Evershore (Skyward Flight: Novella 3)

The autoturret continued to pound at the cannon. It was doing damage, but it wasn’t going to disable the thing fast enough. I was going to get blown to pieces on this platform the moment it finished charging.

“Amphi,” I said over the radio. “I have to get out of here. The autoturrets are distracted. Can any of you dodge the fire and fly in to pick me up?”

“Nedder’s closest,” Arturo said.

“On it,” Nedd said.

“Follow me,” I said to Juno. I scooped Snuggles, Boomslug, Bob the commslug, and the inhibitor taynix out of their boxes and took off at a full run toward the hangar.

When I arrived, I watched through the windows as Nedd pulled a barrel roll past the autofire. The turrets were focused on the ship with the cannons and were doing some impressive damage to the ship around it. Maybe they would be able to disable the thing before—

The blue light grew even more blinding. Nedd used his light-lance to flip around one of the turrets and landed on the platform right outside the hangar.

Juno’s floating platform zipped along behind me as we ran up to Nedd’s cockpit just as he lifted the canopy. The noise of the autofire was deafening, and I dove into the cockpit behind Nedd, straddling the back of his seat and holding on with both hands. Juno hovered beside Nedd’s seat, and the four slugs flattened their bodies against me.

Nedd pulled down the canopy and didn’t even have time for a wisecrack before he took off again. The turrets were so focused on the planetary weapon that they didn’t fire on us, but when we got far enough away that the vibrations returned, I had Snuggles hyperjump us several kilometers farther just to be certain.

The world flared blue as the cannon fired, the blast rocketing through Wandering Leaf, tearing it apart. The autocannons had taken out a good half of the Superiority ship, and the cannon’s light faded, no longer powering. We’d gotten rid of the weapon.

But we’d lost the platform in the process.

“Jerkface,” FM said, “did the UrDail pilots all make it out?”

“They did,” I said. “No casualties. Just catastrophic damage.”

“Dude, I saved your life,” Nedd said. “The least you could do is stop squeezing my pecs.”

I dropped my arms from around Nedd’s chair. I hadn’t realized I was holding on so tight or so…awkwardly. “Sorry,” I said. “Hang on, I’m going to transport us to my ship.” My whole body was squeezed into a space so tight I wasn’t sure how I was managing to fit. I’d only gotten in here on pure adrenaline.

I directed Snuggles to jump Nedd’s ship to the beach next to mine, still sheltered under the cliff, then I held on to her and had her hyperjump me, Juno, and Boomslug out of the cockpit. We landed in the sand outside my ship.

There standing in front of it was Kimmalyn, with Happy tucked into a sling across her chest. “Thank the stars you’re okay,” I said.

“Happy teleported me to the other side of the beach,” Kimmalyn said. “I was thinking about stealing your ship, but I guess you need it.”

“I do,” I said. I didn’t think for a minute that the cytonic with the mindblades had been killed in that blast. They would still be out there, and I wasn’t going to let them wreak havoc on our forces. “If you take Happy home, you can get another ship and then hyperjump to Naga,” I said. “That’ll get you back in the fight.”

“On it,” Kimmalyn said. “Just…be careful.”

Scud, she’d been shot out of the sky. It was only Happy that had saved her. “If you’re too shaken up—”

“I’m fine,” Kimmalyn said. Her hands were shaking, but she gave me a very forced smile. “I would feel much worse knowing you all were still up there without me. Happy, let’s go home.”

Kimmalyn disappeared, and I climbed into my cockpit, Juno floating in behind me before I closed the canopy.

My radio was going nuts.

“Jerkface!” FM said over the radio. “Are you okay?”

“He got out,” Alanik said. “He’s down on the beach.”

“I’m here,” I said. I lifted my ship a couple of meters, using my sensors to take stock of the battle. The planetary weapon was high enough in the atmosphere that it wasn’t falling immediately to the ground, though the cannon was obviously destroyed.

Jorgen, Alanik said in my head. Watch out—

With a great crunching of metal and shattering of glass, my ship ripped apart around me. A pair of mindblades sliced down into the dash, obliterating the canopy. I slammed down the altitude control and jumped out through the torn metal, pulling my slugs with me out onto the sand.

I could feel the enemy cytonic over on the beach. They’d hyperjumped after me. Juno slid out through the broken glass and hid beside me, the ship between us and the enemy cytonic.

It wasn’t going to last for long. I felt more mindblades forming around the enemy cytonic, another volley about to rip through the ship to get at me.

“Now would be a good time for that meditation,” I said to Juno.

“You are completely relaxed!” Juno said.

I reached for the nowhere, skimming my mind over the surface. My birds formed again, little shards of death and nothingness, and I flew them with all my might over the ship toward the enemy cytonic. More blades flew at us, and I pulled Juno’s platform down as I flattened myself against the ground. The enemy’s mindblades dug into the ship, and I twisted mine around, jabbing at the enemy cytonic where I could see them in my mind.

The enemy’s mindblades vanished. We’d had cover but they hadn’t, and when I peered over the ship I found the body of a dione with bright red skin lying bleeding on the ground.

