What an odd way to describe it. I stood up, intending to extricate myself from the conversation with Shiver, who would continue to chat endlessly if you let her. I always felt so awkward excusing myself—but…well, she seemed to think all motile species were a little rude anyway. When you literally couldn’t walk away from your neighbors, you learned to be polite.
“Before you go,” Shiver said, “I…admit I have a request for you, Spin. Please do not think me forward, but I suspect you intend to leave this place. Not this region, but the nowhere entirely.”
“I do,” I said. “People need me in the somewhere.”
“I’ve never known anyone to leave without Superiority permission,” Shiver said. “And even those cases are rare. But my request is in regard to Dllllizzzz. Peg worries that once someone is that far gone, only getting out can help them. So if you do escape…will you see if you can find a way to open a path for Dllllizzzz and me? For her sake?”
“That helps?” I asked. “I mean…our memories…return if we leave?”
“I believe so,” Shiver said. “At least, the few people at the base who left and came back in seemed to have recovered some, if not all, of what they lost during their time here.”
“I’ll try,” I promised. “Chet is going with me, and we’ll be able to see firsthand if someone without any memories gets them back once outside.”
“Thank you. That is all I can ask. Getting out through Surehold would require negotiations with the Superiority, and I do not trust them. I do not believe it would be safe to leave that way, no matter what they promise. I don’t think the other pirates care; they prefer it in here, away from the concerns and problems of the somewhere. I am not the same. And Dllllizzzz… She needs help. She wants out. I can feel from her vibrations it is so.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I said, then glanced to the side as Peg announced that there was less than an hour left. Time to suit up.
“Fight well, Spin,” Shiver said. “And I shall do the same. Thank you again for your time with us.”
I went running to clean up and get on my flight suit. I spent the next twenty minutes doing preflight checks and getting a final okay from Nuluba and Maksim to go into combat. As I finished, I spotted Chet standing down below, helmet under his arm. He’d taken off his sling last night, and his arm seemed mostly healed.
“With your permission,” he said, “I should like to fly with you today, Spensa.”
“It might get a little crazy,” I said.
“I understand crazy better than you may assume,” he replied. “And…well, I had RayZed take me out last night to run me through g-force training. I feel like I remember things better from long ago, ways to help my body withstand. Even if not, however, I prefer to join you. To be frank, I’m worried about the delvers. They failed in their attack yesterday. They will try something else.”
I nodded. “Let’s go, then.”
Chapter 33
It was a different sort of group that left the Broadsider base that day. For the duel we’d brought everyone, flying in a leisurely way—a convoy that had been part show of force, part proof of solidarity.
Today we took only the pilots. Peg joined my flight. Loaded with firepower, but slower than the fighters, her shuttle would be a target—but could deal damage almost like a much larger gunship. By her order, we kept off the comms. There was no joking, storytelling, or sitting and idly reading books during this flight.
I spent the initial part of the flight—before we met up with the other factions—trying to contain my excitement. Our destructors were still set to nonlethal, but each of our ships had been equipped with the ability to flip them to lethal mode in case this battle turned truly dangerous.
Peg didn’t want to do that. She wanted to recruit the pilots at Surehold, not kill them. But she was too pragmatic not to have the option available.
I gave Chet the controls and let him acclimatize himself to them. If I were somehow hurt during the fight, he might have to take over, as M-Bot remained unskilled. Chet performed a few simple maneuvers, showing that he did have some muscle memory for piloting, and I sat in thought, troubled by something Shiver had said. About icons.
I considered that, then closed my eyes, questing out from the cockpit with my senses. I forced myself to be extra quiet and subtle as I searched. I paused as I felt the delvers, or their attention, nearby. Waiting. And frightened.
They didn’t notice me. I could feel their minds pushing out from the lightburst in this direction, but they weren’t aware of me. I could remain invisible to them with effort, though I suspected this would only work so long as they didn’t know exactly where I was.
Feeling pleased with my improvements so far, I turned away from them and sensed outward. Looking for…familiarity. I remembered that when I’d first entered the nowhere, in that jungle, I had felt a mind close to mine. Before I’d found Chet, I had sensed something. Something I’d thought was my father.
Had that been my icon? It felt foolish to think it had actually been him. Yet as I searched, I…layered my mind with a warmth. The “star-ness” I’d learned on the Path. That was like a code, or a callsign. I’d used it to batter back Brade’s cloud upon me and escape from her prison. But it could also indicate who I was, where I was, though only to those I knew. Like a communication signal on a private comm band.
I felt something jump and contact me back. A mind. I brushed against it, and my heart leapt. My pin! Yes, I could feel it, and it responded. It… It…
It was angry at me for burying it.
That shocked me. The pin’s mind felt familiar, loving. It felt… It felt like family.
F-Father? I thought.
I was returned a warm sensation. I knew it was ridiculous, but…I mean… This place was strange.
Where are you? I asked.
I was given back a sense of…Surehold? Yes, that was where the icon was. How had it gotten there? I mean, Shiver had warned me they moved. But that far?
The mind retreated.
I’m coming to you, I sent to the pin, then came out of my cytonic trance, confused. It couldn’t truly be my father’s soul, could it? And why—how—was the pin at Surehold? The place where I was already going? That seemed extraordinarily coincidental. And that reminded me of Chet’s coincidental arrival, which I hadn’t thought about in a while.
Eventually, our flight met with the other pirate factions one by one. Peg welcomed each in turn, and I sensed relief in her voice. She’d been worried they wouldn’t show. She had us linger after the fourth faction joined, giving one final chance for the Cannonaders to appear. They didn’t.
“All right, people,” Peg said over the comm to us all. “We will absolutely win this. We’ve spent years in combat preparing, while they’ve been hiding, hoping the Superiority would send them more strength.
“They haven’t. The Superiority doesn’t care about them, or about any of us. They only care about their acclivity stone—so we’re going to hit them hard and take it away. Maybe they have other mining stations far across the empty boundaries, but I know they rely on this one more than any other. So we’ll lock the portal up tight, and they’ll have to play by our terms.”
The gathered eighty or so ships gave cheers and raucous calls in a variety of different types of vocalization. Chet and I joined in, hooting and shouting.
“My Jolly Rogers are ready to move to lethal destructors,” Gremm announced after the noise died down.