WE EMERGED NEXT to the conference table where Jeshua Weight had turned down my offer of an alliance. The room was empty, and Jorgen strode out the door, moving with purpose. I followed behind him as he walked up the hall—he knew where he was going better than I did.
A man sitting behind a desk looked up and visibly startled.
“I need to talk to Cobb,” Jorgen said. “I’m to report to him immediately. Is he here?”
“Of course,” the man said. “Hold on a moment.” He went to the door behind him and knocked, then opened it. “Jorgen Weight to see you,” he said.
Admiral Cobb shuffled to the door immediately, looking over the shoulder of the receptionist at Jorgen and me. “Stars, I’m glad you’re back,” Cobb said.
I could see Jorgen scrutinizing him. This man had Cobb’s cane and his limp. His voice sounded the same to me, but so had Rinakin’s.
Jorgen closed the distance between them, and I stayed close. I wasn’t going to be left behind. Jorgen put a hand on Cobb’s arm and slid his sleeve up just enough to reveal the bracelet on his wrist. It was identical to the one not-Rinakin had been wearing.
“What are you—” fake Cobb began.
“Snuggles, take us to Corgi,” Jorgen said.
“Corgi!” Snuggles said.
A moment later we materialized in front of a very startled-looking pilot who was lying on a bunk with his jumpsuit half off, taking a nap.
Oh. Apparently Jeshua hadn’t taken all the slugs we’d left behind with her.
“Hey—” fake Cobb shouted, but Jorgen didn’t give him a chance to finish.
“Snuggles, take us to Snide!” he shouted.
“Snide!” Snuggles said.
We passed beneath the eyes, and then suddenly we stood in a storage room on an unfamiliar ship, next to a box containing several small cytonic minds.
I could feel Gran-Gran moving away from us. There were a few other taynix on this ship in other directions, probably powering Superiority hyperdrives or hypercomms.
Fake Cobb recovered enough to wrench himself away from Jorgen and move toward the doorway, but Jorgen caught him by the back of the neck, shoving him to the ground and then twisting his arms behind his back.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” he said.
“I’m your commander,” fake Cobb said.
Jorgen didn’t even bother responding.
“They took Gran-Gran in that direction,” I said, pointing.
“I think my parents’ ship must be docked nearby,” Jorgen said. “Let’s split up. I’ll find my parents and prove to them that they’ve walked into a trap. You retrieve Gran-Gran and then hyperjump to me.” He opened the crate of slugs and handed one to me. “I think that’s Snide,” he said. “If we stop being able to find each other, we’ll know the other got caught in an inhibitor and come help. Does that work?”
“Yes,” I said. I moved up to the door, peering through a small window to see if there was anyone there. The hallway was empty, so we moved out of the storage room, heading in two different directions.
This whole ship made my skin crawl. I wished I didn’t have to do this alone. The taynix—Snide—snuggled into the crook of my elbow, as if it felt the same.
Gran-Gran and whoever was moving her away from here had to be ahead, but I didn’t see or hear evidence of anyone else. The ship was eerily empty, like it had only a skeleton crew aboard. If they really believed the humans were so aggressive, why hadn’t they brought more forces?
Gran-Gran, I said through the negative realm. I’m here on the ship, coming toward you. Where are they taking you?
To a holding cell, they say, Gran-Gran said. I spat in one of their eyes. I don’t think they liked that much.
I smiled. The more I got to know Gran-Gran, the more I liked her. How many of them are there?
Two diones, she said. One with me, and one with Cuna. But I’m hoping they’ll take me to Cobb. I think I can hear him.
Cobb was here? I’d assumed they would have transported him away already. Hear him? I said. Through the negative realm? That didn’t make sense. Cobb wasn’t cytonic. It shouldn’t be possible for her to find him. I searched over the area where she was headed myself, but I couldn’t feel anything except a couple of taynix.
Yes, I’m sure it’s him. He’s just up ahead. Not like those other voices, the quiet ones. Are they your people?
My people? What voices was she hearing? I knew she was an old woman, but had she lost her mind?
Yes, those voices. They’re asking me for help.
I don’t know who those are, I said. You probably shouldn’t answer them, just in case. I’m coming to get you, but they might have inhibitors on this ship. Those will cut off the use of your powers. You may want to get out now.
I’m certain Cobb is there, Gran-Gran said. I want to bring him with me. I don’t know if I can travel the way you and Spensa do, but some things feel so real in there—I think I can try.
