Page 16 of Blightfall

“All ships,” I said over the radio. “Sound off.”

“Orator One, ready,” Ferret called in. Orator One was our diplomatic passenger ship, and the only ship of its designation on our team.

“Ranger One, ready,” a female voice replied. That was Blaze, the flightleader for Ranger Flight and our primary scout pilot for this mission. Her flight had their own hyperslugs—Pookie and Song, the latter of whose handler had outfitted her with a little vest with her name embroidered on the side—but their slugs were staying home for this mission since Naga and Twist were already riding along.

“Ranger Three, ready,” a male voice chimed in. That was Underscore, Blaze’s wingmate. Underscore and Blaze had been flying together for a while, and had a reputation for sniffing out enemy ships with precision. If there was a threat to be found on Blightfall, Blaze and Underscore would alert us to it. They both flew Val-class ships, which were significantly less armed than the Sigos Sadie and I were flying, but much better equipped for long-range surveillance.

“Skyward Three, ready,” Alanik said. I was Skyward One, and Alanik was my wingmate, but Skyward Two was designated for the assistant flightleader, who was currently hanging out in Skyward Five with Gilaf. Alanik had Bob riding along with her. She hadn’t seemed thrilled with it, which I understood, though he was no less her commander if he rode in another ship.

“Skyward Four, ready,” Sadie said. She managed to sound enthusiastic about her readiness. I’d heard her gushing earlier about how excited she was to see a river! With trees! Which, granted, were both things we mostly lacked on Detritus. Sadie had Nope as her own ride-along, in case we encountered any cytonics during our investigation and needed to protect ourselves.

“Skyward Five, ready,” Gilaf said. He and Nedd were in the sleek Dulo, and they were accompanied by Wham and Squeeze, our team concussion slug and boomslug. Hopefully we wouldn’t need them on this mission, but it was DDF protocol to send one slug of each type, just in case.

“All ships,” I said. “Connect via light-lances.”

I connected my light-lance to Alanik’s ship, and she attached to Gilaf’s ship with the edge of her light-net, and so on around the hangar until all the ships were touching using our hard-light beams. Hyperslugs could only bring our ships with them if they were touching each other, and fortunately the hard-light connections were enough. Orator One didn’t have a light-lance of its own, but Underscore hit it with his beam so it wouldn’t be left behind.

“All right,” I said to Naga, who reclined in the sling alongside my seat. “We are a go to hyperjump.”

Alanik had already given Naga the destination codes. I could have filed the paperwork to schedule a hyperjump today, but I wanted to try this new system where we had to wait for Bob’s permission. It would take us extra time today, but I didn’t want to test it for the first time under fire.

“Hyperjump!” Naga said.

Then we waited. The hyperjump would be instantaneous, of course, but the permission from our delver overlords was not. I tapped my fingers on the dash, waiting tensely as the minutes ticked by.

“Delvers are taking their time,” Underscore said over the radio.

“We’re still popping out of one place in the galaxy and into another, right?” Sadie said. “Are we really complaining that interstellar travel might take us up to thirty minutes?”

“It is pretty incredible we can do it at all,” I admitted, “even if the treaty makes it take longer.”

“Hey! Would this be a good time to practice new insults to hurl at our enemies?”

I sighed. This was exactly the reason I hadn’t wanted to bring Sadie along. I knew she didn’t mean any harm, but this wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted her announcing over the radio with the scouts and diplomats listening.

“Some of my people do that before battle,” Suki said. “They say it’s to make themselves more intimidating, but this seems impractical if the enemy can’t hear you.”

“You can intimidate them in spirit!” Sadie said. “I’ll start.”

“Let’s not, Sentry,” I said, using Sadie’s callsign. “We’re not going into battle. This is a diplomatic mission.”

“Good point! So…should we boast about our amazing diplomatic conquests? Last week I got Arturo to give me his cheesecake just by talking to him. That’s impressive, right?”

“I gave it to you to get you to stop talking,” I said.

“See?” Sadie said. “Clearly a diplomatic success. Watch out, humans of Blightfall! We will…talk to you so politely you’ll have to talk back!”

“Talk back!” Naga echoed at my side.

“We’re not doing the talking!” I reminded her. Stars, I should have opened a private channel to scold her, but I was in too deep now. “Our role here is to be very quiet, remember?”

Sadie didn’t respond, which I took to mean that she did, in fact, remember.

Still nothing happened.

I eyed the sling on the left side of my seat. “Hyperjump?” I asked Naga.

“Hyperjump!” she responded.