Inside the Silverwing, the mood was tense. Jonah was awake, his mind clear, but his body felt disconnected from his mind. The strange sense of other Weavers was a constant itch in the body, reminding him of the powerful group Sterling was putting together.

But they had a more immediate problem. They were stranded.

"So, we're stuck," Jonah said, looking at the image of their world on the main viewer. It looked peaceful from up here. It was hard to believe a war was happening on its surface.

Ariana stood next to him, with her arms folded and a serious look on her face. "Not stuck," she corrected. "Trapped."

She brought up a new holographic display. It showed a glowing grid of golden light that covered the entire planet. "Sterling's regime has activated a global orbital defense grid," she explained. "Any unauthorized ship attempting to enter the atmosphere will be met with force. My ship is powerful, but it not a warship. They would shoot us out of the sky before we even got close to the planet."

Vanessa, who had been running diagnostics on a nearby console, looked up from her work. "So we can't go down. And we can't stay up here forever. Our supplies won't last for long."

"Which leaves us with only one option," Ariana said, her eyes turning to Jonah. "A high risk option."

She brought up another image on the screen. It was a schematic drawing of her own ship, the Silverwing. In the middle of it was a swirling sphere of energy. "My ship's core runs on a principle my people call channeled starlight," she explained. "It is a pure, refined form of energy, drawn from a star and stabilized by powerful runic matrices."

She then pulled up the drawings for Nomad's power core, which was currently inactive. The two images, one of pure, controlled light, the other of raw, biological potential, were completely opposite.

"I believe," Ariana said in a calm voice "that we can link my ship's core with Nomad's own. We can do a direct energy transfer. A jump start."

Vanessa stared at the two drawings, her mind moving fast as she ran different simulations at once. "The energy differential is a lot," she said, her voice showing strong worry about the technical side of the plan. "Ariana, your core's output is stable. Nomad's is… chaotic. A direct transfer of that size could overload and permanently destroy Nomad's core. We'd be killing it for good."

It was a terrible risk. If they failed, they would not only lose their only way home, but Jonah would suffer a psychic backlash that he might not survive a second time.

But Jonah was looking at the two images, and he felt… something. A connection. He remembered the spark of starlight the ancient dragon had placed in his soul. The Dragon's Star-Chart.

"I can do it," he said, his voice low but firm.

Vanessa and Ariana both turned to him.

"The Dragon's gift," he tried to explain, "it wasn't just a key. It was… a language. A way to understand cosmic energy." He looked at the spinning, golden light of the Silverwing's core. "I can feel it. It's the same power, just… refined. I can act as a bridge. I can use the Star-Chart to calm the energy, to translate it into a form that Nomad can accept."

It was an insane idea. He would be placing himself between a star and a living galaxy, acting as a human transformer for an impossible amount of power. If he made even the smallest error, if his focus dropped for a moment, his mind could be destroyed, leaving him powerless.

But when he looked at their faces and saw how much they desperately hoped for this, despite the huge risk, he understood this was the only choice they had.

Ariana looked closely at him for a long moment. She saw the confidence in his eyes, the deep understanding of his own power. And then she nodded slowly. "I believe you."

"I guess we have a plan now," Vanessa said, her own face set with a grim determination. "But there's a problem." She pointed at the Silverwing's schematic drawings. "To channel that much power, you will have to divert everything. Including the Life support and Navigational systems. And… shields too."

They didn't say anything after, yet they all understood what hadn't been said.

"For the duration of the procedure," Ariana finished, her voice showing no emotions., ""we will have no power or systems running. A perfect target."

She looked at Jonah, then at Vanessa. "The transfer will take ten minutes. Ten minutes where we won't be able to do anything to protect ourselves."

Jonah took a deep breath. "Let's do it."

Ariana moved to the captain's chair at the front of the bridge. "All hands," she said, her voice being heard all over the small ship. "Prepare for full power diversion to the main reactor on my mark. Seal all bulkheads. Emergency life support only."

Vanessa was already at her console, her fingers moving fast across the keyboard, preparing to connect her own systems with the ship's core.

Jonah sat in the center of the bridge, closing his eyes, preparing to become the bridge.

"Divert power," Ariana commanded. "On my mark. Three… Two… One…"

Just before she could give the last order, a loud alarm suddenly sounded across the control room.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

"Proximity alert!" one of the officers in the room shouted. "One ship just came out from nowhere with incredible speed!"

On the main viewer, a red, blinking dot appeared.

"Identify it," Ariana commanded.

The officer looked scared all of a sudden. "It's… a Syndicate signature," he stammered. "A long range scout drone. It's seen us."

The red dot on the screen began to grow, moving towards them with a slow movement. The Syndicate had found them. And in a few moments, they would be switching off their shields, leaving them completely unprotected and simple to attack.

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