Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

As a little girl, I’d always dreamed of flying in space. Of getting off Detritus, of being out there. In the realm of stars and suns, of moons and nebulae. If you’d told me I’d make it, but would someday have to fly through the guts of a giant space worm…well, let’s be honest about the kind of kid I was. I’d have thought that was awesome.

The reality was more nerve-wracking than I’d have imagined. I had to turn on the ship’s floods, illuminating the hollow tube innards of the beast. According to my sensors, it was still a vacuum in here—and the thing had these strange tendrils hanging down from the walls of the guts. Like jellyfish tentacles maybe, only much larger. Waving in the vacuum, reaching toward the center of the passage from all directions. All told, the throat of the thing was twelve meters wide, but those tendrils were three meters long, thick as rope, and left me with alarmingly little space to fly without touching them.

In fact, I clipped one as I tried to keep a bead on Brade’s boosters glowing in the darkness beyond. As soon as I touched the tendril my shield went down—a red warning light blinking on my dash. Scud! That tentacle had drained the shield. Seemed like cytonic energy wasn’t the only thing these worms fed on.

If the tentacle could slurp down a shield, then what would it do if it touched the ship? I decided not to find out, and slowed, weaving through the strange worm guts more carefully. Fortunately, Brade had slowed as well. Maybe I’d gotten lucky and she’d had her own shield drained too.

I watched closely, and saw her get dangerously close to one of the tentacles. Close enough that her shield should have reacted—but it didn’t. I put my thumb back on the destructor button, but didn’t press it.

“Brade,” I said. “I’ve got you. Yield.”

She snickered. “Yield? What is this? An Errol Flynn movie?”

“A what?”

“Old Earth,” she said. “Actor.”

This was the first time I’d heard her reference anything from Earth popular culture, not merely Earth history. She’d been raised by human parents for part of her youth. Unless that had been a lie. Had they…watched Earth films?

“Brade,” I said to her, “I’m on your tail and your shield is down. I can shoot you.”

“So why don’t you?”

“I…”

“What really happened to you in the nowhere?” she asked me. “Why do you make the air vibrate when you feel pain? How did you learn to cut through inhibitors? And why are you suddenly so hesitant to fire on your enemy?”

Scud, was I doing it again? Holding back because I wanted her to be something that she wasn’t? Or was this a lingering effect of having been among the Broadsiders, of learning to fight worthy opponents without killing?

I wasn’t in the nowhere any longer. And last time I’d tried to trust this person, she’d betrayed me.

I pushed the button, sending twin streams of destructor fire straight toward her. Brade chuckled, dodging in a spin, barely evading my shots—which hit some of the tentacles. They absorbed the energy, and suddenly all of the nearby green jellyfish strands started to tremble and whip, making them far, far more difficult to avoid.

I threw my ship into a sequence of dodges, speeding up, despite how dangerous it was. Brade laughed even harder as she increased her speed, and both of us were forced to boost forward, spinning and weaving as tentacles started trying to grab us. I narrowly avoided a sequence of them before bursting back into open space, out through the worm’s butt, which was open like the front.

This was…not the glorious image of a starfighter pilot I’d always imagined for myself.

Sweat running down my face, I broke right, trying to quiet my heart. In the rush, I’d caught up with Brade, and we’d burst out of the worm at the same moment. Now Brade—denying me time to reignite my shield—managed to get me in her sights. She filled the space with destructor fire. I was forced to dive down, spinning, but behind me the worm turned and followed us—moving faster than the other one had. Somehow it picked up enough speed to keep pace with us. Scud, how was that even possible?

I supposed it had seen me as mere space debris before. Now I was prey, and Brade had thoroughly tricked me into alerting it to that fact.

“Shoot another worm,” she suggested over the comm. “Make this interesting.”

“Shut up,” I growled.

She laughed again, but then she did something and the worm suddenly cut off the chase, undulating in the other direction. I frowned, watching on the proximity monitor but not daring to look back. What…?

“Use your IMP,” she said. “The blasts hit with a frequency the things don’t like.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I suppose.”

