Starsight (The Skyward Series Book 2)

I was there, hanging in the not-place, surrounded by blackness. And the eyes. They were here.

Except they weren’t looking at me.

I saw them, sensed them, heard them. But their gaze didn’t find me. They were focused elsewhere. As if . . . as if looking toward the source of the scream.

Yes, that was it. The piercing, agonized scream lingered in my mind. It distracted the delvers from seeing the Weights and Measures as it slipped through the nowhere.

It was over like a snap of the fingers. I lurched back into my seat in the little room, grunting. I felt as if I’d been thrown physically, then been caught by the chair. I groaned, sagging forward.

“Captain Alanik?” Hesho asked, hovering nearby. “Are you well?”

I looked around the jump room, which held only the members of my flight. Morriumur didn’t seem to have even noticed that moment in the nowhere.

I looked back at Brade. She met my eyes, then narrowed them at me. She knew I was cytonic. Did she . . . did she suspect I was human as well? I had a moment of panic and looked down at my hands, but they were still a light violet shade, indicating that my disguise was functioning.

“Welcome, everyone!” A voice came over the PA system. It was Winzik. “We’ve arrived at our training facility! This is going to be so exciting, yes indeed! You probably have many questions. A drone will lead you to your flight’s dock, and you can get your starfighter assignments.”

“We’re here?” Hesho asked. “We hyperjumped? Usually they give some kind of warning before it happens!” The door of our jump room opened and he zipped out, the other kitsen tagging along behind on their platforms.

The rest of us, including Brade, gathered outside in the hallway, then followed a drone that had arrived to lead us. Another drone chased after the kitsen, barely keeping up with them.

I looked toward the engine room. That direction, I thought. The scream came from that direction.

This technology was no sham. Superiority FTL drives did let them hide—the delvers hadn’t seen us. It felt even more vital to me than ever that I find a way to steal a hyperdrive. My people needed this technology.

At the same time, I had the striking suspicion that whatever was driving this ship, it wasn’t technology in the traditional sense. There was something too familiar about it. Something—

“What did you sense?” a curious voice asked beside me.

I stiffened, smelling cinnamon. I tried, with some effort, to keep myself from squirming at Vapor’s presence as I walked after the rest of my team. If I smelled her . . . did that mean I was breathing her in?

“To most people, a hyperjump is imperceptible,” Vapor said, speaking with her breezy voice. “Not to you. Curious.”

“Why does the Superiority risk using cytonic communications?” I blurted out. Perhaps the wrong thing to say to change the subject, but it had been on my mind. “Everyone is so scared of delvers, but we blatantly use communication that might draw their attention.”

Vapor’s scent changed to one that was slightly minty. Was that intentional on her part? Or was it like how a human changed moods?

“It’s been over a hundred years since the last delver attack,” she said. “It’s easy to grow lax, in the face of that. Besides, cytonic communication was never actually enough to draw a delver into our realm.”

“But—”

“If a delver has already come to our realm, then they might hear that communication and follow it. They can hear all wireless signals—radio included, though cytonic communication is the most attractive to them. In the past, wise empires learned to hide their communication, but these days it can be employed very cautiously. Assuming no delver is nearby. Assuming nobody has been brash enough to draw them into our realm by cytonic travel or by dangerous use of AI.”

Her scent receded. I followed the drone, not trusting myself to answer. I’d come here with the goal of stealing a hyperdrive, but my task was suddenly far more daunting. I couldn’t just run off with a small starfighter—if I wanted a hyperdrive, I’d have to hijack this entire carrier ship.

Was there an easier way? If I could only see what was going on in that engine room, maybe I could put together the secret. Scud, I wished Rig were here with me. He’d be able to figure all of this out, I was sure.

I followed the others to a different dock from the one where we’d arrived. Here, groups of starfighters were being prepped for the flights to use in today’s training. They were boxier than the sleek DDF ones, but I didn’t spare them much attention at first.

Because something magnificent hung outside.

An enormous polyhedral structure dominated the view through the invisible shield that held the air in the bay. It was big enough to dwarf our carrier ship; it was as large as a space station.

