The ship started to drop, beginning an uncontrolled descent, still flying forward with the force of its momentum.
The pilot didn’t eject.
I’d killed them.
“On your right,” Arturo said, and he opened fire, driving back two ships. “Rinakin’s ship is just ahead.”
Right. Focus. I gripped the control sphere much tighter than I’d been trained to do, trying to ignore the panic rising in my throat.
I killed someone.
They were alive before, and now they were dead.
I did that.
Me.
“There it is,” Arturo said. As if he sensed my hesitation, he flew past me, chasing after the ship. “Plan?”
Bile rose in my throat. I had to get out of here. I had to get out of the sky before—
Destructor fire shot over my left wing, and I startled. I slammed forward with my boosters, picking up speed, joining Arturo.
That was enough. I had to end it now. I gained on the ship holding Rinakin and shot at it again with my light hook, which connected, wrapping around the fuselage.
With my light hook in place, I did the only thing I could think of to do.
I reached into the negative realm, called to Naga behind me, and pulled.
Twenty-one
We ripped out of the negative realm and skidded across the metal surface of Wandering Leaf. Our momentum died abruptly in the negative realm, but our boosters propelled us forward anew as we emerged again. I cut their power, keeping my eyes on the ship that held Rinakin as it skidded toward the base of one of the autoturrets and crashed to a stop.
My ship skidded a bit, grinding the landing gear against the metal of the platform, but it didn’t sustain too much damage. I scrambled out, tucking Chubs under my arm in case I needed to hyperjump. I didn’t know what the diones would do with Rinakin, but I guessed if they were his guards they’d be less averse to violence than not-Rinakin had been.
Sure enough, the canopy opened and one of the diones pointed a pistol at me and fired.
I lunged away behind the wing of their ship. They weren’t going to mess around, so neither would I. I grabbed coordinates for the spot right behind the dione’s seat and sent them to Chubs.
We appeared directly behind the dione with the gun, and right in front of the other very surprised dione, who let out a shriek.
Arturo’s ship had slid farther than mine, and he climbed out and raced toward us, but before he could arrive I put a hand on each dione and sent Chubs the coordinates I knew best.
We appeared moments later in the living area in my home on Spindle. Several Unity operatives looked up at me from where they were playing a card game. They could do nothing but watch as I shoved both diones forward and then slipped into the negative realm again, directing Chubs to bring us both back to the surface of Wandering Leaf.
I ducked into the hangar to find Arturo staring at me wide-eyed. His voice was muffled by his helmet, but still audible. “I was going to try to punch them again.”
“Thank the wind it didn’t come to that,” I said, and climbed into the back of the ship, searching for Rinakin.
The oxygen generators were still working in here, so thankfully he hadn’t gotten a whiff of the miasma. Rinakin looked up at me in shock, though he must have assumed I was the one chasing down his ship. One side of his head was red and swelling, possibly from the impact on landing.
I grabbed the gag and pulled it off of his mouth.
“Tell me something so I know it’s really you,” I said.
“Our first lesson in cytonics,” Rinakin said. “I tried to teach you to meditate, and you told me you thought it was a waste of time.”
That was true. I still got impatient with it, but now at least I saw the purpose behind it. Rinakin looked over my shoulder at Arturo. “Did you do it? Did you truly make an alliance with the humans?”
“I’m working on it,” I said. “Come on. We need to go check on them.”
I helped him forward and untied his wrists. He was favoring one of his arms, though I didn’t know if that was from the impact or rough handling by his captors. Arturo stepped to his other side and helped me guide him through the hangar and down the tunnels toward the control room. As we passed beneath the skylights I scanned the sky for ships, but it was too dark for me to see any. As we neared the control room the platform shuddered and the miasma parted off to the side, the mindblade weapons slicing the miasma into ribbons.
Rinakin stared in the direction of the fire. “I think I’ve missed a few things.”
“You have,” I told him. “There was someone pretending to be you, making speeches about how you were joining the cause of progress.”