ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)

“She can’t tell them to shoot,” Arturo said. “She doesn’t have the authority.”

I wondered if that was the only thing stopping her; if she’d really give the order to shoot down her own son.

Jorgen didn’t respond. I peered past Kimmalyn’s ship to Jorgen’s. I could see Boomslug perched on his shoulders, though I couldn’t see his face, shadowed as it was by his helmet.

“Alanik, we are a go to hyperjump,” Jorgen said.

“Jerkface?” Robin said again. “What are you—”

I reached across the negative realm to Hollow, and I pulled.





Eight


I’d never dragged so much mass through the negative realm before, but I was met with no more resistance. We cut through easily, like a knife through whipped whiteberry jam. For a moment we all hung suspended, the eyes staring down at us. A force, massively big and wide, reached for us like it wanted to smother us all. I felt Jorgen and the many slugs around me, all staring up at them. I could feel fear from the slugs, and something else from Jorgen—shame perhaps?

And then the eyes disappeared, and we hung in the miasma in sight of Hollow. We were still on the day side of the planet, the sky bright. I immediately checked our proximity to Wandering Leaf to ensure we hadn’t emerged in range of the autoturrets. The platform was a shadow floating off to our right, not close enough to fire. Hollow’s corpse reached upward toward the sky, a hazy outline against the miasma.

“Saints and stars,” Kimmalyn said. “Does that thing eat people?”

“The tree?” I asked. “No, it doesn’t eat people. Have you never seen a tree before?”

“I’ve seen a tree,” Arturo said. “It wasn’t much taller than Nedder.”

“These can grow up to fifty kilometers tall,” I said. “They float in the miasma, and our cities are built on them.”

“Scud, that’s creepy,” Nedder said.

“And beautiful,” Kimmalyn added.

“What is all this in the air?” Arturo asked.

“Gases,” I said. “Most of the trees have clear patches of air around them, but Hollow has fewer because the tree itself no longer produces oxygen. There’s still a bubble of breathable atmosphere from the plants that grow here and from the atmospheric generators installed by the lumber corps, but it’s much thinner and we’ll have to be more careful.”

    I scanned the area quickly with my cytonic senses, but I couldn’t find any cytonics besides us.

“I’m seeing a ship on my long-range sensors,” Jorgen said. “Looks like a transport ship. Is that our target?”

“Yes,” I said. I found the controls to expand my own sensors and took a look. I’d brought us in on the far side of the tree, about a five-minute flight out, not sure if the holding ship would even still be here. It had been a few hours, and they could have taken them somewhere else by now.

But the ship was still hovering outside the base. Either they’d subdued the people inside, or my people were too afraid to fight.

We were going to show them how it was done. The Unity fighters wouldn’t be expecting us, so even if they’d seen us arrive, we should have a few minutes to prepare while they readied their starships.

“There are civilians still living on the tree,” I said. “Some small settlements, plus the lumber mining facilities. I don’t want to fire on those or on the transport ship. My people are being held there, and we’re going to need them to join the fight.”

“Understood,” Jorgen said. “What can you tell us about the ship?”

“Not a lot,” I said. “It’s a small Superiority transport. It’s not a fighter, but it has a cytonic inhibitor, so I can’t jump in and get people out. The last ship like that I ran across was manned by diones but piloted by an UrDail cytonic. This time there’re no cytonics here but us, unless they’re in the hold of that ship.”

    “Do you know if they have a hyperdrive?” Jorgen asked.

“I doubt it,” I said. “They’d never give us that technology, for fear we’d figure out the secret.”

“That sounds about right,” FM said.

“If they can’t hyperjump,” Jorgen said, “then we can put pressure on them, try to get them to land. Do you know how many fighters we’ll be facing here?”

“No,” I said. “However many starships were stationed here, plus the number of fighters Unity brought with them when they took the base. They might not have enough pilots to fill all the Independence ships though.”

“All right,” Jorgen said. “Our primary objective is to get the transport ship to land and free the imprisoned UrDail inside. Secondary objective is to retake the base. Skyward Flight, detach and move toward the…tree thing.”

“Its name is Hollow,” I said.

“Scud,” Sentry said. “Even its name is spooky.”

All around me, light beams retracted as the flight let each other go. I didn’t see any Unity fighters moving toward us yet.

“Alanik, there should be a button flashing on your radio panel,” Jorgen said. “Press it?”

I did so, and his voice continued over the radio.

“This is a private channel,” Jorgen said. “The rest of the flight can’t hear us. Do you see the dial to switch from channel to channel? You might want to note mine so you know how to reach me specifically if there’s something you need to report that you don’t want everyone to hear.”

    “If I have something I need to report,” I said, “I could speak it into your mind.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Jorgen said. “I need to work on that. I can do it with the slugs, and it probably works the same? I also need you to show me how to hyperjump without a taynix.”

“You might not be able to,” I told him. “Not all cytonics can.”

“Do we have different abilities?” he asked. “Like the taynix?”

“Not exactly. More like strengths and weaknesses. And some cytonics are stronger than others.”

“Figures,” Jorgen said. “If it’s possible for Spensa to show me up at something, she always will.”

He didn’t sound bitter about that. I was no master of human intonation, but to me he sounded more sad than anything.