Evershore (Skyward Flight: Novella 3)

I made it almost to the water before FM caught up to me. My calves burned from moving so quickly across the sand, though I’d been out of breath since before I left the senate.

“Jorgen,” she said.

I didn’t turn around.

“Jorgen!” She caught me by the shoulder, spinning me around. My thoughts raced, and I felt like I could just keep spinning.

What the scud had I just done?

I’d shot a bunch of mindblades at a group of politicians. I’d sat in so many of those kinds of meetings growing up. I knew how to behave, how to hold everything in, how to present a calm front no matter what was going on inside.

Why did I have to go and do that?

“Jorgen,” FM said, “this has to stop.”

She was right, though I wasn’t sure which “this” she meant. The part where I faked being in control, though I didn’t have any idea what I was doing? This charade where we pretended we could put together alliances and fight the Superiority? Even if these people did agree to join us, what did we have to offer them? Was there any victory over an enemy this powerful? The best we could say was that so far we hadn’t been exterminated completely—though until very recently I didn’t think the Superiority had really been trying.

“Say something,” FM said. I didn’t see Alanik behind her. I wondered if she’d gone to tell the others what happened, or stayed to try to reason with the kitsen some more. She couldn’t possibly do a worse job than I’d done—

I swore, scrubbing my hands over my face.

“Okay,” FM said. “That’s a good start.”

I wanted to order her to go away again. I wanted to tell her I had no desire to talk about it.

But I also…didn’t. I was drowning, and I’d brought my whole flight with me, and—

A large wave crashed onto the sand, and I jumped.

“Scud, Jorgen,” FM said. “Sit down.”

That was the only thing I thought myself capable of, so I did.

FM sat next to me and set Boomslug and Snuggles into the sand next to her.

“I messed that up,” I said. Stars, I was the flightleader. I wasn’t supposed to admit weakness. If I had to, I was supposed to go to my superior officer so my flight wouldn’t lose respect for me.

But FM had lost respect for me a long time ago, so I guessed there wasn’t much to lose.

“Actually,” FM said, “I think what you said improved the meeting. I mean, I wouldn’t have suggested that you start throwing around random cytonic powers—”

“I didn’t do that on purpose,” I said.

“I know. But you got their attention, and then you gave them the speech they needed. And now they’re going to have to make a decision. And if they choose to side with the Superiority…” she sighed. “Sometimes people are going to make bad choices, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“That sucks,” I said.

“It’s the worst!” FM said. “But it’s not your fault.”

Scud. “We’re talking about my parents now,” I said.

“Yes, we’re talking about your parents!” FM said. “And don’t even try to order me not to because I’m not going to listen to you this time. You are holding everything in so tightly that it literally exploded. We are doing this now, whether you like it or not.”

I expected to feel angry, but instead I felt…relief. Like I’d been holding up something very heavy and someone else finally saw through my assurances that I had it and took some of the weight.

That didn’t make any sense though. “Talking about it isn’t going to change anything,” I said. “Nothing can change it.”

“That’s true,” FM said. “And trust me, I don’t like talking about these things any more than you do. But it helps, I promise. It doesn’t change what happened, but it changes you.”

I looked over at her. “You know this from experience?”

FM nodded. “Rig taught me that. Sometimes he has to make me talk, but every time I’m glad I did.”

“You guys are really good together,” I said. I would never have guessed it before they got together, but they seemed to balance each other out.

FM smiled. “Rig is my safe place,” she said. “But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you, and the fact that you need to talk or you’re going to explode. Again.”

I ran my hands through the sand. The grains were so tiny, and some of them stuck to my fingers. “I don’t even know what to say,” I said.

“Okay,” FM said. “I’ll go first. I was terrified when that Superiority ship exploded. I thought you had died in there. That’s the second time in a couple of weeks that we all thought you’d died, and it was horrible both times. So I would appreciate it if you’d stop doing that.”

I hadn’t thought about what that was like for the flight, waiting in their ships. They’d known there was a bomb. Alanik had pulled Rig in to try to disarm it.

Oh scud. “Is Rig okay?” I asked. “He knows that it wasn’t his fault, right?”

FM held out a hand and wobbled it back and forth. “I mean, logically he knows. He is not an expert at defusing explosives. But he still blames himself.”

