Page 16 of Defiant

Cuna had given us the location: a small bunker marked on my map, at the edge of the installation. We would destroy that as quickly as possible. Once the inhibitor was down, we could set up our own. Nedd was in charge of that, with his wingmate Arturo protecting him. The two would also be defended by Sadie and a kitsen battleship—not much larger than my fighter, but laden with ten times the firepower.

We had very few inhibitor slugs, unfortunately, and had brought only two on this mission. One was with Nedd. The backup was on the kitsen ship.

Once our inhibitor was in place, it would block the enemy from calling for help—and would prevent them from receiving immediate backup, even if a call went out before we got our inhibitor up. We’d be free to fully engage any enemy fighters, and we could send for our own backup if we needed it. Everything in these battles depended on cytonics and slugs. Those who could teleport freely would almost certainly win, while those who couldn’t would be in trouble.

Once we had control of the region, we’d send a strike force into a specific building: a tall structure marked on my map. Cuna said it held the data storage. Our strike force would recover the information, then we’d all hyperjump away.

I went over these steps in my mind as we soared across the surface of Luna. As a child, I’d listened to Gran-Gran describe the moon in so many different ways: As a knowing companion, always watching from the sky. As a brilliant silvery drop of metal. As a herald of the changing days, mysteriously linked to the woman’s body in particular.

Then in school, I’d seen slides of it from the remnants of our archives. Just a desolate chunk of rock. I’d had trouble reconciling the beautiful, friendly, mysterious body of the stories with…well, this hunk of stone. Why had the ancient humans described it with such poetry?

They’d been lonely, I’d decided. Lonely in the universe, unaware of the many other species out there. Lonely in relation to the sky, so uncomfortably open and empty.

“Five minutes until you arrive,” Cuna said over the comm as we swept in along the surface of the moon. “Remember to send the code I gave you. I hope you enjoy this reunion with what was once a very important location in human lore.”

I glanced out the canopy, watching the surface pass as we emerged into the light of the nearby sun. Though we buzzed in frightfully close to the surface, the miniscule atmosphere meant our passing barely disturbed the dust.

“What of…Old Earth?” Nedd asked. “Isn’t thereanysign of it at all?”

“None,” Cuna said. “The Earth Disappearance Station was initially set up here to study what might have happened to the planet. But even the best scientists—working with licensed, and very rare, Superiority cytonics—could find no trace of it. Your homeworld is well and truly gone.”

They’d given us an explanation earlier, filling in gaps in our records from Detritus. At some point during the final human war, the united forces of the galaxy—forged into a cohesive government to resist the human menace—had launched an all-out attack on Earth. When they’d arrived, they’d found only empty space. And an abandoned moon, cast away like a piece of debris blown off a fleeing battleship.

Even with that explanation, I felt as if I would find Old Earth peeking above the horizon. Waiting there, a blue ball of legend and myth, cradle of life and stories. My ship’s system even had a phantom circle on the proximity monitor to display where itwouldhave been. Nothing. Black, empty space. Earth had passed into the legends it had spawned.

Perhaps,M-Bot said in my mind,it’s a ghost. Like me!

You’re joking, but you could be kind of right,I thought back at him.Detritus proves that entire planets can move using cytonics. Maybe Earth teleported away to avoid invasion?

But if Earthhadmoved to a safe location, why had the humans on it never emerged? Were they in hiding?

“Eyes up,” Arturo said to us over the line. “Installation should be visible any moment now.”

We had brought only thirteen ships. Skyward Flight, Vanir Flight, and one kitsen battleship. All under Arturo’s command. That was a fraction of our forces—but the more we brought, the more likely the enemy would be to spot us. In a war where both sides could supply reinforcements in the blink of an eye, stealth trumped numbers. Once we had inhibitor dominance, we could bring in as much of our fleet as we wanted.

Exactly when Cuna had said they would, the enemy sent an authentication request via hypercomm. My cytonic senses picked it up right before Hesho—using some newer technology acquired during my absence—noticed it on the comms. I almost responded, bypassing the equipment. Instead I left it to Arturo, who sent Cuna’s code in reply. We were hoping that it would buy us a few minutes—assuming Winzik had forgotten to get Cuna’s authorization codes changed since we’d rescued them.

Moments later, we came upon the installation. My cytonic senses immediately winked off—and I felt blinded. We’d hit their inhibitor field. Chet trembled and seemed to grow smaller—though delvers weren’t stopped by inhibitors, they could feel them, and didn’t like the sensation. M-Bot, who had been humming to himself, vanished.

A single slug, enhanced with some technology, could provide a fairly large bubble of protection—kilometers across. That was big, at least on the scale of one person or a base like this. When flying out in space, kilometers could pass incredibly quickly.

Still, I felt exposed, trapped. To distract myself, I focused on the base itself. Simply referred to as the EDS, the station had been built in the ruins of New Beijing, which had fallen quickly after Earthhad disappeared. All humans had long since been removed from the facility. Element-specific gravity gave the base, which was settled into a large crater, a bubble of pressurized air. That, together with radiation skimmers, made the location livable.

Even knowing that, I was shocked to see greenery around the city. Trees were an incongruous sight around the perimeter, just inside the bubble. But of course biological methods of oxygen recycling would be planted, if only as a backup if the mechanical scrubbers went down.

What lay beyond the trees was even more unnerving. The structures inside the bubble were dotted with lights, and while the place wasn’t packed with buildings like Starsight had been, the roads were still busy. It had parks. Restaurants. Apartments.

Scud.I’d imagined some secret military base, squat like a beetle huddled against the stone. Not a sprawling city.

“Shot off,” Kimmalyn said, firing her sniping destructor precisely. A flare went up inside the city. “That should have been their inhibitor.”

I tried hard not to think about the cost of that shot, but I did know FM and Jorgen had argued long and hard about the necessity of it. He had made good arguments: That in war, you couldn’t worry that the battleship you brought down had a janitorial and medical staff on it. That you couldn’t worry if the enemy trying to kill you had been pressed to fight against their will, as had been done to many, many soldiers throughout history. You just had to survive.

Once I’d have agreed with him. But now I heard FM’s vigorous objections in the back of my mind. Was there another way? Thereshouldhave been another way, right? Still, with the fall of that small bunker, my senses returned. M-Bot’s humming resumed—as if he hadn’t even noticed. Chet stretched, and I felt my anxiety decrease.

Nedd, Arturo, and the kitsen ship—named theIron Fortress—soared ahead of us.

“Hey, Hesho,” I said, “isIron Fortressthe full name of the kitsenship? Or is it actually theIron Fortress of Poetic Words Said after a Held Breathor something?” When I’d flown with Hesho before, his ship had been named something beautiful. I found this one surprisingly mundane.

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