Starsight (The Skyward Series Book 2)

The shuttle was a small aircar with an alien driver whose race I didn’t recognize, though they looked vaguely fungoid in appearance. M-Bot would have been excited.

I found the seat overly cushy. It was like those in Jorgen’s luxury cars. I shook my head, strapping in as the shuttle took off.

Rather than dwelling on the fact that I had to leave M-Bot behind, I watched the city beneath us—a seemingly endless expanse of buildings. “Where are we going?” I asked M-Bot, barely whispering so the shuttle’s driver couldn’t overhear.

He piped up in my ear. “The orders you received say you’ll be transported to the Weights and Measures.”

“Is that a ship?” I asked. What an innocent-sounding name.

“Yes. A large trade vessel.”

It was obviously a cover. This Weights and Measures would be a military ship, just not one that the Superiority wanted the common people to know about.

“Can we go over the different species I’ll be flying with today?” I asked. “I feel like Alanik would know something about them.”

“That’s actually a great idea!” M-Bot said. “We wouldn’t want you sounding more ignorant than you normally are. Let’s see . . . Morriumur is a dione. You’ve got some experience with them by now. Though Morriumur is what is known as a draft—their term for a person who is not yet born.”

I shivered and turned to look out the window. “What they do feels like eugenics or something,” I whispered. “They shouldn’t be able to decide what personalities people are born with.”

“That’s a very human-centric way of looking at it,” M-Bot said. “If you’re to pull off this mission, you’ll need to learn to see things from alien perspectives.”

“I’ll try,” I whispered. “I’m most interested in the race they called figments. What’s the deal with them?”

“They are sapient beings who exist as a localized cloud of particulates in the air. Basically, they’re smells.”

“Talking smells?”

“Talking, thinking, and—from what I’ve read—somewhat dangerous smells,” he answered. “They are not a large population, but are spoken of in hushed tones throughout the Superiority. Sources on the local datanet insist that all remaining figments—many died in the human wars, and they are slow to reproduce—work as secret government operatives.

“Very little is known about them. Apparently, they usually investigate matters that involve internal Superiority politics, particularly the infractions of very high-ranking officials. They can pilot ships by infusing the electronics of the vehicle, and interrupting—or spoofing—the electronic signals from the controls.”

“Vapor did that in the test yesterday,” I said. “She took over one of the drones, and was flying it. So she just kind of . . . flew over to it and seized control?”

“Exactly,” M-Bot said. “Or at least that’s how people on the datanet think it works. There is very little official data about figments, but I can see why one showing up to the piloting test caused such a stir.”

“So she’s a spy too,” I whispered. “An invisible spy.”

“Who can survive in space,” M-Bot said. “So they’re not simply gaseous beings—otherwise the vacuum would rip them apart. It seems they can travel through space with no special equipment, and can move at speed between ships. In the wars, they’d often infiltrate the mechanical portion of an enemy fighter and take control of it with the pilot still on board.”

“Scud,” I whispered. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. “What about the human?”

“There are very few like her. Most humans must remain in the preserves. If an official wants to remove one, the human must be licensed—basically, someone has to take responsibility for them if they cause harm or damage.”

“And do they?”

“Sometimes,” M-Bot said. “I see more often a pattern of scapegoating and prejudice. Only government officials are supposed to keep humans, and then only for security or research purposes. I think the Superiority uses them in part because it likes the occasional reminder that they won the war.”

I nodded to myself as we skimmed across the top of the city. I’d need to learn more about this sort of thing if I was going to recruit Brade. I wasn’t certain I would need to do that, but I had to at least try to free her, right?

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, trying to keep all of this straight. So I now separately had plans to steal a hyperdrive, rescue an enslaved human, and maybe find the secret to fighting the delvers. Maybe I should just keep my mind on the main goal.

“Are you all right?” M-Bot asked. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” I whispered. “I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed. At least the kitsen make some kind of sense.”

“That might be because of their history with humankind,” M-Bot said. “Thousands of years ago, they made first contact with humans on Earth—before either society industrialized.”

“How did that happen?”

