Untitled 6619

by Penguin Random House

  The enemy ships fanned out, intercepting our fighters as they moved toward the gunship. There had to be a way to take that thing down, or the Superiority forces wouldn’t be so determined to defend it. We didn’t need to destroy it, only disable the orbital weapons before they had a chance to damage Detritus.

  I soared with the lift of the music toward the incoming enemy ships and peppered them with destructor fire. I immediately picked up a couple of tails, and Sadie and Kimmalyn fell into position behind me, ready to fire after I took down the enemies’ shields.

  I reversed my boosters, slowing me down. In atmosphere, the drag of air resistance did this work for me, but up here I had to do it myself. The other ships quickly caught up and I did a barrel roll to avoid their destructor fire, though some of it crackled across my shield.

  “Scud,” Rig said, gripping the dash. “I forgot how disorienting this is.” Still, he leaned over the proximity monitor, scanning it quickly. “Roll right,” he said. “They’ve got a friend joining them. If you pass between the two you can get all three of them with your IMP.”

  “Done,” I said, and I rolled to the side and then engaged my boosters to send my ship backward through the enemy fire. My shield cracked further, but it didn’t matter. I hit my IMP, dropping my own shield as well as the shields of all three enemy ships. Sadie and Kimmalyn opened fire while I used a series of defensive maneuvers to avoid the enemy destructor fire.

  Beside me, Rig squeezed his eyes shut. “Yep, don’t miss this part,” he said.

  “It’s probably worse when you’re not in control,” I said.

  “Oh, no,” Rig said. “I’d much rather you were in control than me.”

  “Flight,” Jorgen said. “Converge on the gunship. Victory and Valkyrie have cut us a path.”

  I reignited my shield, and we fell into an M formation as we worked our way up the battlefield. “Incoming,” Arturo said, and I glanced at my proximity monitors to see five ships coming in to break up our path. The enemy wasn’t stupid. They knew we were trying to get close to the battleship to destroy it.

  Though if they sent all their reinforcements into the fray to fight us, they wouldn’t have any to defend the guns once we reached them. Skyward Flight broke formation, falling into evasive maneuvers.

  “Amphi, Nedder,” Jorgen said, “lead those ships away from the rest of the flight. T-Stall, Catnip, back them up.”

  “It’s working,” Rig said, scanning the monitors. “They’re not holding anything back to defend the gunship. Why would they do that if they know we have a hyperdrive?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe because they don’t use their hyperdrives this way. Can you imagine what would happen if they hyperjumped in a lifebuster and detonated it over Alta Base? And yet they never do.”

  “Cobb says they’re careful with the technology,” Rig said. “They don’t trust it to individual fighters, for fear of losing control of the secret to FTL travel. Once people know how it works, the smaller planets will be able to use it, and the Superiority will lose control.”

  If that was so, control came at a massive cost. There had to be a way we could use that against them.

  But first we had to survive.

  The battleship loomed larger in the distance, and Jorgen opened a private channel with me. “Okay, FM,” Jorgen said. “I can see the area in front of the battleship well enough now that I think I can direct the device. Are you ready?”

  “Ready as we are right now,” I said.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Jorgen replied.

  “I’m ready, sir,” I said. The right answer, even if it wasn’t strictly true. There was no “ready” for this.

  “Okay,” Jorgen said. “I’m focusing on the device on your ship.”

  Happy vanished from Rig’s lap.

  Scud.

  Jorgen got the wrong slug.

  “Sorry!” Jorgen shouted over the radio, just as one of the ships the others had distracted turned and fired its destructors toward us. The arc of fire closed in, and Rig squeezed his eyes closed.

  And then suddenly a battleship loomed directly in front of me, so close I had to roll to the side to keep from sailing right into it.

  The ship was boxy, and clearly not designed to be flown in an atmosphere. Two massive doors across the front rolled to the side, revealing a round, glassy cannon inside.

