Cytonic (The Skyward Series Book 3)

The first thing I did was send M-Bot back to spy on Chet.

“I buried the pouch for my pin under a rock near the trees,” I told him. “Covertly watch to see if he digs it up. If he doesn’t, stealthily join me behind the pirate base.”

“Uh…”

“I’ll explain later,” I said, and waved him off. He left.

My heart thundering in my chest, I continued to sneak around the side of the compound. It was just like creeping up on a rat, only there was more light and these doofs were less observant. I made it to the other side of the compound easily, and found a good spot to watch near a large boulder.

The hangar had a small, person-size doorway on this side. Through it I could clearly see the mechanics working on the landing gear of one of the starfighters—two diones and one of the feathered aliens I’d seen when I first entered the nowhere. They serviced a narrow, sleek vessel that was probably a scouting model. Sparks flew as they welded.

I waited, anxious. I didn’t want to be distrustful. Scud, Chet had helped me so much. But I couldn’t deny the way he looked at the icon, and it seemed incredibly suspicious that he’d asked me to leave it behind.

I nearly yelped when M-Bot hovered up to me a few minutes later. Stars, he was quiet.

“He doesn’t appear to be digging at anything, Spensa,” M-Bot whispered. “He’s just waiting.”

“Okay, good,” I said, relaxing.

“Do you think he’s going to betray us?”

“I don’t want to think that,” I said, “but I can’t help being suspicious.” I’d tried so hard to trust Brade, and where had that gotten me? “Go tell him I’m in position. He can start with the distraction.”

M-Bot zipped off again. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. My worry was unfounded.

Unless…

If I’d been planning to betray my companion, I wouldn’t merely steal the pin. I’d do something to disrupt the plan, making certain she got captured by the pirates. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about her following me as I made off with the prize.

Scud. Now that I’d thought of it, I couldn’t get it out of my head. If Chet simply grabbed the icon and ran, I could conceivably steal the ship and come after him. But if he waited until I was in the middle of the theft, then sold me out, he could keep the icon while making sure I was taken care of.

Again, I didn’t want to believe it. I almost discarded the worry entirely—but then I thought about the way he changed whenever he saw the icon. And what were the chances that I’d enter the nowhere and immediately find Commander Spears?

While I didn’t actually think some kind of evil wizard was involved—that was more a metaphor—something was seriously strange about all of this. I couldn’t help feeling I was being toyed with, and Chet was at the center of it.

I made a snap decision. I wouldn’t abandon the plan, but neither would I walk straight into a potential trap. First I pulled out my father’s pin, then dug a quick hole beside my boulder.

M-Bot came hovering back as I was finishing. “I…thought you already buried that,” he said.

“I buried the pouch, but kept the pin,” I explained. “I’m worried Chet is going to betray us, and this is the best way I can think of to protect the pin in case we get captured.”

I felt oddly reluctant to part with it. Like, it almost seemed to cling to my fingers as I put it in the hole. I couldn’t help thinking it was sad to have me abandon it. This place was messing with me in strange ways.

The mechanics in the hangar stood up and looked out toward where Chet had been hiding. Distraction begun.

“So what do we do?” M-Bot whispered.

“In case my worries are correct, we’re not going to steal the ship Chet assumes we will. Which of those other hangars has the fewest sleeping people?”

“The one directly to the right,” he said. “It only has four. But…Spensa…are you sure about this?”

“It’s not my job to be sure,” I said. “It’s my job to do my best anyway. Come on.”

We slipped out from behind cover and reached the hangar easily. Sneaking around on dirt and grass was simple. Just had to test each step for leaves or twigs.

The doors were locked, but one of the nearby windows was unlatched. M-Bot was able to slip in, and a moment later the door into the left side of the structure—the part with bunks, rather than the ship storage—clicked. I eased it open, then stepped into a dark hallway.

The place had a clinical feel to it, like the hallways of Platform Prime. Too clean, and it smelled sterile. The doorways were all taller and thinner than the ones at home, and the door handles were all a good half meter higher than I expected. It left me imagining what kind of species had built this place.

