Above Mount Clear Sky, the rest of the Great Yan fleet was falling into panic.
Eleven vice-admirals and nearly three hundred formation masters crowded around their scrying screens. Below them, the Sun-Slayer lay grounded between two chalk lines. Its main power line was severed, its steering wheel was firewood, and its supreme commander was covered in dog drool.
The fleet’s shared communication channel filled with shouting.
“THE FLAGSHIP IS DOWN! A THREE-HEADED DEMON HAS BOARDED HER!”
“THE BUILDER USED THE SACRED COMET CANNON TO COOL HIS WORKSHOP!”
“HE GAVE ADMIRAL MENG A TWENTY PERCENT PARKING DISCOUNT!”
“Vice-Admiral Zhao, take command! Do we fire the broadsides?”
“Are you insane? He still has the citation pencil! If we burn the lodge, he will fine our ancestors for illegal emissions!”
“ALL SHIPS, DISENGAGE! RETURN TO THE CAPITAL!”
The eleven remaining dreadnoughts turned north. Their hulls groaned as engine crews pushed the crystal keels beyond their safe limits. Turquoise exhaust streamed across the clouds as the ships climbed toward the northern pass.
On the plaza, Austin lowered his clipboard.
“Leaving the scene of an active citation,” he muttered. “No proof of registration or insurance. Speeding through a restricted residential approach. That’s another moving violation and a mandatory court appearance.”
He took a slow breath.
Inside his dantian, the comet frost had finished circulating through the containment mesh. The sudden cooling had tightened the magnetic fields around his core, compressing the stellar fire.
The core answered with a surge.
KAAAAAA-BOOOOOOM!
Warmth spread through Austin’s ribs. Brass fanfare sounded as new text filled his vision.
“Level fifty-two. Six million degrees. Seven hundred and fifty petawatts.”
Forty new fragments snapped into orbit around his legs.
Click-click-snap!
Three hundred and twenty pieces of glass, steel, copper, and golden plasma now spun in five rings.
His gravity field rose from twenty-five to twenty-eight G. The plaza tiles groaned beneath him. Loose nails, washers, and bolts skittered across the stone toward his boots.
On the porch, Jiang Taixu fell flat as the gravity wave pressed his beard into the boards.
“The Second Stage of the Celestial Sun!” he gasped. “Even my spiritual sea is bowing toward his legs!”
Austin looked up at the fleeing warships.
“Controlled Coronal Mass Ejection. An aimed magnetic plasma pulse.” He rested the wrench on his shoulder. “Let’s check your spark grounding specs, boys.”
He planted his boots and opened the containment mesh’s bypass channels.
There were no hand signs or chants.
BOOOOOOM!
A thin golden-violet pulse burst from his chest and flashed across the sky.
It passed through the fleeing fleet in a heartbeat.
VZZZZZZT-CRACKLE!
Every shortcut in the imperial ships’ design failed at once.
The ancient crystal engines had no shielding, surge protection, or isolated grounding. The magnetic pulse induced a massive voltage spike in their control systems.
Sparks sprayed from helm consoles. Scrying crystals burst. Waxed wiring smoked behind the wooden panels.
Under each hull, the turquoise engine runes flared purple and went dark.
[CRITICAL: MAGNETIC SURGE IN FLIGHT SYSTEMS]
[LEVITATION COILS OFFLINE]
[CRYSTAL MATRIX SHUT DOWN]
[EMERGENCY GLIDE MODE ENGAGED]
Without their engines, the iron ships should have fallen straight out of the sky.
Instead, their broad hulls and wide stabilizers caught the mountain air. The old shipwrights had built them to survive battle damage, and that solid construction now saved eleven hundred lives.
The armada entered an unpowered glide.
WHOOOOOOOOSH.
Like eleven enormous iron geese, the warships banked into a wide spiral above the eastern ridge. Mountain updrafts supported their hulls and guided them toward the long gravel terraces.
One by one, they leveled off twenty feet above the ground.
Their landing skids struck the pea gravel.
THUD... SKIDDDDD.
Each ship cut two straight furrows, slid for four hundred yards, and stopped parallel to the access road.
Three minutes later, all eleven sat in a neat row beside the crippled Sun-Slayer. They were spaced thirty feet apart and aligned with the white parking lines.
No one had died. No hull had broken open. Every major frame had held.
The Imperial Armada had been pulled over and parked by one magnetic pulse.
Austin watched the dust settle and nodded.
“Twelve unregistered vessels grounded. Zero casualties. All within the designated overflow lot.”
He walked to the supply shed and returned with a heavy handcart. Twelve safety-yellow steel clamps were stacked on its bed.
Heavy-Duty Commercial Wheel Clamps.
Austin stopped beside the control bunker and tapped one with his wrench.
CLANG.
“Tie Kuang!”
The blacksmith hurried out. “Yes, Master Chu?”
“Bring the half-inch impact wrench and deep sockets. We’re putting a boot on every landing skid before the registered owner arrives to dispute the tow.”
Jiang Taixu stared at the yellow steel jaws.
“Grand Senior, are those the Soul-Locking Shackles of the Netherworld?”
“They’re Denver boots. Hardened alloy steel, rated for eighty thousand pounds of shear. If they try to power the ships with these attached, they’ll tear their own engine mounts out. Cutting them off without permission is a felony.”
Austin lifted an eighty-pound clamp onto his shoulder and started down the path.
“Grab the hoses and notices, boys. Let’s go boot a navy.”