ReDawn (Skyward #2.2)(51)

“Here we go,” Jorgen said as Rig deposited Drape in the navigation system taynix box. “At least we’ve used hyperdrives before. Do we think this works the same way as the ones in our ships? I just send it a location and the whole platform will move?”

“The Superiority moves massive ships with hyperdrives,” I said. “So this platform shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I only know how to send the slugs to places we both know,” Jorgen said. “I don’t know where we’re going.”

“I can give it coordinates,” I said. “If we’re going to Tower, I want to be sure we’re out of range of the tree so the autoturrets don’t fire on it.” I wasn’t going to be responsible for that many civilian casualties, and not just because it would be impossible to convince my people we meant well after something like that.

“Could you move the platform yourself?” Rig asked me. “It seems like you could do it without the help of the taynix.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’d rather not risk it.”

“Plus, we should test it with the hyperdrive,” Jorgen said. “That way we know if it works, in case I need to pull us out after Alanik is gone.” He turned to me. “Do you know what kind of range the guns have?”

    “I’m going to overestimate it,” I said, “just to be safe. We want the guns shooting at the people who come after us, not at Tower. We can always move the platform a second time if we need to.”

I searched out across the planet, reaching past Industry and Spindle—where I lived—to Tower. It was far from other trees at the moment, leaving many branches of space out in the miasma to move the platform to. I needed it close enough to Tower that Unity saw it as a threat, but not so close that anyone got hurt, even aircraft that were passing through the busy airspace around the tree.

Better to be too far out than too close. I chose a place farther away and impressed the coordinates into my mind. And then, reaching out for Drape, I fed them to him.

Nothing happened.

“Why isn’t it working?” I asked.

“He’s not listening to you,” Jorgen said. “Probably because he doesn’t know you.”

That made sense. Most of the slugs back on Detritus hadn’t come when I called them either. And those that had only did so because I’d promised them food and friends.

“That’s a good thing,” Rig said. “It means not all the slugs can be used against us in combat.”

“You’re going to have to give him the command,” Jorgen said to Rig.

Rig bent down, speaking through the metal door of the box. “Go.”

There was the slightest hesitation.

And then that horrible loss of control again as I slipped into the negative realm without pulling myself through. I came back to where I was standing before, in the center of the control room.

    The window facing the miasma suddenly went dark.

“Um, guys?” Kimmalyn called from the direction of the hangar. “You need to come see this.”

We all crowded out the door to the hangar. Pilots sat in their ships with their canopies open, looking out the enormous windows through the swirling miasma at the reaching branches of Tower, so named because it was the tallest of all the trees—long and lean, with branches that soared nearly straight upward into the sky. Here there were almost no horizontal buildings, only spirals built into the sides of the branches, all illuminated with hundreds of thousands of city lights. The intricacies of the architecture were too tiny to see from this distance, but the overall effect was still impressive. I felt a little bit of pride at the way the humans gaped at it.

“That’s incredible,” Rig said.

“I thought that other tree was impressive,” Arturo added.

“Hollow is a ruin,” I said. “This is UrDail civilization.”

All around, I could see the Independence pilots sitting taller.

I was glad to see that I’d managed to place the platform far enough from the tree that the turrets weren’t shooting at it. But we were close enough to be visible from the branches, so people had to be taking notice.

Jorgen moved to his ship and fiddled with the radio. He picked up a channel talking about the weather patterns in the miasma, and then an air traffic control channel.

“—obstacle in the airspace on the duskward side. All flights avoid—”

    “Yeah,” Nedd said. “They definitely noticed us.”

“What about the other cytonics?” FM asked.

Jorgen closed his eyes, and I waited while he reached out across the negative realm around ReDawn. “I can feel one of them,” he said. “Your friend Quilan?”

I followed his reach. He was right. Quilan was moving toward us. He’d moved so fast, he must have already been in a ship before we hyperjumped.

“We’ve got their attention,” Jorgen said. “All ships, time to get in the air. We’ll fly out of the hangar together. When we’re all ready, we’ll hyperjump everyone beyond the range of the autoturrets.”

Canopies lowered and ships lifted off the landing pad. Nedd hung back, pulling his taynix, Chubs, out of its box. We’d agreed that I should take a hyperdrive with me, in case Arturo and I were separated, and Naga would be able to find Chubs instantly. It would leave Nedd without a hyperdrive in the battle, so he’d have to rely on his flightmates to pull him in and out with light-lances, just like the Independence pilots.