Page 37 of Defiant

Chet quivered inside me.

It’s okay to be sad sometimes,M-Bot said to Chet.It’s part of being alive.

Chet sent back that he was learning, but the delvers—they didn’t believe that learning or changing was good. Which was the problem.

I tried to ignore the full-on conversation happening between my soul and the spirit of my dead starfighter. Scud, my life was weird. At least sneaking around like this was easier now that I could hyperjump at will. Hearing someone coming up behind me, I hopped into another corridor, pressing up against a cold steel wall.

Back before I’d left for the nowhere, I’d needed specific directions in my mind in order to hyperjump to a specific location. Sincemy return, that hadn’t been an issue. Granted, I still needed coordinates or some kind of visualization to get anywhere, but I was learning to do most of this by instinct.

I didn’t know if this newfound ability was due to the delver in my soul, or was the result of practice—the familiarity with my powers I’d gained through hard work in the nowhere.

Regardless of the reason, now I could glance into the flight deck from where I stood. It was empty, as most everyone was asleep, so I popped right past the wall at my back and straight to my ship.

Strange, how a day-night cycle still dominated our lives, even with no distinct difference between the two. So far, I’d lived on Detritus (a planet that couldn’t see the sun), Starsight (a platform in space far from any star), and the nowhere (where time barely passed at all). Yet I still considered this “night.” As did everyone else. Human physiology just had that hardwired in.

I began priming my starship for flight. I could do everything on my own except open the flight deck bay doors, but I planned to hyperjump out anyway. So I checked my ship’s external fuel readings, double-checked the maintenance log, then pushed a ladder over and climbed up, popping the cockpit with the manual release on the outside.

Only somebody was sitting inside. And she wasknitting.

“Gran-Gran?”I said, utterly floored.

The elderly woman had a certain earthen look to her. Like an obstinate stone, or a tough old bunch of lichen grown in one spot for hundreds of years. It was dark on the flight deck, but that didn’t matter to a blind person like Gran-Gran. She’d always had an uncanny ability to perceive the world around her regardless—a sign that her cytonic abilities had been developing. The fact that she’d probably hyperjumped straight into my cockpit was another.

“Ah, Spensa,” she said. “Took your time. Had to make sure the ship was flightworthy, I suppose.”

“What are you doing here, Gran-Gran?” I asked.

“Knitting.”

I projected annoyance at her, which made her chuckle.

“You never visit,” she said. “Grandmothers always say that sort of thing. As if we don’t have legs, and can’t just go visit on our own. So I decided to.”

“Now, of all times?”

“Think you’re so good with your powers, don’t you?” Gran-Gran said. “All fancy and grown up. Well, I’ve been listening to the stars since I was younger than you, girl. And I can tell when my granddaughter is having a rough day.” She pointed at her yarn, indicating I should feed her some more.

“Rough day?” I muttered.

“Week. Month. Year. Life.” Gran-Gran pointed more vigorously. “Feed me some blue. I have trouble distinguishing colors with the powers.”

I sighed, reaching into the cockpit and undoing some yarn for her.

“So,” she said. “Going off on your own. Again.”

“It’s always worked in the past.”

“You didn’t have any other options in the past.”

“Gran-Gran, I don’t have time for this.”

“No time for your family?” she asked. “That’s not how your mother raised you, girl. A little more yarn than that, please.”

I obeyed, stifling another sigh. Gran-Gran would be ready when Gran-Gran was ready. I just hoped I wasn’t discovered in the time it took her to say whatever it was she’d decided I needed to hear.

She just kept knitting. With frustrating calmness, needles clicking.

“How did you know what I was going to do?” I finally asked.

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