Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

“What is taking so long?” Brade demanded, seizing the control pad from the aide. “Isn’t there a button to just end them?”

“Yes,” the aide said. “In case of capture, those in their cages can be eliminated in groups to prevent them from being taken. But nobody thought we’d ever want to eliminate all of the inhibitors at once! That felt like a weakness waiting to be exploited! These can only be deactivated one at a time.”

“Gah!” Brade said, tapping buttons, killing a slug with each push. This would take forever. “Someone call up Evensong for me!”

The same dione commander from before appeared on the screen. They were in charge of the slug containment units hidden inside the old abandoned platform.

“Sir?” they asked.

“How many taynix do you have in containment?”

“Around twenty thousand hyperdrives, some six thousand communicators, and four thousand inhibitors. Most of the out-of-service reserves of the entire Superiority—”

“Great,” she said. “End them.”

“Sir?” they asked, alarmed.

Brade gestured toward the hologram, where inhibitors were going offline by the dozen. Not just the ones she’d killed, but many others choosing to turn off their inhibitor fields. Betraying the Superiority. The enemy would soon be able to jump their planet-size battle station anywhere in the system it wanted. “The inhibitors are malfunctioning and aiding the enemy. This entire place is about to be captured. Execute your slugs.”

“But sir!” they said. “You put them on lockdown earlier!”

“Cancel it, idiot!”

“You insisted on biometrics,” they said. “I can’t do it. I need a ranking officer, here in person, to undo the locks.”

Brade felt a cold chill run through her. It was accompanied by a sound that warped her from the inside.

KILLING THE LITTLE DELVERS?

KILLING THE ONES WHO HELD US?

KILLING THE ONES WHO LOVED US?

The rage emanating from those voices could have melted steel. It was time for her to be somewhere else. She tried to hyperjump, and found herself inhibited. What?

She glanced toward Spensa—who had a grin plastered on her face. Well, hell below. When had the girl learned to do that? Brade tossed up her own inhibition field. Would it even do anything? The warping to the air had vanished, so maybe.

“Move!” Brade shouted to her troops. “The station is lost!”

She dashed toward the door, joined by her command staff and soldiers, who fortunately had the training to respond to this. The aides and functionaries, always a bother—most of them reminded her of Cuna and their ilk—scrambled behind.

At the end of the hall, just before the docks, Brade pointed. “Kaldwell, position the honor guard here. Stop her if she comes this way.”

The tenasi saluted, and the others fell into a defensive position, taking cover in doorways. Several began pulling a metal desk from a side room to blockade the corridor.

Brade dashed into the docking bay and skidded over to her ship, leaping to the wing and hauling herself to her cockpit. The command staff did likewise, taking the other five ships, some of them being forced to double up, with one person squeezed in the storage space behind the seat.

By the time the aides and functionaries began piling in, almost everyone was starting to take off. “Wait!” one aide called—the sniveling dione who had helped her execute slugs earlier. “What about us?”

“Try,” Brade shouted over her speakers, “to die without too much whining.”

“But—”

Brade closed her canopy and thumbed on her boosters, vaporizing the dione, who had strayed too close to the ship. Nice. One less person for the enemy to interrogate. She blasted out of the command station, intent on getting far enough away from Spensa that she could access her powers. With the command staff joining her, she left no ships behind for Spensa to use in pursuit.

Something is wrong, a voice said in her mind. That one delver who had talked to her earlier, the one who had been intrigued by her offer to meld. The others among us…they are changing. They are betraying what we are.

Not you? Brade sent.

No. I will never change. I cannot change. Not in that way. I…I am the only one who is pure. The others are not!

Good, she thought. Let’s bond.

No. No, that will change me too much.

Brade sighed. All right, then go to the station I just left.

And do what?

Stop the abomination we call Spensa, she sent. Or at least prevent her from following me. Do this, and maybe we can change your friends back.

They are not my friends. They are me. But it seemed inclined to do as she said. And as long as it was willing to help, that was all that mattered for now.