Page 91 of Blightfall

I was already firing, and Arturo and Alanik joined me. The ship stopped spinning Nedd and Gilaf, and turned toward the hangar opening, flying deeper into the facility.

Towing Nedd and Gilaf’s fighter behind.

Twenty-Nine

Sadie

Oh stars. Oh stars. The other ships still swarmed around us, firing relentlessly, but Nedd and Gilaf disappeared beneath the overhang of the cylindrical station, through a set of open hangar doors.

If they closed those doors, we wouldn’t be able to get to Nedd and Gilaf.

“Nedder!” Arturo shouted over the radio. “Nedd!”

“I’m going,” Alanik said. She didn’t ask permission, didn’t wait for Arturo to acknowledge. She just ducked through the rain of destructor fire and flew through the hangar doors and out of sight.

“Amphi?” I called.

“Go with her,” Arturo said. “I’ll cover you, then follow.”

I didn’t like leaving him behind, but I didn’t hesitate. I dove after Alanik over the landing platform. My ship began to handle differently as I passed through the surrounding air bubble, the sudden drag of atmosphere making my ship feel sluggish.

The enemy drone that had towed Nedd and Gilaf into the landing bay turned itself around and immediately began to fire at Alanik and me. I took a second hit to my shields as I focused on Gilaf’s Dulo, which had collided with the hangar floor and now lay, inert, beneath the opposing ship. Dim yellow light lit the hangar from overhead. I slammed forward in my harness as I fired my boosters backward, rapidly slowing to keep from slamming into the wall on the far side.

Stars, how bad were the g-forces from that spin? Had their blood vessels burst? Had it killed them?

My shield took a final hit and blinked out, leaving me unprotected. I screamed and focused my destructors on the ship in front of me. Alanik joined me, and our combined fire tore it apart. I brought my ship to a stop just behind the wreckage, using it for cover. I set my shield to reignite and scanned for oxygen levels.

My monitors indicated the air was safe to breathe. The ground crew seemed to have evacuated, but the large double doors that led into the facility were cracked open, and the barrel of a large gun protruded through the gap.

“Gilaf!” Alanik shouted over the radio, not bothering with his callsign. “Respond!”

More destructor fire rained onto the landing pad behind us as Arturo circled, keeping the bulk of the ships off us but unable to make a safe landing without leading them right to us. The gun peeking out from the station proper probably wasn’t heavy enough to damage our ships, but it would prevent us from climbing out to reach Nedd and Gilaf.

“Cover me!” I said to Alanik, aiming my ship at the doorway just as the machine gun began to shoot. I returned fire.

The gun was no match for ship destructors. My shots took out the gun, both doors, and a sizable part of the doorframe with it. I couldn’t see anyone on the other side. I’d probably blown the shooter clear across the room and into multiple pieces.

Stars. If we walked in there, were we going to see the body? Most of the ships we shot down were drones, and even those that had pilots were distant, just wreckage falling out of the air. I knew that the creature tried to kill me first, but I still didn’t like the idea of looking it in the eyes afterward—if there were any eyes left.

I grabbed my pack with my radio, light-line, and pistol. I dumped in Hoid—still stripeless—and Twist, then hopped out of my ship. Alanik had already disembarked, running from the shelter of her ship to the shadow of the Dulo and then forcing open the canopy. She grabbed Gilaf by the shoulders as I joined her.

Gilaf groaned, holding his head. The bone protrusions on Gilaf’s face were ringed with dark purple blotches, and the whites of his eyes were stained dark. He was conscious, though. He was alive. He said something, but his translator pin must have fallen off because I couldn’t understand him.

Nedd looked equally disoriented, but he blinked at me as I hoisted myself up on the ship. His prosthetic had shaken loose, hanging awkwardly in his sleeve. I winced as he pulled off his face mask. His face was covered in red blotches, his eyes red-ringed with broken blood vessels.

He looked like hell and probably had a raging headache, but at least he was conscious. That probably meant he hadn’t done permanent damage to his brain.

Alanik tucked Squeeze, Wham, and Nope into her own pack with Bob and began to haul Gilaf out of the ship.

“You okay?” I asked Nedd.

“I think so,” Nedd said. “Where are we?”

“In the hangar,” I said. I located his pistol along the side of the seat and shoved it into his hand. Normally I wouldn’t want a disoriented person wandering around with a sidearm, but in this case, leaving him without one was the greater risk.

More destructor fire disintegrated the remains of the ship I’d gunned down. We couldn’t stay here, or we were going to be killed.

Arturo’s ship soared through the hangar doors. Once he landed, we wouldn’t have anyone else in the air to keep those ships off us.