Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

“All-out assault,” Goro—one of the kitsen generals—said, hovering his platform over to a wall screen and gesturing at the footage we’d been able to gather from across the Superiority. Hyperslugs let us jump ground teams in to spy on the installations Cuna had identified for us.

“Again,” Goro said, hovering to another part of the wall screen, then pointing to a different image, “we aren’t certain, but this is what it looks like.”

“Makes sense, unfortunately,” Cobb said.

He still refused to sit at the table with us, instead taking an advisor’s seat by the wall. The pallor of his skin and bags under his eyes had me worried about him, but he did seem to be participating more. So maybe he was getting better.

“They understand our strategy,” Cobb continued. “Over time, if we destroy their military in little skirmishes, piece by piece, they could lose control.”

“Right now the Superiority is stable,” Cuna added from their spot at the table. “It’s large enough, and has enough momentum, that few of the common citizens will have noticed anything changing since the advent of Winzik’s reign. However, we are not cathodis.”

My translator pin, set to explain things like this, whispered it was a metaphor for an object that sits on a wall and watches the world pass, never moving. A little like the English phrase “We aren’t sheep.”

“Over time,” Cuna continued, “people will grow increasingly upset at the loss of democracy. They will see through Winzik’s rhetoric about dangerous humans and delvers—and they will ask questions. If we’re destroying his military presence, the more…rambunctious of the lesser species might rebel against his rule. Even those of primary intelligence will begin to move against him.”

“Without his supply depots, Winzik has realized that a long-term engagement against us has grown more risky,” Goro agreed. He gestured toward more footage on the screen. “So, here we see him pulling security forces away from the planet Ooklar, and here, others away from the planet Zip!tak. Here he is calling in ships that were protecting important sublight shipping lanes in the dione twin system from piracy.

“They’re gathering. If he is aggressive in these redeployments, he can bring in some twenty-seven hundred fighters to support his primary fleet. About a third of those will have actual in-cockpit pilots, while the rest are remote drones. Worse, he has access to twenty to thirty capital ships: eight carriers, and twice as many destroyers.”

Scud. Those numbers…

Twenty-seven hundred fighters? Even with our allies, we had barely three hundred. Yes, a good chunk of theirs would be drones, which were much easier to face. But our force of three hundred included all of our newer recruits and trainees, who had barely any battle experience. And as always, we had no capital ships—though granted, Detritus itself was a giant moving battle station.

Most of our forces were raiders, the modern equivalent of cavalry. We’d survived so far by being fast, striking where Winzik didn’t expect, and—to be perfectly frank—exploiting the fact that he couldn’t devote much of his attention to us. He was busy establishing himself as galactic dictator.

This was coming to a head though. He couldn’t afford to let us keep picking at him. We’d served our purpose, giving him a boogeyman to use as “proof” he needed dictatorial authority. Now he would want a decisive battle where he destroyed us outright. If he couldn’t win the long war, that was his only other option.

Squash us fast. I should have seen this.

“Wait,” Rinakin said from his seat at the table, a confused expression on his pale violet face. “Won’t this risk rebellion? If Winzik moves all of his security forces away from his planets, won’t those planets turn against him?”

“Eventually, yes,” Cuna said. “This is a possible problem. But you must understand, we’re not…um…”

“Aggressive?” I asked.

“I was looking for a less charged term,” they said. “I’ve learned it might not be as accurate a word as I would have liked. But in this case, perhaps it will serve: we’re not aggressive.

“We aren’t cathodis, and will not just sit forever and be content with oppression. At the same time, my people—and those they lead—will try other methods first. Bills to enforce the law, motions in governing bodies, editorials in the media. Winzik will need his military forces then, if these movements gain strength, but he has likely seen—and rightly so—that he can spare the forces now. For a short time.”

“For just long enough to make slag out of us,” Jorgen said grimly.

“Did you…foresee this?” Rinakin asked, looking to Jorgen. “In your plan to starve him of acclivity stone?”

