Starsight

Scud. Scudscudscudscud. She’d veered off from me, so I spun around, then boosted after her. “See that large ember coming at you from just below your 270? Spear it with your light-lance.”

“But—”

“Just do it, Brade,” I said. I barely got out of the way as the ember flew past us at a horrific speed. Fortunately, as I’d suggested, Brade shot her light-lance at it and hit the thing in the center with her glowing rope.

The momentum of the large stone yanked her after it—and right out of the path of several other embers, which smashed together. I swung around and chased her, accelerating so hard my GravCaps got overwhelmed and I slammed back in my seat. I barely managed to keep pace, as I had to shoot down an ember that tried to collide with Brade, then swoop in beside her to shield her from the debris.

My shield crackled and my ship shook. Ahead, the large ember we’d been trailing cleared us a path before finally slowing, as if its pilot had realized what we were doing.

“Up and over!” I shouted, dodging upward. Brade let go just as another large ember smashed into the one we’d been following. She barely dodged a large chunk ejected from the collision, but together the two of us boosted free of the mess. Our incredible speed carried us far beyond the melee in seconds.

“That . . . ,” Brade said. “That was close.” She actually seemed shaken for once.

“Flight Command,” I said, hitting the comm button, “what in the stars was that?”

“I am sorry, Alanik of the UrDail.” Winzik replied personally, which was uncommon. “Occasionally, the embers have been observed engaging in extremely aggressive behavior like this. We are trying new boosters on our drones to match it.”

“You could have warned us!” I snapped.

“Very sorry!” Winzik said. “Please do not be offended. Brade, thank you. You have made a very impressive showing for the officials here.”

So Winzik was showing off his pet human, was he? He could have gotten her, and me, killed!

Brade didn’t seem to care. With this new batch of embers disposed of, she spun back around toward the maze itself. I boosted after her. A second later we darted through one of the openings, entering the tunnel.

It seemed quieter inside.

That was silly, of course. Space was always

silent. Sure, I could set my ship to simulate explosions and vibrations to give me nonvisual cues, but no atmosphere means no compression waves, and no compression waves means no sound.

That normally felt right to me. Soaring through the void was supposed to be silent. The darkness was so empty, so awesome, so vast that it should smother all sound.

These tunnels inside the maze felt more intimate. I felt like I should hear clanks, drips of water, or at least distant screeching as gears ground together. Here, the silence was creepy.

My floods illuminated Brade’s ship, flying just ahead of me. She slowed to an uncharacteristically careful speed, inching along the corridor.

“Do you see that opening ahead?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied. Both of us seeing it confirmed it was real—though openings like the one ahead almost always were. It was the things the holograms covered up that could get confusing.

We crept into the room beyond, which was one of the spaces that felt like it was submerged. There were even holographic fish swarming around in schools, and some dark thing in the corner that bore multiple tentacles.

I’d been in this “room” several times before. They were starting to repeat. The illusions on our canopies were Superiority tech, bounded by the limitations of their programming. The true delver maze would be more erratic. Pilots who had entered and escaped reported a different setting to each room, with surprises around every corner.

I asked Brade what she was seeing, as that was part of the training. But I knew this room too well, so even while she was describing what she saw, I was ready when the octopus thing sprang from the corner. I knew it wasn’t real—but that it would distract from an ember coming in behind us.

I spun and blasted the ember away before it could reach me.

“Nice shot,” Brade said.

Wow. A compliment? I was getting through to her.

She led the way down to the bottom of the chamber, where to my eyes the exit was covered in some kind of seaweedlike substance.

“You see something here?” she asked.

“Some kind of sea growth.”

“I see rocks.” She grunted. “Like last time.”

She lowered her ship down through the hologram, and I followed, entering another metallic tunnel.

“I half expect Winzik to try to get us killed again,” I noted as I tailed her.

“Winzik is brilliant,” Brade said immediately. “He knows exactly what he’s doing. Obviously, he understood our limits better than we did.”

“He got lucky,” I said. “His stunt out there would have looked really stupid if we’d gotten killed.”

“He is brilliant,” Brade repeated. “It’s not surprising you didn’t understand his purposes.”

I bristled at that, but bit off a retort. Brade was making small talk. This was progress.