Chapter 41
“We got them.” Yiko’s usually calm demeanor showed almost feral anticipation.
“Where?” Hal bent closer to her screen and she shuffled to the side so he could see the Ciolla’s position.
Once Yiko had finished reverse engineering the reflective tech that kept the Ciolla invisible, he had ordered the Illium high above Balco, circling around Larga Ways in a massive sweep, hunting . . . and there they were.
Sneaky, sneaky.
Captain Hunner had moved his ship to hover in Balco’s nearspace, over the desert. He hadn’t thought he needed to use Kyber’s Arm’s natural interference to hide, so the ship’s signature was clear, a few thou from the storm’s position.
“Why there?” Chel asked.
“Because he’s waiting at the ready in case the Unhil needs him,” Hal said.
Even as the words came out of his mouth, the Ciolla moved, and Eazi was suddenly in his ear.
“The Unhil is breaking up. Bunny was a little too successful.”
“What do you mean the Unhil is breaking up?” Hal turned and ran for the tube to get back up to the bridge.
Chel and Yiko kept pace with him, and Voa broke into his earpiece as they shot upward.
“Captain, there’s a massive explosion in Balco’s nearspace!”
The tube doors opened and he was out, ice in his gut because Fee was being held prisoner below that explosion.
“Get us there,” he ordered Chel as they took up their positions, eyes on the screen Voa had brought up.
The Unhil had one side missing, and as Hal watched, it began to fall.
“What happened?” Yiko demanded.
“It tried to pick up the Class 5 frame below, to lift it into nearspace, and some of the cables snapped off.” Hal remembered Eazi telling him the cables detaching could cause the Unhil to become destabilized, but he thought the ship would be moving erratically in nearspace at most.
This was a catastrophe.
“Can we work out where it’s going to land?” he asked.
Yiko had brought her portable screen up with her and she was inputting numbers, fingers flying.
“Not on the amphitheater,” Yiko said. “But close enough that the impact could cause damage. That base was already a damaged structure from when Eazi blew it up. A second massive hit might cause it to collapse.”
“What is it?” Chel asked, and Hal realized he was standing, legs braced, arms out, hands fisted.
“Fee is down there. Being held a prisoner in that base.” He had forgotten that none of them knew that. The conversations had been between him and Eazi, and when it came to Fee and his crew, he kept that kind of information to himself.
“Hal.” Voa’s voice was filled with horror. “What can we do?”
“She’s not a prisoner anymore,” Eazi said. “She’s outside, but it’s not necessarily safer for her.”
Hal tilted his head to the side. “Eazi says she got herself out. Where is she exactly?” he demanded.
The screen of his ship blinked and suddenly they were looking at aerial footage of Fee, standing on a sand dune, eyes shielded as she looked at the falling battleship, a wind blowing her hair back in a long dark ribbon.
“What’s that next to her?” Gerbardi asked.
Hal forced himself to shift focus and look for himself. Went absolutely still. “Eazi, I thought the Fitali said it was dead.”
“It appears not. And Fee has made friends with it. It’s saved her twice already.” Eazi’s voice was in his ear, for him alone.
“That’s a classified Fitalian secret, and no one here saw anything, all right?” Hal took a step closer to the screen as something moved sinuously through the sand.
“A frien?” he asked.
“Bunny,” Eazi said, and the whole bridge gasped in shock as the glittering metal segmented horror that was Bunny wound its way up Fee’s leg, clambered up her back, and then perched on her shoulder.
“There’s something about her,” Gerbardi said. “She attracts monsters.”
“Call me a monster, then,” Hal said. “And get a runner ready. I’m going down.”