Starsight

“Well, you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t make my life more difficult at every turn, Spin.” He nodded to the guards, and they withdrew. This conversation had in part been a test—and I’d passed it. Cobb was reasonably sure that I wasn’t an impostor.

Cobb took a sip of his coffee and waved me closer. “What’s really going on out there?”

“The Superiority has a bunch of factions. I didn’t learn much; it’s kind of over my head. But a military faction is reaching for power, and they’re going to try to exterminate us to bolster their credibility. Getting rid of the ‘human scourge’ as a way of proving themselves.”

On the screen at the front—which held an abstract battle map with dots of light representing ships—the Weights and Measures was deploying flights of fighters. It looked like several hundred drones of the normal style we fought. And fifty other ships, glowing brighter than the rest.

“Piloted ships,” Cobb said. “Enemy aces. Fifty of them.”

“They’re not aces,” I said. “But they are piloted ships. The Superiority has been preparing a group of real pilots to fight us. I . . . um, trained some of them.”

Cobb’s cup stopped halfway to his lips. “You really managed to join their space force and train with them?”

“Er, yes. Sir.”

“Damn. And that ship you stole? It has a hyperdrive?”

“No. But I know the secret. You know that yellow slug pet I have? The one I found in M-Bot’s cave? Those

are what the Superiority uses to hyperjump. We need to send an expedition into the caverns on Detritus and see if we can catch any others.”

“I’ll put several teams on it immediately. Assuming we survive this battle. Any other bombs you want to drop on me?”

“I . . . um, revealed myself to one of the highest functionaries in the Superiority government, and we got along pretty well. I think we might be able to leverage this other faction in the government into making peace with us. Uh, assuming we survive the aforementioned battle.”

“And your ship? The one with the annoying attitude.”

I felt a spike of shame inside me. “I . . . left him behind, sir. And Doomslug. I was being chased by enemies, and they were getting close and—”

“It’s all right, soldier,” Cobb said. “You’re back, which is more than we had any right to expect.” He turned his eyes toward the screen and the growing flood of little blips of light. “I want you in a debriefing room with a recorder, telling us everything you can remember about their military capacities. I’ll stay here and do what I can to survive this invasion. Scud, that’s a lot of fighters.”

“Cobb,” I said, stepping closer. “Those aren’t bloodthirsty monsters out there; they’re just people. Normal people, with lives, and loves, and families.”

“And what did you think we’ve been fighting against all these years?” Cobb asked.

“I . . .” I didn’t know. Red-eyed, faceless creatures. Relentless destroyers. Not far from how they saw humans.

“That’s what war is,” Cobb told me. “A bunch of sorry, desperate fools on both sides, just trying to stay alive. That’s the part that those stories you love leave out, isn’t it? It’s always more convenient when you can fight a dragon. Something you don’t have to worry you’ll start caring about.”

“But—”

He took me by the arm, then moved some papers and gently steered me to sit in his chair. He didn’t banish me immediately to that debriefing. Perhaps he wanted me around to answer questions.

I sagged in the seat, watching as he stepped forward to take command. He was far better at that than one might assume. He didn’t try to do it all himself. He let the other admirals—ones he’d handpicked for their combat sense—lead the individual segments of the battle. He only intruded when he felt he needed to. Mostly he limped around the room, sipping his coffee and offering pointers here and there.

I watched the swarm of ships approach one another. I tried to sink farther down into my seat as I watched. Red and blue blips on a screen—but some of those blips were people I loved dearly. People on both sides. Was Morriumur out there, terrified but determined? Hesho and the kitsen? Would Kimmalyn shoot them down?

This wasn’t right. This couldn’t happen. And . . . it was also wrong. Not just wrong morally, wrong tactically. I stared up at the battle maps, and the Superiority side looked impressive. Two hundred drones, fifty manned ships. Our own force of scrambled fighters would only number around a hundred and fifty.

But we were the DDF, battle forged and growing in skill each day, while the Superiority fielded drone pilots trained to be nonaggressive and a group of new recruits with only a couple weeks in the cockpit. Winzik had to know his forces were actually at a disadvantage.