Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

The next day was one of the roughest in my life. I kept thinking about the enemy gathering their troops—building an overwhelming strike force that would eventually annihilate our allies, isolate us, then destroy Detritus. Yes, the planet was an amazing technological marvel. But Jorgen was right: if we fled, they’d find us. And every rock could be broken with time, every shield worn down.

We had to strike. But I…I had to let the others make that decision. So I waited. Which was awful.

Until finally something arrived: a note leading me to the cargo bay. There I found a huge delivery for me—almost three meters tall and ten meters on each side—and wrapped in obscuring plastic. Rig had come through, and his fabricators had built what I’d requested. The note apologized for not being able to complete the assembly. Apparently he had an even more important project for the fabricators. Making more platforms to replace the weaker portions of our defenses, I suspected.

At any rate, this was what I’d wanted. I was glad to have to do a little assembly, in fact. I quickly fetched Doomslug and Hesho, returning with the two of them—her in her holster, him hovering along beside me on his platform.

“And this is…?” he asked.

“A project,” I said. “So I keep busy and stop worrying about everything going wrong.”

“Excellent,” he said. “What variety of project are we talking about? Are we constructing, perhaps, a dojo for meditation?”

I smiled, then touched the huge plastic-wrapped package and held out my hand for him. He landed his ship on my palm, the plate-size disc heavy in my hand. I didn’t need to hold it for long, however, as I hyperjumped us and the package away. Down from the platforms and space stations and into the caverns of Detritus.

To one in particular. One where I’d lived for months while in flight school. Rubble to one side, some scraps of metal in the center, a table and some old dishware I’d scavenged in the corner.

Doomslug let out a happy fluting. This was the cavern where I’d found M-Bot.

It was time to build him a new body.

I could have done it up above, of course. It would have been smart to build it there, with all the available resources and tools. But I was feeling nostalgic, and wanted to be more secluded—somewhere that wasn’t always reminding me of our impending doom.

So I began unwrapping. Rig’s fabricators had put together the bulk of the fuselage; the basic ship was there, contained in a metal framework. It was missing key parts though, like the canopy, some of the wiring, and many of the outer plates. Those were packed for me to install.

I unfolded a large set of schematics—ones copied from plans in the data dump. The very ones the enemy had made when they’d disassembled M-Bot. Fortunately, they’d been meticulous.

Rig had included some detailed instructions written out by one of his assistants—incredibly, he had seven of those now—and she’d even included some visualizations. I smiled, wishing I could co-opt Rig himself to help me, but he had more important things to do. I probably did too.

I stayed here anyway, and got to work.

The first step was to lay out the parts. Hesho helped with his hover platform, which had a small light-line on it for moving objects. He’d grown accustomed to needing such devices in the world of giants; even turning a doorknob would be a challenge for a creature of his size.

Some of these plates, though, were heavy beyond his capacity. Fortunately Rig had thought of that, and sent me a small acclivity ring mover for shuffling parts around—in particular the boosters and front nose piece, which still needed to be attached. We organized the parts, then I spread the large schematics out on the table. Followed by the datapad with the actual “Spensa, just do this” instructions.

I wasn’t incompetent at this sort of thing. I knew more than most, as I’d proved during my time with the Broadsiders. But assembling a complicated starship would have been beyond me, if Rig’s fabricators hadn’t done around eighty percent of the work already. As it was, the remainder looked like it would walk the perfect line: challenging, but doable by one pilot, her pet teleportation slug, and her fox-gerbil bodyguard.

It was too bad we were basically doomed, because—looked at without context—my life was kind of awesome.

“So,” Hesho said—he’d left his mask on the table, as it was just us—“I sense a reverence to your actions. This place is special to you.”

“It’s where I first found M-Bot,” I said. “Broken down. I spent months repairing him in here, alone.”

“Alone?” Doomslug fluted from where she sat on the wing of the ship nearby.

“Alone save for my trusty slug companion,” I corrected. “And Rig, who maybe helped a little.”

Hesho looped over, using his ship to project some holographic instructions for me as I started work on the landing gear, which needed to be put in place before we removed the scaffolding from the ship.

I nodded my thanks as I worked. “The original build was, I’ll admit, a lot more…scrappy an experience.”

“I’m unfamiliar with the term,” he said.

“Today we’ve got advanced tools,” I explained, shoving part of the landing gear in place. “And this thing practically sticks together on its own. Back then? I only had what I could scavenge or what I could convince Rig to steal for me.”

