn't know where to stick it?"

All air seemed to have left Frost's lungs and his mouth opened and closed, like a fish out of water.

"Sir — your daughter isn't an easy woman to get with."

Ryden crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes gleaming, his expression positively monstrous.

"What are you implying about my daughter now, young man? Is she not desirable to you? Is she not enough for you?"

"Yes, sir, but —"

"HA!" Ryden's fist came crashing down onto the table, "So you admit it!"

Doctor Frost leapt to his feet, marshaling whatever dignity he had left in the form of indignation and, red-faced, managed the words:

"Mr. Karlson, I'm a *professional.*"

The side of Ryden's mouth rose in a self-satisfied smirk, and he looked off to the side — then back to the Doctor. He smiled and shook his head.

"You should see your face, copain," he said, "Now, siddown. What about my daughter?"

Frost stood hovering over the table with an icy stare. His eyes fell, and he slowly sat back down.

“She came to me yesterday. She had been shot.”

“Shot?” Ryden repeated severely. Frost had his full, undivided attention, “Vengeful gods, man. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

Frost extended his hands as if to keep Ryden’s anger at bay.

“I’m sorry—I know. I arrived on base to tell you in person, but you roped me into the firefighting effort. You needed a doctor, and it seemed serious—“

“This is my *daughter,* Frost. How is she?”

“It wasn’t life-threatening; most gunshot wounds aren’t, and she got hit in the arm. Entry and exit wound. No broken bones, no...”

“What was the caliber of the bullet?”

“I don’t know,” a moment’s pause, “I patched her up, like she asked. She didn’t tell me what happened and she had that look like she’d kill me if I asked. I see that often enough, but Mr. Karlson, this is Keri we’re talking about. She’s still a child...”

Ryden had crossed his arms and was staring at the table in front of him.

“Did you know about this, sir?” Frost asked, his words laced with pain.

“No,” Ryden said, his voice having fallen several octaves, “I don’t know what in Rhya’s name she’s up to. Did she fly off again?”

Frost nodded.

“Damn.”