Page 106 of Blightfall

Dayan smiled. “I say I’d like to get enough points to go to Elysium, get close enough to one of those robed priests, and then tear the robe off them right in the middle of the arena so everyone can see what’s underneath.”

“Ooooh,” Sadie said. “That’ll do it.”

That probably would do it. Ivy hadn’t mentioned recognizing Dayan on the space station, so hopefully our ruse with the flightsuit and hair covering had worked. “I imagine the audience will be pretty shocked to realize the gate to Elysium is being staffed by aliens.”

“The varvax will attack Dayan if we do that,” Alanik said. “Some of us will need to stay in the coliseum to back them up.”

“Do you think the gladiators would have your back if you disrobe a varvax in front of the crowd?” I asked. I imagined a crowd of armed gladiators would fare pretty well against the robed varvax, though if the varvax were armed, we would want a few of our team members in the arena with pistols.

“I can brief them beforehand,” Dayan said. “A lot of them are already on our side.”

“We’ll need to divide into two teams, then,” I said. “One to sneak through the portal while it’s open, and one to assist Dayan and the gladiators in the arena.” Both teams would take enormous risks. One would attack varvax in a stadium full of bystanders, and the other would go into a completely unknown situation with no way to be sure they’d be able to come out again. We’d lost people in the nowhere before.

I could only go with one of these teams, I realized. And I didn’t like the idea of sending members of my team alone into either situation.

“Sadie and I can take the portal,” Nedd said.

That made sense. I knew Sadie was going to want to go in, and if I was going one way, Nedd would need to go the other. “It will be dangerous—” I began, but Nedd cut me off.

“It’s all dangerous,” Nedd said. “We need to get word back to Jorgen about what’s going on before he sends more ships in. Even if we don’t make it out, it’s worth the risk.”

He was right, much as I hated that it had come to this. “Okay,” I said. “Take Bob with you. We don’t know if he’ll be able to communicate from within the nowhere, but he can try.” Hyperjumping didn’t work into and out of the nowhere, only through it, but Jorgen had been able to use cytonic communication to speak to our old flightmate Spensa in the nowhere before, so it was worth a try. “And take Hoid and Naga too, for illusions as you sneak in, and in case you get caught beneath the arena and need to hyperjump away.”

“I’d like to stay in this reality, if you don’t mind,” Suki said. “I have no desire to be lost in the nowhere.”

I hoped no one was going to get lost, but I could see why Suki was cautious. Her people’s cytonics had been trapped in the nowhere for centuries and only recently released.

“Gilaf will also stay with me,” I said, “to help reveal the varvax, defend Dayan, and cause a distraction. Alanik—”

“You are not leaving me behind,” Alanik said.

I looked at her shoulder. “You’re wounded.” Alanik swung her feet out of the ship and stood up on the wing. I wanted to reach out to steady her, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate that when she was proving a point.

“I am fine,” Alanik insisted.

She didn’t look fine. She looked injured, but also determined.

“We need to get some rest before we go, regardless,” I said. “We’ll all be sloppy and careless if we haven’t had any sleep.”

“Though if we have to walk back to the city,” Dayan said, “we’d better get started now. Even if we go back for the canoes, going upstream is going to be a lot harder than going down.”

“Hear me out,” I said. “I have another idea.”

* * *

We slept in the forest, denying Alanik a turn taking watch so she could get as much rest as possible. A few hours later, I sat in the pilot’s seat of the Dulo, the canopy open, the ship suspended over the water and moving at slow speed, by starfighter standards at least. The banks slid by; the tree branches towering overhead shaded us from view. Hoid sat on the dash, keeping up an illusion over the ship to make it look like one of the motorboats we’d seen on the way in—small and open topped, with a round prow that filled in the areas around the nose, disguising the shape. As long as we kept our distance, I thought the idea was pretty good.

Ahead of us, Sadie and Nedd rode on the wing of Sadie’s ship, which was likewise disguised, with Gilaf sitting in the open cockpit while Suki and Dayan perched on the opposite wing. Alanik sat in the seat beside me, ostensibly resting, staring up at the branches as they passed overhead. Gilaf had cleaned her wound, changed her bandages, given her painkillers, and put her arm in a sling. It remained tucked against her side, and she wouldn’t be able to fly until it healed, but if it was causing her much pain, she refused to let it show.

I caught sight of a singular, bright star overhead—the Superiority space station.

“They can’t see many stars here,” I said to Alanik. “I always thought we were more or less unique, trapped under Detritus’s platforms, unable to see the sky. The people here can see a lot of sky, but the constant sunlight still obstructs their view of the stars. Besides the space station, only a couple of bright ones shine through.”

“We can’t see stars from ReDawn either,” Alanik said.

That was true—Alanik’s home planet was a gas giant, swirling with toxic gases that were cleaned from the air by the enormous floating trees on which her people lived.

I squinted through the trees at the few pinpoints of light visible over the mountains behind Epiphany. The universe was a truly massive place, and the visible stars in any one location were only a small fraction of the total. But…“I wonder if you can see ReDawn’s star from here,” I said. “Or from outside the debris belt.”