Evershore(Skyward #3.1)(40)

“How are things with the kitsen?” Rig said.

“Precarious,” FM said. “Come on. I’ll explain on the way to wake Stoff.”

Dragging the man out of bed probably wasn’t going to endear us to him, but we didn’t have a choice. I doubted those Superiority ships were going to wait until morning, and even if they did we’d better have reinforcements in place long before that.

While FM filled Rig in, I reached out to Alanik. Status?

Still waiting, she replied. I don’t like it.

Neither did I. The Superiority had both cytonics and hyperdrives—they could bring vast resources to bear in an instant. If they were hesitating, it was because they were calling up their people wherever they were stationed—and it could be nearly anywhere in the galaxy. We’d taken out their planetary cannon on ReDawn, but I doubted it was their only one.

And Juno? I asked.

He keeps telling me I am relaxed. I am not.

Yeah, I said. I wasn’t either. It worked anyway though.

That is encouraging, Alanik said. Thank you.

Keep me informed, I said, and I felt her agreement although she didn’t respond in words.

When I tuned back in, FM was in the middle of telling Rig about me taking out the Superiority ships with the mindblades.

“That sounds dangerous,” Rig said.

“It was amazing,” FM said, and she sounded like she meant it.

“Sure. Amazing, but dangerous.”

“It was kind of surreal,” I said. “But it worked well in that fight. It won’t be enough in the long term though. Now that the Superiority knows we’re working with the kitsen, they’ll gather more ships to bring against us. We need help.”

We reached the corridor with Stoff’s quarters. At the end of the hall a guard stood watch by his door—Kelin, who’d been assigned to watch Cobb since he became admiral.

That seemed like a bad sign.

She saluted as we approached. “I need you to wake Vice Admiral Stoff,” I said. “We have urgent information.”

Kelin nodded—I had higher clearance than she did, so she didn’t ask me for the information. She stepped inside, and then came out a few minutes later with Stoff, who wore a dressing gown.

“Oh good,” Stoff said. “You’re back. How are Cobb and Mrs. Nightshade? Are they in the infirmary? What is their condition?”

Oh, scud. Of course we had to start there. “The medical team was unable to move them without destabilizing them,” I said. Hopefully Cuna was able to move them into the library—I’d left before I’d found out the outcome. No need to get into the strange details of that. Stoff would only want answers I didn’t have. “The team wants to keep them there until we understand more about their condition.”

“Okay,” Stoff said. “I hardly think I needed that report in the middle of the night.”

“We have a bigger problem,” I said. “The Superiority found us on Evershore. They must have heard Kauri’s transmission and came looking for us. They attacked, and we defended ourselves and the nearby city, but then the Superiority withdrew. We heard over the hypercomm that they’re waiting for reinforcements.”

“Well,” Stoff said. “That does sound like a problem.”

At least we agreed on that. If he’d tried to convince me this wasn’t our problem, I would have worried about exploding in mindblades again.

“Sir,” I said. “We need to take Wandering Leaf to defend against whatever the Superiority is planning.”

“Fine,” Stoff said. “You didn’t need to wake me for that either.”

Didn’t I? It surprised me that Stoff wasn’t trying to claim DDF ownership over the thing since we were the ones who had retrieved it from ReDawn and figured out how it worked. It was a good thing—both for our current situation and our relationship with the UrDail—if he didn’t. But…

“We also need DDF support,” I told Stoff. “A few more flights at least. The more you can spare, the better.”

Now Stoff looked skeptical. “Detritus isn’t under attack,” I said. “We have the shield to protect us even if the Superiority were to return, and with the hyperdrives we could be here at a moment’s notice. We can spare the ships, not only to protect Cobb and Mrs. Nightshade, but to show solidarity with the kitsen.”

Stoff watched me carefully, and then looked over at Kelin. “Excuse us,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Kelin said, and she paced off down the hall.

Stoff glanced at Rig, as if considering whether to send him away as well, but seemed to decide it wasn’t necessary. “Okay,” he said.

Um. “Okay, sir?”

“Okay, take the flights. How many do you need?”

“How many will you—”

“Never mind,” Stoff said. “Don’t tell me. I’ll radio over to Command that I’ve authorized you to call up flights to support you on Evershore. You can call them up yourself.”

I could? “Sir?” I said.

Stoff sighed, and I felt like I was missing something. I looked sideways at FM, but she didn’t seem to be any clearer on what was happening than I was.

“Your orders came directly from the admiral, didn’t they?” Stoff said. “I wouldn’t dream of overruling him.”