Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

Valizode, as prime controller of the elected assembly, was supposed to be the most powerful being on the planet Monrome—homeworld of the dione people, center of culture for the entire Superiority. Yes, there were Superiority officers ranked higher than Valizode was, but they were out of contact right now. The Superiority was a mess anyway. So Valizode, well, they should have been the most important person around.

They didn’t feel like it. Instead, they felt strangely cold as the others led them through the primary communications node on Byled. Now a mess of broken-open machinery, holes ripped into it like the hearts had been taken out for surgery.

It was a cold, icy thing to realize you—the most powerful person on a planet—were helpless.

“All of our communications systems,” Lekilid said softly, gesturing to another set of ripped-open machines. “Every one on the planet. Even in the secret places of intelligence…they’re all like this. Vandalized in a moment last night.”

Valizode bared their teeth. Something they prided themself on never doing. So uncivilized, it felt. But what other response was there?

“Same with the hyperdrives?” Valizode asked.

The other diones in the room nodded. Something, a force they didn’t understand, had ripped into every ship in the system and taken out the hyperdrives. And the inhibitors. And every other secret piece of biological technology on the planet. Somehow, this force had found them all, no matter how hidden. It was like nothing else ever recorded.

If reports were true—scattered and fragmentary as they’d been before communications had shut down—then this was happening all across the Superiority. Worse, something terrible and terrifying was involved. Delvers.

Valizode left the room and stepped out onto a balcony, formal coat rustling as they put their hands on the railing and looked out over a sea of lights. Light to push back the darkness. Ever since the diones had achieved prime intelligence, they had been a light to the galaxy. Pushing back the twin darknesses of barbarism and aggression.

Now…

Now Valizode was scared.

Terrified.

“What do we do?” Yaksurma said, walking up, terror painted on their bifurcated face, half-blue, half-red. They were a draft, doing an internship. It was supposed to have been an easy couple of weeks for them to prove themself. That had been before the reports had started coming in. First an assault on the secret Superiority taynix storage facility a few days back. Then terror around the galaxy.

Now this?

Valizode looked up at the sky, stars twinkling high above. It had been a long, long time since a dione had looked up there and been frightened. They’d mastered their universe. Claimed it. Until…now…

“We’re trapped,” Valizode whispered, taking it in, realizing it fully. “No communications off planet. No way to hyperjump. It would take decades to reach the next star system without a hyperdrive. We’re…alone.”

The others quieted, then began whispering in terror. Until a star fell from the sky. Then another. And more. Starfighters?

Were they saved?

Valizode hurried to where the fighters landed, but this was no salvation. They found a group of people, mostly humans, led by a tall female with short hair. She held a taynix in a special sling at her side, matching her uniform.

Out in the open? It made Valizode’s skin crawl. Those things were supposed to be kept hidden.

“Ah,” she said as Valizode climbed from the hovercar. “Minister Valizode, at last?”

“Yes?” Valizode said, forcing those teeth to remain unbared.

The human bared hers, brazenly. “I’m Provisional Ambassador Freyja Marten. Commander in the Defiant military, callsign: FM, if it matters.”

“Does it?”

She gave a human shrug of the shoulders. “Just here to impart a little explanation. Food deliveries will be incoming, as I understand your planet is too populated to feed itself. You’ll want to arrange for the distribution, and you can send requests for other supplies. If we determine they legitimately can’t be produced locally, we’ll accommodate the requests. The rest of the terms are here.” She set a datapad on a table nearby.

One of the guards moved to take a shot at her. A terribly aggressive act, and it would have horrified Valizode under other circumstances. But, well, this was a human.

The human seemed to have been ready for it. Before the guard pulled the trigger, the human vanished. The shot zipped through empty air.

The human appeared next to the dione with the gun and pointedly took the weapon from their stunned hands. That taynix…it knew how to hyperjump on command. Without needing any equipment to corral it?

So dangerous! So aggressive!

“That was annoying of you,” the human said. “If you keep acting like this, you’ll never get offworld. And I was assured by your kind it was safe to visit you in person.” She stalked back toward her ship.

