ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)(7)

Your cooperation is appreciated, Quilan said.

This wasn’t happening.

I couldn’t hyperjump in there. I couldn’t save Rinakin.

The only thing I could do was run.

I twisted the dial that fired the boosters.

The ship roared to life, but it only jerked forward a few inches. I twisted around to look and found that Quilan had used a light hook to hold my ship in place. He climbed out of his ship, walking with a brisk step. He might want to convince me that he came in peace, but he also didn’t want to give me time to escape.

As long as I didn’t let him get me in the back of that ship, he couldn’t keep me here.

“Alanik,” Quilan called. He was no longer speaking to me cytonically, possibly trying to distract me from anything else I might hear. “Come with us, and we can get this all worked out.” He slowed as he approached the door to the ship.

I was going to have to leave this ship behind, but I might be able to get a new one at Hollow. I reached through the negative realm, forming the coordinates for the base on Hollow in my mind. If that base was the last holdout, I could take shelter there while I made contact with the humans. I’d also be better positioned to get my people out if things went wrong.

    “I’m sorry, Alanik,” Quilan said. “I thought you might still see reason.” He sent a concussion bolt flying into the ship. I felt it coming and ducked just in time, missing most of it, though my ears rang and my vision swam.

I ripped into the negative realm, hanging there for a gut-dropping moment, staring out at thousands of white eyes that all focused on me. I felt lost here as I always did, slack and untethered like a streamer torn free of its post, floating for a moment before fluttering inevitably downward into the dark. The eyes regarded me as a trespasser—

And then I returned to myself. I stood in a vestibule in the Independence base on Hollow, a tree even larger than Industry, though far less populated. This tree was dead, and was now used mostly for lumber harvesting.

Through the enormous window comprising one wall of the vestibule, I could see Wandering Leaf—an abandoned military platform similar to the ones that had shot me down when I first visited the human planet—drifting in the miasma. The platform was slowly migrating closer to Hollow, though if it had to threaten any of our trees with its autoturrets, at least it was a sparsely populated one.

The base around me was silent, the hallways empty. That was odd—there were usually a hundred people in residence here helping with the lumber transportation, keeping an eye on Wandering Leaf, and monitoring the tree itself for signs that it was becoming unstable.

“Secure the area,” a voice said at the end of the hall, and I pivoted to see several people approaching. They were wearing Unity pilot uniforms, yellow leaves emblazoned on their shoulders.

    They’d already taken the base. So where were the Independence pilots? I ducked back into the corner, hiding in a recess until the Unity pilots had passed me by.

Motion through the window caught my eye. I looked down to see a Unity ship hovering just under the branch, outside the base’s landing bay. It would be dangerous to hyperjump again so soon, especially if I wanted to bring my brother or some of the other Independence pilots with me when I jumped out again. I’d never done many jumps so close together before—the more times I hyperjumped in quick succession, the more I would draw the attention of the eyes. Being a teleporter was considered one of the most hazardous of the cytonic skills, because we traveled physically through the negative realm.

We didn’t always come back. But the risk would be worth it if I could get us all to safety.

When I reached into the negative realm, the surface of that ship felt smooth and impenetrable—blank, like the inside of the ship that had taken Rinakin.

Another Superiority inhibitor.

Unity wasn’t going to turn us all over, were they?

Alanik, Quilan said in my mind. He’d found me again, though he was still near Industry and he couldn’t hyperjump after me. Come back so we can discuss this.

So they could capture me was more like it.

Rinakin was right. We needed allies who knew how to fight. If I could convince the humans to side with us instead of the Superiority, maybe we could remind my people of our heritage of resistance, remind them of what we were capable of.

    I reached through the negative realm toward the human planet, finding Jorgen again.

I need to speak with you, I sent to his mind. Can you give me the code to return to your planet?

Alanik? Jorgen said.

Yes, I answered. I would like to return to speak with you, though I need the code to your inhibitor.

Our what?

I closed my eyes. He didn’t even know he had the code. Those leaves were the same color as the ones I’d seen when I met him.

Boots marched down the hallway toward me. I might be able to hide here a bit longer—

Alanik, Quilan said. You’re not going to find any friends on Hollow today.

I took a deep breath. Quilan knew where I was. He could easily send a hypercommunication to the Unity officials here. They’d be looking for me. I reached into the negative realm, and sure enough I could hear his chatter.

—catch her— Quilan was saying. —convince the Superiority—worth more than all of them combined—

I shook my head. Quilan and the others were trying to prove their value to the Superiority. They’d accepted aid to contain us in the form of those ships, but if they didn’t do the work themselves, they wouldn’t earn any favor.