Scud. I’d never killed someone at such close range before. I’d never had to stare at their bleeding body, knowing I caused that. The sand beneath the dione turned a strange dark blue color. The body didn’t so much as twitch.

My ship was thrashed, but the radio still worked. “Jerkface, you okay?” Arturo asked.

“Fine,” I said. “But I lost my ship.”

“We’ve got more company.” I looked up and found another carrier ship arriving. The Superiority had to be mustering their ships as they went, or else they’d underestimated what size force it would take to defeat us.

But they were going to keep coming until they’d accomplished it. We were going to need to bring a lot more fire to this fight.

“Amphi,” I said, “you’re in command. Protect the city. I’m going to go check on Rig, see if we can bring more platforms.”

“Copy, Jerkface,” Arturo said.

I picked up my slugs again, letting Boomslug ride on my shoulder, and placed a hand on Juno’s platform.

“You want to come with me?” I asked Juno.

“Where you will go, I will go,” Juno replied.

I would give the kitsen this—they were some of the bravest beings I’d ever met. “Take me to Drape,” I said to Snuggles.

“Drape,” Snuggles said.

Evershore and all of the ships above it disappeared. We passed beneath the eyes, and then suddenly I stood in a small room much like the one on Wandering Leaf. The window looked out at the stars, over half a broken platform drifting next to the one where we’d landed, a large defunct autoturret jutting up beyond it. The walls were lined with boxes.

Scud, there were so many of them. Taynix boxes from floor to ceiling, enough to house maybe a hundred taynix.

“Jorgen,” Rig said. “How are—”

“We lost Wandering Leaf,” I said. “Planetary weapon destroyed it.”

Rig’s eyes widened. “Is—”

“FM is fine,” I said. I probably should have led with that. If it had been Spensa, that was the first thing I’d want to hear. “But Winzik sent more reinforcements, and they may not be the last. We need to get more platforms over there.”

“Yeah, about that,” Rig said. “We have a small problem.” He gestured around him. “We don’t know what any of these boxes do, much less where we would get enough slugs to power them. I sent the transport ship back to collect the taynix on the base, but most of those belong to the remaining pilots. I’m not sure they’re going to part with them, not without a direct order from Stoff.”

Stoff might give such an order, but the more I involved him the more he’d feel he had to question me, which we did not have time for. The flights on Evershore could be dead by the time he made a decision. We’d also need the taynix with those pilots if we had to bring in more reinforcements.

I looked around at the boxes again. We’d sent expeditions down to the caverns to look for more slugs, but it was taking them time and I understood why. The slugs tended to hide in the less inhabited areas, and I’d been too busy to go down myself.

Scud. “Do you need to use all the boxes?” I asked Rig. “Can we figure out which one is the hyperdrive, then take the platform over and use the autocannons?”

“Maybe,” Rig said. “Even figuring out which is the hyperdrive is going to take time though. The boxes aren’t well labeled.”

Rig looked around, wringing his hands. I was putting a lot of pressure on him and demanding instant results. Just because we’d been able to pull ourselves out of some tight spots in the past didn’t mean he could produce miracles on demand.

“I know you’re doing your best,” I said. “I know you don’t have enough time or resources. You’re doing amazing work for us, and you’ve saved all our lives several times now. If you can’t figure this out it isn’t your fault, but I need you to try.”

“Of course,” Rig said. “We’re just not prepared for this.”

“What can I do?”

“Finding me more slugs would be nice.”

“Okay, let me see what I can do.” I moved out into the corridor. In the rooms along the hall, other engineers were calling to each other about the contents of each one. I peered through the nearest doorway.

Scud. More taynix boxes.

We were going to need a lot of help. Rig’s team had done so much for us. Now it was time for me to come through for them.

I found a bench in the corridor and sat down, Juno hovering over my shoulder next to Boomslug.

“Do you have a meditation for searching?” I asked Juno.

“Not in this book,” Juno said, “though most of them begin the same: ‘Breathe in, breathe out. You are now completely relaxed.’ ”

I wasn’t, but I tried anyway. I reached out over the planet, searching for that vibration, the one I’d heard in my dreams. The one that had called Spensa’s great-grandmother to Detritus to begin with—the reason we’d arrived here.

It was still there, that resonance. We’d found some taynix, pulled them up from their mushroom-infested caves and brought them to live with us. But there were more down there, maybe a lot more.

Help, I called to them. We need help. It was hard to pinpoint the individual minds of the slugs—it always was, before I became familiar with them, and when there were so many together. I could feel them listening to me though. They were interested, but unmoved.

“Hey!” Rig said. “Get back here!”

I looked through the doorway to see Fine, our original comms slug, wriggling out of his grasp.

“Hey!” Fine shrieked at him. “Get back here!”

Snuggles disappeared from the crook of my arm and reappeared on the floor by Fine, and then picked him up and brought him to me.

“I’m trying to concentrate,” I said.

“Sorry,” Rig said. “I think I figured out which box is the hypercomm, but when I tried to test it he went crazy.”

“Crazy!” Fine shouted.