Her destructor fire around my ship trailed off. Maybe she was luring me into complacency. But why call off the worm in that case? Scud, I had no idea how to read this woman.

“So, do you want to yield?” she asked.

“Not a chance.”

“Good,” she said. “Reignite shields and go another round? Winzik is preparing ships to come after us, but we might have enough time for one more go.”

I soared back toward the derelict Evensong. There, I put a building between myself and her and cautiously stopped. I didn’t reignite yet, in case she was waiting for me to be vulnerable and attack.

She didn’t. She stopped her own ship in the air and started the process, so I pulled the lever to start my shield ignition as well. It would take around thirty seconds.

“So what is it?” she asked. “That strange distortion around you? The mess you make of inhibitor fields? What really happened, Spensa?”

Ah…so that was what this was about. Let me out, duel with me, get me talking. Brade was confused by my new powers.

And she wanted them for herself.

Now that I understood, a lot of things made sense. Was this some calculated plan with Winzik to figure out my secrets?

And scud, how could I use this knowledge against her?

“I don’t think I can explain it,” I said, testing my theory. Indeed, she didn’t come after me as our shields rose. No other ships left Brez, despite Brade’s warning. She was here to talk, not duel. This fight was an illusion.

Had I finally figured out one of Brade’s traps before she sprang it?

“Can you try?” Brade asked. “I feel…lost sometimes, with my powers. That there’s so much to learn, so much to understand—and that I’ll never understand myself until I do.”

Scud, she was a good actor. There was real emotion behind those words—and I was impressed despite myself. Even knowing what she was doing, it almost worked.

If I was right, then I had no way to escape. She probably had a dozen ships watching, ready to hyperjump in and attack me the moment something went wrong. I couldn’t run, but maybe I could stall. Until my powers returned.

So I talked, knowing full well that I was playing a dangerous game. “You’d have to go into the nowhere, Brade,” I said. “Completely. Not just with your senses. Step into a portal, and seek something called the Path of Elders.”

“You just made that up.”

Technically, Chet had made it up. So I was confident I wasn’t giving her anything too valuable. “No, I didn’t,” I said. “I visited special sites around the belt of the nowhere. They gave me visions of the past, helped me learn, helped me grow into my powers.”

“And the delvers?”

“I brought one with me,” I said. “When I was in there, it approached me. You remember that one at Starsight? The one you summoned, and I drove off?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“It came to me, in a human form. It traveled with me. Tried to understand me. Befriended me.”

“Well, that’s creepy.”

I stopped myself from saying more. I was straying too close to the truth.

“Spensa?” she asked.

“It’s difficult to explain, like I said,” I told her. Just keep talking. “I leaped through that portal on Starsight, and didn’t know what to expect. I ended up in a jungle, and—”

“The delver,” Brade interrupted. “The one that traveled with you. Scrud…that’s what I felt. It melded with you somehow, didn’t it? That’s how you cut through inhibitor fields. That’s what’s going on. You’ve captured one? Or made a treaty with it?”

Scud. I didn’t answer.

“Hell,” Brade said. “And that’s why they’re afraid of you, isn’t it? Something to do with that bond. I knew I felt something familiar about you.”

“I understand them,” I said to her. “In a way no person ever has before, Brade. You’re not going to be able to control them. I can promise you that. You’re mistaken if you think you can. Help me escape. Together we could really figure out the delvers, and maybe make the galaxy safe from them forever.”

“Huh,” Brade said. “Yeah, not interested. All right, guys. That’s probably all we’ll get today. Come on in.”

I jumped despite myself as two dozen starfighters appeared around me in a tight formation. I boosted away immediately, but Brade just hit the kill switch on my ship, shutting down the boosters. One of the other ships flew after me and grabbed my ship with a light-lance tow cable.

I felt like an idiot. This time I’d anticipated her, even managed to figure out her ploy. But still she beat me. I pounded my controls as Brade edged her ship up to mine.

“Technically, I didn’t use my powers against you,” she noted. “So, if it matters, I kept my word.”

“You killed my ship in space!” I shouted at her.