It was a risk, but I could hardly blame her for that. I’ll follow until you’re out. And then return to help Jorgen. If you can’t manage the hyperjump or you get inhibited, I’ll come to help you.
Thank you, Gran-Gran said. I can tell by your spirit that you have the heart of a warrior like my granddaughter.
I felt oddly touched by that, even though I barely knew either of them. I continued to move down the hall, peering around corners to make sure no one was there.
The ship continued to be empty, which made me more and more uneasy.
We’ve reached the holding cells, Gran-Gran said in my mind. Cobb is here. Stars, he looks bad.
But he’s alive? I asked.
He’s alive. I don’t know what they’ve done to him, but—
Gran-Gran’s voice cut off as a section of the ship ahead went dead in my mind. I couldn’t reach Gran-Gran anymore—she’d disappeared beneath an inhibitor cloud.
I needed to get there quickly and see if I could disable it. I hurried around a corner—
And then ducked back at the sound of voices. There were people ahead, though I wasn’t yet close to the inhibited area of the ship. I didn’t understand much of the dialect they were speaking, and they were too far away from me for my pin to translate. But I did catch a few words I recognized.
Ready. Hurry. Leaving.
These people were leaving. Running in the opposite direction, away from the center of the ship.
What were they trying to get away from so fast?
I needed to get to Gran-Gran, Cobb, and Cuna, but something was very wrong here and I wanted to know what it was. Did you find your parents? I asked Jorgen.
Not yet, Jorgen said. Took a wrong turn. Moving toward them now. Fake Cobb is dragging his feet, slowing me down.
I wanted to suggest that he break fake Cobb’s legs, but that probably wouldn’t help them move any faster.
I know where Gran-Gran and real Cobb are, I said. Cuna is with them too. Will get them in a moment. Need to check on something first.
Copy, Jorgen said. Keep me informed.
I moved in the direction the fleeing people had come from. At the end of a short hall, I found a door with a heavy handle that was closed and locked. I listened; no noise came from inside and no light was visible under the door.
I reached through the door, feeling the space beyond through the negative realm, and then hyperjumped through.
I emerged in a dark room and immediately felt the wall for a light panel. The room lit up, and there in the center of the large room was a taynix box with wires and equipment mounted to the outside.
I took a step toward it, and then paused. The device was hooked up to a large tube with a wide-open end aimed at the wall. It looked suspiciously like a cannon—
And in the box attached to it I could feel the tiny cytonic mind of a taynix.
Oh no. The Superiority operatives had said something was “ready” and they needed to “hurry” and get away from it. They had a mindblade weapon, and instead of aiming it into the sky to shoot us down they had it aimed toward the center of the ship itself.
It was a bomb, and it was rigged to explode.
I was out of my depth here, but I knew where to go for help. The ship has a bomb on it, I sent to Jorgen. I’m going to get Rig. I gave Snide the coordinates for the control room on Wandering Leaf.
Rig let out an undignified scream, which the slug in his sling promptly echoed. “Scud!” he said. “I will never get used to you doing that!”
I wondered if FM got that reaction when she and Gill snuck around to see him. There wasn’t time to talk about it now. “Come with me,” I said, and reached for his arm, then directed Snide to take us back.
We appeared again in the room next to the taynix bomb.
“I want to tell you to warn me before you do that,” Rig said, squeezing his eyes shut. “But I suppose you did.”
I gestured at the device. “We’re in the Superiority ship,” I said. “This is a bomb, isn’t it? Can you defuse it?”
“Can I what?” Rig looked over the equipment, and I watched his face contort in horror as he came to the same conclusions I had. “I don’t know anything about bombs! I’m not qualified to deal with this.”
None of us were qualified, but I couldn’t let the Superiority blow up the ship with people inside. “What if we break the box?” I said. “If we remove the taynix—”
“The box is rigged to prevent tampering,” Rig said, looking it over. “I don’t know how it works, but I can tell that much. Alanik, I’m sorry. I can’t fix it. We need to get off this ship immediately.”
I understood. There was nothing he could do. “Can you get yourself back?” I asked. “I’ll go for Jorgen and the others.”
Rig nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Go,” I said.
“Drape, take me to Gill,” he said.
“Gill!” Drape said. And then Rig disappeared, back to Wandering Leaf.
I tore off down the hallway in the direction of the cytonic inhibitor while simultaneously reaching out to Jorgen. You need to get out of here. Can you get to your parents?
Working on it, Jorgen said. The Superiority people took them into a room, but it’s locked. I’m moving around to the other side, trying to find an open door. Fake Cobb is not helping.
