Брендон Сандерсон - Cytonic

“Doesn’t matter,” Peg said on the wide comm. “Just a few more easy targets—and a few traitors to embarrass. Watch the debris from that collision—stay away from the fragments if you can. I don’t see the former champion on the scans, but he might be hiding in there somewhere. Do not engage if you spot him. Leave him to one of our aces.”

“He’ll come for me, Peg,” I said on a private line. “Hesho will want a rematch.”

“Bring down as many enemies as you can before it happens, Spin,” Peg said. “I think we’re better than they are—but I wouldn’t mind if you evened out our numbers.”

“Got it,” I said as we drew closer. Then the two groups finally broke, starfighters screaming toward one another—meeting right above those colliding fragments. My proximity sensor went ballistic as the landscapes impacted and chunks of rock began to break apart.

I grinned and launched into the middle of the chaos. It was so liberating to not have to worry about the safety of my companions. Cobb would have yelled at me for not bringing a wingmate, but here I could fly as I’d always secretly wanted to. Reckless. Free.

I lit up a ship in front of me, neatly blasting away its shield. That sent it into a series of panicked evasive maneuvers. Trusting my gut, I chased for a moment, then backed off and gave them space to screw up. They did just that, trying so hard to get away from me that they took a shot from Peg.

My grin widened as I dove to the side and shot down one, then two, then three enemy ships. Scud, this was awesome ! I dove among the crazy mess, blue destructor blasts lighting the sky in all directions. M-Bot highlighted some enemies on the monitor: my reckless attacks had earned me two tails.

“So, let me see…” M-Bot said. “This emotion…is frustration at the crazed attack, mixed with the teensiest amount of fondness. And a desire to bonk her on the head with something that isn’t too heavy, but just heavy enough.”

“Vexation,” Chet said.

“Wow!” M-Bot said. “That’s perfect. Spensa is, like, vexation incarnate!”

“I thought you two said you’d be quiet,” I said.

“You’d rather not be able to hear us talk about you?” M-Bot asked.

Actually, no. I gritted my teeth in a half grin, half grimace and accelerated, diving to dodge the fire from our tails. At the risk of being called foolhardy, I pushed us low, weaving between parts of the landscape of one crumbling fragment.

Chet’s face on the corner of my screen looked a little pale. “How you doing back there, Chet?” I asked.

“Trying my best to enjoy the expert course in being vexed, Miss Nightshade!” he called. “I recognize this kind of fragment. It is from a twilight planet—those that grow in a dark solar system, feeding off a star that doesn’t glow brightly in the visible spectrum but still provides radiation.

“Those places tend to have plants and animals with much bioluminescence—and even a kind of mineral-luminescence. Judging from what I’ve seen, these rocks will likely explode in great showers of light if hit by destructor fire. Perhaps you can use that?”

Excellent. I spotted a hole in the breaking fragment ahead—and so I pushed for that. I wove up in a loop, then straight through the hole. My tails followed, but as I expertly wove between falling pieces of rock, their destructor shots hit on all sides of me. As Chet had suggested, the explosions lit up like flares. Indeed, the falling debris acted like flak ejection, intercepting the disruptor fire.

So long as I didn’t hit any big chunks, I’d actually be safer in here. Even as I was thinking that, I did hit one moderately sized chunk. Only one, and my shield deflected it.

“A sense of disbelief,” M-Bot said, “mixed with an absolute expectation that something like this would happen. Because of course she’d dive through a radioactive, explosive natural minefield.”

“Resignation,” Chet said with a chuckle.

“Quiet, you two,” I muttered as I pulled up and darted along underneath the ripping fragment, weaving between chunks of dropping earth. My two tails, blinded by the explosions, evidently lost track of me, as they broke off pursuit.

“That was well done, Spensa,” Chet said.

“We’re alive,” M-Bot said. “And oddly, I feel—”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Complain about my recklessness again.”

“Actually,” he said. “I’m feeling something different. A tremble of excitement…building to relief, and a…a desire to do the same thing again ?”

“Ha!” I said. “You thought it was fun!”

“It was, ” M-Bot said. “Scud! Why did that feel fun? It was stupidly risky.”

“A little risk is what makes it enjoyable, AI!” Chet said. “That is the part that is daring! The part that is exciting! Assuming one can fight down the nausea.”

I looped around toward the main firefight, where I found Peg’s slower ship being tailed by someone fairly skilled. I drilled them with three precise shots in a row, making them break off.

“Enjoying danger sounds like an evolutionary problem,” M-Bot said. “Shouldn’t you find things fun when they’re safe?”

“Who knows?” I said. “I don’t think evolution was trying to create me. I just kind of happened.”

“Evolution doesn’t ‘try’ to do anything,” M-Bot said. “But like it or not, you are the pinnacle of its work. All evolutionary pressures throughout all the ages among your species have resulted in you.”

“Bet it feels embarrassed,” I said, finally shooting the ship that had been chasing Peg. It locked up and slowed, soaring idly through the battlefield. “Like that time all the parents got together to watch their kids march when I was in school, and my mother was forced to admit to the other moms that I was the one who’d glued her homemade suit of wooden ‘power armor’ to her uniform.”

“I wish I’d known you back then,” M-Bot said. “You sound like such a capricious child.”

“Uh, yeah. Child.”

I’d been sixteen.

“Where is Hesho?” I asked, looking over the battlefield. “Any signs of him yet on the scanners?”

“No,” M-Bot said. “But with this much debris flying around, my sight isn’t as precise as I’d like. He could be hiding in there somewhere.”

“Ship coming in from the right, Spensa,” Chet warned.

I dodged to the side—but as soon as that pilot realized who I was, they broke off the chase. I light-lanced around a chunk of acclivity stone that was floating upward from the crashing fragments, then fell in behind the fleeing ship. If the pilot was frightened of me, that would work to my advantage.

Once, I might not have found this battle enjoyable. I was of a higher skill level than these pilots—and I did love a challenge. As I matured though, I was beginning to realize that all combat was a challenge. Merely staying alive was challenging in a chaotic mess like this, where ships were darting in every direction and destructor blasts flew like embers in the forges. I felt alert, engaged.

As my prey dodged past some floating rubble, my proximity sensor beeped. A ship had been hiding in there, and it darted out as I passed, falling in behind me. One with a familiar design: small cockpit, large weapons signature.

Hesho had set a trap for me.

“Well hello, former champion,” Chet said. “About time you showed up.”

“Slight nausea,” M-Bot said. “Something I really shouldn’t be able to feel. Mixed with uncertainty.”

“That one’s apprehension,” I said, grinning. “Stomp it dead, M-Bot. This is going to be fun.”

I broke away from the chase. Hesho followed me, and the ship I’d been tailing immediately swung around and joined him. I’d beaten Hesho in our previous meeting, so while he obviously wanted a rematch, he’d brought a wingmate for support. There was no dishonor in pitting two against one in a battle like this—that was how the game was played.