Cytonic (The Skyward Series Book 3)

Hesho broke out of our two-person formation, then flared his boosters and barreled away from me.

“Oh, scrud,” Chet said.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “What’s wrong?”

“Let her fly, AI,” Chet said as I fell into pace behind Hesho. “Something is very wrong.”

“What?” M-Bot asked.

“The delvers,” I said. “They…took him. His eyes are glowing white.”

Chet cursed softly. “I’d hoped we would be safe from such direct intervention in a group. We must be too spread out on this battlefield.”

I stayed on Hesho’s tail as he looped around and flew through the center of the large debris field of hanging buildings. The remaining fighters on both sides had moved to the perimeter, as it had gone from dangerous to insane to fly here, with chunks spinning and colliding like an asteroid field.

Two buildings smashed together ahead of us, spraying shards of glass like rain—and as I flew through it they snapped against my hull and canopy, reminding me that I’d never found a chance to reignite my shield.

Why did the delver want to fly through this? In the past, they’d chased me. Now this one wanted me to chase it?

Well, I was game. It wanted to see how good I was? Let it watch. I expertly trailed Hesho-delver. We darted down through the narrowing crack between a chunk of rock and a free-flying factory, then flew underneath the still-crumbling fragments. That took us through a stream of falling water that was spraying from a building above.

Was this the delver actually flying? No…these maneuvers were familiar. Somehow it was leaning on Hesho’s skills. Well, I was going to rise to its test. We soared between crashing pieces of rock, down alongside a falling roadway, through sprays of debris that clattered against my canopy.

Everything else faded, and I absently muted other comm chatter. Nothing mattered but me and the chase.

The delver tried increasingly difficult moves to get me to trip up. Soon I was sweating—my attention tight like a narrow scanner band. Just me, that ship, and the immediate terrain.

Hesho-delver miscalculated on a light-lance pivot and slammed into a big chunk of stone, side first. His shield fuzzed, briefly visible as it absorbed the brunt of the impact. I grinned as I took the turn without a problem. Another hit like that, and he’d…

He’d…be dead.

My focus shattered like glass. I was suddenly aware not merely of my immediate surroundings—the cockpit, my sweaty hands on the controls, Chet breathing heavily in the copilot seat, the beeping proximity sensor—but the battlefield as a whole. Falling rock, crumbling buildings, hanging acclivity stone chunks.

It wasn’t just a series of obstacles anymore. It was a death trap. And this wasn’t some contest to see how good I was.

My stunned recovery took a moment, during which we came dangerously close to hitting a piece of a falling building.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “The rest of the fighting has paused. Most of the ships on both sides have been locked up, but there are fifteen remaining functional fighters on the enemy side, while our side has twelve, including Gremm and Peg. But everyone has agreed to a cessation for now, as the battlefield is too dangerous. They want to make sure everyone locked up gets pulled out to safety before resuming.”

Ahead, Hesho wove between falling chunks. He’d slowed, taunting me to follow. They wanted to coax me into danger. They were willing to throw away Hesho’s life for a chance to hurt me. I needed to end this chase. Now.

I grabbed the control sphere and started firing, causing Hesho to slam on his overburn and blast away. His ship’s faster speed shouldn’t matter among all this debris. Unfortunately, that same debris blocked my shots. I ended up pelting a chunk of acclivity stone—broken off what appeared to be a storefront.

As Hesho dodged, he took another collision from a falling piece of rock. His shield went down. Scud. Shooting at him was making him more reckless. I followed, uncertain what to do, my worry deepening—but Chet and M-Bot stayed quiet and gave me time to think. And as I did, memories returned to me out of the cloud that was my past. Flying with Hesho and the kitsen—and with Brade, Vapor, and Morriumur. Days spent training—memories I hadn’t even realized I’d lost.

“M-Bot,” I said, “open a line to his ship.”

“Done,” M-Bot said.

“Flight Fifteen,” I snapped, trying to channel Cobb like I’d done when training Hesho and the others, “line up! Now!”

I backboosted, pulling my ship to a halt.

Ahead, Hesho’s vessel slowed. How much did the delvers control, and how much was him? They needed his flying skill. Hopefully that meant they couldn’t dominate him entirely.

He’d responded to my voice. His drill instructor. I searched through my clouded recollections of that day. Hadn’t…hadn’t Hesho had a different name for our flight?

“Flowers of Night’s Last Kiss,” I said. “Time to call roll! Fall in line, Hesho!”

Hesho’s ship stopped and turned. I didn’t wait—I sprayed him with destructor fire. I felt only a tad guilty. But my shots flew true, causing his ship to flash blue and lock up.

Behind me Chet released a loud, relieved breath. “Nice flying,” he said softly.

“A soothing calm,” M-Bot said. “Like I’ve just been serviced with a nice fresh can of lubricant. I’ll call it repose.”

“We’re not done yet,” I said. Using maneuvering thrusters, I inched over to his ship—close enough that we nearly bumped one another amid the falling debris.

His canopy flashed and went transparent, the tint fading. He sat in there, those eyes glowing white, facing toward me in his little seat. His teeth bared. I pressed my mind forward, ignoring the way the delver behind him screamed at me. I saw deep inside it.

And there I found fear.

“Chet, take the controls,” I said. “Don’t let us drift apart.”

