Untitled 6619

by Penguin Random House

  “Still nothing,” I said.

  “This is how science works,” Rig said. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. Maybe something! Oh, no, that was also nothing.”

  “I don’t know how you stand it,” I said.

  “Are you kidding? It’s fascinating.”

  “Really? Nothing is fascinating?”

  “Sometimes,” Rig said. “Depends on the nothing, I guess. Try giving him the keyword now.”

  I pressed my finger to the plastic, getting Chubs’s attention. “Home,” I said to him.

  He didn’t move.

  “Home,” I said again. “Go home and get the caviar, would you? You’re making me look like an idiot.”

  “Home,” Chubs trilled, his voice muted by the plastic. “Home, home.”

  “Try looking away,” Rig suggested. “They don’t seem to like to hyperjump while we’re watching.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, turning around. “I’m not watching.”

  A moment later, a slug nudged my ankle. There was Chubs, looking up at me expectantly from the floor.

  “I think he sees you as the source of caviar, FM,” Rig said.

  “FM!” Chubs said.

  “Not me,” I said, carrying Chubs over and giving him a second look inside the home box. Then I brought him back to the observation box and shut him behind the transparent door.

  “Home,” I said, and I turned around.

  Rig studied his clipboard. When I glanced back at the observation box, Chubs was gone. I found him in the “home” location, chowing down on the caviar.

  “Hey!” I said. “Good job! Home.”

  “Home!” the slug trilled happily.

  “Okay,” Rig said. “So he went to find the food because he knew where it was. Now see if you can get him to do it without seeing the food first.”

  I waited for Chubs to finish his caviar, and then took him back to the observation box and put him inside. “Home,” I said to him.

  “Home,” he replied.

  And then he disappeared and reappeared in the “home” box, sniffing around for caviar.

  “Hey, it worked,” I said. I pulled out my now almost empty tin of caviar and gave a scoop to Chubs.

  “Okay,” Rig said. “Now try it with another slug.”

  When I turned around, Drape had already climbed onto Rig’s shoulder, nuzzling his cheek.

  “Looks like Drape volunteered to join the experiment.” I scooped Drape up off Rig’s shoulders. Standing this close to him made my skin tingle, and I wasn’t alone; when Rig blushed, even the back of his neck turned red.

  Then the door opened abruptly, and we jumped apart.

  Jorgen stood in the doorway, holding Gill and looking at us curiously. “Hey,” he said. “Everything okay in here?”

  “Fine!” Rig said, too loudly.

  “Fine!” Gill said from his perch in the crook of Jorgen’s arm.

  “Don’t start that again,” I said to Gill, taking him from Jorgen. “I’m glad you’re here. You’re just in time to participate in our experiment.”

  “I don’t think I have time for that,” Jorgen said.

  I shrugged. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Jorgen looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but at least he didn’t comment on how close Rig and I had been standing when he’d walked in.

  “I was actually coming to tell you two that they’re almost ready to try using the communicator to reach Cuna,” Jorgen said. “They’re going to use the holoprojector to power the communicator, but Cobb still wants all of us present, since we’ve been working with the slugs. Thadwick wants Rig to consult with him on the communicator, and then FM and I are supposed to report after that.”

  “Sure,” Rig said. “FM can show you what we’ve been working on.” He hurried out of the room more quickly than normal. I hoped he was looking to get away from Jorgen and not me.

  Probably it wasn’t me.

  Jorgen cocked an eyebrow at me. “Working? Is that what you were doing in here?”

  “Yes, actually,” I said. “We designed an experiment.”

  “Is that what they’re calling it now.”

  “Shut your mouth,” I told him.

  Jorgen smirked at me.

  “Would you like me to mock you about Spensa now?” I asked. “Because if that’s fair game, let me just say—”

  “Forget I said anything,” Jorgen said quickly. “Show me this experiment.”

