HOPE YOU’RE BOTH strapped in nice and snug,” Orion said. “Even with the modulators maxed out, this’ll be twisty.”
The view of the roiling battle dipped and spun in the monitors. Sabira felt her guts push rudely against her lungs before plunking down into her hips, and then back around again. They swerved through and around seemingly endless explosions and streams of energy weapons.
“Can’t we use stealth veils?” Sabira asked. “Be less of a target?”
“—Your ship has veils?” Arkrider raised a single eyebrow.
“We did,” Orion answered. “Still not fixed. Only brought the slicer engines back online today.”
The commander flipped open a panel on his gauntlet armor and keyed something in. “—I’m linking you friendly transponder codes. That’ll keep the CDF targeting systems off us, at least.”
“Got it. Hold tight!”
A series of detonations, white-hot blossoms of fire in the black, exploded across the spinning view. Sabira’s brain pushed into the back of her skull. If this is what it felt like with the modulators maxed out, the unrestrained inertial forces of their maneuvers would have killed the two of them already.
“Those were Republic missiles,” Orion said. “Retargeted from the Slaver pyramid onto us, somehow.”
“—You’re not very reassuring,” Arkrider said as Godsfall’s titanic form rose before them.
“We’re still alive.” Sabira stared at Godsfall’s angular abstraction of a head, imagining she looked into Daggeira’s own cold blue eyes. “Orion will get us there.”
Then what? Look what Daggeira’s turned into. How can I possibly stop her now?
“Incoming transmission. Jiddu’s calling,” Orion announced. Within the monitor, a new square appeared that framed Jiddu’s tear-stained face and bloodshot eyes. Behind him trembled Aquila’s red curls. They hurried through a crowded corridor.
“We’re a little busy, what’s crunchy?” Orion asked.
“—In something of a rush, ourselves. On our way to the shuttle bay now. But listen. We’ve been experimenting with the implant you removed from Spear. There’s a way to send amplified feedback through it. If you manage to get close to this Servant Daggeira—she has the same implant, correct?—it may help neutralize her. Specs embedded in my transmission.”
“Got it.”
“—Fly safe, Adept. Lead Shastri Raj out.”
His face disappeared from the monitor. The view of the battle wheeled around again, along with Sabira’s insides. Godsfall grew ever nearer.
“—That’s some good news, maybe,” Arkrider said. “What next?”
“Send a message to my father,” Orion said. “Adept-only channel, directly through the Hizashi.”
“—Think he’ll leave the back door unlocked?” Arkrider asked.
“Ideally.”
“—And if he doesn’t respond ideally?”
“We make our own back door.”
The Shishiguchi arced up and around Godsfall’s shoulder, decelerating hard into angular momentum. Sabira could have sworn the obliteration angel’s eyeless face turned to watch. The Shattered Gates nebula wheeled out of view behind them, replaced by long arcs of debris, cross-streaked by harsh, multi-hued explosions and thruster trails. Farther off, the long bright cylinder of the Safehold drew steadily closer. Plumes of shuttle engines sparked off the vessel like a hive shedding bioluminescent insects into the night.
“—Anything?” Arkrider asked.
“Ping received. No response yet.”
The Shishiguchi cut a wide arc around the outstretched crystal wings, looping back around Godsfall’s left arm. The burning halo of snare satellites had dispersed through the combat zone, leaving only three in orbit around the superweapon.
“Tell him I’m here,” she said. “Tell him to tell Daggeira that Sabira’s with you.”
The wings blazed with fiery auroras and the Shishiguchi tumbled madly. Sabira shut her eyes, focusing on not vomiting and blacking out. Her brain teetered in her head like an angry drunk, before the Shishiguchi finally evened out.
“What the fuck! Just got slapped by a gravity wave,” Orion said. “Never seen anything like—incoming!”
First one, then another, then zip-zip-zip, a whole squadron of Republic gunships sped past at incredible speeds. The Shishiguchi veered and twisted to evade, bringing the Republic battleship into view.
The obliteration angel’s hands flared, bright as suns.
“Singularities incoming! Hold on!”
The Shishiguchi’s tail whipped around from underneath them, sending Sabira’s sinuses on a collision course with her liver. Their ship tumbled ass over head, spinning the Republic battleship in and out of view. Fully half of the huge vessel ripped away in an instant, its armored hull fraying like ragged cloth. The battleship tumbled on multiple axes, spewing shards of itself in a long, twisting trail. The Pyramid Ihvik-Ri spat a wave of plasma, slagging what remained of the Legacatic battleship.
Orion leveled the Shishiguchi, pointed them back at the heart of the battle, and decelerated. Auroras of fire swirled around Godsfall’s wings. The squadron of Republic gunships they had just careened past crunched together, one slamming into the other, as if smashed between the great palms of some invisible giant.
“My grav-wave detectors are throwing a riot,” Orion said. “Those singularity rounds are much faster than the demo over Loshan. They’ll be tearing through the cluster inside twenty-four hours. I’m sending an all-systems alert to track them. Hope our warning doesn’t get lost in the noise.”
“—On trajectory to Nu’esef?” Arkrider asked.
“This barrage should skip along just outside their system. Little Tiger could be looking at big trouble though. If they let loose with the singularity canon again, who knows what could be in the line of fire in the next few light hours?”
So many lives lost. So much carnage. Sabira needed to get to Daggeira soon, before the death toll jumped from thousands to millions. But how? How in all the hells would they survive Godsfall, much less defeat it? Their only chance was to get inside, get close to Daggeira. Close enough to slide a blade between her ribs. But how?
A CDF vessel instantaneously transformed into a ball of blue-white heat and high-energy particles.
“—That was the Egalitaire.” Arkrider’s voice was flat, grim. “We need to abort. Your plan isn’t working. Going back in is suicide. We should pull back and assist with a defense perimeter.”
Commander Tauro Arkrider’s home ship had vaporized before him. His home planet was in the line of conquest. Helpless rage screamed silently beneath his deep-set eyes.
“We need to try again,” she said. “If we don’t stop them now, if we run, all these casualties will be for nothing.”
“—Go back in, and we’ll be casualties.”
“We’ve got a snare satellite bearing straight for us,” Orion warned.
“Oh drill, me,” she muttered.
“Don’t worry. I’m prepared for these after last time. The Shishiguchi does not get caught twice.”
“How about we slag it to be sure?”
“—I concur,” Arkrider added.
“Normally, I’d agree wholeheartedly,” Orion said. “But the satellite is hailing us.”
“—I wouldn’t dream of being impolite,” the commander said.
“Connecting.”
The multicolored strobing of the battle faded away. In its place, the wide gray face of a warseer filled the display. Sabira couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Three dull, yellow eyes stared at them. Conical sense mounds hung withered and limp below sharp horns. Weird tubes coiled out of the ashen gray head and into a heavy exoskeleton that reminded her of the abominations she’d fought in Loshan.
“Come in, Shishiguchi. Come in,” Abomination Zika transmitted. “We need your assistance.