Starsight

“If this is true,” Hesho said, “then the Superiority will become even more dominant than they are now. You said you know the secret of their hyperdrives. Will you give it to us, as proof of your good faith?”

I debated only a moment. Yes, this secret was important—but people controlling it, and keeping it from others, was part of the problem. “Look up a species of slug called a taynix. The Superiority claims they’re dangerous, and should be reported immediately if spotted—but this is because they’re cytonic and the Superiority doesn’t want people to know. Using them somehow, the Superiority can teleport their ships without drawing the attention of delvers.”

“By the ancient songs . . . ,” Hesho whispered. “There was a small colony of them on our planet. The Superiority sent a force to helpfully exterminate them, supposedly before the outbreak could destroy us. Those rats! Here, I have the battle plans from the Weights and Measures. We should be able to use this to deduce where Brade is. They needed to get her close to your planet.”

“So the delver would attack Detritus first,” I said. “Instead of going after the Superiority ships.”

“I have it!” one of the kitsen said from the bridge. I thought it was Hana. “From the layout of the battle, I suspect Brade’s ship should be at the coordinates I’m relaying to your monitor, Alanik.”

We turned in that direction, though it required cutting through the middle of the increasingly frantic battlefield. We dodged around a set of DDF fighters with Nightstorm Flight markings, then through some ship debris that made my shield flash. We were picking up speed when a handful of Krell drones fell in behind us.

“The Weights and Measures has finally spotted us, Captain!” a kitsen called over the line. “They’re demanding to know what we’re doing.”

“Stall!” Hesho said.

I didn’t know if that would do any good. They’d noticed me, judging by the way the drones were starting to fly in after us. I hit my overburn, but this ship just wasn’t built like M-Bot. She was serviceable, but she wasn’t exceptional

—and the kitsen ship was even slower.

As we fell into defensive maneuvers, I was made specifically thankful that I’d forced the kitsen and the others to do dogfighting exercises. We were likely only surviving because the battlefield was so frantic. Drone pilots had difficulty tracking us, and even more difficulty breaking away without immediately getting shot down.

Somehow we made it—and I picked out a solitary black fighter flying with expert precision. Brade. But she wasn’t quite in the place that the battle plan indicated. Instead, she was fighting against a drone for some reason. As we watched, Brade scored a series of hits on the drone, overwhelming its shield and destroying it.

Hesho and I gave chase, followed in turn by a few more drones. I could hear the sound of Brade’s mind growing louder, an increasingly demanding cytonic scream. The power of it made me tremble, and that interfered with my ability to fly—as it took me a moment to notice that one of the drones chasing us was behaving oddly. It fell out of line with the other two, then shot them down from behind.

“So,” Vapor said over a private channel to my ship. “You’re from this planet? Not ReDawn? A human from one of the preserves. Does Cuna know?”

“I told them,” I said, adding her to the line with Hesho. “Right before this mess happened. I’m sorry, Vapor, for lying—”

“I don’t really care,” Vapor said. “I should have guessed the full truth. Anyway, my mission was—and still is—to keep a watch on Winzik and his minions. Is Brade doing what I think she’s doing?”

“She’s trying to summon a delver,” I said. “She’s calling to them—well, more like screaming at them. I get the feeling she hasn’t done this before.”

I glanced at my canopy, and—alongside the growing headache I felt from Brade’s yelling—I started to see their reflections. The eyes opening up, looking at us from the nowhere.

“It’s working,” I added to the others. “The delvers are watching us right now. I can feel them . . . stirring.”

Vapor said a string of words that my pin simply translated as, “Increasingly vulgar curses involving foul stenches.”

“I didn’t think they’d go this far,” Vapor said. “This is bad—many would call this treason against the Superiority.” She was silent for a moment. “Others would call it true patriotism.”

“Surely there can’t be many of those!” Hesho said.

“It will probably depend on whether this attack works,” Vapor said. “A lot of people in the Superiority really hate humans, and policy often favors the successful. Does he have a plan for sending the thing away after he summons it?”

“I think he just plans to use his space force to keep it distracted,” I said. “Brade indicated that delvers in our realm would sometimes spend years between attacks.”

“Sometimes they would,” Vapor replied. “But sometimes they’d attack relentlessly. This is extremely shortsighted.”