Evershore (Skyward Flight: Novella 3)

Arturo had our flights concentrated over Dreamspring, focusing on the ships that remained here. But it wouldn’t help the kitsen on the surrounding islands. Some of the kitsen cytonics had hyperjumped their ships after the enemy—I saw one with mindblades trying to take down a ship, another using what felt like concussion bolts to stun a flight of enemy starfighters. They were fighting valiantly, but there were so many of the enemy, and maybe more yet to arrive.

We weren’t going to be able to save everyone.

I looked up at the sky, at the relatively fewer number of ships. This wasn’t a good thing. The Superiority would destroy the outer islands and then return for Dreamspring when they were done. I couldn’t stop it.

The words of Juno’s mantra came into my mind again, although the kitsen was silent beside me.

In order to achieve control, you must first accept that you have none.

I wanted control though. I wanted to put a stop to everything terrible that was happening, to save my people, to rescue Spensa, to pull her out of the nowhere and have her with me again safe. I wanted to go back and save my parents. They’d died because they’d made a desperate gambit in hopes that they could control our fate, make a better world for me, for all of us.

They failed. They couldn’t control it. And neither could I.

I closed my eyes. In my mind, the Superiority ship exploded over and over.

Do better than we did.

We weren’t though, were we? We were trying, but failing all the same.

“Boom,” Boomslug said.

“Boom,” I answered him.

A wave of helplessness washed over me. I couldn’t stop what was coming. It would be like trying to stop a wave in the ocean. I couldn’t stop it, but I could let it wash over me and I could remain standing after it passed.

My radio flashed. Arturo’s private channel. “Amphi?” I said.

“Jerkface. What…what are we going to do?”

We needed more help, but at this point I wasn’t sure what else we could do. Against any other enemy it made sense for us to withdraw, to hope that they would have mercy on the kitsen. But I was never going to count on the Superiority’s mercy.

“Protect the city,” I said. “Send Quirk and Nedder to Detritus for more transport ships. Ask Angel if she can bring in any UrDail transport ships to evacuate other cities. We need to get as many people as we can off this planet before the Superiority musters up another one of those planetary weapons.”

“Copy,” Arturo said. He sounded as hollow as I felt. We both knew what we were about to watch. It would be the worst atrocity either of us had ever seen.

The general channel flashed. “Jerkface?” FM said. “The kitsen are boarding the transport ship. Should we send them out?”

“Is the ship full?” I asked.

“It will be soon. But…we can see the closest island, off to the dawnward side.” She’d picked up that term from Alanik, and it was helpful, I had to give the UrDail that. “The ships are firing on the island. Shouldn’t we…help them?”

There was pain in her voice, not unlike Kauri’s. FM had a gift for that—feeling what other people were feeling.

Today it might as well be a curse, but at least I’d been able to give her the job of saving the people we could.

“Take the ship out,” I said. “I’m going to check on Rig. We’ll try to save them, but…I don’t…”

“It’s okay,” FM said. “I know you’re doing your best.”

That was what I was afraid of. That this was my best.

And it was never, ever good enough.

“Juno,” I said, “I’m going to take you to safety.”

Juno looked down at his platform, at the piles of books stacked at his feet. “I should have brought more,” he said. “The books are digitized—the knowledge will not be lost, but these are the originals. It is a tragedy to lose them, but that’s even more true of my kinsmen.”

My throat closed up. All their knowledge. We needed that, and the Superiority would do their best to destroy it.

Stars.

In my mind, I reached for Detritus, searching for Rig. I felt his adrenaline before I’d even found him. He and his team were worn out trying to get the platform up and running, but they were still there doing the best they could.

Report? I asked him.

We’ve got lots of slugs in lots of boxes, Rig said. And we think these rooms are connected to several platforms. That’s the only reason we can see that you’d need so many. But Jorgen, we don’t even know what some of these systems do.

