The Unity pilot ejected but missed the tree, floating down below Hollow’s jagged acclivity stone.
Alanik, Quilan said in my head. I don’t know where you found another cytonic, but you’re only making this worse on yourself by resisting.
I almost retorted that he was only making this worse on himself by fighting us, but I held myself back. He wasn’t worth it.
“Amphi, Nedder, Sentry needs support,” Jorgen said. I followed Kimmalyn back to Jorgen. Down by the base of the tree, I could see Sentry’s ship being cornered by three ships that had joined their light hooks into a net. They closed in, one of them speeding ahead and cutting her off, catching her ship in their light net and hauling her along behind them. FM was hot on their tail, destructors blazing.
“Sentry,” Jerkface said. “Want me to pull you out?”
“Affirmative,” Sentry said. “Cheeky’s ready.”
Sentry disappeared out of the net. The ships wavered for a second, probably wondering what had happened, and then reversed, trying to catch FM in their nets. Amphi and Nedder shot two of them down while FM danced away.
“Um, Alanik?” Jorgen said. “Who is this voice in my head that isn’t you?”
“Quilan,” I said. “He’s on his way.”
“He wants to know who I am, but I’m not answering him.”
“That’s for the best,” I said. “Trust me.”
We’d shaken most of the first wave of ships, but the second wave bore down on us. They’d be here in moments.
“Jerkface,” Arturo said. “We can’t take all those ships. Do we have a plan?”
“Unless we have some way to defend the base,” Jorgen said, “we’re going to have to evacuate.”
I’d hoped to have more time to reach the other Independence bases, to call more fighters to join us. If half the fighters here had abandoned us, we had even less support than I’d hoped. If Detritus had sent more of their military, maybe…
I’d told Cobb I would make use of what he was willing to send, and I intended to do it. We’d rescued my people. That was still an improvement. If the humans were willing to work with me, we could press forward together from there.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
“Where will we go?” Arturo asked. “Can we hyperjump home to Detritus?”
“Already?” Nedder said. “We were just starting to have fun.”
“No, we can’t,” Jorgen said. “I got a message from Cobb on the hypercomm. He said the assembly has arranged a meeting with the Superiority. He’s had to order our arrest upon our return to convince my mother to keep him in the loop. He’s worried about the concessions they’re making. If we bring Alanik’s people to Detritus now, he’s afraid they’ll end up as bargaining chips.”
“That’s not happening,” I said.
“Scud, those ships are coming in fast, Jerkface,” FM said. “We can’t pull everyone out with one hyperjump. We’d make too big a target of ourselves trying to connect everyone together.”
“FM is right,” Jorgen said. “We’ll have to use the hyperdrives, and that means it needs to be somewhere the slugs know, or somewhere I can see, at least for the first jump.”
“The platform,” I said. “Wandering Leaf. You can use your hyperdrives to get beneath the autoturrets. The Unity cytonics can’t teleport. They can’t come after us there.”
At least not unless Quilan could convince his Superiority friends to send hyperjumping cytonics to extract us. He wouldn’t want to do that if he could help it; he was trying to prove how useful and cooperative he could be. He’d lose his leverage if he made the Superiority do all the work.
“That might be our best option,” Jorgen said. “We’ll bring as many of the UrDail with us as we can. Alanik, can you communicate with them?”
“On it,” I said.
Quilan’s reinforcements were arriving now, destructor fire raining through the branches above. Skyward Flight met them in front of the Independence base, Jorgen giving orders for his flight to defend the airspace out front. I switched over to the Independence channel. “Independence fighters,” I said, “there’s a fleet incoming, and the force is overwhelming. We need to flee. Who is your commander?”
“Alanik,” my brother said, “our captain was injured in the blast. I can speak for the group. Where would we go?”