ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)

I followed him across the miasma. Yes, there it was. On the far side of the core, on the side of the planet in a night cycle.

“The Council tree,” I said. “Inhibited by the other cytonics.” I wondered if they’d done that as a precaution once our inhibitor went up. They wouldn’t be able to maintain it all the time, but they must be worried about what we had planned.

They wanted us to believe they were in control, but they were still afraid of us, which meant they weren’t. Not entirely.

“I need to learn how to make those inhibitors,” Jorgen said.

“You learned how to find a place that’s been inhibited,” I said. “You might be happy for that first.”

“It’s not enough,” Jorgen said.

I understood what he meant. It would never be enough until the fight was over and his people were safe. “Focus on what you have,” I said. “We can work on it more, but I think you should sleep first. Tiring yourself out will only make you more frustrated. And when you’re frustrated, it’s much more difficult to learn.” And dangerous, if you started manifesting things like concussion bolts and mindblades.

Jorgen didn’t argue. “That makes sense. Thanks, Alanik.”

Now I felt inadequate. Jorgen and his team had risked everything to help me, and I’d hardly shown him anything.

    It’s not enough, he’d said. I felt the same.

“Get some rest,” I said.

“Good night,” Jorgen said, and he left me staring up into the red-violet glow of the sun against the miasma above.





Seventeen


I had a hard time following my own advice, and so I spent a good portion of the sleep cycle lying awake, listening. Sometime while the humans were all asleep, I caught a communication traveling through the negative realm.

—everything in hand— Quilan was saying. —give us time—retrieve Alanik—

—give us the rogue cytonic and her allies—if that proves difficult for you—set up a government who can.

I drew a deep breath. Quilan was still trying to pacify the Superiority, but he had a storm in a bottle, and any moment the glass might break. He was holding them off for now, but if they grew tired of waiting we were going to pay the price.

We had to make our move tomorrow, with whatever resources we had to work with.

I woke in the morning unsure of how much sleep I’d actually gotten, though I was still glad we’d taken the time to rest. Tired pilots were sloppy pilots, and sloppy pilots lost matches. Or in this case got themselves killed.

While the humans were eating, I used the radio in Jorgen’s ship to check the frequency Nanalis had used to broadcast the message from Rinakin. It was a Unity channel, one they often used to send messages to their people, despite Superiority admonitions that we keep wireless communication to a minimum. I wondered how long that would last once they gave the Superiority more influence over ReDawn. I wondered if they would regret it.

    There was no broadcast now, but there was a repeating message about an upcoming special conversation between Rinakin and one of the most popular Unity orators later in the morning.

That was good. If Rinakin was broadcasting, I could use that signal to find his location. They would unintentionally lead me right to him.

When everyone finished eating, I followed the humans to the control room with the taynix boxes. Rig, Jorgen, FM, and I gathered in the room while the others waited outside.

“None of your people died in the night,” I said to Jorgen. “So I suppose the udal nuts weren’t toxic to you.”

“You only say that because you didn’t have to share a room with Nedd last night,” Jorgen said.

“All right,” Rig said. “I’ve finished reassembling Alanik’s ship, and I found the shield systems. They’re similar to the ones on Platform Prime, so I was able to get them working. I don’t think it’s as effective as the planetary shield, because we don’t have hundreds of other platforms to form a barrier. But look.”

He gestured out the window at a blueish tint now coloring the miasma.

“That’s something,” Jorgen said. “Good work.”

I wondered how much sleep Rig had gotten, but he didn’t complain. “We expect we know how the comms and navigation systems work,” he said. “They should be similar to the hypercomms and hyperdrives we already use. But we want to check out this unknown cytonic weapons system, and then make a plan for how to use the platform to fight back.”

    “Rig and I were thinking that Boomslug might be the right type to put in a weapons system,” FM said. “Given what we’ve seen him do.”

Jorgen knelt to gently pick up Boomslug, who was lying in the doorway to the control room. “You ready, buddy?”

“Buddy,” Boomslug said in his deep voice.

“Okay,” Rig said. “It would be really nice to have a weapons system we can control.”

FM took Boomslug from Jorgen and put him into the box. “I am going to give you so much caviar if this works,” she said.

“If we have to experiment on him,” Jorgen said, “I’m glad he’s inside a metal box where he hopefully can’t hurt us.”

I was pretty sure mindblades could pass through most substances and do damage as they went, but I didn’t tell Jorgen that. If the former inhabitants of this platform had put a taynix in this box and then used it to power weapons, presumably they hadn’t cut themselves to ribbons in the process.

“All right,” Rig said when the box was locked. “Let’s see what he can do.”

“What am I going to ask it?” Jorgen said. “Please attack…nothing?”

“Go boom,” FM said. “You remember what that felt like, right?”

Jorgen winced. “Too well.”

“Can you aim the gun?” I asked. “We’re a long way from Hollow, but we don’t know exactly how far this weapon can reach.”

“She’s right,” Rig said. “The Superiority had planetary weapons. This could be one of those. I didn’t see anything on this platform as big as that was, but I didn’t exactly perform an exhaustive search, and—”

    “I’ll try to focus away from the tree,” Jorgen said. “Out in the miasma. The same way I do when I direct them to hyperjump. Anyone else have any concerns?”

We were all quiet.