“Cytonic teleportation doesn’t require technology,” M-Bot said. “As Cuna implied, if you can figure out how to use your powers, you’ll be able to teleport yourself alone—and not just your ship. Early cytonics from the kitsen people ended up on Earth, for reasons that now seem lost to time. There was trade and interaction between them and various regions of East Asia on Earth. Several kitsen cultures were directly influenced by Earth ones. The exchange happened until the kitsen cytonics vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“It’s a tragic story,” M-Bot said. “Though it should be noted that the kitsen were only a late steel-age society then, so records might be untrustworthy. Apparently their people did not trust the cytonics, so the cytonics left. Humans were part of this disagreement—a war is implied. The end result stranded the main population of kitsen on their homeworld for centuries until the Superiority made contact.”

“Huh,” I whispered. “Where did the kitsen cytonics go?”

“Nobody knows,” he replied. “All that remains are legends. Perhaps you should ask Hesho which one he believes. I’m more curious as to why the cytonics would leave in the first place. Just because they weren’t trusted? You didn’t trust me when we first met, and I didn’t leave.”

“You can’t leave,” I said.

“I could sulk,” he said. “I have a sulking subroutine.”

“Oh, I know.”

My shuttle flew down low, and we neared some docks that extended away from the city, out into the darkness. Just before we passed out of the air shell, however, I spotted a group of people waving signs. I couldn’t read them—the distance was too great for my pin to translate for me—so I whispered to M-Bot.

“There’s a group of people here waving signs,” I said. “Right next to the docks.” I squinted. “An alien that looks like a gorilla is leading them. I think it’s a burl, the same species as the one who got kicked out of the flight test.”

“Let me check the local news networks,” M-Bot said. “Just a moment.”

We flew past the demonstrators, and the shuttle carried me out of the air shield. I started to lift off my seat, my hair floating in zero G as we left the platform’s gravitational field. We flew along the docks, most of which were filled with large craft of a size that couldn’t land on launchpads.

The stars came awake to me again, like a distant melody. The information that Starsight was sending through the nowhere to other planets. I tried to concentrate on the different sounds, but again there were far too many of them. It was like a rushing river in the deep caverns. If I let the music sit in the back of my mind, I heard it as a simple tune, easy to ignore. But if I tried to pick out anything specific, it turned into a clatter.

A part of me was surprised they let themselves use cytonic communication at all. Yes, the Superiority limited how much of it was used—most people had to communicate with other worlds by sending letters that were loaded onto memory chips, then carried on starships and hooked up to local datanets when they finished traveling. However, the important people could use not just radio but cytonic communication through the nowhere. They had let me do it, when sending a message to Alanik’s homeworld.

“Found the reason for those protesters,” M-Bot said. “Apparently, the deaths at the test didn’t go unnoticed. That pilot Gul’zah who was ejected from the tests yesterday is complaining vocally, with some support, about the way the Superiority treats lesser species.”

Huh. That was more defiance than I’d expected.

We approached the last ship on the docks, and its enormous size dwarfed our little shuttle. It was even larger than those battleships that threatened my home, with a multitude of ports along the sides, probably for launching starfighters.

Those knobs on it are gun emplacements, I thought, though the guns were retracted for now. Which meant I was right: the Weights and Measures was very obviously a military vessel, a carrier ship.

Seeing it made me worried. This ship was built to teleport places and then launch its fleet—which meant I probably wasn’t going to be assigned a starfighter with its own hyperdrive. Still, I kept up hope as my shuttle flew in through a large open bay door that had an invisible shield holding in an atmosphere. Artificial gravity pulled me back into my seat, and we settled down on a launchpad in the wide chamber.

Out the window I spotted the first true military presence I’d seen on Starsight—diones wearing naval uniforms and carrying sidearms were lined up awaiting us.

“You get out here,” the driver announced, popping open the door. “You’re scheduled for pickup again at 9000.”

“All right,” I said, climbing out. The air smelled sterile, a little like ammonia. Other shuttles were landing in the bay around me, letting out a steady stream of pilots. The fifty or so who had passed the test. As I was wondering what to do next, the shuttle next to me opened its doors, releasing a bunch of kitsen. Today, the diminutive animals zoomed out on small platforms like flying plates, big enough to carry about five kitsen each.

Hesho himself hovered over to me, attended only by two kitsen—a driver, and a kitsen with a bright red-and-gold uniform, carrying what appeared to be an old, intricately carved metal shield.

