ReDawn (Skyward #2.2)(3)

    “That’s why I argued against this in the last session,” Rinakin said. “Who is to determine what is ‘overt’ and what is not?”

As Nanalis made her final remarks, pennants waved all around the stadium, both blue and yellow. Everyone seemed to agree with her, Independence and Unity alike.

Everyone but us.

“Progress for ReDawn!” Nanalis declared. “May her enemies be swiftly silenced for the good of us all.”

Hairs rose on the back of my neck as voices sang out from all around the stadium, joining in a great rumbling chorus. They were cheering for pretty words that would destroy us.

Progress for ReDawn. It was what we all wanted, of course.

But some of us thought it mattered what we were progressing toward.

I knew which enemies she meant to swiftly silence. “I didn’t realize the miasma had gotten so thick,” I said.

Rinakin stared up at the hologram, which had cut away to feature the ships as they lined up for their next bout. “The wind has shifted,” Rinakin said. “I fear it grows more toxic all the time.”

The ships flew across the field for the next bout, but all I could see were the waving blue pennants, each one representing a person who should have been ready to fight for our planet, for our home, but was instead allied with Unity, who wanted to give it all away.

“I think we should leave the match now,” Rinakin said. “I don’t know how many will believe we are the enemy, but I would rather not be caught in the crowd.”

    Cheers went up again, and yellow fireworks filled the air—Unity was gaining on us now.

I didn’t want to watch the match turn on us. “Yes,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We stepped onto the stairs that wound down the branch, passing more private balconies and some larger ones crammed with families—children riding on parents’ shoulders, waving yellow flags. When we reached a crook in the branch we followed it down the stairs to the platforms around the trunk, descending beneath the playing field to Rinakin’s small transport ship, made of dark metal mined from the core of the planet.

I was still bitter about the loss of my own ship, which had been effectively stolen by the humans. I’d put in a request for another, but the order was taking time to process. Normally I would have been granted one instantly due to my status as a cytonic. But the Unity officials must have wanted something to hold over my head until I told them where I’d been and what I’d learned while I was gone. By law, they couldn’t force me. I would have been happy to report to the previous Council, but now I would be facing a room full of Unity officials with very few friendly faces.

I guessed they were growing tired of me putting them off.

I climbed into the copilot seat, preferring to sit beside Rinakin rather than on the cushier seats behind us. Rinakin flew us away from the Stadium tree through the purple and red swirls of gas in the miasma. Somewhere far below us was the core of the planet, noxious and uninhabitable, visited only by the mining corps in heavy protective gear. We were in a day cycle—and still a few sleep cycles away from the fall of night—so the ambient light was fairly bright.

    We flew into the atmospheric bubble of Industry, one of the largest of the trees, which housed nearly a quarter of the population of ReDawn. The branches of Industry reached horizontally away from the trunk of the tree in all directions, and towers stretched into the space above them, while shorter buildings were suspended downward from beneath. Several kilometers from the trunk, the branches reached for the sky, with structures built in spiral patterns winding up the branches all the way to the tips. The air was thinner here, as the tree processed the toxins out of the atmosphere and produced the oxygen we needed to breathe.

A voice reached into my mind unbidden, though I wished I could ignore it.

Alanik, it said. You and Rinakin left the match before I could speak to you. We would like to meet with you in the Council chambers immediately.

“What is it?” Rinakin asked.

“Quilan,” I said. He was one of the Unity cytonics, the closest to my age, though he was a few seasons older. “He wants us to meet him at the Council tree.”

If he’d noticed we’d left the stadium early, he’d been watching us. Probably planning to move on us in the stadium, where it would be harder for us to refuse an escort. Where if we resisted they could accuse us of making a scene, turn public opinion against us.

As if the wind weren’t already blowing that way.





Two


“I’m not going to meet with them on their terms,” I said. I could hyperjump from almost anywhere on ReDawn, but the Council tree—the capital of ReDawn—was home to the other four cytonics. Working together, they could create a cytonic inhibitor, a field from which I’d be unable to escape.

They could all come to me, of course, but it would be much easier for them to catch me if I agreed to walk right into their jaws.

“Offer to meet them in a neutral location,” Rinakin said.

“I don’t want to,” I said. “Too much risk. They’ll bring the other cytonics.”

Rinakin pressed his lips together. I was right and he knew it.

Alanik, Quilan said. Please respond.

I will not be meeting with the Council at this time, I answered. I will let you know when I am next available.