  “Thought you’d never ask.” I handed Jorgen Rig’s clipboard, though he didn’t look anywhere near as cute carrying it. “You take notes.”

  Jorgen squinted at Rig’s notes while I used the last of my caviar running both Drape and Gill through the experiment. Drape didn’t teleport into the box no matter how many times I showed her the caviar, but Gill did so right away, trilling “home” happily at me.

  “Huh,” Jorgen said. “Maybe some of them are more motivated by food than others?”

  “Probably,” I said. “But even Chubs took a while to follow the command. I don’t know if this will be a reliable way to get them to hyperjump or not, though they do seem to be able to do it over and over again without having to wait for us to scare them.”

  Jorgen consulted his watch. “We’re due up at Command,” he said. “I see what you’re doing here FM, but I don’t know that it’s any better than what we have.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Rig says science takes time to yield results.”

  “That’s my point,” Jorgen said.

  He didn’t have to elaborate. We both knew time was one thing we didn’t have.

  * * *

  —

  The command center was crowded with members of the command staff, the engineers, and a few more people from Jeshua Weight’s retinue sent by the National Assembly. Jorgen shouldered through to stand behind his mother, and I shadowed him, feeling out of place. I felt better when Rig joined us, coming over from a discussion with several of the other engineers.

  “Fine is loaded in the communicator,” Rig said. “And we’ve got the holoprojector hooked up. Cobb has recorded a message and we’ve set up the data in the communicator to align with the metadata from Cuna’s first transmission. It’s all very theoretical and I wish we’d had more time to test it, but it should probably work.”

  “Do you ever get used to it?” I asked. “Always having your projects thrown into service before you feel comfortable with the amount of testing you’ve done?”

  Rig wiped his palms on his jumpsuit. “I definitely haven’t gotten there yet.”

  “All right, quiet now,” Cobb said from his place at the front of the room. “We’re going to send the message.” He nodded to Ziming, who pressed a button on a control panel, and then Cobb spoke into his headset. “This is Admiral Cobb, human from the planet Detritus. Minister Cuna, please confirm receipt.”

  Ziming pressed another button. “Did it work?” Cobb asked.

  “I think so,” Ziming said. “It sent, but I don’t know if it was—”

  “Admiral Cobb, human of Detritus,” a voice said over the loudspeaker—the same eerie, even voice we’d heard in the first message. “I confirm receipt. Thank you for your response.”

  Cobb nodded, and Ziming resumed the transmission. “Minister Cuna. We would like to meet, but are unable to discern your location. Our cytonic is untrained, and our hyperdrives primitive. Any assistance you can offer to help us reach you would be welcomed. Please advise.”

  “I am afraid time is running short,” Cuna responded. “The Superiority has sent forces to bombard my location, and while our minimal artillery has kept them at bay, we expect them to send for reinforcements at any moment.”

  “How many ships?” Cobb said over the communicator.

  There was a pause. “Twenty fighters. We hear over t
he datanet that the Superiority forces are spread thin. I fear they will soon mobilize on your planet.”

  “They already have,” Cobb said. “We’re holding them off for the moment.”

  “Twenty ships,” Jorgen muttered. “We can handle that. If we can get there.”

  “I am routing coordinates through my hypercomm,” Cuna said. “Please interface your cytonic with your communicator to receive coordinates.”

  “Interface our cytonic?” Jeshua said. “What in the North Star’s light does that mean?”

  Most of the room looked at Jorgen, who stuttered. If there was one thing Jorgen hated, it was not having an answer.

  “Maybe he needs to interact with the taynix,” I said. “The one we used to send the message.”

  “Fine,” Rig said. “He’s in the communicator in Charlie Sector.”

  “You shouldn’t have to touch Fine, right?” I asked Jorgen. “You could scare the slugs at a distance, so you should be able to—”

  “Hold on,” Jorgen said, closing his eyes. “I’m working on it.”

  “You do that,” Cobb said, pulling the microphone closer. “This is Admiral Cobb,” he said. “We’re working on interfacing our cytonic now.”