The pilot brought the plate up to eye level with me.

“Good morning, Captain Alanik,” Hesho said from his podium at the center of the platform.

“Captain Hesho,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Unfortunately, no,” he said. “I was required to spend much of the sleep cycle engaged in political discourses, casting my votes in the planetary assembly of my people. Ha ha. Politics is such a pain. Is it not?”

“Um, I guess so? Did the votes at least go your way?”

“No, I lost every one,” Hesho said. “The rest of the assembly voted unanimously against my desires in each matter. What rotten luck! Ah, the indignities you must suffer when your people are a true democracy, and not a shadow dictatorship ruled by an ancestral line of kings. Right?”

The other kitsen flying past raised a cheer for democracy.

Morriumur walked over to join us, looking uncomfortable in their white Superiority flight suit. Nearby, a group of four other pilots were led farther into the Weights and Measures.

“Have you seen our other two flight members?” Hesho asked.

“I haven’t smelled Vapor yet,” Morriumur said. “As for the human . . .” They seemed distinctly uncomfortable with the idea.

“I should like to see this one in person,” Hesho said. “The legends speak of humans as giants who live in the mist and who feast upon the bodies of the dead.”

“I’ve seen several,” Morriumur said. “They weren’t any bigger than I am. Most were smaller, actually. But there was something . . . off about them. Something dangerous. I’d recognize the sensation again in an instant.”

A small drone—not unlike one of the kitsen flying platforms—hovered over to us. “Ah,” a voice said from a speaker in it. It sounded like one of the officials we’d met yesterday. “Flight Fifteen. Excellent. No stragglers?”

“We’re missing two members,” I said.

“No,” a voice said from the air next to me. “Just one.”

I jumped. So Vapor was here? I hadn’t smelled cinnamon. Just that ammonia scent . . . which faded to cinnamon almost immediately. Scud. How long had she been watching? Had she . . . been in the shuttle with me?

“The human will join you at a later time, Flight Fifteen,” the official instructed us. “You are to report to jump room six. I’ll show you.” The remote-controlled drone buzzed off, so we followed. Before we reached the door from the shuttle drop-off bay to the interior, we were stopped by a pair of guards armed with destructor rifles, who looked through our bags and then waved us onward.

“ ‘Flight Fifteen’?” I asked the others as we stepped into a hallway. “Not exactly punchy, is it? Can we choose something else?”

“I like it being a number,” Morriumur said. “It’s simple, easy to record, and easy to remember.”

“Nonsense,” Hesho said from his platform to my right. “I agree with Captain Alanik. A number won’t do. I shall call us the Flowers of Night’s Last Kiss.”

“That is exactly what I was talking about,” Morriumur said. “How could we say that mouthful in context, Hesho?”

“Nobody will write poetry about ‘Flight Fifteen,’ ” Hesho said. “You shall see, Captain Morriumur. Bestowing proper names is one of my talents. If destiny had not chosen me for my current service, I surely would have been a poet.”

“A warrior poet?” I said. “Like an Old Earth skald!”

“Precisely!” Hesho said, raising a furry fist to me.

I raised one back, grinning. We joined several other groups of pilots being led down the hallway. Those flights had been sorted by species—many had only one species represented, and a handful had two species mixed. Ours was the only one I saw that had more than two different races represented.

Hesho’s people have a history with humans, I thought. And so do Alanik’s. Vapor’s people fought in the wars. Maybe we’d been chosen specifically because we might be able to deal with Brade.

More soldiers stood watch along this hallway, a pair of Krell this time, wearing full armor instead of just the ordinary sandstone carapace. As we passed them, I realized I hadn’t seen any “lesser species” in this carrier, save for us pilots. All the guards and officials we passed were Krell or diones.

It left me wondering . . . why did they need us pilots again? They fought my people on Detritus with remote-controlled drone ships.

No, I thought. If I can hear the instructions sent to the drones, the delver will be able to as well. They needed a force of pilots trained in the cockpit. “M-Bot?” I whispered, intending to ask if he’d found out anything about the remote drone programs the Superiority used.

My earpiece returned only static at that. Scud. Had something happened to him? My heart started racing, until I realized I was inside a military ship. They must have communications shielding in place. Either that or I’d simply gotten beyond the bracelet’s communication range already. I was truly on my own.

