Evershore(Skyward #3.1)(35)

For all Alanik’s talk about proving yourself in combat, she fit effortlessly into the flight and never argued when I gave her orders.

“Jerkface,” Arturo said over the radio, “the others are getting in their ships now, but Quirk and Sentry are pinned down over by where we had that feast.”

“Got it,” I said. “Angel, cover the others until they get in their ships, then back me up.” I darted off down the beach, immediately spotting the ship Arturo was talking about. It was peppering the rock with destructor fire, and I hoped Kimmalyn and Sadie had found good cover. I opened fire, getting in one good hit before the ship went into a bank, then rolled and returned fire. I flew beneath the ship, forcing it to turn again and keep its attention on me. Once I had it, I threw my ship into a wave sequence, evading its fire, leading that ship out over the ocean again.

I caught the attention of two more tails. Arturo and Nedd were both in their ships now, circling over the area where Kimmalyn and Sadie had been pinned down.

“Amphi,” I said, “how are Quirk and Sentry?”

“Climbing out of an oven, it looks like,” Arturo said.

“How clever,” Juno said behind me.

“They’re coated in soot,” Arturo said. “We can cover them to their ships.”

“I’ve got it,” I said. Kimmalyn and Sadie couldn’t call to their slugs, but I could let the slugs know where they were. I sent Cheeky and Happy a mental image of the oven area. I felt the slugs hyperjump to the ovens, and then to the ships.

“They’re here!” FM said. “Very dirty, but they appear to be fine.”

“Good,” I said. “Everyone sound off when you’re in the air.”

My three tails were trying to catch me in their crossfire, and I darted through another defensive sequence while the flight sounded off. Instinct took over while I kept mental track, making sure no one was missing.

“Is someone helping Jerkface?” Kimmalyn asked over the radio.

“I’ve got it,” I said. My tails were right behind me, all three targeting me at once, though I still had my shield and they were firing wildly.

“This might be a good time to try a meditative exercise,” Juno said.

“How do you figure?” I asked, going into a barrel roll. Juno’s platform tipped to the side, and he let out a little squeak that sounded suspiciously like a whoop.

The others were all in their ships now, so I didn’t have to worry about leading the enemy away. I didn’t want to encourage the enemy to fire on the kitsen city, but I also didn’t want to leave the city alone for too long and have it get blasted in our absence. I didn’t know what the Superiority’s orders were, so we had to plan for anything.

“Remember the fragments,” Juno said. “Your breathing.”

“I’m busy,” I said.

Juno continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Breathe in, breathe out. You are now completely relaxed.”

I was not at all relaxed. I’d seen the biofeedback reports, tests where the DDF tracked our vitals even on routine flights. We functioned on pure adrenaline up here. “Juno,” I said. “I don’t think—”

“You are a stone, skipping on the sea,” he said, and I remembered that sensation, the skimming across the nowhere. The vibration I felt along the boundary between this world and the nowhere was not unlike the vibration of my ship as it cut through the sky.

“I can’t manifest mindblades inside my ship,” I said. “I could cut the ship to pieces.” Slices of metal curling outward, flying away from each other in a giant burst.

“Boom,” Boomslug said.

“Right,” I said. “No booms. Not here.”

“Not here,” Boomslug agreed.

The enemy ships were still on my tail, and I evaded their fire and swung around parallel to the beach. If I brought them back, I could—

“Jerkface, you okay?” Arturo asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Get the rest of the flight in offensive formation.” I couldn’t get a good view of the battlefield without giving an opening to my tails, so Arturo would have to manage it. He was capable. He could handle it without me.

“Ah, here it is,” Juno said, flipping through the pages of the book. “Return to the ocean. Stand with your feet in the water. You are a part of it, as it is a part of you.”

I could hear Arturo over the radio, giving instructions to the rest of the flight. He had Nedd supporting Kimmalyn while he and Alanik came after me. “Juno,” I said. “I really don’t think—”

“As the wave of your mind washes into this dimension, it carries with it shards of the nowhere. Feel them fly from the surface of the ocean of nothing. The shards are far from you, farther than your reach. They are not shards at all, but birds, growing wings, flying far, reaching into the beyond, cutting everything in their path with their razor-sharp beaks.”

Scud, I could see them, the shards, the birds. They flew along the edge of the nowhere like the ones I’d seen dodging over the waves earlier. I jogged my ship to the side to avoid a blast of destructor fire and completed my loop, heading for the beach. “You know if I mess this up, we’re going to fall out of the sky, right?” Snuggles could hyperjump us out, but I’d lose my ship and this was not the moment for that.