  “Well?” I asked Jorgen quietly.

  “I’m trying,” Jorgen said. “Maybe if I—” Jorgen jerked back like he’d been slapped in the face. “I’ve got it. Admiral, I’ve got the coordinates. I know where they are. Stars, that’s painful.” He rubbed his temples. His mother watched him with concern.

  “We have your position,” Cobb said. “We’re going to send a flight to defend you. Jorgen, take Skyward Flight and—”

  “We should contact the National Assembly,” Jeshua said. “Let them make a decision before we send away one of our cytonics. We don’t know if they’ll be able to return.”

  Cobb looked at Jorgen.

  “That’s true, sir,” Jorgen said. “I’m not sure I can find Detritus again on my own. The slugs might be able to return instinctively from that far of a distance, but I can’t be sure. But these aliens, they understand the hyperdrives better than we do. They might be able to teach us how.”

  Cobb turned to Jeshua. “You want to be able to communicate with our enemies. This is the only alien force that has ever offered to talk with us. We have to take this chance.”

  “I agree with you,” Jeshua said. “But it’s up to the National Assembly to decide—”

  “Sir,” Jorgen said. “The coordinates are fading. It’s slow, so we have a little bit of time, but it’s like it was with Spensa. I don’t know how to hang on to it.”

  “Take your flight,” Cobb said to Jorgen. “Go now.”

  Jeshua scowled at him.

  Jorgen hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, and I followed Jorgen out of the command center. Together we ran for the landing bay.

  Fifteen

  The rest of our flight met us at our ships. T-Stall was still munching on a handful of fried algae strips from the mess hall, and Catnip was zipping up his jumpsuit, but Kimmalyn and Sadie were already climbing into their cockpits.

  “What’s happening?” Arturo asked, meeting us by Jorgen’s ship. “It’s just us this time?”

  “We’re going to rescue a defecting Superiority minister,” Jorgen said. “Just our flight, but we need to hurry. Minister Cuna is already under attack. I have coordinates to hyperjump there, but we’re still figuring out how we’re going to get back.”

  Arturo looked alarmed at that news. “Those are our orders?”

  “Those are our orders,” Jorgen said. “Let’s get everyone in the air.”

  Arturo nodded and headed for his ship, yelling at Nedd on the way to do the same.

  Rig ran up with a box full of slugs, which he thrust into my arms. Gill was in there along with Happy, Chubs, Drape, and Twist. “Cobb wants us to keep the holoprojector attached to the communicator,” he said. “That way we’ll be able to communicate with you when you get there, because we’ll have one and Cuna has one.”

  “You might not be able to scare Fine again,” I said. “You’ll have to try another purple slug. Though we received more than one communication from Cuna out of the same one, so maybe the connection lasts for a while after it’s established?”

  “I’ll check on that as soon as you leave.” Rig bit his lip, looking like he wanted to say something but thought better of it.

  “I’ll help you load the slugs into Jorgen’s ship,” I said, looking down at the slugs. There was another purple slug in there and I thought it had gotten mixed in, but when we reached Jorgen’s cockpit Rig put him in the metal box beneath the dash with the others. “I think you should take a communication slug with you,” he said. “I don’t know for sure how many taynix Cuna will have. Technically, Jorgen can communicate cytonically without a slug at all, but I think you should have every resource we can spare with you in case—” His voice broke, and he took a deep breath.

  I got it. I was going and he was staying, and he was scared. Probably for all of us, but I liked to think that he was sparing a little extra for me.

  “I’ll come back,” I said. “Perfect record of not dying, remember?”

  “Yeah,” Rig said. “I remember.”

  I wanted to take his hand, but Jorgen was already climbing into his cockpit.

  Time to go.

  “We haven’t had time to set the ships up with interlocking pieces,” Rig said to Jorgen, “so you’re going to have to do it the way you did last time, all touching wings.”

