Page 6 of Defiant

While I appreciated her faith in me, I wasn’t nearly so confident. Maybe once upon a time I’d have boasted I could fight hundreds on my own, but I wasn’t that person any longer. I was a good fighter, but I couldn’t win a war by myself. I had a stark memory of being swarmed by hundreds of enemy ships a week ago, in the nowhere. I’d quickly been overwhelmed.

Jorgen voiced the concern for me. “How many drones could you shoot down in one fight, Spin?” he asked softly. “Twenty? Thirty?”

“Twenty maybe,” I said. “A few more if I’m lucky.”

“See?” FM said.

“And if they send ten thousand?” he asked. “Twenty thousand? Do you have anyideahow many ships their industrial complex can churn out, once it spins up?”

FM sat back, disturbed, and the room fell silent.

Finally, a deep voice spoke from my right. “The raging river is never kind to the lone leaf.” A kitsen on a hovering platform moved up to my right. He wore a ceramic mask, white with red stripes. Hesho, once emperor of the kitsen. He’d taken to covering his face and calling himself Darkshadow, the Masked Exile.

Scud, I wished I could get away with something that awesome.

“So we have to move quickly,” Rinakin said. “Win fast. Any chance we can recruit more planets to our cause?”

We looked to FM, who had been leading recruitment efforts.

“We’ve been trying,” she said. “We have a few leads. But…most of them are afraid. Our three planets found one another because we were all in the right position—technologically advanced enough to have our own fighters, but not fully subsumed by the Superiority. Most of the others are either too strongly indoctrinated or not advanced enough to fight back. The burls might join us. And perhaps the tradori—but their planet hasseventydifferent governments!”

Seventy? Different nations, ononeplanet? I mean, I knew that Earth had once had far more, but it still boggled my mind.

They dug deeper into the details, and the discussion grew more grim. I shuffled in my seat, suddenly finding it less comfortable. Sure, the mighty three hundred Spartans had stood against overwhelming numbers at Thermopylae…but they’d fallen in the end.

I couldn’t help thinking about my friends dying, one at a time, as we were overwhelmed by enemy ships. And as I did, something trembled inside me. A quivering that started at my core, vibrating like a muscle spasm, but bearing with it a sense ofpower.Panicked, I tried to fight it down.

But I failed.

Cups on the table started to rattle. The wall screen went haywire, flashing on and off. Objects in the room started to vanish, popping in and out of reality. Chet trembled as he felt my emotions. And the voices…my thoughts…my fears…began to radiate and echo through the room.

Dead. All dead.

Lost. All lost.

Failed. All failed.

I gasped, trembling, and slapped my hands on the table, bringing the entirety of my will to bear against the strange outburst. I clawed back control with effort, and the trembling lessened and then ceased. I looked up, sweat streaming down my face.

The room had gone silent, and I knew that they’d heard thosewords in their minds. I’d broadcast them uncontrollably. Cuna looked up from where they’d been writing on a notepad—which had been teleported away, leaving them holding empty air.

Scud. I felt ashamed. And horrified. I’d done something like this the other day, by accident, but not on this scale. Today’s outburst was far worse.

Whatever I was—whateverwewere—it wasn’t human any longer.

“You…all right, Spin?” Jorgen asked.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. His expression was compassionate—bless him—but most of the others looked somewhere between terrified and uncomfortable. Cuna was smiling, showing teeth—a sign of aggression for their people—and the kitsen had pulled back in a huddle. Hesho hovered in beside me, seeming stoic, though he was hard to read behind that mask.

“Perhaps,” Jorgen said, “we should take a short break. There are refreshments in the adjoining room.”

The meeting participants nodded, rising and chatting softly. I huddled down deeper in my pod of a chair, and didn’t look at Ironsides as she walked past. She’d been one of those who had warned against the dangers of cytonics—people with the “defect.” She had stopped after my ability to hyperjump had saved us all from the lifebuster, yet I couldn’t help feeling I had now become the very thing she’d warned us against. A dangerous, uncontrolled entity.

Did I belong in this meeting? Or did I belong in a holding cell somewhere?

Well, that was dramatic!a voice said in my head.

I was getting more and more accustomed to the sensation of another cytonic speaking into my mind. I’d been practicing with Gran-Gran, Jorgen, and even Alanik. But this wasn’t any of them. It was a perky, faintly masculine voice—excitable and…

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