“As you ask,” he said. “But…why?”

In response I popped my cockpit, hoping my guess was correct.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “This…is very odd behavior.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Chet, if I slip and fall, try to grab me or something.”

“Uh—”

I climbed out of the cockpit and stepped onto my ship’s wing. From there, I felt a strange sense of disorientation—buildings floating overhead, tumbling in the sky. Two crumpled fragments locked together from their collision, spinning slowly. A white glow to my right: the lightburst looking on us through debris-filled space.

I was standing at the crossroads of infinity, without lifeline or safety rope. Chet used maneuvering thrusters to keep the wing steady as I inched over to Hesho’s craft. Then, before I could think better of it, I jumped.

I landed square on Hesho’s smaller fighter. It was more than large enough to hold me up, even if the cockpit wasn’t much bigger than a flight helmet. I leaned down, stared at him through the now-clear canopy, and stoked the star inside me. The me-ness. I let it shine out cytonically, invisible to conventional sight.

Hesho-delver cringed away, pure white eyes open and glowing bright enough that I couldn’t make out his other features.

“Why are you so afraid of me?” I said. “What is it that I don’t know yet that makes you act this way?”

You must return to us the Us you separated, noise. It was a deliberate attempt to get me to think of something else, judging by what my “listening” was telling me. Give them back.

“Look,” I said, “can’t we please talk about this? What you’re doing to me? And my people?”

This corrupts, they sent me. I understood the implication—they meant that talking to me, interacting, risked changing them. They tried to withdraw, but I…latched on. With my growing cytonic senses, I grabbed hold of the delver. It was like Brade had done to me.

Except I was far, far weaker. I held on only barely. Either I didn’t have a talent for this, or I needed a ton more practice. Still, even that little attempt panicked the delver. This brought the full brunt of their attention, fear, and hatred upon me. In that moment others gathered, and they tried to destroy me in the only way they knew how.

By trying to make me one of them.

I was pulled into the nowhere entirely. I became formless; I had no body, merely a mind floating in not darkness—as it normally was—but an infinite whiteness. Everything around me was white because it was full, packed with the delvers. Like an ocean is filled with water.

They saw me as a corrupted version of them now. Cytonics were like delvers. In a way, I was a cousin to them. They saw me as a tempter also, luring them toward their destruction with crass things like linearity and individuality.

Their minds assaulted me, and pushed me to see as they did. To see the peace, the harmony, of shared existence. I clung to my individuality, but it was frayed, worn, like a battle standard that had been shot full of holes. In seconds, what scraps of memories I still had left of my friends and family had frayed further, and my life in the somewhere began to vanish entirely.

They wanted to erase it. Because of…pain? Yes, they knew pain, from the past, but had escaped it. I latched onto this. It was a clue, or a seed of one. Yet…it was terrifying how I responded to their offer. To the peace, the blending of self, the eternity without pain—there could be no pain without the passage of time. There could be no anger when everyone agreed absolutely on everything.

I can’t really explain why that was so entrancing. I can’t even explain what it felt like—how do you describe such a thing? I was just a pilot. Without the right words.

I didn’t want to succumb to them. But I also had difficulty fighting. In a panic I stretched out, searching for help. Perhaps from my friends? Whose names I was forgetting… Whose faces…blended…into white…

And then, something.

Support from someone distant. A…friend? That comforting mind that was somehow my pin. The one that I was increasingly certain was my father. It bolstered me and brought with it images. The delightful scent of water dripping in the caverns back home. The calming purpose of tinkering on M-Bot’s ship with Rig. My mother’s exhausted smile, after a long day of work, upon seeing me. Gran-Gran’s steady voice speaking of the heroines of the past.

Then another mind, from the other side. A mind that reminded me of things I loved. Exploring. Flying. Stories. Existing was pain, but it was also joy. With those memories bolstering me, I stoked myself.

My star came alight. I wasn’t nothing here. I was Spensa, and my soul was fire. It exploded with brightness, and I offered that sense of myself to them—I bludgeoned them with who I was, and the emotions I felt.

They pulled away at that offer of corruption. At the offer of…of dissention. They retreated, though our exchange had told us a great deal about one another. As the sensation faded, I found another offer. A…truce.

Within me, they found my longing for my friends to stop dying. They’d seen my excitement for the battles I’d found in the belt of the nowhere.

Stay…the delvers pled with me. Stay and do not pass Surehold. We will stop.

Stay? I blinked, becoming aware of the space around me. I was hanging on to Hesho’s ship, looking down into those portals of light that were his eyes.

Stay. It wasn’t a word, but an impression—of me stopping my journey on the Path of Elders. Of staying at Surehold, or moving back out into the belt, but going no farther inward than the Superiority base. Of not continuing the Path of Elders or entering the lightburst.

What about my friends? I sent them. The people in the somewhere.

In truce with you, we leave them alone. We ignore the noise. That particular use of “noise” indicated Brade and Winzik. It wasn’t as strong a promise as I’d have preferred—it felt like from the way their minds worked, if they were pulled into our realm they’d still attack. But they would start ignoring Winzik.

Stay, the delvers repeated, the white fading from Hesho’s eyes. Stay away. And we promise truce.

With that, the light vanished completely—leaving me clinging to the outside of a frozen ship containing one very confused kitsen.