Evershore (Skyward Flight: Novella 3)

It was even later on Detritus than it was on Evershore, but when we emerged in the taynix room on Platform Prime, we found Rig still at his desk in Engineering. Rig smiled when he saw FM, but then his smile immediately dropped.

“If you came without the rest of the flight, I’m guessing this isn’t good,” he said.

“It’s not,” I said. “We need to talk to Stoff.”

“I’m sure he’s gone to bed,” Rig said. “Almost everyone has.”

“Except for you,” FM said.

“Yeah,” Rig said. “I’ve been looking at some of the reports on the other platforms from the exploration crews. They found one a few hundred klicks from here with some similarities to Wandering Leaf. We think it might have a control room, and I’m charting us a good way to get in and take a look without getting hit by the autofire.”

That could be useful. I wondered if Stoff would let me take a few of the platforms to defend Evershore. Our planetary shield filled in the gaps between the platforms that had been wrecked, so I was pretty sure we could take a few without leaving ourselves entirely open, but Stoff wasn’t much of a risk-taker.

I could probably bring Wandering Leaf, because it technically belonged to the UrDail and not to the DDF, and I hoped he’d send a few extra flights. It might help if I reminded him that the Superiority hadn’t attacked our planet since we’d put up the shield, and that we could hyperjump back in a hurry the moment anything changed. Though I’d have to spin it in a way that allowed him to cover his ass later if I had any hope of convincing him extra firepower was necessary.

“How are things with the kitsen?” Rig said.

“Precarious,” FM said. “Come on. I’ll explain on the way to wake Stoff.”

Dragging the man out of bed probably wasn’t going to endear us to him, but we didn’t have a choice. I doubted those Superiority ships were going to wait until morning, and even if they did we’d better have reinforcements in place long before that.

While FM filled Rig in, I reached out to Alanik. Status?

Still waiting, she replied. I don’t like it.

Neither did I. The Superiority had both cytonics and hyperdrives—they could bring vast resources to bear in an instant. If they were hesitating, it was because they were calling up their people wherever they were stationed—and it could be nearly anywhere in the galaxy. We’d taken out their planetary cannon on ReDawn, but I doubted it was their only one.

And Juno? I asked.

He keeps telling me I am relaxed. I am not.

Yeah, I said. I wasn’t either. It worked anyway though.

That is encouraging, Alanik said. Thank you.

Keep me informed, I said, and I felt her agreement although she didn’t respond in words.

When I tuned back in, FM was in the middle of telling Rig about me taking out the Superiority ships with the mindblades.

“That sounds dangerous,” Rig said.

“It was amazing,” FM said, and she sounded like she meant it.

“Sure. Amazing, but dangerous.”

“It was kind of surreal,” I said. “But it worked well in that fight. It won’t be enough in the long term though. Now that the Superiority knows we’re working with the kitsen, they’ll gather more ships to bring against us. We need help.”

We reached the corridor with Stoff’s quarters. At the end of the hall a guard stood watch by his door—Kelin, who’d been assigned to watch Cobb since he became admiral.

That seemed like a bad sign.

She saluted as we approached. “I need you to wake Vice Admiral Stoff,” I said. “We have urgent information.”

Kelin nodded—I had higher clearance than she did, so she didn’t ask me for the information. She stepped inside, and then came out a few minutes later with Stoff, who wore a dressing gown.

“Oh good,” Stoff said. “You’re back. How are Cobb and Mrs. Nightshade? Are they in the infirmary? What is their condition?”

Oh, scud. Of course we had to start there. “The medical team was unable to move them without destabilizing them,” I said. Hopefully Cuna was able to move them into the library—I’d left before I’d found out the outcome. No need to get into the strange details of that. Stoff would only want answers I didn’t have. “The team wants to keep them there until we understand more about their condition.”

“Okay,” Stoff said. “I hardly think I needed that report in the middle of the night.”

“We have a bigger problem,” I said. “The Superiority found us on Evershore. They must have heard Kauri’s transmission and came looking for us. They attacked, and we defended ourselves and the nearby city, but then the Superiority withdrew. We heard over the hypercomm that they’re waiting for reinforcements.”

“Well,” Stoff said. “That does sound like a problem.”

At least we agreed on that. If he’d tried to convince me this wasn’t our problem, I would have worried about exploding in mindblades again.

“Sir,” I said. “We need to take Wandering Leaf to defend against whatever the Superiority is planning.”

“Fine,” Stoff said. “You didn’t need to wake me for that either.”

Didn’t I? It surprised me that Stoff wasn’t trying to claim DDF ownership over the thing since we were the ones who had retrieved it from ReDawn and figured out how it worked. It was a good thing—both for our current situation and our relationship with the UrDail—if he didn’t. But…

“We also need DDF support,” I told Stoff. “A few more flights at least. The more you can spare, the better.”

