It was strange how hard that hit me. It wasn’t even really my father’s pin. I still didn’t have an explanation for how it had shown up in my pocket—but then again, I also didn’t have a good explanation for how water appeared on the fragments.
Still, in losing the icon, I felt as if I had been robbed of something deeply personal. My only tangible link to the world I’d left. My source of stability.
Chet! I sent. The icon is gone!
What? he replied. Miss Nightshade, I didn’t have anything to do with it! I vow upon my—
I believe you, I said. I know you didn’t take it, Chet. But it is gone. How?
I have no idea, he replied.
All right. I’m coming to get you.
Wait. Coming to get me?
I had to steal the ship now instead of later, I said. I’ll explain in a bit.
With a growl of annoyance at the empty hole, I dashed back to the ship and hauled myself into the cockpit—keeping an eye on Maksim the whole way. He didn’t raise his weapon. I nodded to him, and in seconds I had M-Bot cruising toward Chet. I could feel him with my mind, but it was still an enormous relief when I saw him standing at the edge of the blue jungle fragment, one hand raised high in greeting, the other in an improvised sling, with the sleeve of his jacket hanging loose.
I pulled the ship up beside the fragment and popped the canopy—then immediately started my ship’s shield ignition process. It was a terrible shield, but better than nothing.
I began to climb out to help Chet aboard, but he deftly managed to scramble up the wing on his own. Standing just beside the canopy, he gave me a wide mustachioed grin, then gestured with one hand to the ship. “Our mighty steed. She is beautiful!”
“You won’t say that after you see her specs,” I said. I stood and pulled the seat forward, revealing the cargo space behind it in the cockpit. “Sorry about the accommodations.”
“I’ve known worse,” Chet said, squeezing into the spot. “But we have a problem. Without the icon, I worry about us traveling alone, long term.”
“You have the ashes I gave you though, right?” I said.
“I do indeed. They should last us a few weeks at least.”
“Good enough for now,” I said. “We’ll escape, then try to figure out what happened to my icon.” I closed the canopy and locked my seat into place. There was barely enough room for Chet behind me. It would have to do. Because we had a more pressing problem.
“All nine fighters are giving chase,” M-Bot said. “They have restored the two resonants. Everyone will be upon us soon.” He helpfully zoomed out the proximity display to show the Broadsiders as blips on the screen.
“With their scanner active,” Chet said, “I fear for our ability to continue our quest.”
“Any suggestions?”
“We could bolt for another pirate faction’s territory,” he said. “But that could backfire. The other faction would naturally assume us to be part of a Broadsider raid, and would react accordingly.”
Well, if it got the Broadsiders to drop off for a short time, then maybe we could use it. I turned the ship to the heading M-Bot indicated and started us flying.
“Spensa,” M-Bot said. “I have bad news.”
“We’re not going to make it?” I guessed.
“Judging our top speed against those of the faster Broadsider ships, no. We’ll be intercepted before we reach the border.”
Scud. I glanced to the side as I felt Chet’s hand on my shoulder, reaching from behind the seat.
“There is another option,” he said. “We could fly straight up.”
I glanced upward through the canopy into that infinite pink sky. “What’s up there?”
“I don’t know,” Chet said. “I’ve never explored that direction. Just as I’ve never left this larger region. There are distant sections of the belt, to the right and left, but those involve large gaps between fragments that are dangerous to cross alone, even when flying.
“I’ve warned you it’s dangerous to stray far from the fragments. We can quickly lose our identities if we fly upward, but we have ashes, which should delay the effects.”
It took me only a moment to decide. I pulled up, sending the ship—already rattling from our excessive speed—straight upward into that vast unknown.
The blips on my screen slowed. Excellent. We flew for a good fifteen minutes, and I started to relax as it became increasingly obvious that the Broadsiders were not giving chase.
“Spensa,” M-Bot said. “We’re being hailed by the Broadsiders. Do you want me to put them on the comm?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
The comm crackled in an old-timey way. I tried to see it as quaint, and not another indication that my ship was two shakes and a stern glare away from falling apart.
“Spin!” Peg’s voice blared into the cockpit. “You mulun-growing reprobate! Why didn’t you tell me you were a pilot!”
That wasn’t the tone I’d been expecting.
“You figured out I was a soldier, Peg,” I said.
