Evershore (Skyward Flight: Novella 3)

Bits of the nowhere ripped apart, exploding outward toward nearby Superiority carrier ships. Scud, there were more of them. It was kind of gratifying, seeing how much force Winzik felt he had to bring in order to take us down.

But he hadn’t done it yet. Hyperweapons I didn’t know we had erupted from the surfaces of the platforms, ripping up enemy ships. Ships swarmed below us, mostly centered over the island of Dreamspring. They weren’t much more than dots, but through the nowhere I could feel the minds of the pilots—UrDail, kitsen, and human alike—all fighting together.

We were pretty high up, maybe even out of the atmosphere, so many of the enemy ships were out of range. I didn’t feel like we should move the whole planet on a whim, though scud, did we need to move it farther away? What were two planets this large going to do to each other?

Jorgen, Alanik said. What did you—

We brought company, I told her. All of it.

Apparently, she answered.

My view of the planet below began to shift, and I realized the platform was drifting away from Detritus.

“Rig,” I said, “are we moving?”

“Oh, scud,” Rig said. “Is that what that navigation system does?”

Rig called to the other engineers, and several of them joined him at the panel. “Here,” he said. “These are navigation controls like the ones on Platform Prime, but because there are no engine systems I could never figure out what they’re for. But now—I think these inputs here are for coordinates, and then the system tells the hyperslugs where to go.”

“Jerkface!” Kauri said over the radio. “I don’t know what’s going on up there, but our tidal authority would like you to know that your planet is going to pull on our oceans, gathering all the water on that side, causing an even worse wave to engulf our islands. Wait—oh, they say it will do that if one of our planets doesn’t rip the other one apart first.”

“They’re right,” Rig said. “But it should have happened already.” He scanned the monitors, looking for something. “I don’t know why it hasn’t, but my best guess is that the planet itself has some kind of gravitational capacitor—almost as if it was intended to be a traveling space station, so it has systems to counteract the gravitational forces for the surrounding bodies—”

“The planet,” I said, “has GravCaps?”

“Yeah,” Rig said, shaking his head. “Apparently it does.”

“Negative, Kauri,” I said over the radio. “Detritus has systems to prevent damage to Evershore.”

“If so, they aren’t working perfectly,” Kauri said. “The tidal authority is seeing a rise in the water, though not nearly as bad as they’d expect.”

“We’re too close,” Rig said. “GravCaps have limits, and running them at this strength has to be depleting their power source quickly. We need to move the planet farther off.”

“Let’s do it,” I said. “Before that though, can you send the platforms out to the kitsen islands to defend them?”

“I need to find the coordinates,” Rig said, tapping at his console, using the platform sensors to pinpoint the coordinates of the various islands.

“Kauri,” I said. “Does your tidal authority know how far out Detritus needs to be to keep you safe?”

“They’re working up some coordinates now,” Kauri said.

“Okay,” Rig said. “Here goes.”

The platforms around us began to move, this one jumping to that island, that one to another, the hyperweapons firing on the Superiority ships caught in the air above the islands. We hadn’t sent our forces out that far, so they wouldn’t be caught in the blasts.

“We can’t move all of them,” I said. “We don’t want to leave Detritus exposed. But let’s unload as many as we can and then I’m going to instruct the slugs to move the planet again.”

“This is Commander Ulan,” a voice said over the platform radio. “What the scud is going on up there?”

Oh stars. I couldn’t explain this, not now. “Defense protocol to protect the kitsen planet, sir,” I said. “I’ll give you a full briefing when the sequence is complete.”

“You’re calling this a protocol?” Ulan said.

I was stretching the definition of the word, that was for sure.

Rig reached over and turned down the volume on the radio. “Gerrig, help me enter these,” he said, and one of the other engineers stepped up beside him, assisting Rig in getting more coordinates into the system.

“Jerkface,” Kauri said. “The tidal authority says the water levels are still rising. Even if you move the planet, this is going to cause a tidal wave to hit Dreamspring. They’ve put out a warning to the city for everyone to get to high ground. The other nearby islands are doing the same.”

Moving everyone to high ground would make them easy targets for the Superiority, but if they were to drown anyway, what choice did they have? “I’ll send my people on the ground to help,” I said to Kauri, and then I switched to the medtechs’ channel. “Cuna, Zing,” I said. “There’s a tidal wave coming. Go into the city and help the kitsen get to high ground.”

“Copy, Jerkface,” Zing said.

I turned to Juno. “Will the cliffs be high enough to protect the library?”

“It has stood for centuries,” Juno said, “and we have faced tsunamis before.”

This one might be bigger. It depended on forces I didn’t fully understand. “Kel and Winnow,” I said over the radio, “Keep an eye on the water. If it looks like you’ll be overwhelmed, we’ll get you all out with a hyperdrive.”

“Copy,” Zing said again.

“I’m working on it,” I said. “Make sure your people are still headed for high ground.” I turned to Rig. “We need to move fast so that wave doesn’t get worse.”

“We’ve got platforms moving toward the islands that are under attack. Shield still operational. Ready when you are.”

I reached out to Fine, expressing our need for the slugs’ help again, showing him an image of the planets tearing each other apart and an approximation of how far out I’d like them to move Detritus.

Go, Fine said.

Go, I agreed.

