Chapter Thirty Arturo
Thirty
Arturo
I’d never thought about how much I relied upon gravity until it was gone.
The cannon advanced on us from the far end of the room, anchored to the floor by what I guessed were magnets, while we clung to the furniture, trying desperately to stay out of its path.
Naga curled around the back of my neck, tucking her hind end into the collar of my flightsuit to hang on so she wouldn’t drift away again as I shifted.
We’d all managed to get low enough to avoid the brunt of the mind-bending concussion blast that had sought to render us unconscious.
The Superiority didn’t usually put taynix in small weapons, reserving cytonics for capital ships and other large weaponry so their slugs couldn’t be easily lost or stolen.
These varvax clearly had a different philosophy.
Five of them hustled around the sides of the cannon, holding pistols at the ready and taking cover behind a row of desks.
Unlike the robed varvax beneath the coliseum, these wore typical exosuits with their crablike bodies hidden behind their face plates.
Their feet stuck to the floor, which I guessed was also a magnetic design and not some kind of varvax antigravity magic.
They opened fire immediately.
“Scud!” I shouted, firing my pistol in their direction. My team aimed around the various pieces of office equipment, shooting at the varvax while Suki took refuge in a corner of the cubicle, out of sight.
Dayan grabbed me by the shoulder and wrapped the tip of their light-whip around the edge of a nearby open doorframe.
They pulled us both through the door and we took cover in what looked to be a storage room.
The laser sword I’d stolen from the arena was still in my pack, though I wasn’t going to charge in and use it with that cannon advancing.
The room we’d ducked into held spare maintenance equipment, probably used by the ground crew to maintain their ships.
Outside the room, pistol fire shattered several monitors.
In the chaos, Nedd and Alanik had managed to join Sadie, Gilaf, and Suki in the cubicle area just beyond where Dayan and I were hiding.
A blast seared Sadie’s arm, leaving her with a long burn up her sleeve, and she dropped her pistol, which floated out of reach.
She ducked low and braced herself against the floor, then threw a chair over the top of the cubicle wall.
In the reflection on one of the far monitors, I watched it catapult through the air and collide with a varvax, knocking them off their feet.
The varvax and the chair both slammed against the far wall.
I gripped the doorframe to keep from accidentally knocking myself into the line of fire while the varvax, with their magnetized boots, marched toward us with ease. They’d been more prepared than we’d expected them to be at every step.
I took aim at the nearest varvax and fired, hitting it in the shoulder and shattering the firing arm of its exosuit.
Behind the cubicles, the others shot at the varvax, while Sadie grabbed loose and drifting chairs and heaved them over the cubicle wall, sending herself slamming against the far side of the cubicle in the process.
In the chaos, I shot the now-armless varvax, aiming this time for the head.
Loud clicks and pops sounded from across the room—a varvax shouting in their language and gesturing wildly. The varvax in the room all shimmied along the wall away from the cannon.
Scud, it was going to fire again. “Get down!” I shouted.
Dayan held on to a shelf and used their light-whip to catch me and propel me downward.
I collided with the floor, and my hip ached sharply.
Naga coiled tightly against the back of my neck, and I pressed the side of my face into the floor, turning to watch out the doorway as my teammates all struggled to get their own momentum pointed downward.
They hauled each other down by their arms, ankles, and the sleeves of their flightsuits to get out of the way of the next blast.
I braced myself for the disorientation, hoping they hadn’t managed to angle the cannon down far enough to catch us this time.
The cannon fired, and invisible shrapnel tore through the cubicle walls, punching a hole in the wall above me. Computer monitors fractured in a shower of flying plastic and glass that floated like leaves caught in a sudden updraft.
Stars. That was a mindblade blast. The varvax were probably torturing their taynix to get them to react so violently. I would have liked to charge over there and liberate them, but the varvax had already opened fire again, and there was no way to cross the room without being gunned down.
Nedd and Sadie caught a chunk of broken cubicle wall as it flew toward them, slapping it with their palms and reversing its direction to fly toward the varvax while pushing themselves down toward the floor.
The wall wouldn’t harm the varvax, but for the moment at least, it blocked their line of sight.
Suki’s disk moved at full speed, zipping around the corner in the direction we’d come.
I was glad she was getting herself to safety.
Alanik was crumpled on the floor beside Sadie, holding her shoulder, globs of something slick and dark floating off her skin.
Oh no. That was blood. Alanik had been hit by the mindblades, or some of the shrapnel.
Gilaf shoved himself off one of the desks to float over to her and grab her by the arm, pressing his hand to her wound.