Rig looked at him. Fine wasn’t usually this agitated…

“Leave him,” I said. “Try again in a minute when he calms down.”

“Okay,” Rig said. “Sure.”

I reached down and petted Fine on his spines. This slug—in conjunction with Gill—had saved us on Sunreach. The least I could do was give him a little breathing room.

I reached toward the planet again, down toward the vibrations that were actually taynix. Many of them, beneath the surface, in caves we hadn’t yet discovered. As I did I felt that texture again, the strange bumps in the nowhere—little ridges, all packed together in clumps below the surface of the planet. They weren’t taynix—they didn’t vibrate with energy. Instead they felt hollow, like little vessels waiting to be filled. The way they grouped together, thousands upon thousands of them, was familiar somehow. The shape of the gatherings. The pattern.

Scud. Those were the Defiant caverns. They were filled with thousands of somethings. They couldn’t be delvers, could they? No, they were something else. Maybe—

Stars, were they people?

I focused on one little raised vessel, drawing close to it, examining it. It was…thinking. Its mother had set it here, and told it not to move until it was ready to apologize for hitting its brother. But it would never be ready to apologize, because its brother had really, really deserved it.

My mouth fell open. I wasn’t supposed to be able to do that, was I? Find the minds of non-cytonics?

Listen to them?

“Juno,” I said. “In your books, are there meditations for communicating with other people? People who don’t have cytonic powers?”

“You communicate with them all the time,” Juno said. “You use words.”

“This is not the time to be pedantic!” I said. “Could your cytonics talk to other people mind-to-mind?”

Juno’s little brow furrowed. “I have read that a few achieved it. But if there are meditations for that, I have not read them. As you are just learning, it seems like it might be wiser to try to stick to the more general skills, and not rely on those only a few were ever able to achieve.”

That did seem wiser. And I hadn’t communicated with that little kid, only listened to his thoughts. That could also be useful—scud, the espionage possibilities were endless.

Now though, we had cities under attack on Evershore and a room full of empty taynix boxes. I searched for the slugs in the areas around the caverns. I felt the vibrations, concentrated in the caverns away from people. Minds that were smaller yet louder, projecting themselves into the nowhere instead of remaining self-contained.

I could figure out what to do with the rest of it later. For now I needed to focus on the taynix. I didn’t know how many of them would come to me—they hadn’t jumped on it the first time I asked, but maybe I could convince them.

We need your help, I said. Please.

Someone else reached for me, so near that I startled. Another cytonic mind joined my plea, and with it came an image.

Mushrooms. Caviar. Friends. Family. Danger. The fear was so strong, though the mind that sent it was small. I saw all of us crowded together on Sunreach, holding on to each other while Gill took us home.

Help. It wasn’t a word so much as a feeling.

Fine was helping me. He was making a case for me, though not in so many words. Telling the other taynix he was happy here. That he liked us, that we treated him well and were good to him, that he cared about us.

We care about you too, I thought at him. FM cared most of all. I knew she thought I was heartless sometimes, but I didn’t want anything terrible to happen to them if I could prevent it.

I didn’t want anything terrible to happen to anyone.

Maybe when I was speaking to the taynix I should focus less on the words. Everything was translated to thoughts through the nowhere anyway—that was how Alanik and I could understand each other.

I focused on the idea of home—my home, and what it meant to me. The danger the Superiority posed to this planet we all shared. The power we had to stop it, but only with help.

It was more hope than I truly felt, but it was the message they needed and it wasn’t a lie. It was simply a different way to tell the story.

Do better than we did.

“Scud!” Rig shouted, and I opened my eyes as hundreds of taynix all appeared in the corridor at once. They spilled into the various control rooms, all wriggling on top of one another. They were bunched together in groups, taynix of many colors all rolling and sliding away from the hyperslugs they’d been huddled around.

The ones who could hyperjump had answered me, and they’d brought friends.

There were so many of them. Commslugs, and mindblade slugs, and the hyperslugs too, of course. Also the blue and green kind we’d found on Wandering Leaf, the ones that powered inhibitors. It made sense there were some on Detritus—there had to be a few somewhere, enabling our cytonic inhibitor.

But there were more still. Wrinkled grey ones with black and white spines, several with spines that faded between the many colors of the rainbow, and a strange set of mostly blackish ones that shone an iridescent blue under the control room lights. Some of the slugs were significantly smaller than the others, teal colored with pink spines. Were those babies, or a smaller variety?

The other humans and I all stared at the slugs dumbly. While we did, Boomslug, Fine, and Snuggles jumped into action. Snuggles teleported Boomslug right into the middle of the taynix. Snuggles started touching slugs and hyperjumping them into the control rooms, gathering them in front of the boxes, while Boomslug herded groups of them together with the light touch of a blunt mindblade. The other slugs slithered out of his way, heading in the directions he sent them. Through the nowhere I could feel Fine sending them all feelings and images. Danger. Help. Hurry.

“Um,” Rig said. “I know I asked you for more slugs, but I really don’t know which boxes to put them in. I have no idea what some of these slugs would do, even if we did figure out where to put them.”

“Do your best,” I said. “They came to help, and we need all the help we can get.”