Page 42 of Defiant

In return, the slug sent an impression. I was wrong. She wasn’tin this city—she was in a place with thousands upon thousands of other slugs, all locked up. Imprisoned.

The Superiority’s galactic communications hub. This station didn’t have its own commslug; instead it had a direct line to one kept in the central hub, which it could access at will. The fluting that was projected into my brain was sorrowful.

You can’t save me,it said.

I’ll try,I sent back.Someday.

In response, she sent me an image of four other slugs whoweretrapped at the supply depot. Two inhibitor slugs, from the looks of them, and two hyperslugs. She sent these images with a plea.Save them instead. This you can do.

I’ll do it,I sent her.And I’ll find you too. Eventually. I promise.

“You’re cleared,” a voice said over the comm, coming from the installation. “Glad to see some support from command, finally. We’ve been requesting it for months. You can land on Pad Three and catch some R&R while I work out barrack assignments.”

“Negative on that R&R,” I said back. “Sorry to pull rank, friend, but we’re here for a very specific purpose. There’s a reason we didn’t warn you we were coming. Keep our arrival quiet from the rest of the installation, and be there—in person with your highest commander—to receive us. Further instructions will be forthcoming then.”

“Oh,” they said. “Um, okay. Right. Uh. Wow. This soundsimportant.”

I smiled as they cut off the comm. This was theotherbig weakness of the Superiority. They preached nonaggression religiously, particularly to their lessers and subordinates. Even their military installations were shockingly non-militaristic. And this, as a supply depot, wouldn’t even meet that low bar of discipline.

We could almost certainly win a fight against this group. But Winzik could throw enough of the poor fools at us to be dangerous—so today, we were going to find another way.

“Wait,” Kimmalyn said to our flight, “did I hear that right? They’re going to justlet us land?”

“Spin did something,” Alanik said. “I felt it…via cytonics. She tricked them somehow.”

“So far as they think,” I said, “we’re a special ops force sent by Winzik. Keep your helmets on, everyone, and try to look intimidating.” I thought for a moment, then continued. “Alanik, I’m glad you’re with us. Once we land, you take off your helmet; they might know what humans look like, and you’re not one. That might give us another layer of protection. Have them take us to inspect their cytonic inhibitor.”

“Very well,” she said. “Actually…this might work. It’s certainly better than another fight inside a city.”

As she spoke we came into view of the “installation.” A full city, like before. Industrially focused, certainly, but even larger than the one we’d found on Old Earth’s moon. We followed the digital instructions to Pad 3, sweeping down past large fabrication plants and machinery. Staffed, undoubtedly, by thousands of civilians.

We passed restaurants, shopping plazas,schools.It wasn’t that different from Starsight, only it was on a planet—and had more factories than it did office buildings. That made me feel evenmoreworried though, because the majority of the people we passed weren’t diones or another of the Superiority’s ruling species. They were people with a green carapace-like skin. They looked like some mix between reptilian and insectile. Bipedal, with a propensity for thick clothing, and large black eyes on the tops of their heads.

These weren’t the privileged of the Superiority. They were workers who, using the stone sent through their portal, built starfighters. Jorgen, bless him, was planning to blow all of this up with extreme prejudice. Thousands would be killed. I couldn’t even argue that he was wrong. His job was to win this war, and in so doing help everyone in the long run.

I didn’t have to do that though. I could think on a different scale.I slapped my visor down as we landed in the assigned location, then unlocked my assault rifle and slung it on. I slid out of the cockpit and hopped down from the ship, joining the others lining up behind Alanik.

I’d hoped the locals would find us intimidating. But scud, the three workers who waited for us seemedterrified—their insectile fingers clicking as they wiggled them back and forth in obvious agitation. The group of us gathered, all armed with wicked assault rifles, helmets on and visors down, wearing bulky flight suits. Each with a slug in a sling across our backs, something I realized they would find extra intimidating. They didn’t know that taynix provided cytonic powers; they thought the things were deadly poisonous.

I mean, we were still obviously human—except for Alanik and Hesho, who joined us on his hovering platform—if you were familiar with humans. Our visors only covered half our faces. But I suspected to the panicked locals, we just lookedalien.And dangerous.

“Who’s in charge here?” Alanik asked.

One of the green-skinned aliens raised a nervous hand.

“Excellent,” she said, striding up. “I am special agent Lock. I need to inspect your cytonic inhibition device.”

“Um…yes, um…sir,” the lead alien said. “But…”

He shied back as she raised her faceplate and narrowed her eyes at him. She had a good glare, and bought into my plan, executing it perfectly. Maybe I’d been a little too hard on her previously. I mean…yeah, I’d obviously been too hard on her. But it wasn’t every day that you learned the person whose place you’d taken had ended up taking your place in turn.

“This way,” the lead alien said.

We filed in behind as he led us and the other workers to a small hovership, more a moving platform than a true vessel. It slid onto one of their streets, and other vehicles made way for it.

“I’m, um, so glad you finally are here,” the alien said. “We thinkthe problem is insubordination on the other side. Either way, we haven’t gotten a shipment from there in two weeks. We’re out of acclivity stone entirely! I had to shut down production yesterday.”

Alanik glanced at me.

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