“Human?” Valizode called. “Wait! Wait. I apologize for this craven act of aggression but…Please. When…when do we get to…to leave our planet again?”

“It’s not up to me, so I can’t say,” the human said, pausing by her ship. The others were already climbing into theirs.

“Who is it up to?” Valizode said. “Can I speak to your government, plead our case? We…didn’t know what Winzik was doing. We didn’t condone his war. We are victims.”

“This isn’t about his war,” she said. “It’s about what you’ve done as a society. And it’s not our government who gets to decide when you’re allowed off planet again.”

“Then who?” Valizode demanded.

The human gestured to her sling. And the taynix inside, who fluted out, “Who!”

Valizode’s horror grew more overpowering. “The…the hyperdrives decide?”

“Yup,” she said, climbing up to her cockpit. “Good luck.”

Oh.

Oh no.

—

One week after the victory at Evensong, I stood overseeing yet another delivery of slugs. And I tried to pretend that nothing was wrong with me.

After all, things were great. The delvers had taken their duty to heart, and their first act of compassion involved saving the taynix, rescuing every “hyperdrive” that wanted to be rescued. And the other types—every single one of them. In the galaxy.

“It’s a good thing we have a whole planet full of places like this,” I said, standing at an outcropping overlooking a cavern on Detritus. One of the many I’d explored as a kid. It was now packed with happily fluting slugs feasting on bins of mushrooms and algae.

Jorgen stepped up beside me, holding a datapad, which was full of statistics about caverns that could be turned into taynix housing. Based on our estimates, we’d have to find room for several hundred thousand taynix. Not impossible, but it would be difficult to ramp up the wholesale agricultural operations necessary to provide food for them all.

Fortunately, there was already a robust system of food delivery across the galaxy, and there were enough taynix willing to continue doing their jobs for now to keep that running. So long as we gave them freedom and let them take breaks, with others taking turns.

That meant there would be no interruptions in food supplies, though many luxuries would have to stop being traded for now. Indeed, there would be complications, as the planets providing the food weren’t being fairly compensated—though initial talks with all of them found the people there excited by the idea of being able to trade their food for more unfettered access to travel. With all this, Jorgen was certain he could hold mass starvation at bay across the galaxy.

Regardless, for now we’d be able to feed the taynix with shipments from off planet, and it seemed Detritus could work perfectly for growing a crop favored by the taynix. Mushrooms.

Jorgen smiled. He liked a challenge, and this was the perfect one for him. An organizational nightmare perhaps—but running what was essentially the biggest refugee camp in the galaxy was going to take ingenuity. Plus the invention of a ton of new rules.

He’d only oversee it, while others did much of the work. He would be stuck with a large number of duties in the newly forming galactic alliance. There was talk of a new government to replace the Superiority, but it was way too soon for something like that. For now it was just an alliance, with some shared rules and a moderator running a kind of galactic forum.

Nobody wanted a human in that position, of course, though they didn’t say it outright. Fortunately, Rinakin of the UrDail was extremely well-liked. He was the most likely candidate to run the thing. The humans from Detritus—and the other human preserves—would have to find their way in what this was becoming. Once, I would have said we’d end up as soldiers, and certainly we’d need to keep up our space forces. But we had another specialty these days: slug care.

Scud. My stomach twisted. I fought it down.

“This is going to be their planet,” Jorgen said. “As it always kind of was. We’re just here to help.”

“And try to figure out…what the terms mean,” I said.

He nodded, his expression a little more grim. The taynix and the delvers had a treaty. One that didn’t include the rest of us. It involved how often, and how quickly, the slugs would hyperjump anyone but themselves—to prevent too much somewhere incursion into the nowhere.

Most of the delvers didn’t feel pain when we traveled the nowhere any longer, but some did, as they’d refused our help. Which was, I supposed, their right. And collectively, the delvers were asserting that the nowhere was their territory. It had existed outside of time and space before their arrival, and they liked it that way, even healing as they were. I wasn’t certain it was right for them to claim an entire dimension, but at the same time, what right did any of us have to the land—or the airspace—that we claimed?