“Your life has been one long…scrappy experience, hasn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah. Haunting tunnels as a kid with my family. Settling in Igneous, then hunting rats because we were outcasts. Now…well, whatever I am now.”

“Your life has taught you the opposite lessons to what mine has,” he said. “For you, everything is hard. If an opportunity presents itself, you must snatch it or lose it to someone fiercer. You don’t have time to think, because if you think, you starve. Is this an accurate summation?”

“Yeah,” I said, wiping my brow as I worked. “I suppose it is.”

“This makes it difficult for you when dealing with those who have lived in privilege,” he said. “We spend our lives learning to plan. Often, those in power stay in power because of such luxuries—it is not that they are smarter or more capable, but that they’ve had the opportunity to think about tomorrow, not just today.”

“Damn, that’s a good explanation,” I said, dragging over another chunk of landing gear. “Have you been listening in on my mind or something? You aren’t secretly cytonic, are you?”

“I merely have a special chance, these days, to consider myself and my life.”

“I told Jorgen,” I said, getting down low to begin bolting a wheel into place, “that I thought we should attack the Superiority. Right now, before they can gather their strength. He wants more time, but he’s wrong. I can feel it. We need to hit Winzik before he’s at his best! It’s basic tactics. We should go straight to the communications hub and force the enemy to engage us there. Winzik will have to protect it.”

“Won’t that mean attacking him where he has a battlefield advantage?” Hesho said. “He’ll have inhibition fields in place at the communications hub. Can we find a way to force him to engage us where our inhibitors are in play?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “We don’t have enough inhibitors. We can’t cover both ReDawn and Evershore with them—so if we wait, Winzik can hit whichever population is exposed, breaking us. He’s willing to strike civilians; his attack on your planet proves that. This means that we’re much better on offense than we are on defense.”

“What if we were to move our populations?” Hesho said. “Your grandmother mentioned perhaps bringing us with you, and I have been considering her words of wisdom. My people take up far less room than humans do, while the people of ReDawn inhabit only a small part of their planet—their total planetary population is under three million. What if we moved one or both populations onto Detritus for the battle?”

“I…don’t think we could do that in time,” I said. “Evacuating even three million people seems a remarkable task.”

“Yes, but using hyperslugs?” he said. “No need for transports? We just assemble groups, teleport them to the proper location, then repeat.”

“I still think it would be too hard,” I said. “But…”

“But it’s a possibility,” Hesho said. “Planning, Spensa. Jorgen’s life has taught him to plan. It has taught him the value of structure. I do not know him as well as you, but I wonder if the rules he holds dear are revered because for him, they’ve actually worked. When for you…they have not.”

I tightened a bolt, then started on the next part of the landing gear after he brought it over with his light-line.

“Hesho,” I said, “you are super smart. You realize that, right?”

“I spent my life being told that,” he said, “by people who were obligated to do so. I enjoy hearing it from those who are not.”

“You solve so many things for me,” I continued, twisting a bolt with vigor. There was a power driver for this, but I wanted to work up a sweat. I would finish them all up with the machine to make them secure. “I wish I could give you something you need in return, but you were basically the richest guy on a planet for most of your life, so I don’t know what I could offer.”

He hovered down beside me as I worked. “Spensa,” he said, “do you know the one thing an emperor always has trouble finding?”

“A good rat sandwich?”

“Friends,” he said, and smiled. “On my planet, I could have no equals, because no one dared treat me as one—and I never dared expect them to. When I vanished, they mourned me but did not grieve. Then you found me, and you refused to let me stay lost. Rest assured, you offer me a great deal. Something I have not known since I was a kit.”

He reached out his paw, then pulled the fingers in, making a fist—as I’d done earlier. I gave him a bump, and he nodded to me. “Come. Let us make a body for our other lost friend. So that he may rejoin our menagerie of misfits.”

I didn’t know if M-Bot would be able to inhabit a body again. But scud, I hoped he could. I wanted so badly to make him a home, a place where he knew he belonged. Partially because of things he’d said earlier, partially to keep myself busy, and partially because…well, it felt right. And as Hesho had said, I’d learned to go with what felt right.

That said, he made good points about not rushing in to attack. I wished Jorgen had made those points to me—but maybe he shouldn’t have had to. Maybe the points he had made, that I should trust him, were the more important ones.

How much trust had he shown in me? A great deal. Trust in me to go to Starsight, to do what I needed to in the nowhere. Trust with his whole heart. A trust I wanted to deserve.