Now Stoff looked skeptical. “Detritus isn’t under attack,” I said. “We have the shield to protect us even if the Superiority were to return, and with the hyperdrives we could be here at a moment’s notice. We can spare the ships, not only to protect Cobb and Mrs. Nightshade, but to show solidarity with the kitsen.”

Stoff watched me carefully, and then looked over at Kelin. “Excuse us,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Kelin said, and she paced off down the hall.

Stoff glanced at Rig, as if considering whether to send him away as well, but seemed to decide it wasn’t necessary. “Okay,” he said.

Um. “Okay, sir?”

“Okay, take the flights. How many do you need?”

“How many will you—”

“Never mind,” Stoff said. “Don’t tell me. I’ll radio over to Command that I’ve authorized you to call up flights to support you on Evershore. You can call them up yourself.”

I could? “Sir?” I said.

Stoff sighed, and I felt like I was missing something. I looked sideways at FM, but she didn’t seem to be any clearer on what was happening than I was.

“Your orders came directly from the admiral, didn’t they?” Stoff said. “I wouldn’t dream of overruling him.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw FM and Rig exchange a look.

I didn’t really know what to say to that. I didn’t want to argue—I’d been worried that Stoff was going to take away what limited autonomy I had now that he knew Cobb was in fact incapacitated. DDF protocol was clear that he had the right—even the responsibility—to do just that.

“I can decide how many flights to call to Evershore,” I said. I didn’t want to belabor this too much—it was good news really, and Skyward Flight needed us to take care of this quickly and bring them help.

But this felt more like a trap.

“Yes,” Stoff said. “You’ve been very clear on what Cobb ordered you to do. If this is your mission, then you should have the autonomy to complete it, don’t you think?”

Ah. I saw what he was doing. On paper I was a renegade. I’d taken my flight and our starfighters to ReDawn, officially against orders. I’d then returned and demanded that we cut the assembly out of the loop and that we work with the kitsen to retrieve Cobb. There were plenty of people who would testify to my insubordination—everyone but Cobb would consider that case open and shut.

Stoff hadn’t arrested me when we returned, but he’d been watching me ever since. He’d been giving me a lot of leeway in case my actions might be in Detritus’s best interest, but he’d never quite committed to attaching his name to anything I’d done in case it blew up like the scudding Superiority ship.

If Stoff kept this up, he could still take credit for anything Skyward Flight accomplished—if he wanted the credit. If we failed he’d be able to wash his hands of it. Say I acted on my own, say he didn’t really understand what was happening while I was offworld.

Did Stoff really not care about anything but keeping his head down and avoiding responsibility for whatever came next?

“Sir,” I said. “Forgive me for questioning, but that’s a lot of autonomy.”

“It’s no more than the admiral saw fit to give you,” Stoff said. “Isn’t that right?”

Stars. Maybe that was all he cared about. This was in fact a lot more autonomy than the admiral had seen fit to give me. I didn’t want to push Stoff too hard though. I only wanted to understand his motives, not change his mind.

“This is important,” I said to him. “We’re protected for now, but it isn’t going to last. The Superiority’s resources are as vast as the galaxy. They’re trying to convince the delvers to be on their side. If we don’t find a way to resist them…”

Stoff cringed, his shoulders hunching forward. “You don’t have to tell me.” I saw genuine fear in his eyes. He was terrified. “If you think you can do something to better our situation, then you scudding well had better do it.”

He closed the door in my face.

“Did he seriously just do that?” FM asked.

“Dump responsibility for everything on us?” Rig asked. “Yeah, I think he did.”

Not on us. On me. I was an easy mark. My parents were gone, so I couldn’t depend on them to cover for me. I was isolated. Politically speaking, I was expendable.

Stoff seemed sincere about wanting us to succeed. He knew how desperate our situation was. But he wasn’t going to do anything about it. He was a vice admiral; with Cobb out of commission it was his job to step up and lead.

But he was hiding like a coward because he was too afraid to deal with it.

“Jorgen?” FM said.

“Hang on,” I said. “I need to check on the others.”

I leaned against the wall next to Stoff’s door, reaching into the nowhere. Alanik? I said.

Still nothing, she said. This rodent keeps talking to me about birds. There are no birds living in my mind, Jorgen, and I don’t know what he means about the waves either.

Huh. That had made sense to me, but… That’s about how I feel when you talk about finding locations in the nowhere, I said. Maybe mindblades aren’t your thing?

I felt annoyance from her. Alanik didn’t like to think herself incapable of things other people could do.

I understood. I didn’t like it either.

