Chapter Forty-Four Arturo
Forty-Four
Arturo
The ships had stopped searching for me and were beginning to descend, probably to protect the warehouse again. I wasn’t going to get a better chance to ambush them. “Here we go,” I said to the others.
Whipping around the rock we were hiding behind, I opened fire on the nearest ship, catching it unawares from behind.
Its shields were weak, and I took it out, then slipped between two more chunks of debris, approaching the next nearest ship.
All the hunks of rock—stars, hunks of Earth—would keep the others from drawing a bead on me to take me out from a distance.
“Alanik,” I said, showering the nearest ship with destructor fire, “are we still affected by the inhibitor around Blightfall?”
Alanik shook her head. “Inhibitors don’t work in here,” she said. “Just like hyperjumps.”
“Jorgen has been able to communicate with people in the nowhere before,” I said. He’d done it when our teammate Spensa had gotten lost on this side. “Can you try to reach him?” He clearly couldn’t pierce the inhibitor around Blightfall, but maybe we could reach him here.
“I’ll try,” Alanik said.
I threw the ship around a particularly large chunk of rock, coming face-to-face with a third ship on the other side.
I opened fire, taking a hit to my shield before eliminating the enemy fighter altogether.
The pilot didn’t eject. Stars, I hated hurting these people, but we were too outnumbered not to take what shots I could.
“Watch out!” Suki shouted as destructor fire showered us from both sides. I threw my ship into a barrel roll, dodging through one burst of fire, and then reversed, rolling the other way through another. I took another hit to my shield, but it was a miracle I hadn’t taken more.
Alanik gripped the sides of her seat, like she wished she could hyperjump anywhere but here, and stars, I wished she would take me with her.
The many taynix still crowded in my ship were rattling around, fluting annoyed little noises, and I didn’t blame them.
“How much is it bothering you not to have control of the ship?” I asked her.
“There are words in your language,” Alanik said, “that mean I dislike it a lot. But I can’t think of them right now.”
I slowed, and the two ships crossed in front of me, ready to swing back around and fire again. I grabbed one of the ships with my light-lance, throwing it into a piece of debris, and opened fire on the other as it tried to turn itself around and come back in my direction.
Five ships down. My monitors showed that some of the others were still moving toward the warehouse, but others were working their way toward us.
If they wanted to split their numbers for me, all the better.
I flew around a flat piece of rock and intercepted another ship, which opened fire immediately.
I executed another complicated set of dodging maneuvers and pulled a light-lance turn to swing around another rock and fire on the ship.
“Hate?” I suggested.
“Yes, that one,” Alanik said. “There are others?”
Two more ships raced into the fray, and I flew a twin-scissor right between them, then focused my fire on the first ship, taking it down.
“Loathe,” I said. “Abhor. Detest. Abominate.”
“ ‘Abominate’ has a nasty ring to it,” Suki said.
“I like it,” Alanik said. “It’s perfect.”
“I’d switch seats with you,” I said, concentrating my fire on the closest ship. “But I don’t think this is our moment.”
“Above!” Suki yelled, and sure enough, more destructor fire rained down. I dove, putting debris between me and them. There were too many ships on me now. I needed to move away, hide, and separate them again to regain the upper hand.
“Amphi!” Alanik said. “I found him!”
Arturo? Jorgen’s voice said in my mind, and it felt so good to hear him I could have cried. Most cytonics could only speak to other cytonics mind-to-mind, but Jorgen’s unusual communication powers made him an exception to that rule. What the scud is going on over there?
Stars, where to begin. Earth was clearly the biggest discovery, but explaining that would take some backtracking.
Wait, Jorgen said, you’re on Earth?
Oh, right. He could read my mind.
We were attacked on arrival and got stuck on Blightfall, I thought, trying to fill him in as quickly as I could.
Varvax are training human warriors, then sending them through a nowhere portal for reasons currently unclear.
We flew through the portal and found it leads to Earth, stuck in the nowhere.
I think that’s the cause of the weird debris and the inhibitor around the planet.
I wove through debris, but one of the enemy ships had taken a page out of my book and hidden.
The ship tethered itself around a rock ahead, doubling back and coming straight for me.
I opened fire, executing a spin to dodge.
I didn’t think I hit the ship at all, but I did succeed in making it fly off course, sparing my own shields a direct hit.
You’re under attack? Jorgen asked.
Yeah, I said. Drones and piloted ships, on both sides of the nowhere portal. They had taynix captives but they’ve been freed now.
I’ll send backup to the planet, Jorgen said. It’ll be a few hours before they can get to you through the inhibitor field.
The enemy ship passed me and used its light-lance to spin around a piece of debris toward me. I snagged a smaller rock near me and threw it at the ship, shearing one of its wings clean off.
Send a large force, I said. We’ve faced heavy resistance. Stars, I hadn’t told him about the diplomats. Their deaths seemed so long ago. Shame flooded through me. We lost Ferret, Underscore, Blaze, Dasha, and Katri in the first attack.
I’m sorry, Jorgen said. He could have been angry that I’d lost half my team, but all I felt from his words was concern.
I scanned the monitors. Some of the ships had hidden among the debris. Either I’d killed enough of them that they were starting to fear me, or they were setting up an ambush.
“I think we can head back,” Alanik said. “I saw where some of them are hiding. I can plot you a safer route.”
I ducked the ship behind a large rock while she did so, keeping an eye on my monitors for nearby motion, but I didn’t see any.
Combat over? Jorgen asked.
For the moment, I said. Nedd and Sadie are presumably trapped in a facility on this side of the gate. We need to go back for them, but there are ships in our way.
“Here,” Alanik said, indicating a path through the debris, and I followed her instructions, swinging out wide and then working my way back down to the warehouse through an area that was particularly thick with rocks and pieces of broken buildings.
You okay? Jorgen asked. The mind-to-mind contact relayed some of his intent along with the words.
He wasn’t asking about the state of the mission or the physical state of my ship.
He was asking about me, probably because he’d sensed the wave of shame along with the news about the deaths of our teammates.
I’m doing my job, I said. I watched for ships on the monitors, but I didn’t see any in our immediate vicinity.
I didn’t ask if you were doing your job, Jorgen said. I’ve done a lot of this job in a state of not being okay.
That was fair. He’d once led us on one of our most successful diplomatic missions right after his parents had been murdered. I didn’t have a right to complain.
Stop it, Jorgen said. Of course you have a right to complain.
Dude, I said. Get out of my head.
I felt something from Jorgen that resembled laughter. Sorry. Perils of being a psychic.
I didn’t think he could delve deep into my mind. He didn’t know all my secrets, unless I was thinking about them on the surface. But so much was right there, so raw. My failures, my confusion, my anger.
Yeah, Jorgen said. I’m intimately familiar with that feeling.
I don’t have control of this situation, I said.
Yeah. You know, I’ve felt like that every moment since before we left flight school.
Fine, but now I feel it, and it’s much worse! I liked it better when you were in charge. I skirted around a rock nearly the size of Platform Prime back home.
More laughter.
I needed to figure out how Jorgen did it. Set aside my personal feelings and my fears about the future, and just forge ahead. Take the risk. Do the thing.
Yeah, Jorgen said. Act like me. I’m sure that will help.
“There are two hiding in the debris ahead,” Alanik said. “More waiting beyond that.”
You’ve got this, Jorgen said. Get Sadie and Nedd out of there and hold on until backup arrives.
Copy, I said.
Jorgen didn’t tell me how to get out of this. He just trusted me to do it, even knowing I’d lost half the team.
If I wanted to get through those ships and rescue Sadie and Nedd, I needed to summon that kind of confidence in myself.