“Imminent collision of this fragment with…” Nuluba trailed off, glancing up from the scanner data toward all of us, gathered around the machine.
“With what?” Peg demanded.
“With another fragment,” Nuluba said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The fragment is coming in so quickly… Scanner says impact is in only half an hour.”
I shared a look with Chet, whose expression was grim. Last time, the incoming fragment had completely annihilated the one we were on.
“Get people to ships and ready to evacuate,” Peg announced.
“Captain!” Nuluba said. “We have five ships down for maintenance to prepare for the assault! We can get them up and flying, but in a half hour? Plus, if we abandon the base, we’ll lose equipment, spare parts, diagnostics…”
Scud. As we’d been getting ready for the party earlier, the ground crews had started their jobs—assuming they’d have three days to fine-tune the starfighters for our upcoming assault.
“Evacuate anyway,” Peg said, “just in case.”
“Also, Nuluba,” I said, “send the scanner data to my ship.”
“What? Why—”
“Do it!” I said, running for M-Bot, Chet on my heels. I hauled myself up on the wing, then helped Chet with a hand up. M-Bot popped open the cockpit, and we leaped in as he lit up the ship’s dash.
“I’m getting data direct from the scanner,” he said. “Oh my. That’s bad.”
“Math it!” I said. “Can we do anything?”
“Calculating… That one coming in is a lot smaller… The Broadsiders have access to six light-lances for maneuvering ships…” A bunch of figures popped up on my screen. “Done,” he said. “There’s time. Barely.”
“We lift the entire fragment that’s coming toward us?” Chet said, reading the instructions. “Bold!”
“And possible,” M-Bot said. “Only if you move quickly, Spensa. I mean, I know you really enjoyed the last collision, but…”
I stood up and shouted toward Peg as she rushed by. “I’ve got another option, Peg!”
Peg pulled to a stop, looking toward me.
“Me and five other ships pulling with light-lances,” I said, “can move that incoming fragment upward just enough to avoid us. But we have to be quick about it!”
She didn’t miss a beat. She shouted for everyone else to keep evacuating, but organized a small crew to execute M-Bot’s plan.
I settled in the cockpit and glanced back at Chet. “You’d never encountered this before that first time?”
“Nope,” he said, putting on a helmet.
“And now it’s happened to us twice?”
“Yup.”
“You know what I told you earlier, about not being worried that the delvers might know where we are?”
“Indeed.”
“Pretend I said something intelligent instead.”
“I shall endeavor to do my best.”
In moments, Peg had a crew for me to lead—including herself, with her powerful shuttle. Fortunately, these ships already had light-lances attached for towing ships that had been locked down by destructor fire.
“Go to these coordinates on the incoming fragment,” I said, and relayed M-Bot’s instructions and figures to their displays. “Attach your light-lances to the acclivity stone there, then be ready to lift.”
Peg prodded everyone along again. They began taking off, but not with nearly the urgency I’d have wanted.
“You’d think they’d be more frightened,” M-Bot said.
“It’s too easy to get comfortable in here,” Chet replied. “Particularly if you stay in one place for long.”
I followed the instructions from M-Bot, blasting off toward the incoming fragment. I was a faster ship, so I took up position at the rear of the fragment where he directed me. This one, like the one before, was barren—just a solid block of stone. Small, dense, and most importantly fast—like a bullet.
I matched speeds with the fragment and launched my light-lance out to connect to the stone. The other ships started following suit one by one as they arrived.
“Under fifteen minutes until contact,” Chet noted, watching the clock M-Bot had put up on the display for us, and reading the projections. “We’re cutting this very close.”
“Everyone is in place,” I said as the final ship connected its light-lance.
“You need to all pull directly up,” M-Bot explained. “Together, with an equal force. Here, I’m sending instructions to the others as if from you.”
I nodded and turned the ship upward, pointing the boosters down. My acclivity ring rotated automatically, so it was pointed downward as well.
“Careful,” M-Bot told me as I moved into position. “Give yourself as much slack as possible at first, and don’t hit the booster too hard. You’ll risk pushing down on the fragment with your thrust, negating some of the value of your pull.”
I gripped the thrust, refusing to give in to my instincts, which urged me to throw on the overburn. Instead, I slowly ramped up the booster to the thresholds M-Bot indicated. It felt like I wasn’t making any progress at all, as if nothing were changing.
All through it, M-Bot’s voice continued calmly. “Ease off a little. That’s it…”
He sent similar instructions to the other pilots’ displays. I glanced at the monitor, watching as we got closer, and closer, and closer to the Broadsider base. Until…we barely crested over the top, with enough clearance to avoid hitting the base structures. We knocked off the tops of a few trees though.
I let out a long breath while M-Bot sent another order to everyone that we could simultaneously power down and then cut our light-lances. I complied, then slowed in the air—letting that “bullet” fragment zip away. Without our influence, it lowered back down.
Then, a few minutes later, it collided with the next fragment it encountered. Both fragments were made up of more rock than the one that had collapsed before—and so they crushed together, stone crumpling and bulging like the fronts of some of the starfighters I’d seen impact. The sound was incredible.
As I hovered in place, Peg slowly drifted up beside me in her shuttle. “Never seen anything like that,” she said privately over the comm. “I’m growing gludens. Though now that we’re safe, I’m kind of glad I get to watch it. This feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
I was sure that for most people, it would be just that.
“Peg,” I said, “we need to make our assault on Surehold sooner than planned.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Sitting here like this is tempting fate. The nowhere is changing in dangerous ways. Plus, I’m…getting too complacent. I want to be moving on.”
“All right, all right. Don’t toss tidos at me. Maybe we can move the timeline up.”
The fragments that had collided shattered into multiple pieces of acclivity stone. The largest portions stayed pushed together, fused in the center, while smaller bits went bouncing free, spraying out like enormous chunks of shrapnel.
“You know,” Peg said absently, “it’s almost like the nowhere just up and decided to try to kill us.” She laughed, though there was an edge to the sound.
“Let’s assault Surehold tomorrow,” I said. “Waiting will only give the Superiority a chance to notice that we’re gathering, preparing something. We’re ready. Let’s do it.”
Peg was silent for a time, and I couldn’t judge her body language, not in separate ships as we were. I tried to inch mine forward to glance in through the window of her tug.
“Peg?” I asked.
“All right. We’ll need to rush to get all the ships back together and do last-minute preparations. If we can manage that…then, yeah. Tomorrow. I’ll let the other faction leaders know.”
