Page 131 of Blightfall

One of the varvax grabbed medical implements from a tray and began hurling them in our direction. I ducked the first one, but the varvax picked up a second. It lifted it high, ready to throw, then screamed. The tool changed in midair, becoming the multicolored body of Hoid. Another implement on the tray turned into Twist, who shouted an impressive array of swear words at the varvax. I was as surprised to hear her conjure so many original words as I was by the content.

They had managed to camouflage themselves. I grabbed for Twist while Nedd stumbled to the door, nearly colliding with a team of varvax with destructor pistols, flanked by more electric shock drones. Nedd swore and threw the door closed.

Stars, we were still trapped in here. Just then Arturo’s ship flew through the hole he’d blasted, and the ceiling outside exploded in destructor fire, sending more chunks of concrete raining down. The windows shattered with it, and Arturo shot his light-lance at us, hitting one of the gurneys near the hole where the window had been.

“Grab on!” Arturo shouted over the radio.

The varvax in the room were now cowering behind the tank of cryogenic fluid. Nedd grabbed Hoid and stumbled across the room to the line of light.

“Stop them!” Ivy shouted again, and I tucked Twist under my arm and ran to where Nedd waited. He grabbed me by the hand and hauled me out through the window, where we hung from Arturo’s light-lance, the gurney falling to dangle beneath us. Destructor pistols fired below us, and Arturo canvassed the room with fire, vaporizing varvax and humans alike. Nedd and I clung desperately to the light-lance with our limbs still partially numb. We hung just beneath the fuselage as Arturo cruised through the portal, out of the facility, and into the arena again.

Forty-Seven

Arturo

We flew out through the portal into the arena. I circled the ship and hovered beside an old corpse of a fallen scion, careful to let Nedd and Sadie climb off the light-line without bumping into anything. They both looked shaken and their arms were bleeding, but they were alive.

“You returned!” Dayan shouted to me over the radio.

The arena had emptied somewhat, though I imagined the streets outside were in chaos. Once Nedd and Sadie were safely on the ground, I lifted my ship into the air again, aiming my destructors at the portal. I’d taken care of some of the ships outside the warehouse and a lot of the armed varvax inside, but Ivy apparently had millions of soldiers available to awaken, and any number of them could come through at any moment.

The gate remained still. No one emerged.

“Permission to investigate?” Alanik said.

“Not alone,” I said, landing on the arena floor. I didn’t know what all Nedd and Sadie had been through, but they were both sitting on the arena sand and looking reluctant to stand. “Take Gilaf with you.”

Alanik nodded and disembarked, joining Gilaf at the edge of the arena. They disappeared behind the gate, still dark, though no longer obscured by the fog.

“It’s closed,” Alanik said over the radio. “Locked. I don’t know how to open it from this side.”

They weren’t coming after us, then. Now that we knew she had Earth and a massive army of humans, Ivy had locked up her hidden corner of the nowhere, with our home planet and its remaining inhabitants as her captives.

Alanik and Gilaf returned from the gate, and Dayan approached, this time with a small group of people I didn’t recognize. They were eyeing Alanik and Gilaf nervously, so I stepped between them.

“This is council leader Moran,” Dayan said to me. “She realizes that you just saved our city from alien attackers, but she’s pretty confused on the finer points.”

Finally, I could say the words I’d wanted to say since we arrived. “Our reinforcements are on their way,” I said. “We’ll monitor the portal until they arrive.”

Suki floated out of my ship on her little disk, while our taynix all convened on the sand beneath the wing of my ship in a big cuddle pile with their new taynix friends. The council leaders looked even more alarmed at this display, but they didn’t appear inclined to violence, which was a start. I didn’t know how many of them had been in league with Ivy, or what they had known about her control of the settlement here, but now that they were separated from her, they posed much less of a threat.

“If you don’t mind, flightleader,” Suki said, her pin translating aloud for everyone, “I’d love to begin answering the council’s questions and ask a few of mine in return.”

I looked at the council leaders for their reaction. They hesitated, and then the one Dayan had called Moran spoke. “We would love to speak with you and get some answers,” she said.

“I don’t know if I can provide you with all the answers you seek,” Suki said, “but I will try.”

“Can you supervise that?” I asked Dayan quietly. I wasn’t about to leave Suki alone with humans who, until an hour ago, had presumably hated all aliens universally and may have been working with the enemy.

“Of course,” Dayan said.

“Gilaf can attend me also,” Suki said, “as my personal security detail. With the flightleader’s permission, of course.”

“Sure,” I said, nodding to Gilaf, and he followed Suki, Dayan, and the council leaders as they convened in the stands.

Alanik and I stood quietly on the arena floor, watching as several of the gladiators surrounded one of the surviving scions and gently herded it into a corner. I wondered if these people’s relationship to the creatures would change, once they understood that their combat against the scions had always been manipulated by darker forces.

“Ivy could open that portal again at any time,” Alanik said. “As long as these people live here, they’re in danger.”