Page 64 of Defiant

“Spensa…”

“I know,” I said with a sigh, leaning back. “I’m way more valuable to our fight than she is to hers. Even if I’m likely to win, the risk isn’t worth the gain. I don’t have the resources to determine if it’s actually a trap or not, and it’s foolish to try. I want to anyway.”

“How do I talk you out of it?” he asked, his voice pained.

“Order me not to, maybe?”

“When has that worked?”

“Today it might,” I said. “I’mtryingto be better.”

He squeezed my hand again, then frowned. “Wait. An enemy cytonic has been able to contact you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“We’re inside Detritus’s defenses,” he said. “There’s an inhibition field around the entire planet, fully strengthened now that we know what we’re doing. Without that shield, the enemy wouldn’t have had to spend years fighting through it with bombs to destroy us—they’d have been able to hyperjump the bombs right into our caverns.”

“Yeah, it’s strange,” I said. “Brade says we’re connected somehow. Maybe that’s the reason? I’ve always been able to hyperjump while inside Detritus’s protection. Even before I could understand any kind of passcode or key to allow me.”

“Yes,” he said. “And while Alanik couldn’t hyperjump in originally—that’s why she got shot down trying to fly past the platforms—she managed it later. We are pretty sure that anyone born here automatically has the key, though before we really understood all of this, the defenses were weakening. The enemy was able to pilot their drones via cytonic communication, and influence your father’s mind. Rig says that he’s got the field bolstered, now that we can persuade slugs to power the equipment. But we’re still not a hundred percent sure how it works.”

Huh. Regardless, it seemed I was a weak link. A hole in our defenses.

Jorgen stood up. “Every day, we discover another oddity about this planet. If an enemy cytonic can contact you despite the inhibitionfield…it’s possible they can figure out how to get ships in here, which would be a disaster. We—”

The door chimed and he paused, then walked over and opened it to reveal Rikolfr, who handed him an envelope.

Oh, sure,I thought.He has no problem interrupting Jorgen’s private time himself.

Jorgen walked back and absently sliced the side of the envelope off with a mindblade—an invisible something he could do with his powers. I’d missed him experimenting with this, and so far I could barely evengraspwhat he was doing—let alone replicate it. My talents didn’t lie in that direction.

He pulled out a card, then smiled.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s the kitsen formal agreement to our offer of alliance,” he said, “and joint war.” He turned the card over, showing the flowery writing and ink designs. “They told me they’d send it. Apparently on their planet, people like to get them framed.”

Scud. I loved those fuzzy little maniacs. I’d be proud to fight beside them. Only…

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I said, reading Jorgen’s expression.

He nodded, gesturing to the star charts and troop counts scattered on the table. “Winzik is gathering his forces at a place named Evensong. An old platform, repurposed as their communications hub.”

I’d read about this in the data dump. “That’s where they keep their slugs, Jorgen!” I said, rising from the table. “The majority of their taynix, when not being used as hyperdrives, are there. Includingallof their communications slugs.”

“The most fortified position in the Superiority,” he agreed.

“Yeah,” I said. Then paused. “We should attack it.”

“What?”

“They’re going to throw everything they have at us, right?”I said. “We can’t letthemchoose the battleground, Jorgen. The others worried about this earlier—we have two planets to defend, Evershore and ReDawn. Yet there is only one Detritus. Wherever we setup, they’ll hit the other planet, attack the people there as punishment for our rebellion.

“We don’t have the forces to defend both. So we need to go on the offensive. He’s gathering his troops, right? And it will take days for him to organize.” I shrugged. “So we should hit him first. It’s the only thing that gives us a chance.”

“It’s also crazy,” he said.

“Crazygoodthough,” I said. “Bold and decisive. We have known their big weakness all along—we keep talking about it.”

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