Chapter Forty-Seven Arturo
Forty-Seven
Arturo
We flew out through the portal into the arena. I circled the ship and hovered beside an old corpse of a fallen scion, careful to let Nedd and Sadie climb off the light-line without bumping into anything. They both looked shaken and their arms were bleeding, but they were alive.
“You returned!” Dayan shouted to me over the radio.
The arena had emptied somewhat, though I imagined the streets outside were in chaos.
Once Nedd and Sadie were safely on the ground, I lifted my ship into the air again, aiming my destructors at the portal.
I’d taken care of some of the ships outside the warehouse and a lot of the armed varvax inside, but Ivy apparently had millions of soldiers available to awaken, and any number of them could come through at any moment.
The gate remained still. No one emerged.
“Permission to investigate?” Alanik said.
“Not alone,” I said, landing on the arena floor. I didn’t know what all Nedd and Sadie had been through, but they were both sitting on the arena sand and looking reluctant to stand. “Take Gilaf with you.”
Alanik nodded and disembarked, joining Gilaf at the edge of the arena. They disappeared behind the gate, still dark, though no longer obscured by the fog.
“It’s closed,” Alanik said over the radio. “Locked. I don’t know how to open it from this side.”
They weren’t coming after us, then. Now that we knew she had Earth and a massive army of humans, Ivy had locked up her hidden corner of the nowhere, with our home planet and its remaining inhabitants as her captives.
Alanik and Gilaf returned from the gate, and Dayan approached, this time with a small group of people I didn’t recognize. They were eyeing Alanik and Gilaf nervously, so I stepped between them.
“This is council leader Moran,” Dayan said to me. “She realizes that you just saved our city from alien attackers, but she’s pretty confused on the finer points.”
Finally, I could say the words I’d wanted to say since we arrived. “Our reinforcements are on their way,” I said. “We’ll monitor the portal until they arrive.”
Suki floated out of my ship on her little disk, while our taynix all convened on the sand beneath the wing of my ship in a big cuddle pile with their new taynix friends.
The council leaders looked even more alarmed at this display, but they didn’t appear inclined to violence, which was a start.
I didn’t know how many of them had been in league with Ivy, or what they had known about her control of the settlement here, but now that they were separated from her, they posed much less of a threat.
“If you don’t mind, flightleader,” Suki said, her pin translating aloud for everyone, “I’d love to begin answering the council’s questions and ask a few of mine in return.”
I looked at the council leaders for their reaction. They hesitated, and then the one Dayan had called Moran spoke. “We would love to speak with you and get some answers,” she said.
“I don’t know if I can provide you with all the answers you seek,” Suki said, “but I will try.”
“Can you supervise that?” I asked Dayan quietly. I wasn’t about to leave Suki alone with humans who, until an hour ago, had presumably hated all aliens universally and may have been working with the enemy.
“Of course,” Dayan said.
“Gilaf can attend me also,” Suki said, “as my personal security detail. With the flightleader’s permission, of course.”
“Sure,” I said, nodding to Gilaf, and he followed Suki, Dayan, and the council leaders as they convened in the stands.
Alanik and I stood quietly on the arena floor, watching as several of the gladiators surrounded one of the surviving scions and gently herded it into a corner.
I wondered if these people’s relationship to the creatures would change, once they understood that their combat against the scions had always been manipulated by darker forces.
“Ivy could open that portal again at any time,” Alanik said. “As long as these people live here, they’re in danger.”
That was true. Our business here was clearly far from over. We’d barely begun.
“Thank you,” I said.
Alanik squinted at me. “For what?”
“For fighting beside me,” I said.
Alanik smiled, appraising me for a moment.
“It is always a pleasure to fight beside you,” she said.
She held my gaze, and stars, I wanted to kiss her.
I hesitated, looking around at Epiphany’s leadership in the stands with our flightmates, the gladiators standing around the exhausted scion, Nedd and Sadie getting their wounds looked at by some of the stadium’s medics.
Alanik seemed to sense my hesitation. “We decided we did not care about social convention,” she said. “But I suppose with the diplomatic situation here, this is not the place to begin to break it.”