  “I’m thinking that thing is the planetary weapon,” I said to Rig. “Any idea where I should start shooting?”

  “Not at the cannon itself,” Rig said. “It’s built to take fire. Your destructors won’t be enough to destroy it. The cannon controls will be much more vulnerable, but they won’t have those mounted on the outside of the ship where they can be easily shot. Try flying around the front again so I can get a better look.”

  “FM?” Jorgen said over the radio. “Status?”

  “Jump succeeded, Jerkface,” I said. “Evaluating target now.” I swung around and headed toward the fore of the ship, avoiding the area directly in front of the cannon. I didn’t know how quickly the thing could shoot, and I didn’t want to find out by having my ship blown to bits by a projectile designed to destroy a planet.

  “Uh, FM?” Nedd said over the radio. “Where did you go?”

  “Busy, Nedder,” I said.

  “FM, you have incoming,” Jorgen said. “A bunch of Krell turned around and are flying straight toward you. Victory and Valkyrie are nipping at their heels.”

  “Permission to give chase, sir?” Kimmalyn asked.

  “Permission granted. Keep as many of those ships away from FM as you can.”

  “There,” Rig said, pointing to something on the monitor. “Below the gun, there’s a shield to deflect incoming fire. I don’t know if it’s the cannon controls—could be the ship’s acclivity ring, if they have one, or propulsion systems.”

  “Let’s find out,” I said. I dove down below the front of the ship, skimming the underside where Rig had indicated he’d seen the shield. Predictably, there was no big red button labeled “To Destroy Cannon, Press Here.”

  But there was a hatch about the width of my wingspan with the door closed tight, and I blasted it with destructor fire. The shield held for a moment, and then broke, and the door blew off, flying into the cavity beyond. I didn’t get a good look inside the wreckage before more destructor fire came sweeping in from my six, and I ducked my ship under the door and circled around again, bobbing to avoid being blown to bits by the incoming enemy.

  “Well, they found us,” I said. “So much for our lead.”

  “They’re still at a disadvantage,” Rig said, scanning his monitors. “They’re scrambling to protect the ship and you just blew a hole in it. Can you get a look inside?”

  Destructor fire sprayed toward me as I wove around toward the front of the ship. An eerie blue energy was collecting around the cannon, so I gave that a wide berth as I flew beneath it again.

  And encountered an immediate barrage of destructor fire. There must be something important down there, because three enemy ships were circling the damage, defending it as the cannon charged up to shoot toward the planet. Several fighters from Valkyrie and Victory Flights flew in and surrounded the enemy ships, forcing them to scatter or have their hulls torn to pieces.

  “FM?” Jorgen said. “The enemy forces are turning around on you. We’re doing the best we can to keep them off you, but we’re outnumbered. Let me know when you need me to pull you out.”

  “Not yet,” I said. I joined the other fighters in scattering the enemy ships while Rig reached down and unlocked the box, pulling out a quivering Chubs, clearly rattled from making the hyperjump. I took Chubs from him and set him on my shoulder. That was when I realized I had no idea where Happy had gone.

  Stars, was the slug wandering around somewhere in the vacuum? Some things could survive
without atmosphere, but I had no idea if taynix were one of them. The idea of poor Happy lost and alone in the black made me want to cry again.

  Which I still did not have the luxury of doing right now.

  The choral piece was a long one, the music still wafting out of my transmitter. I circled toward the broken hatch again, destructors firing, dodging around enemy ships. I could see some machinery in the wreckage of the blasted door, though I had no idea what it was for. “Rig?” I asked.

  “No clue,” Rig said. “I say shoot it.”

  I opened fire. The bottom of the ship lit up, some of the blasts glancing off the hull and ricocheting out into the battle while others tore through the tech behind the hatch door.

  Destructor fire cracked my shield, and I pulled an inverse backpedal, trying to get away from my pursuers. Three enemy ships had me in their sights though, and they followed me as I darted away from the bottom of the ship.

