AN HOUR LATER, Rig, Jorgen, and I gathered in the control room again to use the hyperdrive. The other pilots—both human and UrDail—were all ready in their ships to be transported out to defend the platform. Rig had pulled the radio out of the wreckage of my ship and installed it in the control room, so he’d be able to talk to us once we were in the air.
“Here we go,” Jorgen said as Rig deposited Drape in the navigation system taynix box. “At least we’ve used hyperdrives before. Do we think this works the same way as the ones in our ships? I just send it a location and the whole platform will move?”
“The Superiority moves massive ships with hyperdrives,” I said. “So this platform shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I only know how to send the slugs to places we both know,” Jorgen said. “I don’t know where we’re going.”
“I can give it coordinates,” I said. “If we’re going to Tower, I want to be sure we’re out of range of the tree so the autoturrets don’t fire on it.” I wasn’t going to be responsible for that many civilian casualties, and not just because it would be impossible to convince my people we meant well after something like that.
“Could you move the platform yourself?” Rig asked me. “It seems like you could do it without the help of the taynix.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’d rather not risk it.”
“Plus, we should test it with the hyperdrive,” Jorgen said. “That way we know if it works, in case I need to pull us out after Alanik is gone.” He turned to me. “Do you know what kind of range the guns have?”
“I’m going to overestimate it,” I said, “just to be safe. We want the guns shooting at the people who come after us, not at Tower. We can always move the platform a second time if we need to.”
I searched out across the planet, reaching past Industry and Spindle—where I lived—to Tower. It was far from other trees at the moment, leaving many branches of space out in the miasma to move the platform to. I needed it close enough to Tower that Unity saw it as a threat, but not so close that anyone got hurt, even aircraft that were passing through the busy airspace around the tree.
Better to be too far out than too close. I chose a place farther away and impressed the coordinates into my mind. And then, reaching out for Drape, I fed them to him.
Nothing happened.
“Why isn’t it working?” I asked.
“He’s not listening to you,” Jorgen said. “Probably because he doesn’t know you.”
That made sense. Most of the slugs back on Detritus hadn’t come when I called them either. And those that had only did so because I’d promised them food and friends.
“That’s a good thing,” Rig said. “It means not all the slugs can be used against us in combat.”
“You’re going to have to give him the command,” Jorgen said to Rig.
Rig bent down, speaking through the metal door of the box. “Go.”
There was the slightest hesitation.
And then that horrible loss of control again as I slipped into the negative realm without pulling myself through. I came back to where I was standing before, in the center of the control room.
The window facing the miasma suddenly went dark.
“Um, guys?” Kimmalyn called from the direction of the hangar. “You need to come see this.”
We all crowded out the door to the hangar. Pilots sat in their ships with their canopies open, looking out the enormous windows through the swirling miasma at the reaching branches of Tower, so named because it was the tallest of all the trees—long and lean, with branches that soared nearly straight upward into the sky. Here there were almost no horizontal buildings, only spirals built into the sides of the branches, all illuminated with hundreds of thousands of city lights. The intricacies of the architecture were too tiny to see from this distance, but the overall effect was still impressive. I felt a little bit of pride at the way the humans gaped at it.
“That’s incredible,” Rig said.
“I thought that other tree was impressive,” Arturo added.
“Hollow is a ruin,” I said. “This is UrDail civilization.”
All around, I could see the Independence pilots sitting taller.
I was glad to see that I’d managed to place the platform far enough from the tree that the turrets weren’t shooting at it. But we were close enough to be visible from the branches, so people had to be taking notice.
Jorgen moved to his ship and fiddled with the radio. He picked up a channel talking about the weather patterns in the miasma, and then an air traffic control channel.
“—obstacle in the airspace on the duskward side. All flights avoid—”
“Yeah,” Nedd said. “They definitely noticed us.”
“What about the other cytonics?” FM asked.
Jorgen closed his eyes, and I waited while he reached out across the negative realm around ReDawn. “I can feel one of them,” he said. “Your friend Quilan?”
I followed his reach. He was right. Quilan was moving toward us. He’d moved so fast, he must have already been in a ship before we hyperjumped.
“We’ve got their attention,” Jorgen said. “All ships, time to get in the air. We’ll fly out of the hangar together. When we’re all ready, we’ll hyperjump everyone beyond the range of the autoturrets.”
Canopies lowered and ships lifted off the landing pad. Nedd hung back, pulling his taynix, Chubs, out of its box. We’d agreed that I should take a hyperdrive with me, in case Arturo and I were separated, and Naga would be able to find Chubs instantly. It would leave Nedd without a hyperdrive in the battle, so he’d have to rely on his flightmates to pull him in and out with light-lances, just like the Independence pilots.
“Okay, buddy,” Nedd said. “You’re going for an adventure with the nice alien lady.”
“Nedd,” Arturo said, like he thought he might offend me. But when Nedd handed over his taynix—a hyperdrive, a creature so valuable most people in the universe would kill for it—I couldn’t feel anything but awe.
They were really going to let me take one. And yes, I knew it was only because they thought it would help them follow me if I tried to escape them—and it probably would.