I should have said something to him. I was the officer in charge of that operation, and it was my responsibility to—

“We’re not talking about Rig either,” FM said. “The question is, do you blame yourself?”

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about it.

“But you know it isn’t your fault, right?”

I stared out at the ocean. The sun was starting to get lower in the sky, the light over the whole landscape turning an orangey-yellow.

I didn’t answer, and FM sighed. “What happened on the ship? Before the explosion.”

I closed my eyes. My memories felt fractured, slowed down and sped up all at once. “We split up,” I said. “I was taking fake Cobb to my parents to out him. Alanik went to release Gran-Gran. She was able to communicate with Gran-Gran, and Gran-Gran said she could sense Cobb, like, cytonically, even though she shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“So something strange was going on with Gran-Gran even before they hyperjumped,” FM said.

“Yeah, I guess so. Alanik also said Gran-Gran was talking about hearing voices.”

Voices asking for help.

Oh scud.

Whatever had gone wrong with her, was it happening to me too? She’d somehow lost her powers because of it, and if I did the same—

“There’s more,” I said. “Those people in the tent are Gran-Gran and Cobb—at least, best as we can tell—but Gran-Gran doesn’t appear to be cytonic.”

“What does that mean?” FM asked.

“It means her mind isn’t…visible to us in the nowhere anymore. She’s lost her…vibration, I guess.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” FM said. “That’s bad, Jorgen.”

“Yeah,” I said. “She was fleeing a Superiority ship. Maybe it was a trap they left for anyone trying to hyperjump away? But Alanik and I didn’t get caught in it.”

Not yet anyway.

I remembered the strange things I’d felt when Alanik and I were looking for Gran-Gran and Cobb in the nowhere—the texture, like there were hundreds of beings around me, there one moment and gone the next.

There was something out there in the nowhere. Maybe it wasn’t the Superiority at all. “I wonder if it’s them,” I said. “The delvers. The voices didn’t sound like I would imagine a delver—”

“Wait,” FM said. “You’ve heard them? The voices that asked for help?”

Scud. “Yeah,” I said, rubbing my hands on my knees, trying to wipe off the sand. The stuff seemed to cling to everything. I wondered if we’d ever be free of it. “I heard them in the meeting. Right before I… Right before.”

“That’s not good,” FM said. “There’s something really weird going on, and you’re all caught up in it.”

“I know,” I said.

“And that’s the only reason I’ve let us get sidetracked for this long. You were telling me about what happened on the ship. You told me all about what happened to Alanik…”

“I went to find my parents,” I said. “It took me a while, because the ship was big and I took some wrong turns. Eventually fake Cobb got away from me and ran off. He seemed really eager to get out of there, though I didn’t know why until Alanik told me about the bomb.”

“Right,” FM said.

“By the time I found my parents, they were trapped in this room in the center of the ship. I could see them through the glass but it wouldn’t break, and all the doors were sealed shut.”

I saw my father’s face through the glass, his resignation when the Superiority announced they were going to be exterminated. My mother yelling at me to leave them, to escape, to save myself.

“The Superiority announced they were going to kill them,” I said. “Alanik and I tried to find a way to get them out, but there wasn’t one.”

“That’s not your fault,” FM said. “You had minutes at best, like Rig. You weren’t prepared for that and it isn’t your fault. The Superiority did this, not you.”

“My mother told me to go, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t listen to Alanik either. And right before Alanik pulled me out, my mother spoke to me through the glass—she said to do better than they did.”

“Stars,” FM said. “No wonder you feel pressure to stay in control of everything.”

I didn’t want to be in control. I just wanted to make sure the DDF was in the hands of someone who would keep our people safe.

“I didn’t want to leave them,” I said. “If Alanik hadn’t pulled me out, I would have died there.”

FM closed her eyes. “Thank the stars for Alanik then.”

I couldn’t say this next part. I couldn’t bring myself to form the words, especially not to FM.

Maybe it would have been easier if I had died there.

I looked out over the ocean.

I couldn’t think like that. My flight needed me. Cobb needed me. We had to figure out how to reverse whatever the Superiority or the delvers had done to him and get him back in charge of the DDF.

