Page 116 of Blightfall

Arturo

I didn’t like flying over a sea of civilians. It tied our hands in ways that didn’t equally hinder the enemy. Just as Alanik had predicted, the ships kept trying to get an angle on the gateway to the portal, where the gladiators were gathered.

Dayan still had a handheld radio we’d equipped them with when they were flying in my ship. I no longer cared if Ivy heard the transmission. We had to warn them.

“You’re being targeted,” I said to Dayan. “Get your people out of there.”

“We’re hiding inside the gate,” Dayan said. “But I don’t like the people watching us cower. It’s adding to their panic.”

“It won’t work anyway,” I said. “If a ship gets a clear shot at the gate, that whole area is going to collapse. Get out of there. Spread out.”

“Okay,” Dayan said. “Though running out in the open during a firefight seems counterintuitive.”

“Trust me,” I said. “The roof you’re under isn’t going to hold up to destructor fire. They’re going to cave it in on your heads.”

I grabbed a ship with my light-lance just as it lined up for a shot. I ascended quickly, groaning as the g-forces overwhelmed my GravCaps, and hauled the enemy ship’s nose up so its destructor fire went wild over the top of the arena wall. Gilaf pummeled it with fire, dropping its shields and then destroying its hull. I hauled the wreckage over the coliseum wall to avoid dropping it on the crowd, though I had nowhere to dump it besides over Epiphany itself. I tried to aim for the alley behind the coliseum, but I couldn’t spare the time to watch where it actually landed.

Stars, I hated drones. It was nice not to worry about shooting down pilots who were only doing their jobs, but the enemy risked nothing except the cost of the equipment, while we risked everything.

“Can you tell which of these ships has the inhibitor?” I asked Alanik.

She shook her head. “All my cytonic senses are dead. I can’t feel it.”

“It will probably be a ship taking fewer risks, yes?” Suki asked.

That was a good point. “Can you find any matching that behavior pattern on the monitors?”

Alanik and Suki scrutinized the screen while I targeted a ship that dove down into the arena from a high angle. It was coming in fast, but I aimed my destructors over the coliseum wall and shot at it, cutting off its path. Gilaf came at it from another angle, chasing it out over the city, where I hoped the civilians were taking cover.

Another ship flew in, already shooting down into the crowd, and I grabbed it with my light-lance, hauling it along with me. Without Gilaf to shoot at it, I could do little more than drag it away, but Gilaf was already returning from taking out that last ship. I had to hold on.

“Pull up!” Alanik shouted. “Pull up!”

Scud, the ship I was dragging was on a trajectory to collide with the upper wall of the coliseum, which would rain stone down onto the crowd. I pulled up harder, g-forces overwhelming me. My vision tunneled and I thought I might pass out.

My vision cleared as Gilaf swooped in, taking out my captured ship. I dropped my light-lance, releasing the wreckage in the alley, away from the streams of people fleeing the arena.

“We’re moving into the arena,” Dayan said. “I think…I think it’s good for the people to see us out here. We’re not hiding.”

“Good,” I said. “Keep it up. We’re doing our best to cover you.”

“You’d better,” Dayan said.

“I found something,” Suki said. “Two ships, flying in a circle around the arena at a distance of seven kilometers. You could chase them, but you’d have to abandon the arena.”

I didn’t want to do that. Even as we spoke, two drones dove through the top of the coliseum at once. I grabbed one with the light-lance, hauling it up, but the other cut a path of carnage down the side of the arena before Gilaf could chase it over the wall.

Stars, that blast would have killed a lot of people, and even more would have witnessed their grisly deaths. “We need to get your hypercomm back up,” I said.

“I can’t,” Dayan said. “Your slug disappeared.”

Bob disappeared? Where would he have gone? Stars, I still hadn’t seen Naga either.

“Wait!” Alanik said. “One of the circling ships is on the move.”

One of the ships was leaving. It soared directly away from the city, accelerating as it went.

“What the scud is it doing?” I asked.