“I thought you were some type of special forces trooper!” she shouted. “The way you prowled about. Words! You had a security drone disguised as a cleaning drone. How was I supposed to know you were a pilot?”
“I’ve probably made it obvious that I know my way around a starfighter.”
“Know your way… No need for kalams of humility. I watched you fly on our scanner, and that was some of the best piloting I’ve ever seen. I spent some time with the drone pilots on Culmira Station, and they have nothing on you, girl. Even Shiver is impressed.”
“Well, I appreciate the compliment,” I told her. “Tell the others I’m sorry for stealing a ship. I have a galaxy to save. Once I’m finished, I’ll see if there’s anything that can be done to help you all.”
“Spin,” Peg said, her voice growing softer. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Right now? I’m losing you all.”
“Yeah?” Peg said. “Do you know what happens to a person if they stray too far away from the fragments?”
I didn’t respond.
“Even if you survive this next part,” Peg said, “what are you going to do then? You can’t stay up there very long, and our scanner will tell us when you come back down. We’ll be on you in no time. Veer right or left, and you’ll have to deal with one of the other factions.
“I suppose you could move inward—which would run you straight into the Superiority mining facility. Let me promise you that they keep careful watch on their borders—we’ve raided them enough to warrant that. You’re good. But can you outfly a hundred enemy ships? Worse, can you do it in that piece of junk?”
“I guess we’ll see,” I told her.
She swore softly. “A person needs more than muluns, girl. Think for a moment. You can’t survive in this place alone. You need allies, friends, support.”
“Spensa,” M-Bot said, temporarily muting the comm, “look at Chet.”
I glanced over my shoulder and around the seat’s head support to where he sat scrunched up behind. The older man’s eyes had glazed over. He stared ahead, insensate, and didn’t respond when I waved my hand in front of him.
Something began streaming up around him: a glittering, silvery haze. The reality ashes. I felt it too, as they spun around me, like they were…disintegrating?
Being up here was destroying them, perhaps to keep us from losing ourselves. I gritted my teeth and leveled out the ship, not gaining any more altitude.
“Peg is talking again,” M-Bot said quietly.
I nodded, having him restore the comm line.
“You’re going to start feeling it soon, if you haven’t already,” Peg said. “Can you remember yourself, girl?”
“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Are you? Can you remember the faces of your parents? Your friends from home?”
I tried not to listen—but I didn’t dare turn off the comm. Because scud, she was right. What did they look like? The reality ashes seemed to be struggling to keep me from forgetting my identity, and I felt my memories begin to fade.
“Maybe you can fight through an entire armada on your own,” Peg said. “I don’t know. But the longer you stay up there, the more you will lose. And traveling on your own will be bad for you, even if you aren’t so high. Your address back home, your most passionate moments, the names of your lovers. They’ll blur. Your life will become like a smudge on paper—a black smear where words used to be.”
I hovered there, infinity stretching in all directions. Dominated still, however, by the lightburst. And in there, I could feel the delvers. They were hunting for me. Out here, up high, they could find me. And in revenge, they’d do to me something alien, something terrible. They’d take my self. My identity. My memories.
“Something odd has been happening lately,” Peg said over the comm. “I have reports of people becoming like delvers, with glowing eyes. You can’t fly alone, Spin. It’s not because you’re weak. No matter how determined you are, you still need ties to reality.”
I took a deep breath. “I can’t afford to spend years cleaning landing gear, Peg.”
“Girl, you’re wasted on ground crew,” Peg said. “You return, and I’ll give you our best ship.”
“No offense, Peg,” I said. “But I just beat you with a wrench and stole from you. I didn’t want to do it, but you backed me into a corner and forced my hand. I can’t believe that you’d simply let me go after that.”
“Oh, I won’t simply let you go,” Peg said. “I’ll give you that ship in exchange for something.”
“What?”
“How would you feel about defeating the pirate champion for me?”
I frowned. I mean, I wasn’t opposed to the idea at all—but the way she asked about it worried me. Made me think she had some game she was playing, beyond that of the other pirates.
But scud, I didn’t know how long the ashes would last. And Chet…something bad was happening to him. I decreased power to the acclivity ring, lowering us slowly through the sky.
This could all be a trap. But…Peg was correct; we couldn’t fly up that high. Pushing aside my worry for Chet, I tried to focus on the conversation.
