ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)

I hoped Arturo would stay silent. If they didn’t find him, at least he and Naga would be able to return to the platform if I didn’t find a way out of this. I didn’t expect them to mount a rescue, but at least—

A crash sounded from the office behind me, and I closed my eyes.

Not-Rinakin stood. “Did you bring someone with you?” he asked. He edged around me, keeping his back to the wall as he moved down the hallway so as not to turn it on me or the source of the noise.

I should try to make a run for it—

But I couldn’t leave Arturo to be taken. I followed not-Rinakin down the hall. Maybe we could surround him. Maybe we could—

Not-Rinakin turned into the doorway to the office, where little bits of a piece of one of Rinakin’s decorative vases lay in fragments on the floor. Not-Rinakin had barely taken a step into the room when he took a punch to his knee and an elbow to his gut, and went flying onto his backside on the hallway floor.

I moved toward him to kick him while he was down, but not-Rinakin lifted his hands in surrender. “Human! So aggressive! Stop, please!”

    Arturo stood in the doorway, shaking his hand. “Ouch,” he said. “That scudding hurt. How did Spensa make it look so easy?”

“Easy!” Naga added.

Not-Rinakin tried to scramble to his feet, but Arturo raised his fist, and he sank to the ground again, protecting his face. I grabbed his wrist and pulled off his bracelet.

With a click of a button the inhibitor was gone, and the universe came to life around me again, like it had suddenly burst into song. With a second click the image over not-Rinakin’s body dissolved, revealing a dione with bright crimson skin.

“Oh, scud,” Arturo said.

This time I kicked the dione. Hard. They moaned and clutched their side.

“Where is Rinakin?” I asked. We didn’t have much time, but with the inhibitor down we could get out much faster.

“You won’t find him here,” the dione said. “They took him away not long ago.”

Oh no. I put a hand on Arturo’s shoulder and sent Naga the coordinates of the cockpit of my ship in the miasma. She was either getting used to me or was very aware of the danger we were in, because she went without Arturo’s permission this time.

“Ouch,” Arturo said. He was squished in the cargo space behind my seat in the cockpit, his head pressed against the roof. “This is not ideal.”

“Better than being taken by the Superiority,” I said.

“Taken!” Naga said from the side of my seat.

Chubs sat on my dash, looking at us curiously.

    “Think you can return me to my ship?” Arturo asked.

I gave Naga a clear picture of Arturo’s cockpit. His ship had drifted away a bit, but I could still see it through my canopy, floating off to the side. Arturo and Naga disappeared, and a moment later the ship started flying toward mine. Chubs settled on my lap.

“Are you okay?” Arturo asked.

“I’m fine,” I said. “How’s your hand?”

“It’s all right, though I think my ego is bruised. Nedd always said we ought to have more training in hand-to-hand combat. I guess he was right.”

“It did the job,” I said. “Superiority operatives apparently really don’t like it when you punch them. I still have no idea how he managed to look like Rinakin.” I still had the bracelet in my hand, and I set it on the floor next to my seat to be examined later.

“About that,” Arturo said. “Spensa had a ship she found on Detritus. It had holographic technology that let her pretend to be you.”

I remembered FM and Jorgen saying something about that. “And the Superiority stole it?”

“I think they must have gotten their hands on her ship. They already knew she’d been using a hologram to look like you, so they would have been searching for it intentionally.”

That was a terrifying thought. Though it was also startling to learn that Spensa had technology even the Superiority didn’t know about. They always seemed like they knew everything.

“Poor M-Bot,” Arturo said. “I’m kind of surprised he didn’t self-destruct or something. Spensa is going to be pissed.”

    “She’s not the only one,” I said.

“I’m checking on the others over the radio,” Arturo said. “Scud, their situation sounds hot.”

It would be. We’d sent all the cytonics Unity had to offer right at them. I hadn’t heard from Jorgen. He said it was easier for him to contact me when I was near, but I hoped he could manage it even across the distance. I reached out to him now—the Unity cytonics had reached them, but they hadn’t managed to get the field up.

Status report? I asked him.

We’re holding out, Jorgen said. We’ve kept the cytonics out of position so far, so they haven’t been able to get up their inhibitors or that concussion thing. They’re too busy not getting shot down. Did you find Rinakin?

Working on it.

Jorgen fell silent, probably fully occupied dealing with Quilan and his people.

“We have to hurry and find Rinakin,” I said. “If they just left to take him to the Superiority, he could still be in transport. Let me see if I can find their ship.”

I closed my eyes, reaching across the miasma around the tree. It was easier to find a huge field of cytonic inhibition rather than one ship across the whole of the planet.

“Angel?” Arturo said. “We have incoming.”

I opened my eyes and scanned my proximity sensors. He was right. A contingent of ships was headed right for us. Either they’d scanned and found us, or Quilan had reported our whereabouts.

I needed to focus on finding the ship holding Rinakin. “You want to take point on this one?”

    “Gladly,” Arturo said. “Evasive maneuvers.”

“Copy,” I said, mirroring Arturo’s movements as he cut a path away from the incoming ships. I tried to focus on the negative realm, reaching out with my senses, canvassing the area for dead spots.

There. Above the reaching branches of the tree, kilometers up in the miasma, was a tiny spot I couldn’t feel, like a dead nerve on an otherwise healthy patch of skin.

“Found it,” I said to Arturo. “Closer to the tree and up.”