FM was right. My parents’ deaths weren’t my fault. But all the ways I was failing everyone now, falling apart when I should have been leading—

That was squarely on my head.

I stood up and brushed sand off my flight suit.

“You aren’t done talking,” FM said.

“Yes,” I said. “I am.” I couldn’t sit here being useless. Maybe FM was right. Maybe talking could change how I felt, but it didn’t do anything to help everyone else.

I couldn’t indulge in that. I couldn’t be useless. I’d already lost Spensa, lost my parents.

I couldn’t let it happen again, not to anyone else.

“Maybe for now,” FM said. “We’ll talk more later.”

Scud. I’d answered her questions. Wasn’t that enough?

I was almost glad to see Alanik headed my way with Nedd and Arturo. Juno floated along farther behind them. I didn’t want to answer their questions either, but at least they weren’t going to probe me about my feelings, especially in front of the kitsen.

“Dude,” Nedd said when they drew near. “Did you seriously explode?”

“Shut up, Nedd,” Arturo said. “But, did you?”

“I already told you what happened,” Alanik said, looking annoyed. “You didn’t believe me?”

“We believe you,” Nedd said. “We’re just incredulous.”

“That word literally means ‘unable to believe,’ ” Alanik said. “Is there a translation error, or are you making fun of me?”

“Neither,” FM said. “They’re just idiots.”

“Yeah, it’s true,” I said.

“That they’re idiots?” Alanik asked.

“Sometimes,” I said. “But I did…explode.”

“That is awesome,” Nedd said. “I mean, not the part where you threw around deadly mind weapons at a political summit. That seems bad.”

“Bad” didn’t begin to cover it, but there was also something off about it. Juno finally caught up to us, which was good, because I wanted his opinion on this.

“Why didn’t I hurt anyone?” I asked. “When I startled Boomslug, he cut me up.”

“Your mindblades are ill-formed,” Juno said. “You need training to make them sharper, stronger.”

“I don’t want them to be sharper,” I said. “I could have killed somebody.”

I waited for one of them to tell me I was being overdramatic.

They didn’t.

“When Kauri said you wanted to learn about the shadow-walkers,” Juno said, “she didn’t tell me you were one. I have spent my life studying their texts, their lore, their ancient wisdom. You have strength, but you need control, and I can teach you if you will consent to be taught.”

“What about your senate?” I asked. “Will they allow it?”

“The senate has taken a recess,” Alanik said. “They want to think about the things you said, and then they’re going to convene in the morning to make a decision. In the meantime, they say we’re free to transport Cobb and Gran-Gran home to Detritus.”

“Okay,” I said. “We need to take care of that first.”

“I can handle the transport,” Alanik said. “You can go with Juno, as long as you promise to fill me in on what you’ve learned later.”

“Okay,” I said. “You hyperjump Gran-Gran and Cobb to Platform Prime with the medical crew.” Hopefully Cobb and Gran-Gran would recover faster with our medical resources at home. Then they could tell us what had happened to Gran-Gran’s powers. I turned to Arturo and Nedd. “You two help her get them there safely.”

“Of course,” Arturo said. “We’ve got this.” And they all headed toward the hospital tent.

“I’ll go check on the others,” FM said. “And see what kind of accommodations we can find for the night. We may have to sleep in our starships, but I guess Spensa did that for most of flight school, so it can’t be too bad.”

She walked away, leaving me alone on the beach with Juno, who hovered up until he was at eye level with me.

“I have studied mindblades all my life,” Juno said, “but I had never seen them before today. Tell me, human. What you did, was it a stunt? A display of power? Were you trying to intimidate them?”

“No,” I said. “I just…lost control.”

“If I may ask,” Juno said, “control of what?”

I blinked at him. “Of myself,” I said. “Of…”

Of this unstoppable, unknowable force that wanted to rip its way out of me. I’d been taught all my life to feel shame for the defect, never to speak of it. I’d spent so long wishing I could keep up with Spensa, with Alanik, wishing I wasn’t so hopeless at using my powers—wishing I could harness them to protect the people I loved.

But somehow I’d still never made this connection: I was dangerous.

“I want to learn how to control them,” I said.

“Good, then,” Juno said. “Come with me, and we’ll see what we can do.”