Near Jorgen, I could feel a new patch of dead space—another inhibitor had been turned on near him, probably in the room with the human politicians. Even if I left Gran-Gran, Cuna, and real Cobb to join him, I couldn’t jump in and get them.
Work fast, I said. We have to get out of here.
I raced past closed doorways to a side hall ahead, and found a series of rooms with windows in the walls. Cuna was in one and Gran-Gran and Cobb in another, but as soon as I moved close to them the sounds of the universe quieted.
Cobb looked awful—he had bruises down his face, and he sat slumped against the wall like he was having trouble holding himself in a sitting position. Gran-Gran knelt over him, and Cuna stood in the other cell, motioning to me.
“Alanik!” they yelled through the glass. “I don’t know what Winzik plans to do with us—”
“He plans to blow us up!” I yelled as I moved by. “We’re working on it.” I hauled open the doors at the end of the hall, searching for the inhibitor. I found a custodial closet and a room with a couple of old broken chairs. At the end of the hall was another door, this one locked.
I stepped back and kicked it with all my might. The handle snapped on the third blow, and I tore it off and dragged the door open.
There, inside, was a taynix box. I opened it, and a blue and green slug tumbled to the floor.
The cytonic inhibition faded. Alanik, Jorgen said in my mind. I can’t get to them. The Superiority people all fled, and you disappeared, and I can’t—
On my way, I said. I didn’t waste time running down the hall again. I hyperjumped back to the room with Cuna and grabbed them roughly by the arm.
Get Cobb out, I sent to Gran-Gran. She must have already been prepared to do so, because they disappeared before I even finished the thought. So she could hyperjump. That was good. One less thing for me to do in the unknown time before this ship exploded.
“Snide, take me to Drape,” I said, and Cuna and I passed beneath the unseeing eyes as we jumped to the control room on Wandering Leaf. I deposited Cuna at the feet of a somewhat-less-surprised Rig, and then Snide and I hyperjumped back to the Superiority transport ship, this time to the storage room where we’d landed originally.
I took off at a run toward the area of the ship where I could sense Jorgen. I could feel his panic even before I reached him. He stood in a narrow observation room overlooking a tiered meeting hall that was clearly designed for a large assembly of people. Fake Cobb seemed to have escaped from Jorgen, because I didn’t see him here. There were a dozen or so humans on the other side of the window, including Jeshua Weight, who stood right against the glass. One of the other humans—a man who looked like an older version of Jorgen—hefted one of the chairs and threw it at the glass.
It must have been some kind of reinforced plastic, because it didn’t break.
“Humans of Detritus!” a voice said. It was coming from a loudspeaker inside the room, but was loud enough that we could hear it even from here. “For your years of resistance, you have been judged too aggressive to live. You will meet your end for the good of all. In our graciousness, we will end your lives swiftly. Your pain will be brief. Your deaths will be broadcast to your planet, so that they may mourn you. You may have a moment to say your goodbyes.”
“How benevolent of them,” I said.
Jorgen beat his fists against the window. Inside the room, I could see the politicians starting to panic.
As they should. We couldn’t get them out of there. The Superiority might be satisfied with merely enslaving my people, but the humans?
Them they were going to destroy.
“We have to find that inhibitor,” I said, and Jorgen nodded, moving toward the doorway.
I tore down the hallway in the opposite direction. But there weren’t many crevices in this part of the ship—and all the other inhibitors had been inside the zone they inhibited, not outside of it. While there was a door on every side, they were all locked, and reinforced far better than the closet.
I ran the circle around the meeting room until I met up with Jorgen, and then we double-checked the areas we’d each checked before.
None of the doors would give, no matter how hard we beat on them.
When we reached the viewing room again, Jeshua still stood at the glass. She turned around, glaring at Jorgen.
“Look for a box,” he shouted through the glass at her. “A box with a taynix in it!”
Go, she mouthed at him.
Jorgen shook his head, beating on the glass with his fists again.
“Go!” Jeshua yelled through the glass at Jorgen. Her voice was faint, but I could make out what she said next. “Do better than we did.”
We weren’t going to be able to save them. There was nothing more we could do here.
I put a hand on Jorgen’s shoulder. He still had Snuggles in his sling. He didn’t need me to pull him out.
“She’s right,” I said. “We have to go.”
“No!” Jorgen shouted. There were tears running down his cheeks now.
He wasn’t going to leave, but I couldn’t let him die here.
I didn’t take chances with the slug. I reached through the negative realm to the hangar on Wandering Leaf, and I pulled.
Through the negative realm, I heard a scream.