“Welcome, pilots,” Winzik said over the PA, “to the delver maze.”

I stepped up to the shield separating us from the vacuum. We hung in space, orbiting a fairly weak star. The huge structure seemed to bend to my eyes. As if I could barely comprehend it. Sweeping lines, gradations in the darkness. This metallic structure wasn’t quite a sphere, but a dodecahedron with smooth faces and sharp edges.

I smelled cinnamon. Then a quiet voice beside me said, “It’s insane that they actually built one.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“A training ground,” Vapor said. How did she make sounds to talk? “For re-creating a battle against a delver. The humans built this years ago, and we’ve only just located it. They knew.”

“Knew . . . what?”

Vapor’s scent changed to something sharper, the smell of wet metal after machinery is sprayed down. “They knew that eventually, the delvers would need to be faced. Our fear of them stunts our communication, our travel, even our warfare. Break free of that hold . . . and the galaxy is yours.”

Her smell faded away. I remained in place, thinking on that until Hesho came flying over.

“Incredible,” he said. “Come, Captain Alanik. We’ve been assigned ships. They cannot hyperjump, but they look suitable for fighting.”

I followed him to our line of five fighters. They were painted stark white and didn’t have true wings; they looked like triangular wedges of steel with cockpits up front and weapons installed on the slant of each side of the wedge. They obviously weren’t meant for atmospheric battle.

The kitsen fighter was about fifty percent larger than the others and had been built like a battleship, with many small gun emplacements. The kitsen were thrilled with this, chattering as they went over the specs and made assignments. It apparently had multiple stations inside and various departments to work.

My ship was an interceptor built for speed, with moderate firepower in the form of twin destructors and—I was pleased to note—a single light-lance turret underneath. I’d worried I wouldn’t have one of those, and most of the ships didn’t. Apparently the Superiority officials had seen how effectively I’d used mine in the test.

Morriumur had an interceptor too, while Vapor had been given a sniper, with a longer-range gun but no light-lance. I looked over my shoulder, noting Brade walking to the last of the fighters—a third interceptor, also with a light-lance.

I stepped over to her as she reached her ship. She looked up, startled. “What?” she demanded.

“I just wanted to welcome you to the flight,” I said, holding out my hand. I nodded toward it. “It’s a human gesture, I’ve been told.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I don’t associate with monsters.”

She brushed past me, then hauled herself up the ladder into her ship. Scud. How brainwashed was she? If I was going to recruit her, I’d need to find a way to talk to her more without raising anyone else’s suspicions.

For now, it seemed my only option was to start training. And to be honest, I found I was eager to begin. All of this imitation and subterfuge was exhausting; it would be good to just fly again.

I climbed into my fighter, and was pleased to find that the controls were familiar. Had we humans gotten these designs from aliens long ago? Or had our attempt to conquer the galaxy spread our technology throughout it?

“M-Bot,” I said. “Preflight check.”

Silence.

Right. Being without his friendly voice made me feel suddenly exposed. I’d grown accustomed to having him there in the ship’s computer, watching out for me. With a sigh, I found a preflight checklist under the seat, used my pin to translate it, then went through the steps to double-check that everything worked the way I expected.

“This is Alanik,” I said, after testing the communications. “Everyone online?”

“This is the Kitsen Unity Ship Swims Against the Current in a Stream Reflecting the Sun,” Hesho’s voice said. “Recently named. All systems operational. This ship even has a very nice captain’s chair.”

“We should pick callsigns,” I said. “I’ll be Spring.”

“Do we have to?” Morriumur said. “Our names are simple enough, aren’t they?”

“It’s a military thing,” I said. “Morriumur, you can be callsign: Complains.”

“Oh,” Morriumur said, their voice sounding despondent. “I guess I deserve that.”

Scud. Assigning an insulting nickname wasn’t nearly as fun when someone just accepted it.

“Callsigns aren’t required,” Brade said. “I will use my name, which is Brade. Do not call me by something else.”

“Fine,” I said. “Vapor, you there?”

“Yes,” her quiet voice said. “But my normal mission callsign is top secret. So I will need another.”

