Go, I told Snuggles.
And I hyperjumped the platform directly below the cytonic pilot.
The cytonic pilot immediately pulled up, accelerating to get out of the inhibitor field.
Go, I said to Boomslug.
Boomslug fired the hyperweapon in the direction of the pilot, but they reached the edge of the inhibitor field and hyperjumped away. I searched for them across the sky—
And found them high above the planet, farther even than the carrier ships. Most of our forces were between me and them, but I could follow in an instant, if I could only see where they’d gone. I looked up through the window at the clouds—
And was blinded by a blast of blue energy that poured down from the sky, striking the shield around Wandering Leaf, which sputtered and crackled.
I squinted against the light. When it faded, I stared up at a large, newly arrived ship with an enormous cannon on the front of it.
Scud.
Scud.
“What is that?” Juno asked.
“It’s a planetary weapon,” I said.
“A weapon for planets,” Juno said. “It seems wrong to invent such a thing.”
“No argument here,” I said. It looked just like the one we’d destroyed on ReDawn. It made sense that it hadn’t been unique. They must have had the thing charged before they hyperjumped it in, which made a sick, reckless kind of sense.
We could not let that thing fire on the planet. I didn’t know how many kitsen that ship could destroy in one blast, and I didn’t want to find out.
“Jerkface—” Arturo said over the radio.
“I see it,” I said. “All flights, clear the space around the cannon.” The flights split, going into evasive maneuvers and leading the enemy ships away from the cannon, which was fixed squarely on Wandering Leaf.
They’d take out the platform and then Dreamspring. I had to destroy the cannon before that happened.
The airspace between me and the cannon was clear. I still didn’t know for certain if Kimmalyn was okay, or if any of my friends had been caught in that energy beam, but there were going to be a lot of other casualties if I didn’t act quickly. I focused on the space just below the cannon and hyperjumped the platform up.
The autoturrets fired immediately, pummeling the cannon and the ship around it. Scud, this thing was terrifying from this close. Last time it was Rig who’d had to stare one of these down. I hadn’t given him enough credit for it. The blue light was building again. I focused on the cannon, ready to tell Boomslug to fire—
And suddenly the vibration of the universe went dead. I could no longer feel the cytonic inside the enemy ship, or the minds of Boomslug and Snuggles so nearby in the boxes. Scud, the enemy cytonics had put up an inhibitor, and I’d brought the platform right into range. It was the same thing I’d done to the mindblade cytonic, but they had a ship with an engine, and Wandering Leaf moved only by hyperjump.
I was stuck here.
“This seems bad!” Juno said, his voice almost a squeak.
The blue light glowed brighter and brighter, and then the beam pummeled my shields again. The shield crackled and then blinked out, leaving the platform vulnerable to the next attack. I couldn’t hyperjump out. I couldn’t use the hyperweapon. I didn’t have a starfighter on board, and Alanik couldn’t come in to get me.
I stared up into the mouth of the cannon as it once again began to glow with an eerie blue light.
Fifteen
The autoturret continued to pound at the cannon. It was doing damage, but it wasn’t going to disable the thing fast enough. I was going to get blown to pieces on this platform the moment it finished charging.
“Amphi,” I said over the radio. “I have to get out of here. The autoturrets are distracted. Can any of you dodge the fire and fly in to pick me up?”
“Nedder’s closest,” Arturo said.
“On it,” Nedd said.
“Follow me,” I said to Juno. I scooped Snuggles, Boomslug, Bob the commslug, and the inhibitor taynix out of their boxes and took off at a full run toward the hangar.
When I arrived, I watched through the windows as Nedd pulled a barrel roll past the autofire. The turrets were focused on the ship with the cannons and were doing some impressive damage to the ship around it. Maybe they would be able to disable the thing before—
The blue light grew even more blinding. Nedd used his light-lance to flip around one of the turrets and landed on the platform right outside the hangar.
Juno’s floating platform zipped along behind me as we ran up to Nedd’s cockpit just as he lifted the canopy. The noise of the autofire was deafening, and I dove into the cockpit behind Nedd, straddling the back of his seat and holding on with both hands. Juno hovered beside Nedd’s seat, and the four slugs flattened their bodies against me.