I can keep trying, she said, but I worry about leaving those ships alone in the sky. We could go up there and try to take them out if you want. Fewer to fight later.

If there was the option to wait or to act, Alanik was like Spensa—she always leaned toward acting. More than leaned; she ran toward it at full speed. This time she had a point, but I still didn’t think it was the right move. No, I told her. Protect the city.

There are a lot of cities, Jorgen, Alanik said. A whole planet’s worth. How are we going to protect them all?

She was right. Evershore didn’t have a shield, or even the cover of platforms and debris. They were so exposed. At least we’d only had to protect Alta. The kitsen were spread out over the entire planet.

How did people survive this way? How were we going to protect them?

Could we?

I’m working on it, I said, as if I had a clue about what I was doing. Focus on Dreamspring for now.

“Jorgen?” FM said. “Should we head over to Command?”

The command center was staffed all night. The vice admiral had probably already put in the call and gone back to sleep, leaving the rest of it to us.

We did need to head over to Command, but if Stoff was really going to let me have whatever I wanted…

“Rig,” I said. “How long would it take you to get people over to the control room the exploration team found on that platform?”

“We can get there quickly,” Rig said. “Whether or not we can get it to work—”

“It’s worth a try,” I said. If Stoff was giving me free rein…scud, he expected this to blow up in my face, and he might be right. “At least get a team over there to look at it.”

“I’ll start knocking on doors,” Rig said.

I closed my eyes. I was pulling Rig into this. Again. He’d take the fall with me if we failed at this. “I can’t order you to do that,” I said. I didn’t have the authority for that.

“Jorgen,” Rig said, “I jumped on the going-rogue train with you all when I left with you for ReDawn. It’s a little late to reconsider now.” He squeezed FM’s hand, and then he took off down the corridor toward the dormitories.

We were all on that train, and it was my scudding fault. The corridor walls seemed to squeeze in on me, and I closed my eyes.

“Jorgen,” FM said.

I didn’t respond.

“Say something so I know you’re not about to cut the platform apart from the inside.”

“I’m not,” I said. I could control it. I would control it.

“He’s setting us up,” she said.

“Yes.”

“He’s going to try to make you look like this rogue who doesn’t care about orders. There’s a piece of irony.”

I wasn’t the only person who saw it. That was comforting. “Only if it goes wrong.”

“Of course,” FM says. “If we succeed, he’ll probably try to take credit.”

That was exactly what he would do.

“So,” FM said, “are we going to call up the flights?”

That was what I should be doing. The others needed us.

But I couldn’t move. I knew I should be acting, but was this really what I was doing now? Running off on another set of not-orders toward—what? Did I really think we could take down the entire Superiority air force with a couple of flights and one platform? Even if Rig got a few other platforms to move, did we stand a chance? We’d won on ReDawn, but that could have been a fluke. A bit of false hope that preceded total destruction. I could be leading everyone I cared about to their deaths, and it was my call, my idea, my decision—

I couldn’t watch anyone else I loved die like that.

In my mind, I watched the Superiority ship explode again.

Boom.

FM grabbed me by the arm, and I startled.

“Jorgen,” she said. “Talk to me. You’re starting to freak out again, and I really do not want to be diced up by your mindblades.”

Stars, was she afraid of me? “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry. You aren’t alone in this. I know you think you are, but you’re not.”

“He’s making me make the call,” I said. “But is this the right one? I think it’s what Cobb would do. But I don’t really know, do I? And if I’m wrong…”

“This isn’t all on you,” FM insisted.

“It is.”

“You still believe in the chain of command, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “And we’re operating way outside of it.” By orders. Sort of. Two separate commanders had sort of ordered me to do this, and the “sort of” part felt like it was going to break my brain.

“It’s a chain for a reason,” she said. “It’s not one person at the top all alone doing everything. Yeah, ultimately you make the decisions. And you are doing a scudding good job of that, okay? But we’re all here to support you. The only piece you have to do on your own is the final word.”

“I know,” I said. “But at the end of the day, it’s my call that saves people or gets people killed.” Maybe both. Stars, why was it always both?

“That’s true,” FM said. “But we’re all here supporting you because we trust your judgment.”

“You question my judgment all the time!” I said. “On Sunreach, I was going to make the call to leave the flight behind. And maybe we could have gone back for them, but maybe we couldn’t have, and who knows how many of them would have died in the meantime. You figured out how to save their lives. Not me.”

“Okay,” FM said. “But what about ReDawn? You made the call to stay and take out that Superiority ship. We could have cut and run after the cytonic inhibitors were taken out, but you risked all of our lives to destroy that battleship and protect the people of ReDawn, and that was clearly the right thing to do.”