“I saved you,” she said. “From being annihilated by all the other ships that arrived to destroy you. You took too long, Spensa. I warned you that if you did, the fight would be joined by others.”

I leaned back in my seat, frustrated.

“Did you really think that we’d just be able to come out here and duel?” she asked, sounding amused. “If this wasn’t a setup, the two of us would have been swarmed moments after leaving the station.”

“What now, boss?” someone said over the line.

“Now we haul her back and toss her in the cell,” Brade said. “And I figure out how to bond with a delver, like she has.”

I seethed. “I’m going to kill you, Brade,” I whispered into the comm. “Someday I’m going to stand above you with a sword at your neck, and you’re going to beg, and—”

She chuckled, then the light on my comm flashed off, indicating she’d cut the line. I pounded the controls again, growling. But the ship wasn’t to blame for any of this. I was. Me and my foolishness.

Why was I so willing to be caught by her? Why did I play into her games? Even still, a part of me wanted so badly to befriend her. Why?

Because, I thought, she’s the one who escaped you. Every other person I’d flown with—from Skyward Flight to the Broadsiders—had eventually come to my side. Hesho had become my copilot. Peg had come to respect me. Morriumur had saved my life. Jorgen had become my scudding boyfriend.

Brade was the exception. The only flightmate who had turned against me. A part of me smarted with pain at that, in a way that few other pains could rival. Beyond that, I saw something in her that I wanted to save. A representation of what humans had suffered at the hands of the Superiority. I wanted so desperately to make up for that, to protect her, to show her that life could be better.

However, she didn’t need or want rescuing. I had to remind myself of that time and time again. But at least, I thought as I calmed myself, she hadn’t learned anything of actual value. She’d never be able to bond a delver as I had, because that required empathy she didn’t have.

We hyperjumped back to the hangar as a group and settled down on the dock. I immediately tried to pop my canopy and run—but they’d remotely locked it up tight.

I had one sole hope remaining. That as she’d been playing me, I’d been able to play her a little. Because I had wasted time with our conversation. We were close to my next dose—actually, I thought we were past it. I pushed at the boundaries of my awareness and felt hints of my powers returning.

Here…Chet said inside me. I’m…here…

I still had a chance, but I couldn’t let them stun me. So, as Brade’s team came to my ship, I raised my hands and bowed my head, eyes closed. I tried to project a nonthreatening air.

Her team popped the canopy of my ship. These weren’t the same guards that shot me each day. These were fighter pilots—they seemed to mostly be tenasi, like Peg. They assumed that holding me at gunpoint was good enough.

“You grow muluns,” one of them said. “I respect that. Out of the ship.”

I obeyed, and didn’t give them any reason to fire on me. I slowly climbed down the ladder they placed, then raised my hands again, trying to look tired as Brade walked over, helmet under her arm.

“Thanks,” she said, “for the intel.”

I shrugged, my head bowed.

“Tell you what,” she said to me. “Maybe once I figure out how to do what you’ve done, then we can plan about what to do about the delvers? Together.”

I just growled in response, trying not to seem too docile. But then as she turned away, I let my shoulders slump. She had won this little contest of wits. Even if I’d figured her out, she’d gotten what she’d wanted. That had to make her feel good, right? Like her plan had turned out perfectly?

Nearby, a varvax doctor was waiting with my twice-daily dose. She trotted over, and I tried an emergency hyperjump. Nothing happened. I felt so close to being able to escape this bind, but that was still a few minutes off. It was agonizing to realize my chance was going to slip away. The doctor took my arm, but at that moment the universe finally threw me a scudding bone. Because the doors to the hangar opened, surprising Brade, who spun.

Winzik, with a complement of guards, strode in. “What have you been doing, Brade!” he demanded. “I didn’t authorize this!”

Everybody in the room froze, including the doctor. If Brade hadn’t cleared her stunt with the man in charge, that meant that she hadn’t been talking to him earlier, when she’d claimed she was.

I still had a chance. I just had to stall a little longer.

“Oh no!” I said. “He’s found us out, Brade! Quick! What do we do?”