But still. I’d risked everything to find out the secret to these creatures. And now I was holding one in my hands.
It looked up at me, its face quizzical. “Alien lady!” it trilled.
“Get to your ship,” Jorgen said to Nedd. “Let’s go.”
The rest of the flight was already maneuvering their ships out the hangar doors and onto the surface of the platform. I set Chubs down in the space behind my seat, but moments later he was nuzzling my ankles down by the pedals. I didn’t relish the idea of his obstruction getting me shot down by the autofire, so I scooped him into my lap.
“How do they stand flying with you?” I asked him.
“Flying with you!” Chubs said. The taynix sounded like simple mimics, but they must understand at least some of what they said if they could learn each other’s names and then find one another through the negative realm.
Rig waited outside my ship while I checked the controls.
“We removed that thing that was intercepting signals as they came in,” Rig said. “We thought it might help Jorgen not be susceptible to cytonic interference.”
“No, my ship doesn’t block cytonic interference,” I said. “I think what you removed was an encryption device, but I won’t need that today anyway.”
“Oh,” Rig said. He looked embarrassed, but he didn’t need to be. He’d done a good job getting my ship back in flying condition, from what I could tell.
“Thank you for fixing this for me,” I said.
“Of course,” Rig said. “I’m confident about the damage repairs. Those were all completed ages ago. All I did last night was finish the reassembly. You should be fine in the air.”
He backed off, and I engaged my acclivity ring, lifting off the landing bay floor and flying out to meet the others in formation around Jorgen.
I let one of the humans hit me with their light-lance and hyperjump me beyond the autofire with the Independence pilots. I didn’t know how much hyperjumping I was going to have to do, and I wanted to keep the number of jumps to a minimum when I could. Jorgen jumped us way out, giving the autofire a wider berth than we probably needed.
I checked the frequency Rinakin had been broadcasting from. His program had begun, and I could hear him opining about how the rift between our factions was the real problem for ReDawn. According to my ship’s frequency locator, the signal was coming from the Council tree, exactly as expected.
That was good. I reached out with my cytonic senses, searching for Quilan, and found him closing on our location. I scrambled with my radio, trying to find the flight’s general channel to let Jorgen know, but by the time I found it he was already giving the flights the bearing of the incoming enemy. “We’re going to slow to point-five Mag,” he said, “and fly toward Tower, away from the enemy.”
The ships immediately followed his order. By putting our people on the opposite side of the platform from Quilan, Jorgen ensured that Quilan would have to pass around the platform to get to them. Jorgen would be able to fire the hyperweapon at him without worrying about clipping his own people in the blast.
The Independence flight joined us as we flew away from the platform toward the tree, slow enough that Quilan would easily catch us. He had to know we were up to something, but he wouldn’t know what.
“Rig?” Jorgen said. “Do you have a visual on the enemy flight?”
“I do,” Rig said. “They’re closing on the platform.”
Flying in the opposite direction, I couldn’t see the incoming ships—which Quilan must have called in from the reinforcements at the Council tree—except on my sensor screen. But I felt the disturbance rippling through the negative realm as Jorgen contacted Boomslug in the platform control room and directed him to fire on the flight as they skirted the other side of the platform. I scanned radio channels, catching bits of their transmissions as pilots screamed and swore and called their intentions to eject.
I didn’t know if they all made it, but as Jorgen directed us to pivot around and fly below the platform again, I did see several pilots descending through the miasma with parachutes. Two of the ships collided with the far side of the platform.
A few more ships cut toward us, having avoided the mindblades. Unfortunately, Quilan was among them. Alanik, he said in my mind. What are you doing?
If this distraction was going to work, Quilan had to believe I meant business. I’m doing what has to be done. Look what that did to your flight. What do you think it will do to your people on Tower?
You’ve lost your mind, Quilan sent back.
That was good. I needed him to believe that I had.
“FM, Sentry, take point. Engage the enemy ships. T-Stall, Catnip, Nedder, back them up.”
Five ships shot out in front of us, meeting with the enemy ships as they skirted around the platform outside the autofire zone. A number of Independence ships joined them.
I reached into the negative realm, checking on the Council tree. Nearly a quarter of the way around the planet, I could feel the dead space fading away, the area around the Council tree no longer covered by cytonic inhibitors.
Quilan had called in the other cytonics, realizing that the only way to stop the platform was to inhibit our ability to use cytonics in the area or lay down a concussion field.
“Jerkface,” I said over the radio. “We are a go.”
“Copy,” Jorgen replied. “Do it.”
“Don’t forget about me,” Arturo said. He flew close on my wing, like he wanted to be sure I remembered he was tagging along.
As if I could forget.
When I reached out for Naga’s mind, I realized that Chubs had snuggled around my waist and fallen asleep.
In a starfighter. In the middle of a battle.
I was glad someone had been able to find some peace. It wasn’t going to be Naga, as I reached out for its mind, giving it cytonic coordinates near the Council tree, but far enough away we wouldn’t be immediately spotted.
“Tell Naga to go,” I said to Arturo over the radio.
“Naga, go,” he said.
Arturo’s ship blinked out of existence, and I followed.
