Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

Kimmalyn knew that the Saints had a plan for every person’s life. But the Saints, they loved variety. The purpose of life was to learn, and the way to learn was through excitement, emotion, and change. Boredom was the path to complacency, and complacency the path to stagnation.

Still, she wished the Saints would, for once, send her a tad more boredom. Just a milliliter or two of stagnation wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?

She hung in the void of space in formation with Skyward Flight, watching the blackness erupt with clouds of smoke and incongruous lightning. The delvers, according to Spensa, had once been AIs housed in a round floating globe. When they came to this dimension, they instinctively made a copy of that innocuous housing to contain their consciousness.

It was difficult to see anything innocuous in what emerged. Massive spheres the size of small planets, with spines jutting from them in a terrible lack of symmetry. Surrounded by particles of dust like a shroud, and armed with thousands of self-propelling asteroids that could smash into anyone who drew near.

Her mind reeled, trying to comprehend it. From space, it was already difficult to understand that a nearby planet was big enough to hold billions of individuals. Here were thirteen of them—smaller, yes, but still moon-size—emerging from smoke fields tens of thousands of kilometers across, shoving aside inhibitor stations as they grew. She could only take it all in because she was far enough away—but distances in space were deceptive and difficult to judge. Even as distant as she was, these smoke fields and emerging planetoids took up her entire field of vision.

For the first time in this fight, she was truly afraid. Truly worried that this was it. That she and her friends were doomed. That she’d never return to her family, her sisters, her parents, her girlfriend. How did you fight something so incredible, let alone thirteen of them? The weapons on Detritus could destroy a fleet, but not planets. She knew from the recordings they’d found on Platform Prime that a single delver had been enough to wipe out all life on the planet. Defenses or no defenses.

“Um…” Kimmalyn said over the comm. “Anyone got any ideas?”

No one replied.