Page 67 of Defiant

“I’m unfamiliar with the term,” he said.

“Today we’ve got advanced tools,” I explained, shoving part of the landing gear in place. “And this thing practically sticks together on its own. Back then? I only had what I could scavenge or what I could convince Rig to steal for me.”

“Your life has been one long…scrappy experience, hasn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah. Haunting tunnels as a kid with my family. Settling in Igneous, then hunting rats because we were outcasts. Now…well, whatever I am now.”

“Your life has taught you the opposite lessons to what mine has,” he said. “For you, everything is hard. If an opportunity presents itself, you must snatch it or lose it to someone fiercer. You don’t have time to think, because if you think, you starve. Is this an accurate summation?”

“Yeah,” I said, wiping my brow as I worked. “I suppose it is.”

“This makes it difficult for you when dealing with those who have lived in privilege,” he said. “We spend our lives learning to plan. Often, those in power stay in power because of such luxuries—it is not that they are smarter or more capable, but that they’ve had the opportunity to think about tomorrow, not just today.”

“Damn, that’s a good explanation,” I said, dragging over another chunk of landing gear. “Have you been listening in on my mind or something? You aren’t secretly cytonic, are you?”

“I merely have a special chance, these days, to consider myself and my life.”

“I told Jorgen,” I said, getting down low to begin bolting a wheel into place, “that I thought we should attack the Superiority. Right now, before they can gather their strength. He wants more time, but he’s wrong. I can feel it. We need to hit Winzik before he’s at his best! It’s basic tactics. We should go straight to the communicationshub and force the enemy to engage us there. Winzik will have to protect it.”

“Won’t that mean attacking him where he has a battlefield advantage?” Hesho said. “He’ll have inhibition fields in place at the communications hub. Can we find a way to force him to engage us whereourinhibitors are in play?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “We don’t have enough inhibitors. We can’t cover both ReDawn and Evershore with them—so if we wait, Winzik can hit whichever population is exposed, breaking us. He’s willing to strike civilians; his attack on your planet proves that. This means that we’re much better on offense than we are on defense.”

“What if we were tomoveour populations?” Hesho said. “Your grandmother mentioned perhaps bringing us with you, and I have been considering her words of wisdom. My people take up far less room than humans do, while the people of ReDawn inhabit only a small part of their planet—their total planetary population is under three million. What if we moved one or both populations onto Detritus for the battle?”

“I…don’t think we could do that in time,” I said. “Evacuating even three million people seems a remarkable task.”

“Yes, but using hyperslugs?” he said. “No need for transports? We just assemble groups, teleport them to the proper location, then repeat.”

“I still think it would be too hard,” I said. “But…”

“But it’s a possibility,” Hesho said. “Planning, Spensa. Jorgen’s life has taught him to plan. It has taught him the value of structure.I do not know him as well as you, but I wonder if the rules he holds dear are revered because for him, they’ve actually worked. When for you…they have not.”

I tightened a bolt, then started on the next part of the landing gear after he brought it over with his light-line.

“Hesho,” I said, “you are super smart. You realize that, right?”

“I spent my life being told that,” he said, “by people who were obligated to do so. I enjoy hearing it from those who are not.”

“You solve so many things for me,” I continued, twisting a bolt with vigor. There was a power driver for this, but I wanted to work up a sweat. I would finish them all up with the machine to make them secure. “I wish I could give you something you need in return, but you were basically the richest guy on a planet for most of your life, so I don’t know what I could offer.”

He hovered down beside me as I worked. “Spensa,” he said, “do you know the one thing an emperor always has trouble finding?”

“A good rat sandwich?”

“Friends,” he said, and smiled. “On my planet, I could have no equals, because no one dared treat me as one—and I never dared expect them to. When I vanished, they mourned me but did not grieve. Then you found me, and you refused to let me stay lost. Rest assured, you offer me a great deal. Something I have not known since I was a kit.”

He reached out his paw, then pulled the fingers in, making a fist—as I’d done earlier. I gave him a bump, and he nodded to me. “Come. Let us make a body for our other lost friend. So that he may rejoin our menagerie of misfits.”

I didn’t know if M-Bot would be able to inhabit a body again. But scud, I hoped he could. I wanted so badly to make him a home, a place where he knew he belonged. Partially because of things he’d said earlier, partially to keep myself busy, and partially because…well, it felt right. And as Hesho had said, I’d learned to go with what felt right.

That said, he made good points about not rushing in to attack. I wished Jorgen had made those points to me—but maybe he shouldn’t have had to. Maybe the points he had made, that I shouldtrusthim, were the more important ones.

How much trust had he shown in me? A great deal. Trust in me to go to Starsight, to do what I needed to in the nowhere. Trust with his whole heart. A trust I wanted to deserve.

I threw myself into working on the ship, attaching the boosters and checking the wiring. I was particularly careful when I installed the wide black box that M-Bot’s old ship had contained—the assembly of hard drive and processors that had made up his brain. A motherboard and chipset that used acclivity stone instead of something like silicon and atomilin. Capable of letting the computer processinside the nowhere.

It was what let this ship break normal computing limits. I didn’t know a lot about the engineering of it, but I hoped that this would give M-Bot a body again when in our realm.

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