The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

unnatural voice ordered.
    Yaala pushed more fuel to the roaring engines. The temperature gauge crept higher, pushing against the warning red zone.
    “Warning, hull temperatures twenty percent above normal.” The strident voice rose in pitch to a tinny whine.
    Inch by inch the shuttle crept backward toward the outside world and freedom. A tiny viewscreen on the control panel showed the engines eating away at the blockage within the tunnel.
    Some of the flames still washed the hull seeking escape.
    “The engines can’t take much more of this,” Rollett shouted above the thunder that surrounded and filled the shuddering shuttle.
    “Warning! Hull temperatures sixty percent above normal. Warning! Warning!” the voice squeaked almost beyond hearing range.
    The engine noise grew so loud it blotted out all thought, everything but the need to break free of the rock walls that confined and amplified and reverberated against the shuttle.
    Yaala pushed more fuel into the engines. The temperature gauge began blinking red.
    “Warrrrnnnning . . .” the voice faded, burned out by the stress.
    With a tremendous scream and shudder, the shuttle burst through the rock wall. Momentum shot the vessel across the narrow plateau that ringed the crater’s exterior.
    Silence descended upon them.
    “We’re free!” Lyman announced. “We’re free of Hanassa.”
    “The rockets died?” Rollett leaned over Yaala’s shoulder examining the control panel with a bewildered look on his face.
    “I burned them out and used up all of the fuel. Jets not responding,” Yaala replied. Her ears still rang in the aftermath of the noise.
    “We’re flying! Just like a dragon,” Lyman proclaimed. He practically jumped up and down in his excitement.
    “We’re soaring, without wings to hold us up or steer us,” Yaala replied.
    “Engage the wings. They’ll keep us aloft!” Lyman called.
    Yaala flipped the switch for the wings. Nothing happened. “We need fuel to open the wings.”
    “Manual override,” Kinnsell murmured, very quietly.
    “What!” Yaala nearly screamed above the ringing in her ears.
    “Levers, inside the hidden hatch, both sides of the shuttle. Manual override of wing controls.” He closed his eyes, looking exhausted from the small effort of speaking.
    Yaala and Rollett leaped to the square indentation on the left side of the shuttle. Lyman examined the companion doorway on the opposite side. The two magicians ran their fingertips around the nearly invisible imperfection in the wall.
    “Ah!” Lyman’s door popped open first. “Pressure point lower right-hand corner.”
    Rollett repeated the action and his door flew open as well. Behind the door lay a handle that looked like the handgrip of a walking stick with indentations for the fingers. Above and below the handgrip was a narrow channel.
    A sudden lurch downward nearly left Yaala’s stomach above her head. “Hurry, Rollett. We’re losing altitude.”
    “Pull the handle out and jiggle it until it engages in the track,” Kinnsell whispered.
    “Yaala, get back to the controls,” Rollett grunted as he followed Kinnsell’s instructions. The handle did not want to budge. “Look for some kind of manual rudder. We’ve got to steer this thing once we get the wings out.”
    Yaala returned to the cockpit of the shuttle. She searched the control panels for something resembling a handle.
    A grinding noise irritated the ringing in her ears. She looked over her shoulder, wincing at the sounds. Rollett heaved all of his weight against the handle. Lyman didn’t seem to be having much luck getting his mechanism to engage in the track.
    The grinding noise repeated itself. Air caught Rollett’s side of the shuttle, dropping Lyman’s. Yaala braced herself against the sudden tilt in the floor.
    Kinnsell and Powwell rolled on top of each other in the direction of the list.
    “Let me.” Rollett shoved Lyman out of the way as he staggered toward him. He leaned on the handle. Suddenly the shuttle stopped dropping.
    “I hope there is a flat place below where we can land,” Yaala said.
    “Joystick,” Kinnsell gasped.
    A sudden image of a short walking staff popped into Yaala’s head at the mention of the word. Instantly she knew where to find the instrument and how to use it. She sat hastily in the pilot’s chair and reached for the rounded top of the stick.
    An updraft caught the left wing; she turned into it and felt a lightness beneath the belly of the shuttle. But