And in a blink we passed beneath the distracted eyes and stared out at Evershore, which was much smaller than it had been. Beside me Rig swore.

“Kauri,” I said, “is that far enough?”

“They’re watching the tidal levels,” Kauri said. “They say they would like advance notice before your planet decides to visit again.”

“Tell them we’ll call first next time,” I said. “And let me know if we need to move again. We can keep trying until we get it right.”

Jorgen, Alanik said, we could use some help down here.

I expanded my senses outward, taking in the whole of the battlefield. Our people were fighting, but they were scared. The appearance of Detritus and the scattering platforms both encouraged and confused them. Arturo was doing a good job with our people, but a lot of the UrDail and kitsen couldn’t understand him, and they lacked our organization and discipline. They were struggling.

I felt the kitsen cytonics wielding mindblades, hyperjumping their ships into better positions. I felt their joy at being reunited with their kinsmen and their terror that this day could be the last for their home. Down on the planet, I could feel the kitsen civilians huddling, frightened. And one mind listening carefully, with rapt attention and a fair amount of confusion.

Was that—

Cobb? I asked.

Son, he said, I don’t know what you’ve done up there, but for the North Star’s sake don’t stop now.

I closed my eyes. There were people all around, fighting and dying because of me. I’d worked so hard to find Cobb, but now I realized I was afraid to find him, afraid of what he’d think of what we’d done.

All this, all the resources we’d expended, moving the scudding planet, that was on me—

You WHAT? Cobb said.

Oh. He could hear me. Scud.

Sir, we—

Never mind, Cobb said. Focus. You’ve got a battle to win.

I felt like I should stop and give a full report, find out what my commander’s orders were. But I was pretty sure he’d given me an order, so…

Over by the control panel, Rig was fiddling with a radio, finding the flight’s channel. We knew he’d found it when Arturo swore loudly. “Is that Detritus up there?”

“Yes, it is,” Rig said. “If we couldn’t bring you home, we thought we’d bring home to you.”

“Saints and stars,” Sadie said.

I waited for Nedd’s wisecrack, but it didn’t come and my heart dropped.

“Amphi,” I said, “why don’t I hear Nedder?”

“Because he’s speechless for once,” Sadie said.

“Like the Saint says,” Kimmalyn said, “if you don’t have anything to say, you might scare your flightleader into thinking you’re dead.”

“I’m here,” Nedd said. “Just…wow.”

“Orders, Jerkface?” Arturo said.

“The enemy ships are scattering away from the platforms,” I said. The platforms were taking care of the area far above Dreamspring now, but even with their mobility they weren’t versatile enough to do all the work. “All flights, intercept those fighters and chase as many as you can in the direction of the platforms. We have the advantage now. Let’s use it.”

Arturo started giving orders, but I could already see what the problem was going to be. We had three different species of pilots in the air, and only some of them had translators in their ships. Defending a city was a more contained effort. Trying to catch and herd the enemy ships was going to take an enormous coordinated effort. We needed precision, but we had different training, and some of the kitsen ships probably had no training at all in working with a group this large. Communicating with them all was going to be impossible.

Unless.

Scud, I had an idea. I reached for Fine’s box and opened it, pulling him out into my arms.

Thank you for your help, I said. Mind lending me some more?

“Fine!” Snuggles said.

“Fine!” Fine said.

“Fine,” I said. And I focused on the battle again, on the many minds now scattering out over the planet. I felt Fine following me, his mind scanning over all the fighter pilots, a few of them winking out of existence, others blind with terror about what would become of them. Some determined. Fighting. Focused mostly on staying alive.

I could see the shape of the battle. I could see the patterns in the chaos, the places where we needed to push forward and those where we needed to pull back to manipulate the enemy. To stop their destruction and get them where we wanted them.

“Ready?” I said to Fine.

“Ready,” Fine said.

And I pushed outward toward their minds, sending them all the vision, helping them see what I could see. Not a mass of individual fighters, but a military so brave and strong and powerful that even the almighty Superiority was afraid of it.

This was it, I realized. The thing the Superiority feared the most. The power of all of us working together.

I could feel other commslugs joining us, amplifying the signal to my allies below. I could sense their minds responding. I couldn’t pick out individual voices, only this feeling. We were in this together, and in that we had hope.

I focused on the different fronts, directing our flights, pushing this one here, that one there. Pulling back some of our forces and urging others to retreat to the city, to cover the hospital area and the homes of the civilians. They all understood me, because in our minds there were no languages, no barriers. Around me Rig’s team continued to direct the platforms into place. Piece by piece the platforms were extending their shield across Evershore, trapping the enemy inside where my fighters hunted them mercilessly, driving them up into the fire of the platforms.

So many pieces, but I could see the larger pattern and I did my best to express it. Our fighters began to fly better, more precisely, taking more and more control of the skies—

And then I heard a whisper from the nowhere. One word, the sweetest of all.

Retreat.

The Superiority ships began to race for the edges of the shield, the fighters pouring into their remaining carrier ships, which blinked out of existence. Some of the fighters turned and ran without a ship to go back to, flying with blind terror, and my people picked them off one by one.

In my mind, one feeling resonated above all others.

Relief.

They were leaving.

We’d won.

It was only one battle, one raincloud from the oncoming storm. But we were going to hold out. We were going to keep fighting.

From now on, we’d do it together.