Page 66 of Defiant

“I will do so. Thank you.” He seemed far more relaxed, now that I’d promised not to do either of these things.

I left then, ostensibly to respect his planning time. But really because I wasn’t sure I could keep my emotions properly in check. Best to be out of sight in case they exploded.

For better or for worse, though, it was time to listen to Jorgen. Hopefully that wouldn’t cost us the world itself.

21

The next day was one of the roughest in my life. I kept thinking about the enemy gathering their troops—building an overwhelming strike force that would eventually annihilate our allies, isolate us, then destroy Detritus. Yes, the planet was an amazing technological marvel. But Jorgen was right: if we fled, they’d find us. And every rock could be broken with time, every shield worn down.

We had tostrike.But I…I had to let the others make that decision. So I waited. Which was awful.

Until finally something arrived: a note leading me to the cargo bay. There I found a huge delivery for me—almost three meters tall and ten meters on each side—and wrapped in obscuring plastic. Rig had come through, and his fabricators had built what I’d requested. The note apologized for not being able to complete the assembly. Apparently he had an even more important project for the fabricators. Making more platforms to replace the weaker portions of our defenses, I suspected.

At any rate, this was what I’d wanted. I was glad to have to do a little assembly, in fact. I quickly fetched Doomslug and Hesho, returning with the two of them—her in her holster, him hovering along beside me on his platform.

“And this is…?” he asked.

“A project,” I said. “So I keep busy and stop worrying about everything going wrong.”

“Excellent,” he said. “What variety of project are we talking about? Are we constructing, perhaps, a dojo for meditation?”

I smiled, then touched the huge plastic-wrapped package and held out my hand for him. He landed his ship on my palm, the plate-size disc heavy in my hand. I didn’t need to hold it for long, however, as I hyperjumped us and the package away. Down from the platforms and space stations and into the caverns of Detritus.

To one in particular. One where I’d lived for months while in flight school. Rubble to one side, some scraps of metal in the center, a table and some old dishware I’d scavenged in the corner.

Doomslug let out a happy fluting. This was the cavern where I’d found M-Bot.

It was time to build him a new body.

I could have done it up above, of course. It would have beensmartto build it there, with all the available resources and tools. But I was feeling nostalgic, and wanted to be more secluded—somewhere that wasn’t always reminding me of our impending doom.

So I began unwrapping. Rig’s fabricators had put together the bulk of the fuselage; the basic ship was there, contained in a metal framework. It was missing key parts though, like the canopy, some of the wiring, and many of the outer plates. Those were packed for me to install.

I unfolded a large set of schematics—ones copied from plans in the data dump. The very ones the enemy had made when they’d disassembled M-Bot. Fortunately, they’d been meticulous.

Rig had included some detailed instructions written out by one of his assistants—incredibly, he had seven of those now—and she’d even included some visualizations. I smiled, wishing I could co-opt Rig himself to help me, but he had more important things to do. I probably did too.

I stayed here anyway, and got to work.

The first step was to lay out the parts. Hesho helped with his hover platform, which had a small light-line on it for moving objects. He’d grown accustomed to needing such devices in the world of giants; even turning a doorknob would be a challenge for a creature of his size.

Some of these plates, though, were heavy beyond his capacity. Fortunately Rig had thought of that, and sent me a small acclivity ring mover for shuffling parts around—in particular the boosters and front nose piece, which still needed to be attached. We organized the parts, then I spread the large schematics out on the table. Followed by the datapad with the actual “Spensa, just do this” instructions.

I wasn’t incompetent at this sort of thing. I knew more than most, as I’d proved during my time with the Broadsiders. But assembling a complicated starship would have been beyond me, if Rig’s fabricators hadn’t done around eighty percent of the work already. As it was, the remainder looked like it would walk the perfect line:challenging, but doable by one pilot, her pet teleportation slug, and her fox-gerbil bodyguard.

It was too bad we were basically doomed, because—looked at without context—my life was kind of awesome.

“So,” Hesho said—he’d left his mask on the table, as it was just us—“I sense a reverence to your actions. This place is special to you.”

“It’s where I first found M-Bot,” I said. “Broken down. I spent months repairing him in here, alone.”

“Alone?” Doomslug fluted from where she sat on the wing of the ship nearby.

“Alone save for my trusty slug companion,” I corrected. “And Rig, who maybe helped a little.”

Hesho looped over, using his ship to project some holographic instructions for me as I started work on the landing gear, which needed to be put in place before we removed the scaffolding from the ship.

I nodded my thanks as I worked. “The original build was, I’ll admit, a lot more…scrappy an experience.”

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