“What about when I chewed you out for stealing the taynix and bringing them to Wandering Leaf?” I asked. “You didn’t think I was doing the right thing then.”

FM closed her eyes. We’d been avoiding this conversation ever since that happened. I didn’t want to have it now—or ever—but I also wasn’t going to let her pretend that she always agreed with me.

“I was angry with you,” she said quietly. “And I was scudding scared. I said things I didn’t mean. And I’m sorry I said those things, I really am, because they aren’t true. You are my flightleader, and you’re scudding good at it, Jorgen.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.” It felt like I was failing them all.

FM shook her head. “Do you think we all follow you because of the chain of command? The things we have done lately are scudding insane. There is not an officer in all of the DDF who would condemn us for refusing to go along with it.”

That was probably true. Stars, I’d justified a lot of things I shouldn’t have, by the book at least.

“We’re all here,” FM continued, “because we believe in what we’re doing. And we all trust you with our lives because we know that at the end of the day, Jorgen Weight is going to do the right thing. Sometimes you lose sight of that. Sometimes you get so bogged down in the rules that you lose track of what’s right for a minute. But when it comes down to the decisions you make with our lives, you do the right thing every time.”

I wasn’t so sure. That was why I tried to follow the rules, because if I was going to make a mistake, I wanted it to be one that couldn’t have been avoided. If I erred in following protocol, at least I always had the protocol to blame.

“You think I should call up the flights,” I said.

“Honestly?” FM said. “I don’t know. Maybe we should pull back; maybe the Superiority would leave the kitsen alone. Or more likely they’d do some damage and there would be lives lost, but maybe it would be fewer lives than if we goad them into a full-scale attack that we’re not sure we can defend against. It’s a risky move, Jorgen, and I don’t know what the right answer is.”

I gritted my teeth, dragging my hands over my hair. If I could see the future, know which would be the right choice for the most people—for our people—I’d do it.

Why was it so scudding hard to know what that was?

“But,” FM said, “one of our goals on Evershore is to make an alliance. And the calls you made on ReDawn are the reason we have an alliance with the UrDail. Because of you.”

I shrugged. “I was ordered to make that alliance.”

“Right. And everyone always succeeds at everything they’re ordered to do, right? Having an order makes it easy! Basically done for you. So you barely get credit for it, because you were simply following orders. Is that it?”

“Um,” I said. That sounded about right, but from her tone I could tell that it shouldn’t.

“Meanwhile, if you don’t succeed, that is entirely your fault. No one else could possibly be to blame, because Jorgen Weight is all powerful and if anything goes wrong it’s always on him.”

“I think that’s a little hyperbolic.”

“You think?” FM said. “Tell me that’s not how you feel. Go ahead.”

“Um,” I said again.

“You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be powerless and totally at fault. Which is it?”

I thought about that. “It’s neither.”

“Right,” FM said. “Some things are under your control, and others aren’t. You do the best you can with what you have to work with. And that is what sets you apart—what you do with it.”

I sighed. “Fine. You’ve made your point.”

“So, what are we doing? What are your priorities here?”

“Cobb’s life.” That was a clear priority, clean and by the book. “And we can’t pull him out.” But stars, even if it would save kitsen lives, we couldn’t leave him there.

“Okay,” FM said.

“Also the lives of our flightmates,” I added.

“And all the kitsen lives in danger right now? What about them?”

“They aren’t our people. But Cobb ordered us to—”

“Forget for a minute about what Cobb ordered you to do,” FM said. “What do you think is the right thing to do?”

I didn’t know which call would turn out to be the best one, but for the moment I tried to set that aside. Maybe the right call was the one that hoped for the most good for the most people, even if the outcome wasn’t totally assured.

Things seemed clearer when I looked at them that way. “Save lives,” I said. “Defend the kitsen, defend Cobb, secure the alliance. Work together against the people who are trying to kill us all.” It sounded so simple when I said it like that. It had a ring of truth to it.

“That sounds right to me too,” FM said.

I nodded. “What Stoff is doing is a trap, but it’s a political one. We can save lives first and politic later.” I would have preferred to politic never, but if there was an order to this, that was it.

FM watched me, waiting. She was doing what she’d said—talking me through it, but then waiting for me to make the decision.

I could recall my flight and leave the kitsen to deal with the Superiority. If Stoff could hide behind the chain of command so could I, and no one in the DDF could blame me for it. I could pin the whole thing right back on Stoff, and he wouldn’t have a renegade on whom to shuffle off the responsibility.

But I already knew I could never live with myself if I did that.

“Enough standing around,” I said. “Let’s call up the flights and get that platform.”

FM grinned at me. “Yes, sir,” she said.

And together we took off running down the corridor.