Stars, we could have died multiple times over these last few days. It might not be the wisest diplomatic choice, but who was to say we weren’t setting an example for good alien–human relations?
I closed the distance between Alanik and me, and I kissed her. She smiled against my lips.
And in that moment, I didn’t care who was watching.
* * *
A few hours later, our DDF reinforcements finally arrived.
Several flights of starfighters gathered in the sky above Epiphany while a small carrier descended.
It seated twenty people, including FM and a diplomatic envoy.
I introduced the diplomats to Dayan first. “They can introduce you to the city’s leadership,” I said, and Dayan thankfully nodded. “Suki’s already been talking to them.”
“Anything I should know before we do this?” FM asked me.
“These people have been conditioned and radicalized by a contingent of rogue varvax who were acting under the command of an AI, not the Superiority,” I said.
“The AI and the varvax turned on these people, tried to kill them, and an entire arena of spectators witnessed it all. I’m…
pretty sure they’re going to be ready to work with us, given that they just watched us fight to protect their people, alongside their own gladiatorial heroes. ”
“The privilege was ours,” Dayan said.
FM nodded. “Good work,” she said to me. She was in full diplomat mode, so she didn’t stop to interrogate me about Ivy, but I imagined she’d get the full report from Jorgen and have many, many questions then.
Didn’t we all.
A member of the Command staff beckoned me toward the carrier ship. “The admiral wants to see you,” he said.
The fact that Jorgen had come in person told me he already had a sense of how serious this was. It was my job to give him the full report, but I hadn’t been present for some of our most important discoveries.
“Sadie!” I called across the arena.
Sadie looked up from where she sat next to Nedd. Their arms were bandaged from where they’d apparently broken down a glass cabinet with their own bodies.
I jogged over. “Jorgen needs a report,” I said. “Come with me.”
Sadie looked at Nedd, like I might be talking to him.
“Sentry,” I said, “come on. You saw more of what went on than anyone.”
“Nedd was there too,” she said. “And he’s the assistant—”
“He knows my rank,” Nedd interrupted. “But you did the talking, Sadie. Go help with the report.”
Sadie shook her head. “Shouldn’t you two be the ones to talk to Jorgen?”
Sadie had led the conversation—had led all of our conversations, since the moment we arrived.
She was the obvious choice. Nedd seemed to agree.
“Who, me?” he asked. “Do work that other people are perfectly able to do for me? No thanks. I’m going to stay here and try to block that time I was almost cryogenically frozen from my memory forever. ”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Unfortunately, I’d like you to go with FM to help Dayan answer her questions.”
“Fine,” Nedd said, climbing to his feet. “I guess my psychological repression will have to wait until later.”
Sadie and I climbed into the carrier and found Jorgen sitting on a wide bench at the back that could easily seat three people. He motioned for us to take the seats that faced inward on either side of the bench, and we did, Sadie more reluctantly than me.
“You may leave us,” Jorgen said to his remaining assistants, and they climbed out of the ship. Jorgen didn’t question Sadie’s presence. He knew I wouldn’t have invited her along if she didn’t have something valuable to share.
“Alanik gave me an update as soon as we broke through the inhibitor,” Jorgen said. “Did you…really see Earth?”
I nodded. “I flew in the sky above it, but Sadie and Nedd got most of the information. I was just listening over the radio.” I indicated Sadie, and she stared at me wide-eyed, then gave Jorgen a fairly detailed report of her and Nedd’s conversation with Ivy.
“Ivy’s a real nut job,” I added. “Sounded like she was tasked with saving Earth during the Third War, and well…she sucked it into the nowhere. A huge section of it was destroyed—North and South America at least.”
“Twenty-three and three-tenths percent of the surface,” Sadie said. “Arturo’s right. She’s crazy. Obsessed with the idea that we should thank her for what she did.”
“Did any of the population survive?”
“Twelve million,” Sadie said. “I don’t know how many of those are still alive.
She said their descendants were hiding from her.
Some of the people who survived were conscripted into her army.
She’s got millions of humans stored in stasis pods, just waiting to wake them up to defend Earth.