They were willing to work with us, but I’d essentially shattered them into a ton of arguing individuals. They were much more aligned than any other species, because of their origins, but still. Things would be complicated for a while.

Regardless, hyperjumping—at least with a taynix—was going to be limited going forward: the taynix would give a warning to the delvers, then wait for permission. So far, that permission could take anywhere from a few seconds to a half hour—though it could in some cases be arranged ahead of time.

Both groups were undecided on what to do about cytonics like me. We might have to negotiate our own treaty or risk their wrath. Again, it was uncertain.

Still, having answers—and some measure of safety from the delvers—felt good. So I tried to keep my stress and worry from showing as I joined Jorgen in the lift, heading back to the surface.

“Is this about us?” he asked. “How tense you are?”

Scud. He’d noticed. So I took him by the arm, made him lean down, and kissed him. “Not about us.”

He relaxed. “Good.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just getting used to the new role. Slug wrangler.”

“Doesn’t seem to fit into Gran-Gran’s stories,” he said.

“I don’t have to live as if I’m in those stories,” I said. “I’ve grown beyond that.”

“You’re still you.”

“The me I am is happy to be here,” I said. “With you. Just give me time. I’ll get used to things being boring. Kimmalyn says boring is good. She can’t shut up about it! The Saint apparently had lots to say about doing nothing being nothing to do.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” he said, but kissed me again. For a moment that was enough. I lost myself in his warmth, in the press of his lips on mine, his pulse matching mine. I held on to him, feeling embarrassed and thrilled all at once that the doors to the elevator could open at any time, exposing our moment of intimacy.

I loved him, genuinely. I wanted to be with him forever.

It was just…well, everything else. The world wasn’t ending. And I…seemed to thrive when it was.

What an absolutely terrible personality attribute to have.

We finally, with effort, stopped kissing as the elevator slowed and we arrived at Alta Base. Arm in arm, we stepped out and turned along the path. We still used Jorgen’s old garage, and his hovercar that was inside. He kept talking about learning to tinker with it, as a hobby. Something people were able to have when they weren’t at war. He talked about seeing how high he could get it to fly—as if he couldn’t demand a starfighter at any moment.

Just before we reached the garage, his comm beeped. He gave me a chagrined look, but I left him to it. Some new species we were approaching, wanting seats in the new galactic forum. I wandered over to his garage, then past it to the adjacent hangar.

It was big enough for two ships. Inside, M-Bot—still in his ship form—was chatting with Hesho, who was sitting on the wing, sharpening a sword. The kitsen waved as I entered, and Doomslug fluted from beside him, making a sound like the scraping of the sword on stone.

Behind them was another ship. Chet’s. He stood up from the cockpit, wearing overalls and a cap, his vibrant mustaches extending from beneath his nose. “Bother!” he said. “You realize how annoying shaving is? I never had to do that when I didn’t have a real physical presence, Miss Nightshade. It is most uncomfortable!”

Turned out, delvers weren’t limited to making stone and rock. Chet was having fun learning to be human. And by “fun,” I meant he was mostly making all the same annoying observations about human bodies that I’d spent months hearing from M-Bot. At least in Chet’s case, the complaints seemed more commiserative. For example, he hadn’t realized that if you didn’t sleep, you got headaches.

I picked up a cloth and started cleaning M-Bot, who needed a good mopping up after our last flight to inspect a distant set of caverns. I worked in silence for a time, enjoying the quiet moment, when Rodge called.

“Yo, Rig,” I said, as M-Bot piped through the comm. “How’s life untangling the mysteries of the universe?”

“Ugh,” he said.

“That good?”

“FM keeps going down in person and getting shot at,” he said. “What is with her?”

“She just wants the excitement,” I said.

“That’s not what she says.”

“What does she say?”

“That she needs to ensure, personally, that the instructions are received by the proper authorities.”

“Excitement,” I said. “I empathize.”

“It can’t be getting dull for you already, Spensa,” he said. “It’s only been a few days!”

“Longer than I’ve ever gone without getting shot at.”

“Liar,” he said. “You realize I’ve known you most of your life, right?”

