Page 120 of Defiant

They shied away from the thought. All except one. Even in the brief moments they’d been out of the nowhere, they’d started to change. And this single one was intrigued.

Can we bond?Brade asked it.You and me?

No,it said.That would change me too much. But perhaps we can talk. I will stay near and watch you.

Well, that would have to do.

49

KIMMALYN

Kimmalyn knew that the Saints had a plan for every person’s life. But the Saints, they loved variety. The purpose of life was to learn, and the way to learn was through excitement, emotion, and change. Boredom was the path to complacency, and complacency the path to stagnation.

Still, she wished the Saints would, for once, send her atadmore boredom. Just amilliliteror two of stagnation wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?

She hung in the void of space in formation with Skyward Flight, watching the blackness erupt with clouds of smoke and incongruous lightning. The delvers, according to Spensa, had once been AIs housed in a round floating globe. When they came to this dimension, they instinctively made a copy of that innocuous housing to contain their consciousness.

It was difficult to see anything innocuous in what emerged. Massive spheres the size of small planets, with spines jutting from them in a terrible lack of symmetry. Surrounded by particles of dust like a shroud, and armed with thousands of self-propelling asteroids that could smash into anyone who drew near.

Her mind reeled, trying to comprehend it. From space, it was already difficult to understand that a nearby planet was big enough to hold billions of individuals. Here were thirteen of them—smaller, yes, but still moon-size—emerging from smoke fields tens of thousands of kilometers across, shoving aside inhibitor stations as they grew. She could only take it all in because she was far enough away—but distances in space were deceptive and difficult to judge. Even as distant as she was, these smoke fields and emerging planetoids took up her entire field of vision.

For the first time in this fight, she was truly afraid. Truly worried that this was it. That she and her friends were doomed. That she’d never return to her family, her sisters, her parents, her girlfriend. How did you fight something so incredible, let alonethirteenof them? The weapons on Detritus could destroy a fleet, but not planets. She knew from the recordings they’d found on Platform Prime that a single delver had been enough to wipe out all life on the planet. Defenses or no defenses.

“Um…” Kimmalyn said over the comm. “Anyone got any ideas?”

No one replied.

50

I felt the delvers arrive. I heard Brade speak to them. Ifeltthe terror from my friends.

It was time.

Spensa,M-Bot said in my mind.I have the answer.

What?I said to him, and prepared to step into the nowhere.

You need to bring the somewhere here,he said.Not a pinprick, not a drip, but atide.They commented out their memories, but they aren’t code any longer—and the presence of time will quickly weather away the scab they placed over their pain. That’s why they fear you. You belong to both worlds now.

Scud. Could I do that?

I can help,he said.

I entered that place. A sea of nothingness. Not blackness or whiteness, though sometimes my mind had to see it that way. I couldn’t comprehend nothing, so my brain stamped the nowhere with an analogue. I visualized myself floating in blackness with M-Bot at my side in the form of a blazing white hole.

The eyes were there. I remembered how frightened I’d been when I’d first begun to see them reflected in my canopy. That sense of malevolence had been almost nauseating.

Now I was accustomed to those stares. I turned around, picturing myself as I was: a young woman with a body, a uniform, and a sense of self. Chet doubling me like a glowing shadow. Icouldbe me in here. I’d reached that point in developing my powers. It was part of the somewhere that I carried with me, for all this place’s efforts to make me forget it.

I could carry more, if I tried.

“So, you’ll destroy us,” I said to the delvers. “You’ll perpetuate the pain and sorrow. You’ll force my hand.”

You are pain,they sent back.You must stop existing. Offer yourself up. Save them.

It was strangely tempting. A part of me longed to die in heroic sacrifice as Gran-Gran had, while another part recognized that I’d been indoctrinated by my upbringing. Gran-Gran hadn’t simply sacrificed herself; she’d done it to accomplish something. I’d learned the difference between a meaningless gesture and true heroism back in flight school.

Beyond that, I knew I couldn’t trust the delvers. They’d proven in the past that promises meant nothing to them. Though perhaps I could use their fear as leverage.

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