I didn’t mention to him that unfortunately, that very thing wasn’t unheard of among humans. “Perhaps it’s because you’re too close to them, like how a human face with distorted features is more terrifying to us than an alien face.”
I reached into my pocket as I felt something wiggling there. I pulled out the pin, but it was enlarging, transforming into a bright yellow slug with blue markings. She reached her full size—about as big as a loaf of bread—but was all curled up and tense. I could feel the effort coming off her. She was working so hard on hiding the ship that she couldn’t hold her false shape any longer.
“She’s in pain,” M-Bot said softly. Indeed, she began letting out a long, high-pitched fluting noise.
“This is hard for her,” I guessed. “When doing hyperspace jumps, slugs only have to hide their ships for a short time. Keeping this up long-term for something this much larger than her is difficult. That’s why she was hesitant.”
Overhead, the delver ships began shooting destructors toward the ground. They had plainly guessed part of what had happened. They were trying to find us, and they soon seemed to coordinate a pattern search with each ship shooting at a different location, systematically hunting us.
“Projecting…” M-Bot said. “Using this method, they will find us in under a minute.”
“I doubt Doomslug can last much longer than that anyway,” I said, grabbing the controls. “We need to fly for the lightburst.”
It was under a hundred meters away—eighty-eight, according to the monitor—but blocked by a wall of steel ships. Scud. I had no choice but to try ramming our way in. Perhaps I could approach slowly, then push through without crashing?
“Why did she have you land first, though?” M-Bot said. “We aren’t invisible, Spensa.”
Yeah, I’d figured that out. If we moved, a floating rock or giant pile of chalk would immediately inform the delvers where we were. They’d shoot us down.
“Scud,” I said. “I…”
I…
No. Warriors did not give up. I seized the controls again. We had full shields and could take about four hits. I’d push us toward the exit, and…and if we exploded when I collided, then at least we died as warriors.
Hesho nodded to me, again holding the fruit Peg had given me. He’d protected it so far. “It has been a sublime experience traveling with you,” he told me. “I consider myself lucky to have earned your friendship not once, but apparently twice.”
I nodded, then—
“Wait!” M-Bot said. “What’s that outside?”
Something blinked on my proximity monitor, indicating an object moving right outside.
“Huh?” I asked.
“It’s another slug!” M-Bot said. “No, two more! Other icons. They must have sensed Doomslug.” He cracked the canopy, which I worried would bring the delvers, but the motion apparently wasn’t noticeable—not with the debris the destructor shots were sending everywhere.
“Get them, Spensa!” M-Bot said. “Use Doomslug to lure them!”
Shocked, I squeezed out through the dusty canopy, cradling Doomslug. I dropped onto the white chalky ground, my figure casting an eerie, too-long shadow. Hesho followed out onto the wing.
All I could see was whiteness. Infinite whiteness.
“M-Bot,” I said. “What—”
“I,” he said as the cockpit clicked closed, “made you look.”
I felt an immediate burst of annoyance. At a time like this, he cracked a joke?
Wait. I spun around.
The starfighter’s acclivity ring powered on. M-Bot lightly shook the wing, dumping Hesho—and Peg’s fruit that he was carrying—into the dust. Then M-Bot hovered into the air just beyond reach.
Doomslug fluted sorrowfully.
“M-Bot!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”
“I feel it now, Spensa,” M-Bot said, his voice coming softly out his front speakers.
“Feel what? What is going on?”
“I feel,” he said, “why you left me. Back in the somewhere. You abandoned me. Because you had to. I understood it logically earlier. But I feel it now. I can feel what it’s like to know you have to do something, even if your emotions are telling you to do something else.”
Oh…Saints. He was saying…
“If they can sense me,” M-Bot said, “then I can make them chase me. I might be an abomination, but I am one who can fly on my own now. Choose for myself. And I can show them what an ‘abomination’ can do.”
“No!” I said. “You don’t want to do this, M-Bot!”
“Of course I don’t. That’s what makes it courageous though, right?”
“Please don’t. Don’t leave me…”
“Hey,” M-Bot said with a quiet perkiness, “that’s what I said to you. Do you remember?”
I nodded, feeling tears at the corners of my eyes.
“But you went anyway,” M-Bot said. “Why?”
“Because it was the right thing.”
“The right thing,” M-Bot said softly. “You promised me then you’d try to come back for me. Can you do that again?”
I bit my lip. Nearby, Hesho had climbed from the dust. He bowed to the ship.
“All right,” I whispered. “I’ll find you, M-Bot. I’ll come back for you. Somehow.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Makes it feel better.”
With that, he turned and blasted off into the sky. I flopped down and watched the delvers orient on him. Doomslug’s whining softened—it was obviously easier to hide just me, her, and Hesho. The solemn kitsen walked over and joined me in watching as the delvers, as one, turned and focused on M-Bot. Then all hundred of the free-flying ships took off after him.
He lasted about ten seconds.
He’d flown only a handful of times, and the delvers had challenged even my skill. M-Bot didn’t try to dodge—he merely tried to get as far from the rest of us as possible before they got him, quickly overwhelming his shield.
He vanished in a flash of light and smoke, the pieces casting long shadows as they fell.
The delvers pummeled these for a good thirty seconds of concentrated fire, then three ships slammed into what remained. And then…then they left. They couldn’t sense me, and they’d felt M-Bot. This was enough to convince them. They thought I’d been on the ship.
Perhaps if they’d been a group of humans, one—or even a majority—would have suggested continuing to search in case the rest of us had escaped. But the delvers made mistakes as one. Today they decided they’d done their job, and were too afraid of staying outside their bubble of safety to keep searching.
The wall of ships faded back into the lightburst. Followed by the flying ships, which soon melded with the whiteness.
Within five minutes of M-Bot leaving, we were alone on the expanse. Feeling like my limbs were made of iron, I picked up Hesho and stuffed Peg’s fruit in my jacket pocket. Then, holding Hesho in one arm and Doomslug—still protecting us—in the other, I trudged toward the lightburst. I worried the delvers would see us, but either they were convinced we were dead, or the illusion could obscure a little motion.
I don’t know how long it took to reach the border. That’s the nowhere for you. It could have been five minutes. It could have been five days. Probably more like the former, but this close to the boundary, time was extra alien.
I felt it when we got close. A fuzzing of the self, a dreamy sensation. Doomslug fluted. She would protect Hesho inside, as the pure nowhere could rip apart someone non-cytonic. She’d try to help me too.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “If you can guide us though, take us home. To Detritus.”