While I fired through the doorway, providing cover, Dayan aimed their light-whip at Alanik and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her toward us.
She drifted into the doorway and I grabbed her, letting her body collide with mine and push us farther into the storage room.
Dayan transferred their light-whip to their off hand and aimed their pistol at the doorway, providing more covering fire while I attended to Alanik.
Her eyes were closed, her body limp. I pressed my hands against her bleeding shoulder, and dark blood bubbled between my fingers.
I couldn’t fight and stanch the bleeding, so I pulled off her flight jacket and tied it around her shoulder as tight as I could.
Instead of pressing toward us, the varvax began to walk up the wall on the far side.
The one who reached the top first pivoted, planting its feet on the ceiling and proceeding across the room.
With my free hand, I fired at it and damaged one of its legs, severing it from its boot so it had only one foot magnetized to the ceiling.
That stopped its progress, but it paused on the ceiling and fired, essentially becoming a turret.
Dayan flicked their whip in its direction, catching it by the leg and tearing it from the ceiling.
Dayan shut off the light-whip and slammed the varvax against the floor, but the others marched across the ceiling close behind.
It wasn’t enough. Stars, when had the Superiority learned to fight like this? If other operatives we’d encountered had been this effective, we might still be stuck on Detritus.
The team with the cannon was advancing it across the room, pushing it in short bursts to keep it from disconnecting completely from the floor when the magnetic mechanism disengaged. If it got another shot on my team, they were dead.
This wasn’t working. We had to get out. If we retreated to the hangar, we’d still have to fight our way back through the enemy ships to get free of the inhibitor so we could hyperjump back to the planet to hide.
But with these overly aggressive varvax, we now stood a better chance out there than we did in here. “Skyward Flight, retreat!” I shouted.
Gilaf kicked backward off one of the bolted-down tables, launching himself toward the door and shooting at the enemy as he went. Nedd and Sadie catapulted after him, a gaggle of taynix still in their packs.
I moved to shove myself out of the doorway, aiming with my pistol to cover the escape of the others, but the varvax on the ceiling had advanced far enough to shoot into the doorway, driving Dayan and me back.
“I need cover to get Alanik out,” I said.
Dayan clung to the shelving and began grabbing everything they could lift—ship parts and tools, saws and sanders and circuitry—and throwing them into the main room to cover our escape.
I kept firing, one arm around Alanik, her body clamped against mine, my hand pressed to her shoulder. The varvax concentrated their fire on me, making it impossible for us to advance through the main room.
Their focus on me gave the others an opening. Sadie and Nedd made it to the shelter of the hallway while Gilaf hesitated, no doubt worried about Alanik. He pushed off the wall and launched himself into the room, narrowly avoiding fire that was aimed at me.
“Amphi!” Nedd shouted.
“Coming!” I replied. I hated to let go of Alanik, but if I didn’t do something, we were all going to die here. I let Gilaf take her from me and ducked behind the storage room wall, digging into my pack and grabbing the laser sword.
Dayan detached a shelf from one of the shelving units in the storage room and threw it through the doorway at the varvax on the ceiling.
I kicked off the floor and launched myself behind it, using it as cover.
The enemies on the ground scrambled to aim the cannon higher as I soared through the air.
The shelf clattered off the armor of the varvax on the ceiling, and they shot wildly in my direction as I switched on my laser sword and held it out to the side.
I slashed my sword through the air. The varvax were thrown off balance by the flying shelf, and I managed to cut two in half at the torso, then maneuvered my free arm in front of myself, bracing as I hit the ceiling.
Two more varvax opened fire, but Dayan distracted them by flinging an entire toolkit at them, wrenches and sockets flying past them in a torrent of metal.
Gilaf took the opportunity to haul Alanik out of the storage room and toward the hangar.
I had to give him enough of an opening to get her to safety.
I kicked off the ceiling, reversing direction—
And misjudged my angle. A varvax shouted, and a concussion blast reverberated through the room, catching me straight on. My vision blurred, my brain vibrating in my skull. In my disorientation, I hit the wall without bracing myself and bounced off, headed back toward the varvax.
I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything but flail helplessly while my head pounded and my mind spun.
“Coming!” Naga said, still clinging to my neck, but without the inhibitor codes, she was powerless to help.
Then I felt something wrap around my torso, and I was dragged suddenly and sharply down. My vision began to clear, and I found myself hauled behind Dayan like a kite on a string as they pulled themself through the doorway and down the corridor, following the others toward the hangar.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. I managed to spin in the air, orienting myself upright. I needed a clear head for what was coming.