“This was poorly handled,” Goro said, hovering toward the group of other kitsen gathered on the tabletop. “Elder Itchika and I are greatly displeased to have been cut out of the decision to strike in secret against the enemy. Why weren’t we consulted about moving the timeframe up so quickly, or the decision to strike in the nowhere, instead of against the facilities in the somewhere as we’d decided?”

“How can we call this an alliance,” Cuna said, “if one of our members acts with such distrust toward everyone else?”

I sank down in my seat, sick to my stomach. Jorgen would never have moved up the attack without talking to our allies. His hotheaded star pilot, though, was another matter. Scud, I was such a fool.

Jorgen stood up and didn’t even glance at me. He’d shoulder this. As he so often suffered because of me. Everything I’d done seemed right, even in hindsight. Refurbishing M-Bot, running off to Starsight, staying in the nowhere…even this action, which had achieved our goals with the mining facilities without loss of life.

Yet in each case, I’d left Jorgen to make excuses. To pick up the pieces. To figure out how to lead while I just did my thing. He was right about me. In that moment, I felt I didn’t deserve to be in that seat—I didn’t even deserve to be in the room.

“No, Rinakin,” Jorgen said to them. “I didn’t anticipate that this would happen. You’re right—and Goro, you are right that we have acted brashly by not consulting you. We were wrong, and I beg your forgiveness.

“We’re new to this. That’s the problem, my friends. Too new. We are children, essentially, trying to fill adults’ shoes for the first time. My people spent decades on the very edge of annihilation. Back then, we didn’t take time to develop proper plans, because if we did we’d be dead before we could execute them.

“That same sense rules us still. That sense of panic, that sense that we need to act now, as soon as an opportunity arises, lest we lose our chance. We need to grow up. We need to learn and do better. But I only ask that you accept that we are not trying to alienate you. We’re learning, all the time, and as fast as we can.”

The others at the table considered his words, and I could see them softening. How did Jorgen always know the right things to say? How did he know when to be firm, and when to apologize? The others saw him shouldering the responsibility for what I’d done, and they accepted his apology.

“I suppose we can understand this,” Goro said. “None of us have ever fought a truly galactic war. Even on my homeworld, it has been decades since a real war has happened; we have known only skirmishes.”

“You can be forgiven,” Rinakin agreed, “for not anticipating what would happen in a war on this scale. We are all new to this, and the plan with the mining stations looked good to us all; we would not be nearly so upset if we’d simply been told when you decided to move the timetable up.”

“We promise,” Jorgen said, finally looking at me. “No more surprises. We will grow up, my friends.”

A platform hovered up beside Goro’s. Itchika, the aged kitsen with white on her snout, still wore her formal robes. She was an elected official, I’d come to understand. Not like an empress—they’d moved beyond that—but still something of a voice for the old ways.

“We too appreciate your honesty, Admiral,” she said to Jorgen. “But there is a beast we must consume, as my people say. A topic that must be addressed. Our planet, Evershore, is exposed. As is ReDawn, the homeworld of our allies, the UrDail. Your people, however, have a mobile planet—with a defensive shell around it. You can afford brashness, for if the enemy comes in force, you can escape. We cannot. Our people could be annihilated.”

The conference room fell silent, and I felt even more sick. Because this point also was true. I wasn’t used to the idea of our people being free, like Jorgen had explained, but I didn’t believe that was what had driven me to act. That didn’t change the fact that yes—if the Superiority came in force against us, we could escape. Detritus being mobile meant that our people were actually more free than any other.

“We couldn’t escape forever,” Jorgen said. “Winzik cannot allow us to continue as a threat to his rule. Besides, we wouldn’t just leave you.”

Rinakin tapped the table softly, perhaps his version of clearing his throat to draw attention. “No one is accusing you of cowardice, Admiral. But if it came down to your people or ours, surely you would escape. It is a simple truth. I say this not as an accusation, but as a statement we should acknowledge. Detritus is not in the same position as the rest of us.”