“Why do you care about something like a pirate champion?” I asked Peg.
“I don’t, really,” she said. “But I need to take back Surehold—the Superiority mining outpost. My home.”
Take back the Superiority base? Curious. If Chet was right, and the Path of Elders was going to continue on inward toward the lightburst, I’d need to find a way to sneak through Superiority territory. If they were busy fighting off pirates, that would certainly provide some useful cover.
“I’m listening,” I said, leaning forward. “Tell me more.”
“There are enough pirates in the factions to challenge the Superiority presence in here,” Peg said. “If we attacked together, we could overwhelm them and seize control of the mining base.”
“That sounds great,” I said, “but how exactly are you going to get the other pirate factions to follow you? Last I heard, even your sons don’t listen to you anymore.”
Peg laughed. “There’s more to this than you know, Spin. I can make it work. I merely need an excellent pilot to start the tree growing by defeating the champion.”
I lowered us farther, and heard Chet stir. I glanced at him and saw him blinking. The ashes had stopped disintegrating, and I had the feeling I’d dodged something very dangerous by coming back down as quickly as I had.
“Very well, Peg,” I said. “I’ll consider this, but before we agree I have one more condition. There are some ruins I need to visit here in your territory. Give me a ship, let me visit those ruins, and I’ll take down that champion for you.”
“Ruins? Words, girl. I can take you to some ruins. We’ll do it tomorrow. Look, this is a good deal. You help me—maybe give my fighters a few pointers to help them improve—and we’ll deal a serious blow to the Superiority. Isn’t that alone worth it? If we stop their acclivity stone mining operations, your war gets way easier. Plus, when you leave us next time, you’ll have earned that ship you’re taking from us. What do you say?”
“Give me a moment.” I flicked off the comm.
“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “I’m worried. Are you feeling better?”
Was I? I took a deep breath, sorting through my memories. I…yes, I remembered. Jorgen, Kimmalyn, FM, Arturo, Nedd. Cobb. Gran-Gran. My mother.
I could remember them…but scud, their faces weren’t clear to me anymore. It had been getting worse each day I spent in here. I was losing things. Pieces of who I’d been.
But at least I had recovered most of what I’d lost from flying up so high.
“Miss Nightshade?” Chet asked. “Perhaps my suggestion wasn’t the most…wise.”
“It kind of worked,” I said, glancing back at him. “Kind of didn’t. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been used as a chew toy by a Markivian barrow-wolf,” he said. “Did I miss anything?”
“The Broadsiders want me to return,” I said. “They say they’ll trade me a ship—a good one—and take me to the next step on the Path. But I have to agree to defeat the pirate champion for them.”
“That’s an…odd request,” he said. “I wasn’t aware that their little championship mattered so much. Peg is planning something. I suspect she always has been.”
“She wants to take back the Superiority base,” I said. “She told me that much.”
“Ambitious!” Chet said. “I like it. Well, I doubt we’ll get a better deal. I say we agree. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“They take us prisoner and chain us to the wall.”
“Whereupon we get to escape again!” Chet said, and then he continued, more subdued—losing a bit of the affectation. “I have spent a long time traveling alone, Spensa. Your company is remarkable, truly, but it would be…reassuring to spend a period with a group.”
“M-Bot?” I asked.
“If it lets me get out of this ship into something built in the last century,” he said, “I’m for it.”
I flicked the comm back on. “All right, Peg. You have a deal.”
“Ha! Words.”
“One thing though,” I said. “You’re going to have to clean up another bunk. I’m bringing a friend.”
I turned off the comm and steered us back the way we’d come. The other ships must have landed while we were flying, since as I approached the Broadsider fragment I could see that the pirates were all outside, gathered in front of their hangars. A ragtag group to be certain, but I supposed I’d seen worse. Skyward Flight, for example, when we’d first started training.
I guided my ship over and settled down. With a shared look of determination, Chet and I climbed out of the cockpit. I still half expected the Broadsiders to take us captive, but fortunately nobody pulled a gun. We even got a few cheers.
It was forced, and I saw in Maksim’s eyes a healthy distrust. An emotion I’d certainly earned.
Well, I would deal with that. Because at long last, Operation Ship-Steal had succeeded. And tomorrow I could finally continue the Path of Elders.