“The Wind That Mingles with a Man’s Dying Breath,” Hesho suggested.

“That’s . . . very specific,” Morriumur said.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s cool, but kind of a mouthful, Hesho.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” Vapor said.

“Flight Fifteen,” a voice said from Command. “Be ready to launch. Command out.”

“Wait,” I said to the voice. “What’s our command structure? How should we organize ourselves?”

“It doesn’t matter to us,” the voice said. “Figure it out yourself. Command out.”

“That’s annoying,” I said over the private line to my flight. “I thought the Superiority knew more about military discipline than that.”

“Maybe not,” Hesho said. “They did need to recruit us as pilots.”

“They have hundreds of other pilots, flying remote drones,” I said. “Surely they have command structures. Officers and ranks?”

Morriumur cleared their throat over the line. “My leftparent did a stint as a drone pilot, and . . . well, most of them retire after a short time. The duty is too stressful, too aggressive.”

Scud. Well, that was probably another big reason why we on Detritus had survived so long.

Flight Command ordered us to lift off, and the five of us rose on our acclivity rings, then maneuvered out of the Weights and Measures’s docks into the deepness of space.

The distant star shined light that reflected in bright waves off the metallic surface of the maze. Its awesome size reminded me of the platforms around Detritus—both must have taken extraordinary amounts of effort to create.

We flew out to our instructed coordinates to wait. I tore my attention away from the maze and hit my flight chatter button. We simply couldn’t go into training without some kind of command structure. “Hesho,” I said. “Do you want to be our flightleader? You’ve got command experience.”

“Not much,” Hesho said. “I have been a ship captain for only about three weeks, Captain Alanik. Before that, I was in politics.”

“You were absolute monarch of a small section of the kitsen home planet,” Vapor said softly.

“Details,” Hesho said. “Who cares about those dark ages, right? We’re enlightened now!” He hesitated. “But it was not small. We encompassed over a third of the planet. Regardless, I do not think it would be wise for me to command this flight. I should not divide my attention from commanding my crew while this ship is unfamiliar and my people are still learning it.”

“You can take command if you want, Alanik,” Morriumur said to me.

I grimaced. “No, please. I’m likely to charge into a black hole or something. You don’t want one of your interceptors to be in command. Vapor, you should be flightleader.”

“Me?” the quiet voice asked.

“That sounds good to me,” Morriumur said. “Alanik is right—we shouldn’t have someone who is too aggressive.”

“I accept this decision,” Hesho said. “As our sniper, Vapor can survey the battlefield and be in the best position to make decisions.”

“You all barely know me,” Vapor protested.

Which was part of the reason I’d suggested it. Maybe if Vapor was our flightleader, she’d be forced to interact with the rest of us—and maybe I’d be less likely to forget she was around. I still didn’t quite understand her purpose here.

“Brade?” I asked. “What do you think?”

“I am not allowed to vote in such matters,” she said.

Great. “All right, Vapor, the job is yours. Good luck.”

“Very well,” she said. “I suppose everyone should give me a flight status check, then.”

I smiled. That sounded very much like she had some combat experience—so I was learning about her already. It seemed that callsigns were out though, as everyone just used their names as they called in. I reluctantly did likewise, as wrong as it felt. I didn’t want to act like I had too much experience with this sort of thing.

Vapor organized us into a default flight pattern, with me and Brade flying up front, Hesho in the center, and Morriumur and herself flying in the anchor position. Then, at my suggestion, we did a few formation exercises while we waited for instructions.

As we did, I acknowledged to myself that perhaps it made sense for the Superiority to let each group make their own command structure. After all, most of the other flights contained only one species. Different cultures might have different ways of looking at military service—the fact that we had an entire crew of kitsen on one ship was evidence of that.

Still, it grated on me. It felt like the Superiority was being lazy. They wanted flights of fighters, but didn’t want to have to deal with the hassle of truly commanding them. It was a lukewarm half-in, half-out measure. After the sharply defined rules of the DDF, this felt like a sloppy mess.