“Then you know that I’m prone to exaggeration,” I said. “So what’s new?”

He chuckled. “Well, I just wanted to let you know I’ve sent Jorgen something interesting. It might help.”

I frowned. “What?”

“He asked for it, and I found it in all of this mess of information we’re getting from the Superiority’s primary databases. Just try not to break anything. Rig out. Thanks, by the way.”

“For?”

“For dragging me into this.” He cut the line. I was left confused as Jorgen walked back in carrying a datapad.

“All right,” I said, hands on my hips. “What scheming have you two been doing?”

He turned it toward me. It seemed to be a list of coordinates.

“Unexplored planets,” he said. “Deemed too dangerous by the Superiority. There’s practically nothing listed about them other than warnings to stay away.”

“Which could mean…” I said, snatching it.

“Anything,” he said. “From a taynix refuge to some kind of very aggressive species to…who knows what they determined was too dangerous to even record? Seems mysterious to me.”

I took it, then looked at him, narrowing my eyes. “You just want to keep me busy.”

“Of course I want to keep you busy,” he said. “Doing something important.” He rapped the datapad. “Earth is out there somewhere, Spensa. Either in the nowhere, or here. Something happened with it. And the figments—we know next to nothing about them. And what about the traps we found on the portals into the nowhere? Those have existed far longer than the delvers. There might be dangers out there we don’t know about. Better to explore them than to be surprised.”

I grinned. Then paused and looked at him.

“What?” he said.

“I can’t go alone.”

“Kimmalyn, despite what she says, is bored of being bored. And I suspect Chet wants to go do some humaning.”

“Right you are!” he called.

“So,” Jorgen said, “you won’t go alone.”

I felt an immediate thrill. Then paused. “Will this…interfere with us? If I’m gone this much?”

“I don’t want you to be anyone but you,” he said. “And if you’re sure nothing about us is bothering you—”

“It’s not us. Nothing is wrong with us. I love us. Unless you want something new, that is. Just tell me, and I’ll shut up. Only not, because I never do.” I cringed. Then kissed him, because I knew that worked.

He grinned as I pulled back. “I’m commissioning you a flight, as explorers, to map these planets. Recruit up to three other pilots. Just promise to come back and check in with me.”

“Every day,” I promised. “So long as I can manage it.”

He nodded. But he didn’t seem certain. So I kissed him again, then added, softer, “Jorgen. I will come back. Every day that I can, for time with you. This is where I belong.”

“You belong wherever it’s not boring.”

“I belong with all of you, even if I need to do other things sometimes. Learning that is basically the point of half the stories, Jorgen. Didn’t you listen to Gran-Gran?”

“I thought those stories always left the heroine changed,” he said.

“They do. And they did.”

“In the stories she leaves, because she no longer fits in where she began.”

“In the stories, yes,” I whispered. “But Jorgen, there’s one huge flaw in all of those stories.”

“Which is?”

“None of them had you.”

I managed to get through to him with that one, I think. He smiled, then seemed actually a little bashful.

“If there’s one thing that all of this has taught me,” I said to him, “it’s that I get to choose for myself. I’ll let you distract me with these planets to explore, Jorgen Weight, but don’t you dare think it’s going to give you too much of a break from me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I let go of him, then went to show the data to Doomslug, Chet, Hesho, and M-Bot. But before I did, I called back to Jorgen.

“Hey,” I said. “By the way…”

“Yeah?”

“Just remember, if I accidentally unleash some kind of gigantic galactic threat—then have to blow up a star or something to crush its skull and turn it into a red pulp the size of a planetary ring—this was your idea.”

He laughed, and left me to it. Though the actual details weren’t that important, so I let Hesho read them off to the others, who chatted about where to go first. I stepped outside and looked up. There was an odd convergence taking place, a hole through the many layers of platforms that protected Detritus. Leading upward.

Toward the stars. I belonged there. But the lights that glowed in my friends were far brighter.

I ducked back inside, and asked M-Bot to call Kimmalyn and tell her the good news. That I’d just dragged her into a potentially life-threatening adventure.

Again.