ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)(40)

“I have a little,” FM said. “Not enough to feed them all. If you promise them caviar and we don’t deliver, that’s bad for their training, but not as bad as being given to the Superiority.”

I grabbed a large box of algae strips on the shelf. “We could bring these. The people on Wandering Leaf are going to be getting hungry, so we should probably bring some for them anyway.”

“Good idea,” Rig said, and he picked up a jug of a white substance.

“Custard,” FM said. “Kimmalyn will be happy.”

“If I’m going to try to call the slugs, it’ll draw attention,” I said. “We should do it from the ship, so we can leave immediately afterward.”

Rig looked at FM, as if to ask if we were actually doing this.

“I think you should,” FM said to me. “I don’t feel good about leaving them here, even with their pilots, when we don’t know if the other flights will defend them.”

    “They probably won’t,” Rig said. “The assembly has come down pretty hard on you guys for what you did, and Cobb has had to go along with it.”

“All right,” I said. “I can jump us to my ship in the landing bay.”

I pulled us through the negative realm beneath those strangely distracted eyes. We were only going a short distance, but space didn’t work the same in there. If we were dealing in relative distances we should have spent a much shorter time in the negative realm compared to when we jumped from ReDawn, yet we hung there for a moment and then emerged out the other side in the large hangar next to my disassembled ship. Through a large skylight, I could see the platforms above and snatches of the sparkling shield that encased the planet.

“You’re sure you can make it fly again?” I asked Rig quietly.

“It’ll take me a bit,” Rig said, “but yes, I can.”

“It’s got a better chance of working than the one you left with last time,” FM added.

“Last time!” Gill trilled, and FM shushed him.

“Wait, what happened to that one?” Rig whispered.

“They’re here somewhere,” a voice said from the edge of the landing bay. “Find them.”

FM and Rig huddled closer together under the wing, the containers of food tucked up by their knees.

“That’s Cobb,” Rig whispered.

And so it was. Had Spensa’s grandmother alerted him? She hadn’t wanted to abandon her people, but she’d sounded like she wanted us to keep fighting.

    No, it was probably the Superiority. One of their cytonics might have warned them of our arrival and then noticed us hyperjumping to the landing pad.

“Alanik,” FM whispered. “The slugs.”

We might be able to count on Cobb to cover for us for a moment, but not for long. Whatever cytonic was watching would be able to feel me calling for the slugs, but if I hyperjumped out fast enough they wouldn’t be able to stop me.

I gave FM a sharp nod, pressed my back to the lower part of my fuselage, and reached out across the base.

There were a lot of those tiny minds. Dozens at least. As I reached toward them, they turned to me as if curious.

I could work with that. I wasn’t sure how much language the slugs understood, but in the negative realm all communication was reduced to thoughts, which anyone could understand. Still, I didn’t want to get too complicated. Friend, I sent to them. They obviously understood that concept, given how attached they were to each other and to their pilots. And this was a concept every living being responded to: Food.

I could feel them answering me, some of them hungrier than others, all of them searching for a social connection like it was the thing they longed for most. These things had relationships with each other long before the humans captured them, I realized, but they saw the humans not as kidnappers but as a joyous addition to their family.

Many of them didn’t want to leave.

    Footsteps approached as Cobb’s people spread out across the hangar. It wasn’t going to take them long to find us here. I didn’t have much time.

More family, I told them, sending them images of Rig and FM and Jorgen.

That intrigued them. They knew and liked all three of them, and wanted to see them again.

More boots clicking on the metal surface of the platform. Movement over the edge of the wing, and then…

“We have to go,” Rig whispered.

Come, I called to the taynix.

And then Cobb appeared, several paces away. His eyes fixed on us under the wing.

And half a dozen taynix popped into existence at our feet.

FM and Rig reached forward, grabbing the slugs, while Cobb’s jaw dropped.

“They’re here!” he shouted.

No. Not covering for us. The opposite of that. We probably should have expected that, given that we were stealing his military’s hyperdrives without permission.

More slugs appeared—maybe as many as a dozen now.

Cobb strode toward us, like he was about to yank us out from beneath the wing.

It might have been for show, but he didn’t have to alert them to our presence, did he?

I wasn’t going to stay here and find out. I reached into the negative realm, toward Wandering Leaf and the rest of the humans. With the ship to my back and my shoulder pressed against FM, I pulled, and the landing bay disappeared.