I threw myself into working on the ship, attaching the boosters and checking the wiring. I was particularly careful when I installed the wide black box that M-Bot’s old ship had contained—the assembly of hard drive and processors that had made up his brain. A motherboard and chipset that used acclivity stone instead of something like silicon and atomilin. Capable of letting the computer process inside the nowhere.

It was what let this ship break normal computing limits. I didn’t know a lot about the engineering of it, but I hoped that this would give M-Bot a body again when in our realm.

The delvers can exist here, I thought. They make a body when they come, a crude—and terrible—replica of the housing that carried them as AIs. So I felt this should work. I hoped it would, at least.

Hesho helped with the wiring, proving particularly useful with some of the fine details of the job. He hummed as he did, then softly broke into song, Doomslug fluting along. After a few minutes of that, he used his dashboard to play some samples for her from an instrument his people made—a kind of bamboo flute. She imitated that, and soon they were singing in harmony. Him a deep bass, resonant and soft—a mournful song. Her an airy flute, with sharp cuts between notes.

It was beautiful, so I turned off the translation function on my pin, which was spoiling it. I just listened, working, appreciating how this specific song echoed in the boundaries of the cavern. Enjoying the moment—rather than being overwhelmed by both past and future.

Inside my soul, Chet hummed along in his own way. Seeming perfectly content. But that was wrong.

Wrong? he thought. Wrong how?

Because this isn’t what life is about, I replied.

What do you mean?

What did I mean? I found myself in an odd mood as I read through how to attach the canopy. I’d come down here to try to recapture the feeling I’d had as a lonely girl building herself a starfighter. But…I wasn’t that girl anymore. Instead of finding solace in the solitude, I wanted to share the experience.

FM would have loved to hear Hesho sing, and Kimmalyn would have had something to say—I’m sure—about the irony of building a hyperadvanced spaceship in a cave. Like I was some kind of overachieving Neanderthal. Nedd was recovering, and I wanted to hear his affable voice again. He complained, but enjoyed hands-on work, and Arturo would probably have spotted me getting the wiring wrong on this section of the throttle controls—and prevented me from having to redo it.

I wasn’t alone any longer. Why did I keep pretending that I was? I smiled as I stood up, wiping my brow—which was sweaty, but not a bit stained with grease. At least my jumpsuit was dusty from the ground. This was supposed to be messy work, but Rig had packaged everything too neatly.

“So,” Hesho said, hovering over the schematics on the table, “I believe that the booster controls and the central processing are all fully installed. The next task is to check wing control function before we put the plates on. She mentions we might want to look over the air intake channels first, as there is some tricky bolting to be done there.” He looked up at me. “Are you fatigued? Should we take a break?”

“Nah,” I said. “I’m good. What about you?”

“Eager and ready,” he said. “I’ve never actually built anything before. It’s an engaging process. Blissfully laborious. Like the flow of water in a wash, depositing stones in just the right place upon the bed, making a roadway of colors once the rainy season is through.”

“Exactly as I would have said it,” I told him, grabbing the power driver to tighten some bolts. “Except I’d have used more blood.”

Hesho smiled and began laying out the next set of parts while I worked. I didn’t get far, however, before someone nosed in on my brain.

Hey, M-Bot said. I managed to sneak away. Except not “away” because nothing is “away” from anything else in here. It’s complicated.

Well…good, I guess, I sent back to him. Any leads on how to use whatever I am to stop the delvers?

No real leads, he said. Just confirmations. I can meld in among them, pretend to be one of them. They’re not a group mind, as we’ve discussed, just a bunch of individuals with the exact same…personality? Basic core self?

Regardless, it’s easy to imitate one of them, as I simply have to react as they all would. I’ve acquired a copy of their programming, such that it is. Again, this is complicated, but they’re not used to having a spy among them. So they have no idea how to look for me.

All right…I sent, trying to follow that, and to imagine him in a place that wasn’t a place among a bunch of delvers who just thought he was another one of them.

Anyway, he continued, as we figured out, they fear you because you know the source of their pain. They’re afraid that interacting with you will bring it back to the surface—because, Spensa, they have not done a good job of burying it. It’s there, within their substance, within their code. The loss, the agony. I feel it.

Right, I thought. And while they’re in the nowhere, if that pain were to surface, it would never fade—because time doesn’t pass.

There’s another reason, he sent back. We’re not AIs or robots any longer, no more than you are an amoeba, but we started there—and we don’t forget except on purpose. Emotional pain doesn’t dull for us over time, because we don’t have the process of natural mortal forgetfulness.

Huh. That seemed a relevant thing to understand. It wasn’t that the delvers were too weak to “weather the pain” like I’d done with my father’s death. They’d literally needed to excise parts of themselves to make it fade. Like a wolf gnawing its foot off to escape a trap.