We were led through some corridors with featureless metallic walls and vivid red carpet down the center. We arrived at an intersection and the drone turned right, toward a corridor lined with rooms.

The rest of my flight turned to follow, but I hesitated at the intersection. Right? Why were we turning right?

I knew, logically, that there was no reason for me to be confused. And yet some piece of me reached out, looking farther down the hallway we’d been traveling. Not right at the intersection but straight ahead. That was the way to go. I could feel something up there . . .

“What do you think you’re doing?” barked a soldier guarding the intersection.

I froze in place, realizing I’d started to walk down the hallway. I looked up at the writing on the wall, and my translator helpfully piped out the meaning.

RESTRICTED AREA. ENGINEERING AND ENGINES.

I blushed and turned right instead, hurrying to catch up with the others. The guard watched me until the group of us turned into one of the rooms off the corridor. I felt before I arrived that Brade was inside—and indeed, I stepped in to find her sitting alone in the little chamber, which contained a half dozen jumpseats. Brade wore the same sharp white flight suit we all wore, and sat in the back row, buckled in, looking out the window.

“So that’s her,” Hesho said, hovering near my head. “She doesn’t look so dangerous. Still, a blade that has slain a hundred men may not shine like one freshly forged. Danger, sweet like a forbidden perfume. I will know thee.”

“That was beautiful, Hesho,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said.

The other kitsen flew into the room, chattering together. The drone that had been leading us indicated we should strap in and wait for further instructions, then left.

“Strap in?” Hesho asked. “I thought we’d be assigned our starfighters.”

“We likely will,” Morriumur said, taking a seat. “Once the Weights and Measures carries us to the training location—a specialized facility several light-years away.”

“I . . . ,” Hesho said. “I assumed we’d have hyperdrive-capable starships. So we could fly there ourselves.”

“I’ll admit,” I said, “I was hoping the same.”

“Oh, they’d never give us individual ships capable of hyperjumps,” Morriumur said. “That kind of technology is dangerous! It’s never trusted to lesser races. Misusing it could draw the attention of the delvers upon us.”

“We’re learning to fight the delvers!” I said.

“It still wouldn’t be wise,” Morriumur said. “FTL jumps are always handled by highly trained expert technicians who have prime intelligence. Even special-classification species, like figments, aren’t allowed. Right, Vapor?”

I jumped as she spoke from just behind me. “This is correct.”

Scud. I was never going to get used to having an invisible person in our flight. “Some races have cytonics,” I said, sitting down and strapping in. “They don’t need Superiority ships to hyperjump.”

“Letting a cytonic teleport a ship is incredibly dangerous,” Morriumur said, making an odd hand gesture—a kind of swiping motion. A dione indication of dismissiveness, maybe? “Going back to cytonics would be like returning to ancient combustion engines instead of using acclivity rings! No, no, in modern society we would never use a method so foolhardy. Our FTL jumps are extremely safe, and never draw delver attention.”

Curious, I glanced at Brade, but she didn’t look back at me. M-Bot’s research had reinforced what Cuna had told me: the modern people of the Superiority knew about cytonics, but the bulk of the population believed there were none left among them. It likely wouldn’t be known that Brade was one, let alone that I was one too.

So . . . could it be possible that this phantom “FTL technology” the Superiority had was all just a lie? They claimed to have something safe to use, but what if that was just an excuse to control and suppress knowledge of cytonics?

I closed my eyes, listening to the stars as Gran-Gran had always taught. I felt the Weights and Measures finally start moving, unhooking from the dock and accelerating slowly away from Starsight. Those were physical sensations, and seemed distant, disconnected.

The stars . . . the cytonic communications . . . I tried to parse them, understand them. I tried the exercise my grandmother had taught me. Pretending I was flying. Rising. Soaring through space.

I could . . . hear . . . something. Something close. Louder, more demanding.

Prepare for hyperjump.

Orders from the captain of this ship. Passed down to the engine room. I could feel it there. And the hyperdrive . . . There was something familiar about it . . .

I heard the captain order the jump. I waited, watching, feeling what was going on. Trying to absorb the process.

My mind flooded with information. A location. The place we were going. I knew it intimately. I could—

A voice screamed from somewhere nearby. Then the ship suddenly entered the nowhere.