  “Got it,” Jorgen said. “We’ll make it work. FM, let’s go.”

  Rig reached out and squeezed me on the arm, and then hurried away. I ran for my regular Poco and climbed in, immediately engaging my acclivity ring and boosting away. As my ship rose toward the ceiling of platforms between the sections of crackling blue energy holding the shield together at the seams, I looked back and saw Rig watching us go.

  I’ll be back, I thought at him. Saying it wouldn’t make it more or less true though. It wasn’t a promise any of us could make.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have started anything between us, put him in a position to hurt even more if the worst happened. Or maybe I was making too much of it. Maybe none of us mattered, not really. What did it change when any of us were gone? The DDF still churned out more cadets. If they ran out, they’d lower the age to take the pilot’s test and bring them in younger and younger. We’d keep sending groups on missions like this, never knowing if they’d come back, because our survival as a group mattered more than the individuals. I didn’t disagree with that; I saw the logic to it.

  But I still wondered: if we didn’t matter as individuals, then what were we saving the group for?

  I joined the rest of the flight less than half a kilometer from the platform. Through a gap between platforms I could see the crackling net of the shield. As frightened as I’d been of the stars—feeling like I could fall off the face of the world—I missed them now that they were gone.

  I supposed I’d be seeing them again soon enough.

  “Skyward Flight,” Jorgen said, “move in together. All ships need to be touching, or some of you will be left behind.”

  I maneuvered my ship between Sadie’s and Kimmalyn’s with a gentle touch. The metal of our wings rubbed against each other, and I could see Sadie looking over at me through her canopy. I tried to give her a reassuring smile. I remembered what Rig said: You seem like you always have it together.

  I wanted to seem that way, I realized. Spensa lost her temper, Jorgen got frustrated, Rig could talk about fear like it was his best friend.

  And me?

  There was safety in being the one everyone else looked to. I felt everything, but I didn’t want anyone to know it.

  “All right,” Jorgen said. “That looks good. Initiating hyperdrive.” />
  I closed my eyes. We were about to hyperjump many, many times farther than we ever had. I wondered if it would take longer. I wondered if—

  “Stars!” T-Stall said over the radio. “Are you guys seeing this?”

  “Yes,” Jorgen said. “I think—I think that’s our destination.”

  I opened my eyes and stared out through the glass of my canopy at the expanse of black in front of me. The light of the nearest star was behind us, illuminating an object in the distance—a large rock that was dominated by dozens of white tentacles protruding from it like petals on some wildflower.

  Or, well, it was impossible to tell by sight how large or distant it was. I’d never seen anything I could compare this thing to. I widened the scope of my proximity monitors, trying to get a sense of it.

  “We’re a hundred and fifty klicks out,” Arturo said, beating me to it. “That thing. That’s where we’re going?”

  “I’m getting a communication,” Jorgen said. “Hang on.”

  We hung on. Our ships had drifted a little since we’d jumped, so we were no longer bumping into each other, but none of us had engaged our boosters to move far.

  My radio made a little flickering noise, and I reached out to adjust the dial. This wasn’t the time for the thing to fritz out.

  And then Cuna’s smooth, alien voice came over the radio. “Skyward Flight,” the alien said. “Thank you for coming to our aid. Your leader has given me permission to address you. As you can see, my crew and I are stranded on the old Superiority outpost of Sunreach—an abandoned research facility built here to study this rare species of mammoth starpod. You’ll want to avoid it. It’s nearing its molting cycle, which makes it especially hungry.”

  “It’s hungry?” Catnip said. “Jerkface, what does she mean it’s hungry?”

  “I understand you humans have not often encountered other species,” Cuna’s voice continued. “My species is referred to as they, because we do not conform to human genders. Diones are—”

  “Jorgen?” Nedd said. “What is the alien talking about?”

  “They’re saying don’t call them ‘she,’ ” I said. “But maybe we could deal with the formal introductions when we get there?”