Eventually, Winzik called us on the general line. “All right, everyone! Welcome and thank you for your service! We at the Department of Protective Services are very excited to be training this new bold force. You will be our first line of defense against a danger that has loomed above the Superiority for its entire existence.

“We have prepared a quick video orientation for you to watch. This should explain your goal here. Please experience the orientation and save questions until the end. Thank you again!”

“A . . . video orientation?” I said over the channel to my flight.

“The Superiority has a lot of graphic designers and animators,” Morriumur said. “It’s one of the most common professions chosen by those who wish to work beyond basic subsistence.”

I frowned. “What’s a graphic designer?”

The canopy of my fighter suddenly lit up with a holographic projection. It wasn’t as good as one of M-Bot’s—this one was somewhat insubstantial, and the depth was off—but the effect was still awe inspiring.

Because it was showing me a delver.

It looked like the one I’d seen back on the recording at Detritus. An enormous, oppressive shadow within a cloud of light and dust. Chunks of burning asteroids spewed from it, leaving trails in the void. They churned past my canopy, and though I knew this was just a hologram, my fingers twitched on the controls of my ship.

Every instinct I had was screaming at me to get away from this terror. This impossible, incredible monstrosity. It would destroy me and everything I loved. I could feel it.

“This is a delver!” a perky, feminine voice said. A cutesy graphic surrounded the thing on the screen—a shimmering line of stars and lightning bolts.

“Even still, no one truly knows what a delver is,” the voice continued, and icons looking like confused faces lined the sides of my canopy. “These recordings are almost two hundred years old, taken when the Acumidian delver appeared and destroyed the planet Farhaven. Every living being on the planet was turned to dust and vaporized! How scary!”

My canopy view zoomed in on the delver, as if I’d suddenly flown up to it. I jumped despite myself. From this close, it looked like a thunderstorm of dust and energy—but deep within it, I saw the shadow of something smaller. A circular, shifting . . . something.

“When delvers enter our realm,” the voice said, “matter coalesces around them. We think they must bring it through from the place they come from. Freaky! This matter forms a shroud around the delver; the creature itself is much smaller! At the very center of all this dust, rock, and debris is a metallic shell sometimes called a delver maze!

“Standard shields protect pilots from whatever it is about the delver that vaporizes people, so that’s nice, isn’t it! But those shields don’t last long against a delver’s attacks, and even planetary shields usually fall within a matter of minutes. Still, shielded ships can get close, and some have even traveled inside the dust, past the debris, and into the maze itself! There, they encountered a complicated network of twisting tubes and corridors made from stone and metal.”

The image of the delver vanished, replaced by a large cartoon version. It had angry eyebrows and vaguely human features, and a pair of cartoon hands pulled back the cloud of dust, revealing a polyhedral structure with a lumpy, malformed exterior. It wasn’t as polished or angular as the one we were going to train on. On the real thing, spines jutted out at various places. It was like a cross between a large asteroid, a melted chunk of steel, and a sea urchin.

“The smaller chunks that the delver expels chase after ships,” the voice explained, and cartoon meteors shot out from the delver in pursuit of little animated ships. “They’ll try to bring down your shield so the delver can munch on you! Stay away! They move with no visible source of propulsion. Maybe they’re magic! Reports say that fighting these embers is like trying to dogfight inside an asteroid field, when all the asteroids are actively trying to kill you!

“The delver itself lurks at the center of the maze. Our special Delver Attack Devices won’t work through that interference! So, you’ll need to fly into the maze and find the delver itself. It’s in there somewhere! Your training will include test runs through our specially created imitation maze. Good luck, and hopefully you won’t die! Thank you!”

After that, a list of people who had made the orientation video scrolled across my screen, many with little cute symbols next to their names. When it was finally done, my canopy went transparent again, giving me a good view of the large training maze that—compared to the delver—seemed far too ordinary.

I settled back, feeling a mounting dread. I was increasingly certain the Superiority was filled with people who were taking this threat far too lightly.

“All right,” Vapor said with a soft, calming voice. “They’ve sent us orders. We’re to proceed to the following coordinates, then wait our turn at the maze.”