Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

I felt Gran-Gran as she died.

One final connection let me see her as she sank into her seat on the bridge. Not the same ship she’d landed on Detritus in, but somehow still her ship. The ship her people had made, the ship she’d claimed by birthright. She had arrived on the Defiant, and she would leave on it.

She’d evacuated everyone else, so she was alone as she died.

No, she sent to me. I have you.

Gran-Gran…

She was gone by the time I thought it. Gran-Gran had been inhibited and prevented from hyperjumping away. She’d stayed to pilot the ship, staring the enemy in the face. Brought down by Brade’s mad insistence that destroying this symbol of insolence would break us. Gran-Gran died a hero, yes, but she…

She was still gone.

My soul contorted. I barely noticed as Brade forced me off her. A piece of me recognized what she was doing when she leveled her pistol at me, and the air warped—not really by conscious effort on my part. My powers protected me by instinct this time—because when Brade fired, the shot went straight into the nowhere.

She cursed and tried again from another angle. Same result. When she sent in a guard to grab me, he ended up suffocating in the reaches of space halfway across the galaxy.

I barely noticed. I was watching particles of light from the hologram break apart and vanish. The Defiant.

Gran-Gran.

I barely even registered that Detritus’s gun platforms somehow hyperjumped into the space the Defiant had been heading toward. The slugs there had let them through? The emplacements shot back.

Pain welled up inside of me, like a reactor going critical. So much emotion. So much anguish. I screamed, howling into the sky, my hands forming claws.

I…I couldn’t handle it. I’d said I could withstand the loss of friends. But this?

I couldn’t lose Gran-Gran. I…I…

It’s too much, Chet thought. It’s too much! I can’t!

All along, part of this panic was his. I’d learned some lessons about grief, but he still hadn’t. My pain at losing my grandmother was too much, when amplified by his inability to handle grief. Together our souls vibrated in a cacophony of agony, loss, panic, terror, pain—

I felt something warm wrap around me. Another mind, like comforting arms. A…a slug?

Another.

A third.

A hundred of them.

It was the inhibitor slugs, left alone in their isolated pods in the frozen emptiness of space. They noticed my pain, and they came to me. Soon there were over a thousand of them, holding me mentally. Supporting me. Not trying to explain away my pain, but comforting me in it. Letting me know they were there.

I had to suffer. But I didn’t have to do it alone.

In that moment, I understood why they had stayed. Why not one of them would escape when given the chance. That would have meant abandoning the others to their torment. They survived because they were together. I took their love, their support, and clung to it. Then quested outward.

Not…alone…Chet thought. Not alone?

No, I wasn’t alone. I’d never been alone. I reached out and found…

I’m here, Kimmalyn said in my mind. She didn’t know what was happening, but she’d felt me reaching out in my pain. Spin, I’m here.

I’m here. Nedd, on Platform Prime, with command.

I’m here. Arturo.

I’m here. FM.

Spensa? Jorgen. Oh, scud. It’s good to feel your mind.

All of them. Even Alanik, Sadie, T-Stall, and Catnip. Kauri and the kitsen. Shiver and Dllllizzzz.

Thank you, Dllllizzzz whispered to me, for bringing me home. More distantly, I felt Maksim and Peg. Even a strange worried mind that was Vapor. They sensed me looking for them, and I felt their warmth join that of the thousands of slugs.

Before their love, the pain didn’t vanish. But it looked so, so small. Like a candle in front of a sun.

With that perspective, both Chet and I knew we could handle this. I’d been through it before and survived. Maybe I hadn’t dealt with my father’s passing in the most healthy of ways, and losing Bim and Hurl had only exacerbated that. I was, however, more capable now.

Gran-Gran had died on her own terms, in a way she’d likely always dreamed of doing. By luring the enemy into a trap, then springing it. She’d lived a full life, and had gone out like she was in a story. None of that dulled my pain, but it did contextualize it.

I could live with this.

But she’s gone…Chet thought. Gone forever.

No, I replied. I remember her. You remember her.

That’s pain.

That’s life.

I…Can we really do this? he asked. Can we really just…keep living…with this?

In response, I let my mind hold the delver. I joined the chorus of thousands of taynix, of my friends.

I understand, I thought. We understand.

Slowly, Chet’s panic subsided, and his soul aligned with mine. It seemed wondrous that it worked. He was a being that had felt so alone when experiencing loss that it had created millions of clones of itself.

And yet, was it truly that odd? They’d been isolated in the nowhere.

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

The delver let out a long sigh, and I felt his emotions as if they were my own. Comfort. Gratitude. Strength. All of that love—the mere fact that the delver understood, deeply, that others cared…well, it legitimately helped.

And at long last, Chet accepted that there was only one way forward. One way to survive the pain. With the help of so many, he walked the path on his own and found that you could get through darkness. Though sometimes a friendly light was required to show the way.