“Besides,” Cuna noted, “you’re…well, you’re humans. You’re used to living with destruction and war.”

Remarkably, the UrDail and the kitsen seemed to agree, unfair though the statement was. I didn’t think humans were naturally more aggressive. We’d just been…I didn’t know how to describe it…

A soft click sounded from the side of the room. Then a quiet groan as somebody stood up. A short somebody, bowed by age. Gran-Gran?

Another click echoed in the conference room as she stepped forward along the table. The way she walked—frail, but determined—somehow conveyed the contradiction at the core of Gran-Gran’s soul. An aged woman, weak of frame, yet bearing power and authority.

On one hand, she was a nobody. An old woman, outcast for most of her life because of her son’s betrayal. Except even back then, people had stepped aside for her. Even then, they’d known and remembered. She wasn’t just Gran-Gran. She was Rebecca Nightshade. The last living woman who knew life among the stars. The last crewmember of the ship that had brought us here.

“Do you know,” she asked, “the story of the Defiant?” She turned, her eyes closed, yet seeming to address everyone in the room—kitsen, UrDail, human, and lone dione.

“We do not know your story, honored elder,” Hesho said softly behind his mask, from where he hovered near my seat. “But I would hear it, if you would offer it to me.”

Gran-Gran smiled and tilted her face upward, toward the stars, as she walked. “We are the people who disobeyed. We are the humans who would not go to war, the last time the tyrants who led our various peoples banded together and tried to conquer the galaxy. Those are the warriors under whom you UrDail suffered long ago.

“Well, those humans, they demanded that every battleworthy ship join the armada and support them in their foolish war. But we, we turned away. Some of us of Chinese descent, others Colombian, others American, others Scandinavian—and many scattered peoples between. We had previously traded together, traveled together, but on that day we truly became one.

“A wise soldier chooses her battlefield, and we did not want this one. We rejected the call to arms, and so the first people we defied were our own leaders. That is the soul of the Defiant. It is not just that we fight, my friends. It is that we choose when to fight. We will not be forced—not by tide nor tyrant—to raise arms in a battle we do not support.” She opened her eyes, milky white, and looked around the room in strength. “But once we do fight—once you have convinced us the cause is just—we do not back down.”

She stopped near the kitsen platforms. There, Gran-Gran nodded, chin still high. “We will not abandon you, my friends. I, the last of the Defiant’s crew, swear it. If you fall, we shall join you, so that together we may curse the fire and ash that sear our flesh from our bones. Dead, but not broken. If we instead choose to run, as my ancestors did, then we will only do so if we can bring you with us. For though we are not one people, as we unite together, we become sisters in arms. You do not fight alone.”

Though I’d heard this story of our origins many times before, it still brought a tear to my eyes. Gran-Gran’s words were nearly enough to pull me out of my gloom. And, although she had a uniquely Nightshade way of phrasing things, the speech had a positive effect on our allies. The kitsen stood down, accepting this promise. The others seemed comforted and calmed.

Another Spensa crisis averted. Scud, this speech wouldn’t have been needed if I hadn’t made everyone panic about humans acting erratically. The glow of hearing Gran-Gran speak faded, and the weight of my mistakes came crashing back down on me.

Jorgen thanked Gran-Gran, then addressed the table. “We can adapt to the enemy’s new tactics,” he said. “Fortunately, it will take Winzik some time to prepare his forces. I suggest that we meet with our various strategic experts, go over the intel we’ve gathered, then reconvene tonight. Twenty hundred local time, to share ideas?”

The others agreed. The meeting began to break apart, and I fled through the doors, ignoring Kimmalyn’s suggestion that we grab breakfast together. I didn’t want to argue again with Jorgen, and I didn’t want to face my friends. I wanted to be alone.

I was more and more certain that was where I belonged.