  It had only been a matter of time before their command identified the ship with the hyperdrive. Two more ships joined them, and I launched into a complicated series of moves that kept them from frying my shield entirely.

  This was it though. “Jerkface,” I said over the radio. “I need to retreat.”

  “Copy,” Jorgen said.

  Another blast obliterated my shield. One more, and we were gone.

  The glass of my windshield abruptly went black.

  Rig swore. “Are we dead?”

  Sparks, thousands of them, all stared at me. Not eyes, but beautiful white stars, worlds away. “Not dead,” I said. My breath caught, I reignited my shield and then scanned the proximity monitor. We might be too far for Jorgen to bring us back, especially with our exhausted slugs. The DDF would come after us if our fuel ran out, but only if there was a DDF left after this latest attack.

  And my flight. What would happen to them?

  “There,” Rig said, pointing on the monitor. I fired my boosters to turn the ship around at his direction. There. We were close enough to see the battle, though we were now behind the battleships, farther out in space.

  A flash of yellow, and a taynix appeared on the dash. Happy.

  He’d returned, alive and unharmed.

  “Hey buddy,” I said, reaching over and scratching him under his spines. “Glad you’re okay.”

  Chatter resumed over the radio.

  “I got him!”

  “T-Stall, Catnip, help Sentry shake her tail.”

  “On it.”

  “Stars, there are more of them!”

  “Has anyone heard from FM?”

  That last from Jorgen. “We’re here,” I said. “Coming up on the rear flank of the battle in—”

  “Two minutes,” Rig said.

  “Two minutes.”

  “That far?” Jorgen asked. “I directed the slug to send you toward the platforms, but I guess it didn’t work.”

  “No,” I said. “It sent us in the opposite direction.” That was worrisome, though I guessed we should have expected it from creatures who were reacting in fear.

  “Glad you’re okay,” Jorgen said. “We’ll head to you. You might encounter resistance on that flank. Flight, disengage and skirt the left side of the battlefield to wrap around and meet with FM. FM, give us a bearing.”

  Rig read one off over the radio, and the rest of the flight affirmed they were coming in our direction.

  “Sitrep?” I asked Jorgen.

  “Not good,” Jorgen said. “The battle has split into two. One contingent of enemy ships is protecting the battleships and the other is cutting through our forces, heading toward Platform Prime. The other flights were unable to disable the cannon, and—”

  He cut off as a beam of hot white energy erupted from the gunship and hit one of Detritus’s gun platforms. Debris scattered out from the rubble belt, destabilized by the impact.

  “They’re firing on the planet,” Rig said. “Our existing defenses can’t stop that.”

  “Scud,” Jorgen said. “Cobb’s calling the retreat. All forces are to abandon the fight and return to Platform Prime.”

  Was there going to be a Platform Prime to return to?

  “Um,” Rig said, studying the monitor. “Looks like there are five ships headed our way. They may know we hyperjumped to get here.”

  “We’re coming for you,” Jorgen said. “FM, evasive maneuvers until we get there. We’re not going to leave you behind.”

  “Understood,” I said. Then, to Rig, “How long until those ships reach us?”

  “Not long,” Rig said. “They’re moving fast.”

  I reversed my boosters, slowing down to dogfighting speed.

  Five ships. I couldn’t outrun or outgun them, and there wasn’t a lot of terrain to work with this far out. Under normal circumstances, I could speed away and hope they wouldn’t consider me worth following, but if the enemy knew I’d hyperjumped, they would assume I was a cytonic and pursue me relentlessly.

  “Incoming,” Rig said. “Scud, they’re piloted ships, every one.”

  “Hold on,” I said. I performed a Barrett sequence, a complex set of dodging loops that made me nearly impossible to target. Rig groaned and grabbed the dash. I might have apologized if I wasn’t currently saving our lives. I thought for a second that he might throw up, and I apparently wasn’t the only one. Happy slid over onto Rig’s lap and cuddled up against him, trilling softly.

