Trench Run

Advancing beyond the bookshelf zone, my forward sensors picked up a long, ribbed metal barrier: the heating radiator mounted along the baseboard. Beneath its lower edge ran an open conduit barely four inches high. An ideal trench run. Aligning my forward dagger wings parallel to the floor, I slid into the clearance slot between the warm cast-iron ribs and the parquet wood. The micro-current of warm air brushed past my cockpit module. Pushing through, my wingtips lightly tapped two dust-mote clusters, emerging cleanly out the opposite flank. Lower perimeter flight path mapped and viable.