ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)

“Where is Spensa?” I asked. “You said she was gone again. Was she taken by the Superiority?”

“No,” Jorgen said. “She’s lost, somewhere in the nowhere. The…place you pass through when you hyperjump. The place with the eyes.”

“The negative realm,” I said. “What do you mean, she’s lost there?”

“She went there to escape the Superiority,” Jorgen said. “And she hasn’t been able to find a way out.”

“The negative realm isn’t a place you go,” I said. “It’s a place you…slip through. You can’t remain there.” At least you couldn’t as far as I knew.

“Yes, well. You don’t know Spensa. She does a lot of things that ought to be impossible.”

    She seemed like a good person to have on your side, though less so if she disappeared.

“Did you want to pick a callsign?” Jorgen said. “We don’t usually use our real names over the radio, but I don’t know if your people have the same custom.”

“We don’t,” I said. “And I wouldn’t know what to call myself.”

“If you ask the flight, you’ll get lots of suggestions. But you might not like them.”

“Why do they call you Jerkface?” I asked. “Is it because of the wounds on your face?”

“No, unfortunately.”

“Are you unattractive by human standards?”

“What? No!” Jorgen stuttered a bit. “You think I’m ugly? It’s not about my face. Jerkface means, like, a jerk. A rude person.”

“Oh,” I said. “So you are disliked, then.”

“I am not disliked! Or, I was. By Spensa. Anyway, it’s a long story.”

I could have stopped trying to figure this out, but I was too amused by Jorgen’s defensiveness. “So you and Spensa are enemies then. Because she is always showing you up.”

“Um, no,” Jorgen said. “We’re not enemies. Not anymore. We never really were. It’s…complicated. Oh, look! The flight is trying to reach us on the general line.”

The button for the private channel stopped flashing as Jorgen’s voice went quiet.

We started flying toward Hollow. My ship moved haltingly as I figured out how much pressure to apply to the boosters, but by the time we neared the tree I was starting to fly more smoothly.

    As we drew closer, the transport ship moved away from the base. The pilot had spotted us, because a flight of Unity ships was now headed our way.

“Skyward Flight,” Jorgen said. “Engage those ships. T-Stall, Catnip, FM, and Sentry, keep the fighters occupied while the rest of us cut through to the transport ship.”

“Copy that,” FM said. We accelerated toward the enemy ships. There were ten of them in total, so we were nearly evenly matched in number. As we approached, Skyward Flight opened fire, forcing the Unity ships to break formation or risk losing their shields.

We used similar techniques when we drilled against each other, but we used lasers, not destructor fire. In this battle there were no tag outs, no warnings. The humans weren’t playing a game.

Neither was the Superiority, and it was about time my people caught up to speed.

“Alanik,” Jorgen said. “You don’t have a wingmate, so you can stick with me and Quirk.”

As the enemy ships broke formation, two pairs of human ships darted after them, chasing them in circles. I smiled. The Unity fighters must be terrified.

Arturo and Nedder took off through the gap left by the broken enemy formation, and Jorgen and Kimmalyn followed. I stayed close to them—none of these Unity fighters were cytonic, and since I was in a human ship they hadn’t figured out which one I was in. They wouldn’t be able to see through the canopies unless their ships got very close, and even then it would be difficult to discern faces beneath helmets.

    I scanned for hypercomm signals and didn’t find any, though I might have missed Unity’s call to Quilan, or they might have done so over the ordinary radio. They were probably wondering where I managed to get a full flight of unfamiliar ships within a couple of hours, and that confusion could only be to our advantage.

We accelerated, tearing through the miasma toward Hollow. The silhouette became clearer against the crimson sky. Destructor fire followed from behind me.

I banked to the side, executing a swivel-turn, and opened fire on the two ships targeting me.

“Amphi, Nedder,” Jorgen said. “Alanik’s got some tails. Give her some support while Quirk and I push through.”

“On it,” Arturo said, before I could even tell them I didn’t need help.

Nedder shot past me, drawing the enemy fire, while Arturo did a swivel-turn of his own, pivoting to catch the ships in the crossfire. One of them executed a banking roll and fled in the direction of Jorgen and Kimmalyn, while the other lost its shield and took a direct hit in the left wing. The pilot ejected, a parachute opening and slowing their descent. Their helmets and flightsuits would allow them to survive in the miasma. The pilot would put out a distress beacon as they descended toward the core, and would probably be picked up before they reached it—and if not, shortly after.

We all turned, moving toward Jorgen and Kimmalyn, though Nedder and Arturo beat me to the ship that was chasing them, making quick work of it before I could even get off a shot.

    I was going to have to step up my game if I wanted to keep up with them. I didn’t appreciate being treated like a novice. I can handle two ships, I said to Jorgen. Just because I don’t have combat experience doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.

I didn’t mean to insult you, Jorgen responded. I would have done the same for any one of us.

Really? They all felt like they needed to buddy up just to take down a couple of ships? Yes, I knew what we were doing was a lot more dangerous than the games, but for supposedly hardened warriors…it seemed so…spineless.