Page 132 of Blightfall

That was true. Our business here was clearly far from over. We’d barely begun.

“Thank you,” I said.

Alanik squinted at me. “For what?”

“For fighting beside me,” I said.

Alanik smiled, appraising me for a moment. “It is always a pleasure to fight beside you,” she said. She held my gaze, and stars, I wanted to kiss her. I hesitated, looking around at Epiphany’s leadership in the stands with our flightmates, the gladiators standing around the exhausted scion, Nedd and Sadie getting their wounds looked at by some of the stadium’s medics.

Alanik seemed to sense my hesitation. “We decided we did not care about social convention,” she said. “But I suppose with the diplomatic situation here, this is not the place to begin to break it.”

Stars, we could have died multiple times over these last few days. It might not be the wisest diplomatic choice, but who was to say we weren’t setting an example for good alien–human relations?

I closed the distance between Alanik and me, and I kissed her. She smiled against my lips.

And in that moment, I didn’t care who was watching.

* * *

A few hours later, our DDF reinforcements finally arrived. Several flights of starfighters gathered in the sky above Epiphany while a small carrier descended. It seated twenty people, including FM and a diplomatic envoy. I introduced the diplomats to Dayan first. “They can introduce you to the city’s leadership,” I said, and Dayan thankfully nodded. “Suki’s already been talking to them.”

“Anything I should know before we do this?” FM asked me.

“These people have been conditioned and radicalized by a contingent of rogue varvax who were acting under the command of an AI, not the Superiority,” I said. “The AI and the varvax turned on these people, tried to kill them, and an entire arena of spectators witnessed it all. I’m…pretty sure they’re going to be ready to work with us, given that they just watched us fight to protect their people, alongside their own gladiatorial heroes.”

“The privilege was ours,” Dayan said.

FM nodded. “Good work,” she said to me. She was in full diplomat mode, so she didn’t stop to interrogate me about Ivy, but I imagined she’d get the full report from Jorgen and have many, many questions then.

Didn’t we all.

A member of the Command staff beckoned me toward the carrier ship. “The admiral wants to see you,” he said.

The fact that Jorgen had come in person told me he already had a sense of how serious this was. It was my job to give him the full report, but I hadn’t been present for some of our most important discoveries.

“Sadie!” I called across the arena.

Sadie looked up from where she sat next to Nedd. Their arms were bandaged from where they’d apparently broken down a glass cabinet with their own bodies.

I jogged over. “Jorgen needs a report,” I said. “Come with me.”

Sadie looked at Nedd, like I might be talking to him.

“Sentry,” I said, “come on. You saw more of what went on than anyone.”

“Nedd was there too,” she said. “And he’s the assistant—”

“He knows my rank,” Nedd interrupted. “But you did the talking, Sadie. Go help with the report.”

Sadie shook her head. “Shouldn’t you two be the ones to talk to Jorgen?”

Sadie had led the conversation—had led all of our conversations, since the moment we arrived. She was the obvious choice. Nedd seemed to agree. “Who, me?” he asked. “Do work that other people are perfectly able to do for me? No thanks. I’m going to stay here and try to block that time I was almost cryogenically frozen from my memory forever.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Unfortunately, I’d like you to go with FM to help Dayan answer her questions.”

“Fine,” Nedd said, climbing to his feet. “I guess my psychological repression will have to wait until later.”

Sadie and I climbed into the carrier and found Jorgen sitting on a wide bench at the back that could easily seat three people. He motioned for us to take the seats that faced inward on either side of the bench, and we did, Sadie more reluctantly than me.