” She bit her lip. “And I think maybe now she thinks she needs to defend it from us.”
Jorgen let out a slow breath, oblivious to Sadie’s distress. “An army of millions of humans. Ready to invade the galaxy to defend Earth. You’re sure about this.”
“Very,” I said. “What about the space station? There may still be varvax up there. Did your forces get attacked when you arrived?”
“We didn’t,” Jorgen said. “My team searched the station before we landed. The varvax had evacuated, and they didn’t leave any taynix behind.”
“I think the taynix had already been rescued,” I said, “given how many Naga and Bob collected in my ship.”
Jorgen smiled. “I’m glad they were able to take care of each other.”
“We really found Earth,” I said. “We know where it went. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“It’s incredible,” Jorgen said. “You’ve done well,” he said, reverting to his commander voice.
“You fulfilled your mission with honor. Thank you. When the rest of the team is ready, you can hyperjump back to Detritus.” He silenced my objection with a look.
Scud, Jorgen was getting good at that. Must be all the practice he was getting.
“Don’t worry. I’ll have more for you soon.
Probably sooner than you’d like.” He looked at me. “If that’s what you still want.”
“It is,” I said. “More than ever.” What Jorgen did in Command was essential, but he couldn’t be everywhere. He needed people in the air who would make the right decisions, prioritize our alliances, do right by our people and the rest of the species in the galaxy.
Maybe it was hubris, but I wanted to be one of those people.
Jorgen stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I have some diplomatic introductions to attend.”
He left the ship, and Sadie stood to follow after him.
“Hang on a minute,” I said to her.
She regarded me nervously.
“Did I talk too much to Ivy?” she asked. “I probably did.”
“No,” I said. “In fact, you were the backbone of this mission. You led out on practically every part of it, and I want you to know I didn’t miss it.
You stepped up, and you got the job done.
Including when you were talking to a power-hungry artificial intelligence that held you captive and tried to cryogenically freeze you, which must have been scudding scary. ”
“It was,” Sadie said. “While it was happening, I didn’t think about how scary. I just sort of kept talking. And maybe I didn’t say the right things—”
“Maybe not always,” I said. “But you said enough of the right things. You did more than your share of the mission we were given, and you did it even when it meant running into a nowhere portal while we were under attack, with no idea how you were going to get out again.” I paused.
It was becoming more and more clear to me what needed to happen.
“So I want to give you a promotion,” I said, “to assistant flightleader.”
It wasn’t enough. Sadie could have led the flight. But her whole face lit up.
“Really?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “If you don’t have your eye on something bigger. Because if you’d rather, I can talk to FM about openings in her department, or—”
“No, I’ll take it! Scud…” She looked at me in disbelief. “I’ll outrank T-Stall and Catnip! What are they going to say?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re going to be happy for you,” I said. “Plus, now you’ll get to boss them around.”
Sadie suddenly looked worried. “Nedd’s not leaving the flight, though, is he?”
“Not to my knowledge,” I said. “He’s considered it, but I’d rather have you both stay on.”
“We’ll be the same rank,” Sadie said, looking contemplative. “Does that mean we can date as long as we disclose it? I think that’s what that means.” She scrunched up her nose.
“I don’t care if you date Nedd,” I said, “so long as I don’t have to be on the other end of the radio for any more of it.”
“You won’t!” Sadie said. “Consider it a promise.”
And then she hugged me.
That…was unexpected.
“Thank you,” she said when she collapsed back onto the bench where Jorgen had sat. She looked scudding tired. We all were. And Jorgen was right. It wouldn’t be long before there was more work to do.
“Let’s get back,” I said. “We all need rest.”
“You can rest,” Sadie said. “I’m going to throw myself a party!”
I laughed. “Well, I hope we’ll all be invited.”
Sadie just grinned.
We stood and left the ship to join the others. I needed to tell them how impressed I was with their courage, and their willingness to follow me in the face of terrifying odds.
I was going to need more of that loyalty, staying on as flightleader, but I was lucky. I didn’t know exactly what was coming at us, but I was facing it with a scudding amazing team.