Alanik’s words to me on ReDawn echoed in my mind: Focus on what you have. If we could get even a few of those platforms here, we might be able to protect more cities while we evacuated them. There were hundreds upon hundreds of kitsen cities. The death toll would still be horrible. But…it would be something.

I’m coming, I said. Whatever you’ve got, we need to try it now.

Okay, Rig said.

I looked up at the sky. I could see what FM was talking about now—the flashes of light over the water, the Superiority firing on that island. FM should be pulling the transport ship out, but that was one tiny group of kitsen among so many.

It was going to take a miracle to get us out of this. Spensa taught me never to count a miracle out, and I hoped that held true even if she wasn’t here to work one for us this time.

“What are you going to do?” Juno asked. He stood with a book open, resting it on his forearm. In his paw, he held a small stick poised over the page.

A pen, I realized.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m making a record,” Juno said. “An original account of the actions of a shadow-walker.”

“No one’s going to want to read about anything I’ve done,” I said. I immediately realized it wasn’t true. He might be chronicling the end of civilization on Evershore. That depended not on me, but on how far the Superiority wanted to take their vengeance.

“I have waited all my life to witness the deeds of a shadow-walker,” Juno said. “And if this day is the last for my home, it will be my honor to record that it was not because your people left us to suffer alone.”

Scud. Wouldn’t we, though? We could evacuate some kitsen, but if we couldn’t turn the battle in our favor I was going to have to pull my people out. I couldn’t let them all die for nothing.

Do better than we did, my mother said.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t know if I could, but I was going to keep trying until I knew the answer. I rested my hand on Juno’s platform.

“Snuggles,” I said, “take us to Drape.”

We appeared in the room with the boxes and a lot fewer roaming slugs, most of which had been corralled into corners by the engineers.

Rig spun around from one of the control panels on the walls. “Jorgen,” he said.

“FM is fine,” I said. “She’s working on the evacuation effort. But the Superiority is fanning out over the planet, bombing civilians.” I didn’t know how they justified this to themselves. I didn’t know how they justified anything, but we had to put a stop to it. “We need to get these platforms over there. As many as we can move, as quickly as we can.”

The hum of all the slugs around us was overwhelming, and it was difficult for me to pick them out one from another. I tried to focus on the hyperdrive slugs, but I couldn’t because there were so many. I didn’t want to give a blanket instruction to all of them, since we didn’t know what many of them could do.

“Where’s Fine?” I asked.

“Hypercomm box, I hope,” Rig said. He moved down the row of boxes. “Over here.”

I found Fine before he did—one of the few signatures I knew in this cacophony. Fine, I said. Can you tell them to take these platforms to Evershore? I showed him an image of the slugs he knew—Naga, Happy, Chubs, Whiskers—all flying around the planet, and then some of the platforms appearing in a ring beneath the clouds, where they could fire on enemy ships.

Go? Fine said to me.

Go, I responded.

He hesitated for a moment—conversing, I thought, with the other slugs. And then I felt us slip into the nowhere, the surface of it rippling around us like rings on a pond. We passed beneath the eyes—scud, this was working. We’d be able to support the flights, and at least reduce the damage the ships were able to do to the islands of Evershore.

As we reemerged, I looked out the control room window, expecting to see the stars above.

Instead I saw the planet itself, an enormous ball of water, punctuated by sand-colored islands. Scud. The platform was way too high up, and we were facing the opposite of the direction I’d expected. I could see the backside of several of the Superiority carrier ships. They might be in range of our hyperweapons, but—

One of the engineers swore. “Flightleader Weight,” she said, “you’re going to want to see this.”

She indicated the proximity monitors, which showed the planet of Detritus and all the platforms moving around us—the entire belt of them.

They were still there.

Scud. The control room had worked, but it hadn’t only moved some platforms. It had moved the whole damn planet.

Go, I heard Fine say through the nowhere.

And all around me, the nowhere began to ripple, tear, and explode.