Брендон Сандерсон - Cytonic

Today we took only the pilots. Peg joined my flight. Loaded with firepower, but slower than the fighters, her shuttle would be a target—but could deal damage almost like a much larger gunship. By her order, we kept off the comms. There was no joking, storytelling, or sitting and idly reading books during this flight.

I spent the initial part of the flight—before we met up with the other factions—trying to contain my excitement. Our destructors were still set to nonlethal, but each of our ships had been equipped with the ability to flip them to lethal mode in case this battle turned truly dangerous.

Peg didn’t want to do that. She wanted to recruit the pilots at Surehold, not kill them. But she was too pragmatic not to have the option available.

I gave Chet the controls and let him acclimatize himself to them. If I were somehow hurt during the fight, he might have to take over, as M-Bot remained unskilled. Chet performed a few simple maneuvers, showing that he did have some muscle memory for piloting, and I sat in thought, troubled by something Shiver had said. About icons.

I considered that, then closed my eyes, questing out from the cockpit with my senses. I forced myself to be extra quiet and subtle as I searched. I paused as I felt the delvers, or their attention, nearby. Waiting. And frightened.

They didn’t notice me. I could feel their minds pushing out from the lightburst in this direction, but they weren’t aware of me. I could remain invisible to them with effort, though I suspected this would only work so long as they didn’t know exactly where I was.

Feeling pleased with my improvements so far, I turned away from them and sensed outward. Looking for…familiarity. I remembered that when I’d first entered the nowhere, in that jungle, I had felt a mind close to mine. Before I’d found Chet, I had sensed something. Something I’d thought was my father.

Had that been my icon? It felt foolish to think it had actually been him. Yet as I searched, I…layered my mind with a warmth. The “star-ness” I’d learned on the Path. That was like a code, or a callsign. I’d used it to batter back Brade’s cloud upon me and escape from her prison. But it could also indicate who I was, where I was, though only to those I knew. Like a communication signal on a private comm band.

I felt something jump and contact me back. A mind. I brushed against it, and my heart leapt. My pin! Yes, I could feel it, and it responded. It… It…

It was angry at me for burying it.

That shocked me. The pin’s mind felt familiar, loving. It felt… It felt like family.

F-Father? I thought.

I was returned a warm sensation. I knew it was ridiculous, but…I mean… This place was strange.

Where are you? I asked.

I was given back a sense of…Surehold? Yes, that was where the icon was. How had it gotten there? I mean, Shiver had warned me they moved. But that far?

The mind retreated.

I’m coming to you, I sent to the pin, then came out of my cytonic trance, confused. It couldn’t truly be my father’s soul, could it? And why—how—was the pin at Surehold? The place where I was already going? That seemed extraordinarily coincidental. And that reminded me of Chet’s coincidental arrival, which I hadn’t thought about in a while.

Eventually, our flight met with the other pirate factions one by one. Peg welcomed each in turn, and I sensed relief in her voice. She’d been worried they wouldn’t show. She had us linger after the fourth faction joined, giving one final chance for the Cannonaders to appear. They didn’t.

“All right, people,” Peg said over the comm to us all. “We will absolutely win this. We’ve spent years in combat preparing, while they’ve been hiding, hoping the Superiority would send them more strength.

“They haven’t. The Superiority doesn’t care about them, or about any of us. They only care about their acclivity stone—so we’re going to hit them hard and take it away. Maybe they have other mining stations far across the empty boundaries, but I know they rely on this one more than any other. So we’ll lock the portal up tight, and they’ll have to play by our terms.”

The gathered eighty or so ships gave cheers and raucous calls in a variety of different types of vocalization. Chet and I joined in, hooting and shouting.

“My Jolly Rogers are ready to move to lethal destructors,” Gremm announced after the noise died down.

“Not unless the enemy does first,” Peg said. “Remember, these ones we’re fighting—they’re not really our enemy. They’re merely a bunch of frightened sods trapped between two forces. We’re going to come in not as raiders, but as liberators. So keep your rounds nonlethal. Call me or one of the tugs if you see a locked-up ship—even an enemy—about to collide with terrain. Stay focused on the fight, and if you face a pilot who’s too good, call for help.”

She got a round of agreement, and I was impressed. She and her sons had done an excellent job laying the groundwork for this battle.

“Okay!” M-Bot said in our cockpit. “I feel trembly, but somehow still eager to go forward.”

“Fear and eagerness?” Chet said. “That sounds like enthusiasm.”

“No, I think there would be more happy-eagerness,” M-Bot said. “This is nauseous-eagerness.”

“Perhaps exhilaration?” Chet said.

“I could go with that,” M-Bot replied. “Exhilaration. Yup, I’m exhilarated!”

“What are you two on about?” I asked.

“The AI and I have been bonding,” Chet said with a proud tone to his voice. “He’s been wanting help defining his specific emotions. I agreed to assist him.”

“Now?” I demanded.

“What better time?” Chet asked. “He is likely to be feeling a lot of strong emotions, after all.”

“We’ll do it quietly,” M-Bot promised.

Great. I didn’t believe that for a moment. Still, we continued on, entering Superiority territory. It didn’t look much different to me, though there were more fragments and they hung closer together. We flew straight toward the center, that enormous glowing white light. It felt as vast and intimidating as it ever had.

“Heads up, Broadsiders,” Peg said. “They’re incoming. Prepare for engagement.”

Her ship had a better scanner than mine; it took another two minutes for my sensors to see the oncoming ships. M-Bot counted them as they arrived, eventually settling on ninety-three ships. Slightly more than our numbers, and I didn’t see any retrofitted civilian ships among them. Hopefully Peg was right, and we had the better pilots.

Regardless, my excitement built. And the excitement was pure—no tension, no worry. A chance to fly and fight. A huge battle. I was ready.

“That’s odd,” Shiver said over the comm. “Captain, you see that?”

“Yeah,” Peg said. “Everyone, zoom your displays out.”

My proximity display expanded, revealing a larger view of the nearby fragments. Two just ahead of us were unnaturally close. They were going to bump…no, collide.

“Captain?” RayZed said. “Didn’t you…say that collisions between fragments were incredibly rare?”

“I did,” Peg replied.

“Now we’re encountering a second one, only a day after the last. Is…something wrong?”

“Can’t say,” Peg told us. “But…words. I’m pulling up IDs on some of those enemies. It appears the Cannonade Faction has come to join the party after all.”

I frowned until M-Bot’s scans indicated a group of new ships flying in to enter the fight. It was the Cannonade Faction. But they didn’t join us—instead they swooped around and fell in with the Superiority.

“Wonder how much they were paid to grow those flivis, ” Semm grumbled. “Does Vlep really think the Superiority will keep whatever promises they made him?”