Realizing this made me ache for them even more. That was bad though. They literally threatened all life in the galaxy; they’d already wiped out millions of people, and would go further if they had to. This was one case where, empathy notwithstanding, I needed to be a warrior. They had a wound. I would exploit it, just like you would try to hit an opponent where they’d already been stabbed.

We still need to know how to use this, I said to M-Bot. They’re afraid of me, because somehow I make them remember. But how? How can I do it consciously?

Not sure, he replied. I’ll keep studying and looking. We need to be fast though. As I said, it seems the deal between them and Winzik is still in force. He’s promised them that all cytonics—and you especially—will be silenced, and the Superiority will move to using slugs only. The delvers want that very badly, so they’re determined to join the confrontation and stop us.

I nodded. M-Bot’s confirmations were helpful, but we were still in the same position. When the delvers came to attack, I had to be ready to either immobilize them or inhibit them. Locking them up in their own cells of eternal agony…

If we manage this, I thought to M-Bot, do you really think they’d just lock up rather than run?

Yes, he said. It’s how we respond to things we can’t deal with. An infinite loop, locking up, frozen in time as we process the same terrible experience over and over—and see no escape. Do that at the right moment, and…

And at the very least it might surprise—even intimidate—Winzik and his team. Assuming we could find the key to exposing their pain, it was a potential solution to a problem that nobody but me seemed willing to acknowledge. The fact that the true victors in the galaxy would be the ones who could control the delvers.

Hey, I sent him, remembering what Jorgen and I had discussed. While I’m thinking of it. Do you notice any difficulty in talking to me in here, when I’m near Detritus? From the inhibitor slugs?

Eh, he said. It’s noticeable, but more like a little buzz. I’m a grown-up delver now, Spensa. Very scary. We’re too powerful to care about inhibitors.

I know, I sent back. The delver that scoured Detritus all those years ago didn’t respond to their inhibitors either. That’s kind of what’s worrying me.

Why?

I just shook my head as I worked, sending him a general sense of discontent. I was beginning to think that Brade was wrong. She and I weren’t connected mystically, or any nonsense like that. I had a delver on my soul, so things like inhibitors were weaker around me. I’d been able to break through them at least once. Maybe that was why she could contact me. Because I was weakening the inhibition field.

I don’t sense her right now, if that helps, he said. Just you, Doomslug, and Hesho, in…hey, is that my cavern? Why are you…

I looked up from my work beside the wing of the ship, but there was nothing to look at. Just the empty cavern.

Is that for me? M-Bot said, his cytonic “voice” laden with emotion. In this case, it came as an overwhelming wave of joy and disbelief, tied up in one. Spensa, you’re rebuilding my body?

I grinned. I’d hoped to keep it a surprise, I said to him. That doesn’t work so well when your friend can literally see through your eyes.

Spensa, he said, his voice trembling. That…Thank you. How? How can you rebuild it?

The data dump we stole? I sent to him. It had the schematics the Superiority drew as they tore your old body apart. We can make it new, maybe even better—without restrictions, like the one preventing you from flying yourself.

Spensa, I…I’ve never been given a gift before. It’s wonderful.

It’s not done yet, I sent him. It will take days, maybe weeks, for us to finish this.

Yes, but you thought of it. You’re doing it. For me. I…I’m leaking emotion. Oh! It’s why you cry, even when you’re happy. I understand now!

I grinned, the “leaking” joy he felt washing over me. And inside, Chet trembled.

This, he thought to me. Don’t destroy the others. Show them this. Somehow. The joy that consumes the pain.

As Hesho hovered over, I winked. “M-Bot saw,” I told him. “He’s grateful for what we’re doing.”

“Please convey to him my respect and well wishes,” Hesho said. “His sacrifice, though not permanent, was my salvation—and I owe him a debt of gratitude.”

“I think M-Bot would rather have a debt of friendship.”

Hesho cocked his head, then smiled at that. “I think I would too. What a precious realization…and what a precious life I now can live…”

That gave me an idea. This entire project of mine down here…well, it had been built on a false premise. I was glad—absolutely—that I’d decided to fix M-Bot’s ship. But I didn’t need this cavern any longer.

Hesho deserved better anyway.

“Come on,” I said to him, holding out my hand for Hesho. “Let’s take a break. It’s dinnertime anyway.”

“Excellent,” he said, hovering over. “A solitary meal in your room, contemplating our upcoming battle?”

“Nope,” I said. “Not this time.”