Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

I knew that some of the delvers hadn’t accepted our help. I wasn’t certain how many, but some. Those had lingered on the perimeter of the nowhere. Then they’d vanished, hiding again instead of accepting comfort and change.

Yes, they were people all right. A very different kind of people, but prone to the same inclinations. The majority changed for the better, fortunately. Some accepted it faster than the others, and those went to help the taynix. The slugs were first terrified, then relieved, their voices echoing in my mind. The delvers were rescuing the slugs trapped in the inhibitor stations.

But where was Brade? I pulled out of the nowhere. Found myself kneeling in a broken room, empty save for the rubble from our strange duel.

I double-checked and…I was…me?

Yeah, I was certain now. No more delver in my soul. It felt like taking off a blanket and exposing my sweaty skin to the air. It wasn’t a bad feeling. Just odd.

I stumbled to my feet, then something appeared in my hands. A soft yellow-and-blue slug about the size of a loaf of bread.

“Doomslug!” I said.

“Doomslug!” she fluted.

I gave her a hug, though my left arm screamed in pain. Scud, I’d been shot—between the adrenaline and the subsequent communication with the delvers, I’d forgotten. Granted, it had been a grazing blow, but it still hurt.

Well, it seemed the delvers were taking the inhibitor slugs to safety. Which meant that despite lacking a delver in my soul, I could hyperjump out of here and get back to the others.

Before I did though, a voice entered my mind.

Miss Nightshade? Chet asked. We have a problem.

“Of course we do,” I said with a sigh. “What is it?”

A short time ago, Brade contacted the main station via commslug. That slug just relayed what she said. The poor thing is quite alarmed, I must say. Brade intends to execute all of the slugs inside the station itself. Which is shielded. So…

“So no help from the delvers?” I asked.

They can break through a shield, as I attempted to do on Starsight so long ago, but it will take them time. I’m trying to explain the danger to my kin, but I fear we shall be too late to act upon this distressing turn. Spensa…Brade is flying there in person to see the order carried out.

“She got in a starfighter?” I asked.

Yes. Fortunately, the inhibitors closest to this region are still in effect. I’ve explained the problem to them, so the slugs are blocking her and refusing to go with the delvers. They won’t abandon the taynix on Evensong. But Miss Nightshade, she is getting close!

Yes. But she’d climbed into a starfighter. And I knew where the station’s hangar bay was.

Doomslug under my arm, I leaped out into the hallway.

And very nearly got shot.

I was saved by a stumble, the destructor fire blasting over my head. With a shout, I dove back into the room, then apologized to Doomslug, who fluted at me in annoyance. I put her down.

Well, we’d just—

What was that?

“Chet?” I asked. “Something just changed.”

Delver, he sent. One who didn’t…want to join us. It has come in your direction. I am pleading with it not to destroy you.

His voice grew even more distant. And my ability to hyperjump was smothered.

I sighed, then seized a gun from the rubble. I peeked again into the hallway, but weapons fire from a half dozen soldiers set up behind a makeshift barricade drove me back. Brade had found much better troops than the ones who had been assigned to guard my prison. They knew how to keep me pinned, and each time I tried something I was forced right back into the room.

Scud. I didn’t have time for this. If Brade reached Evensong—

“Greetings,” a deep voice shouted in the hallway outside. “By tradition, the Masked Exile is supposed to announce himself before joining a battle. Consider this your warning!”

Was that…?

I poked my head out to see a tiny figure on a hover platform at the end of the hallway, behind the enemy barricade. Hesho?

Hesho was here?

Scud, he looked so small next to the enormous tenasi troops. They’d crush him. One turned a large assault rifle on him. As Hesho zipped forward on his small platform, a flash of light followed—sweeping in an arc in front of him.

The tenasi’s head thumped to the floor outside the barricade. Hesho made a motion as if returning a tiny sword to its sheath at his side—but swords didn’t make light like that, and little ones certainly didn’t sweep through the air in a two-meter-long crescent like that one had.

Right, then. The flying fox samurai with a laser sword needed fire support. I burst into the hallway, gun at my unwounded shoulder, sighting and advancing in a steady walk. I fired on the troops, blasting body parts as they were exposed. Hesho made another sweep of light, then another.

What had been a fortified position became a killing field for confused troops trapped between two enemy forces. They tried to shoot him, but blasts went wild as he zipped about—a tiny target, difficult to hit.

Hesho finished off the last of the six as I stepped up, dumbfounded.

“Are you well?” he asked, hovering on his platform and panting softly. “You seem to have been injured at least once.”

“Hesho!” I said. “I want to hug you!”

“Because of the differences in size,” he said, raising a paw, “perhaps this human gesture will suffice.” He lifted his mask, smiling. And let me bump his paw.

“That weapon…” I said.

“Ah yes,” he said, patting the sheath at his side. “The Darting Hawk That Separates Sinew from Bone. A family weapon I fetched from Evershore when the assault was announced. You charge it like this…” He grabbed the sheath. “Then you whip it out like this…” It released a burst of energy when he swung, making the air glow. By the time he returned it to the sheath, it had stopped glowing. “Not the most efficient weapon, but it has a certain historical flair which I thought appropriate for my current station.”

“Thank you,” I said to him. “Whatever debt you owed me for helping you in the nowhere is paid.”

“Ah, but that is not how it works, Spensa,” he said. “You mistake me. I did not come here because of a debt.” He smiled. “I came to help a friend.”

I grinned back, then grabbed Doomslug and waved for Hesho to join me as I ran into the hangar bay. We just had to steal a ship and…

And the hangar bay was empty. No ships. Only some frightened officials trying to hide behind a stack of bins on the far side of the room.

There was no way for me to chase Brade down.