  I broke out of the Barrett and immediately went into a twin-scissor as all five Krell ships bore down on me, the space in front of me alive with destructor fire. One blast hit my shield, weakening it.

  “Jerkface, how long until you get here?” I asked.

  “We see you on the monitors,” Jorgen said. “Hold on.”

  I couldn’t engage my IMP, not with this much heat on my tail. Destructor fire rained over us from all directions. The enemy had figured out a formation to make it nearly impossible to dodge the fire. I could tell by the way they flew that they weren’t as good as I was. But there were more of them. A lot more. Another blast hit my shield, then another. I went into a barrel roll, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

  We weren’t going to make it out of this.

  Suddenly, ships came flying in from my left—Nedd and Arturo, who used their IMPs to take down the enemies’ shields. One of the enemy ships continued to tail me as the others broke off to deal with the new threat. Kimmalyn picked off the ships with their shields down in two clean shots.

  “Told you we were coming,” Nedd said over the radio. T-Stall and Catnip took out my last tail, then turned around and helped Jorgen chase down one of the last two ships. Jorgen moved in on it to get within IMP range—

  And then Jorgen’s ship suddenly jerked to the side.

  I tried to open a private line to him, but Jorgen didn’t pick up.

  “Jerkface, you okay?” I asked over the general channel.

  Nothing.

  The enemy took advantage of Jorgen's apparent distraction, and turned and scored a direct hit. By the way his shields crackled, they were dangerously low. But at last he reacted, starting into an evasive pattern, and managed to lose his opponent.

  “Skyward Flight, go defensive,” Jorgen said finally. “FM, cover me while I reignite my shield.”

  “Sure,” I said, and followed on his wing as Jorgen slowed his ship and fell into a defensive position. The rest of the flight chased down the last two ships, then fell in with us while we waited for Jorgen’s shield to reignite. He was still headed away from the planet, when our orders were to go the other way. Something had clearly gone wrong with him, and he still wasn’t responding to my private hails.

  “What’s going on with him?” I asked Rig.

  “No idea,” Rig said.

  Finally, Jorgen’s shield reignited and his voice returned over the general channel. “
Sorry,” he said, though I wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. “Skyward Flight, reverse direction. Time to return to Platform Prime.”

  We all reversed direction, flying back with Jorgen at the center. “Cobb says the gunship has blasted holes through the debris field big enough to reach the surface,” Jorgen said. “Another hit could destroy the apparatus and bury the caverns. All flights are to retreat below the platform belt—they’re going to engage the planetary shield. I don’t know what that means. Rig?”

  “It might not work,” Rig said. “But if it does, the platforms should move into position to protect the surface of the planet from bombardment.”

  I looked back toward the planet. There were two more large destabilized areas in the debris field now. While I’d been distracted, the battleships had continued firing.

  “What about Platform Prime?” I asked. “Won’t that still be vulnerable?”

  “We don’t know,” Rig said. “But Platform Prime controls some vital planetary defense systems. Cobb said it wouldn’t be good tactical strategy to install that on the outside of your shield.”

  “Regardless,” Jorgen said, “they’re relying on the gun platforms to defend Platform Prime while they get the shield up and running, and we are to head home at full speed.”

  I accelerated to Mag-9, and the rest of the flight kept pace with me. We were in this together.

  And we watched together as suddenly, all throughout the debris field, the platforms began to move.

  “Stars, is that happening?” Kimmalyn said.

  “Looks like it,” Arturo responded.

  As far out as we were, we had the perfect view as the platforms began to rearrange themselves, edges extending toward each other. They spread out over the surface of the debris field like ships with wings stretched in all directions, and a crackling blue glow formed over them like a thin film.

  “What the scud is that?” T-Stall asked.

  “Energy field,” Rig said. “There aren’t enough platforms to cover the entire atmosphere. The energy field stretches between, filling in the gaps. It’s also covering the platforms to protect them from—that.”