Page 70 of Defiant

A part of me realized that my sudden urgency was silly. There would be more times to chat with my friends. But I’d noticed a welling-up need, a solution to my own anxiety, that had to be filled. I wanted to see them. Chet wanted to see them. Both of us needed this. Right now. And I’d missed the chance to be part of what was normally one of the most…

Wait. It was Thursday.

I waved to Hesho, then turned down the hallway. Not hyperjumping, but moving at a brisk almost-run toward the hangar bays. I pushed open the door, then let out a relieved sigh. They were here.

Thursday was our flight’s time in the hangar for maintenance. Which was something of a misnomer, since the ground crews did most of the difficult work. They replaced parts and ran detailed diagnostics. That left the pilots to do our preflight checklist each time we went into the air, and what we did on Thursdays.

Wash the ships.

It was more ritual than requirement. We rarely flew in atmosphere anymore, and the ships didn’t get as dirty as they once had. But there was a bond between a pilot and her ship, and it helped to actively care for it. So once a week, we came in here to give the ships a bath and a polish.

As was tradition, everyone had gathered around one of the ships to work on it together. At the moment—wearing somewhat soggy dark green maintenance jumpsuits—they were working on Arturo’s Poco, wiping char off the sides near the boosters, scrubbing the white panels until they shone, giving the canopy a good polish.

As soon as I burst in, Kimmalyn turned, then grinned widely and waved to me. I hesitantly made my way forward. I knew I shouldn’t feel awkward rejoining them. I’d helped forge this team. But things had been off ever since I’d come back, with my soul trying to rip out of my body and my powers being strange and—

Thwack.

A wet towel hit me in the face as Nedd trotted by. It peeled off and fell into my hands. Wait. Nedd was here? Out of the infirmary? He looked pretty good, all things considered, with one sleeve sewn up just above the elbow.

He glanced at that, following my sight line, then winked. “Best excuse I’ve ever had to take a nap while Arturo works,” he said. “Too bad the medics say they’ll get me a prosthetic arm with fingers thatcan move. I’ve got to milk this for every ounce of sympathy I can before I becomecyborg Nedd.”

A prosthetic arm? We’d assumed his flying career was finished, as our technology wasn’t particularly advanced in the realm of cybernetics, but maybe it was better than I thought.

Perhaps my failure wasn’t as costly as I’d feared.

It was still my fault that he’d been hurt. “I…” I tried to force out the words.

“Come on!” he said, cutting me off. “We saved the messiest part for you.” He grinned then thumbed toward the ship’s landing skids.

“Nedd,” Arturo called, “she hasn’t come to a single one of these since she got back. We didn’t ‘save’ anything for her.”

“Sure we did!” Nedd called back. “We saved them for me, and by tradition, I waited for a way to make someone else do them.” He put his good arm out and grinned, while giving me a side hug.

And…well, everything wasn’t all right. Things were still strange. But I no longer felt like leaving.

“You should know better than to give me a dangerous weapon, Nedd,” I said to him, twisting the towel.

“Scud, no,” he said, dodging out of the way as I tried to whip it at him. “You’re the best one to hold the dangerous weapon! Then people aim at you instead of me, and we’re all happy.”

He ambled back toward the ship, and I started after him, then glanced at Hesho—who sat straight upright in his seat in the little hoverdisc. He had his white-and-red mask on, so I couldn’t see his expression, but from his prim posture and tightly gripped fists he seemed alarmed. He’d seen how we treated each other before, but I guessed maybe he found this even more extreme.

“This is normal,” I said to him, wolfing down a sandwich.

“It…is?”

“Yup. Trust me. This is good.”

He hovered beside me as I finished the sandwich and knelt to begin cleaning the landing gear. And despite what Nedd hadsaid earlier, he got down with me and joined in, working with his good arm. Sadie, grinning, flipped down underneath the front of the ship, then hung just above us from a belt that she’d wrapped around the nose, and began polishing.

“Sadie?” I asked. “Did you strap yourself in so you could cleanupside down?”

“Somuch easier this way,” she said. “Don’t have to crane your neck!”

“I’d fall asleep,” Nedd said from beside me. “Too much like a hammock.”

“Oh?” Kimmalyn replied, ducking down to look at us. “Are you implying that you need to becomfortableto take a nap, Nedd? I’ve caught you sleeping in the most ridiculous positions.”

“See, that’s the thing,” he said. “Once you fall asleep, you don’tnoticeanymore. ’Cuz you’re unconscious! So, sleeping when you’re uncomfortable is really the best way to approach life.”

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