Page 86 of Defiant

“Not bad,” Brade said to me a short time later. “Where did you go?”

“Better watch your tail,” I said.

She chuckled. “Do you ever wish it could go back to this? Pilots struggling one-on-one? Rather than sweeping galactic domination and political nonsense?”

I didn’t respond. Because I still didn’t know how to read Brade. Of course I wanted something like that—but she was playing off my desires.

“What happened to you, Spensa?” she asked me. “In the nowhere? What did you do in there?”

“I learned who I was,” I said. “And where I came from.”

“You think it could help me? Find the same answers?”

Scud, she sounded sincere. But I’d been played too many times to fall for it. Instead I wove through some streets at a very slow speed, then pulled to a stop near some abandoned hovercars. I had Brade tracked on my proximity monitor as she flew around up above, trying to see where I’d gone. Sitting still felt wrong—dangerous—but I knew it was the right thing to do. Her sensors would have way more trouble tracking me this way.

The ploy worked. Brade went into a large sweeping pattern, flying “upside down” and using visuals to try to find me. Not a bad move, as my shipwouldstand out to human eyes against all this wreckage.But she started in the wrong location, which gave me the perfect opportunity. As she swung out, I turned my nose upward, put full power to my acclivity ring, and boosted straight up along the side of a skyscraper.

I popped out in a perfect position to fall in on her tail, and though she spotted me mid-maneuver and broke off her search, I still managed to stay on her. She wove and dodged, but I drew inevitably closer and started taking careful shots. Anticipating her dodges, I managed to score two hits on her ship—which should have put her shield at around half power. She’d need to stop flying to reignite it, which you never wanted to do while in combat.

I could hear her grunting through the line as she tried to outfly me. I leaned forward, smiling, enjoying the simple focus of the duel. For the moment, I allowed myself to pretend this was all thatmattered. I let myself enjoy the fight as Brade led me out from the shadow of Evensong into open space, flying dangerously close to one of those enormous space worms. The thing undulated in the vacuum, its enormous body rippling as Brade used it for cover, coming in close to its wrinkled pink-orange skin.

I took my thumb off the firing button. Judging by the corpses around the Superiority fleet, these things were susceptible to our weapons, but I couldn’t imagine that the small destructors on my ship would do much harm to it. I decided to stick to her and hold off on firing for now, just in case stray shots enraged it or something. She gave me quite the run, soaring in a spiral along the worm’s body, moving toward the head—and the thing noticed us as we flew, twisting and looking our direction, though I couldn’t make out any sort of eyes on the gargantuan beast.

“Whatarethese things?” I asked. “Like, really?”

“Vastworms feed off cytonic energy,” Brade said. “Any place where you collect too many taynix, you’re likely to draw them, unless you do a lot of work to shield the minds.”

Detritus had never drawn any that I knew about. But then, we also had a pretty extensive shielding system. I was about to ask for more info, but Brade—still trying to shake me from her tail—boosted up along the worm’s head. She spun in a perfectly executed Ahlstrom loop.

Then dove straight into the worm’s gaping mouth.

Um…

MaybeIwas the one who had underestimatedher.

“Brade?” I said. “Are youinsane?”

“Maybe,” she replied, the comm fuzzing. “You think you’re better than me? See if you can chase me in here. Remember, until you bring me down, you’re as good as in prison.”

Scud. I took a long deep breath.

Then I followed her in.

For an expanded summary of this illustration, go to this page.

28

As a little girl, I’d always dreamed of flying in space. Of getting off Detritus, of being outthere.In the realm of stars and suns, of moons and nebulae. If you’d told me I’d make it, but would someday have to fly through the guts of a giant space worm…well, let’s be honest about the kind of kid I was. I’d have thought that was awesome.

The reality was more nerve-wracking than I’d have imagined. I had to turn on the ship’s floods, illuminating the hollow tube innards of the beast. According to my sensors, it was still a vacuum in here—and the thing had these strange tendrils hanging down from the walls of the guts. Like jellyfish tentacles maybe, only much larger. Waving in the vacuum, reaching toward the center of the passage from all directions. All told, the throat of the thing was twelve meters wide, but those tendrils were three meters long, thick as rope, and left me with alarmingly little space to fly without touching them.

In fact, I clipped one as I tried to keep a bead on Brade’s boosters glowing in the darkness beyond. As soon as I touched the tendril my shield went down—a red warning light blinking on my dash. Scud! That tentacle haddrainedthe shield. Seemed like cytonic energy wasn’t the only thing these worms fed on.

If the tentacle could slurp down a shield, then what would it do if it touched the ship? I decided not to find out, and slowed, weaving through the strange worm guts more carefully. Fortunately, Brade had slowed as well. Maybe I’d gotten lucky and she’d had her own shield drained too.

I watched closely, and saw her get dangerously close to one of the tentacles. Close enough that her shield should have reacted—but it didn’t. I put my thumb back on the destructor button, but didn’t press it.

“Brade,” I said. “I’ve got you. Yield.”

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