In the dim light, I located a door into what I thought should be the hangar proper. M-Bot bobbed up and down—no heat signatures beyond it. This door was unlocked, and I was relieved to find a vast cavernous room. Light shone through slits in the window shades, illuminating four large starships like slumbering leviathans. It was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever encountered.

I whispered for M-Bot to watch for junk I might accidentally kick while walking—didn’t want to send a discarded lubricant can clanging across the floor. As I crept along the wall, I stopped by one of the windows to peek out through the slats.

I could clearly see Chet standing outside the other hangar, surrounded by the guard and mechanics. He spoke animatedly while carefully holding up a reality ash in one hand.

“Spensa,” M-Bot whispered. “It doesn’t seem like he’s betraying us.”

It didn’t. But, well, that was why I’d continued with the plan. If I really was just being paranoid, then I could still steal a ship, break out, and turn guns on the pirates while Chet joined me. I’d tell him I’d been spooked at the last minute and had decided to sneak into a building where everyone was asleep.

I turned from the window to survey the four fighters. Two were obviously civilian ships augmented with some makeshift destructors that marred the otherwise intentional designs. Fortunately the two others were military, with built-in weapons. I picked the interceptor—a lean, dangerous-looking variety of ship that balanced speed and offensive capabilities. It also felt the most familiar, similar to DDF ships from Detritus, with a long thin arrow shape.

I hurried over and grabbed the wing, then hauled myself up to the canopy. I was acquainted at this point with several different control schemes. I’d have to hope that I knew this one’s. If not, I’d inspect the other ships. Stars, I hoped I didn’t have to end up stealing that shuttlecraft in the corner. Piloting that would be like riding a potbellied pig into battle among a group of knights.

I peered into the cockpit of the ship and it was dark and shadowed, so I couldn’t identify the control scheme from outside. I felt along the rim and found an access port for M-Bot—most ships had external ones for diagnostics. I plugged in his drone to let him interface—which would theoretically allow him to open the cockpit and override the pilot lockouts.

“Ah…” M-Bot said. “This will be easy. Hmm. Lots of hard drive space in here. It might feel nice to be in a larger ship again. First though, let’s see… Should be through in thirty seconds or so.”

I nodded, leaning down and staring into the cockpit. That was a control sphere, wasn’t it? Yeah, the layout did seem familiar. The seat was strange and lumpy though. Like instead of being a chair, it was some other seating mechanism?

Thinking about that started me worrying about the kitsen, who had their own strange way of building starships. They’d helped me at the battle against Starsight. What would Winzik do to them? They were leaderless now that Hesho was dead, sucked out into the vacuum of space when Brade attacked their ship.

The kitsen had trusted me. Had I doomed their entire planet? What happened if Winzik actually persuaded the delvers to help him? I needed to find some way to stop them, so—

“Huh,” M-Bot said.

“What?” I hissed.

“I just got locked out of a few systems,” he said. “I can reroute, but… That’s odd. The lockout was via a manual override. How would…”

Lights went on in the cockpit, illuminating a creature that had been sleeping inside. The light reflected off a body that I had trouble sorting out—crystalline limbs and a bulky shape like a pile of glistening stone…

“Oh, scud,” I whispered.

No heat signatures. But not all life was warm. I knew that. Figments like Vapor seemed not to even have bodies. I’d made a terrible miscalculation. My sole consolation was that M-Bot had done the same.

“M-Bot!” I said. “Run!”

I leaped off the wing and hit the ground hard, stumbling as a loud alarm started blaring. I made it halfway to the door before a voice sounded over some speakers.

“Keep running, and I will vaporize you,” it said—my translator pin happily supplying the words in English. I froze, then looked back at the ship to find one of the wing-mounted destructors on a turret pointing right at me.

I raised my hands, struggling to catch my breath and fighting down my instinct to run. Looked like I was going to get another chance at being a pirate captive. And this time it was entirely my own fault.