Брендон Сандерсон - Cytonic

“Warning, Spensa,” Chet said. “I am tracking the wingmate, though it’s out of sight. I think Hesho has ordered the wingmate to fly around—they’re trying to pin us.”

Scud. He was correct. When I leveled out, I spotted the wingmate hovering there, ready to open fire while Hesho still pressed me from behind.

I dodged as best I could, and felt another stab of pride. I hadn’t taught Hesho this kind of advanced technique. But I liked to think that it was my foundation in combat teamwork that had led him to strategies like this.

I wove in and out of falling chunks of rock and hit my overburn, intending to run straight through the shots from the wingmate and hope none hit me. At that moment though, a spray of fire—seemingly out of nowhere—slammed into the wingmate, freezing the ship.

“We have arrived, Spin,” Shiver said over the comm. “I should think that you’d know better how to stay with a group. You motiles, always wandering off in random directions.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate the assist.”

Other ships came in to nip at the two resonants—chasing them back away from the mess of appearing buildings. Those were largely centered on me, so while the delvers weren’t precise, they could evidently lob things in my general direction.

I was glad Shiver and the others were mostly moving to the other side of the battlefield. As much as I’d have liked help against Hesho, I didn’t want the others flying in these dangerous confines. Honestly, I was worried most about Hesho himself—as long as he stuck on me, he was risking death.

I needed to stun him quickly, if I could. I gave chase, passing a couple of drifting ships, locked up—but with their shields reignited to protect from collisions. A Superiority tug was gliding in to pull them to safety, and nobody attacked it. Kind of like how you might leave an enemy medic alone on an Old Earth battlefield. I found the civility of it encouraging.

I pulled out of the lower debris field, then veered sharply as the air began to vibrate. A second later, a small fragment appeared just above me—a chunk of city stretching for hundreds of meters, marked with sidewalks and planters.

Right. Okay. I could handle this. I steered up over the edge of it and wiped the sweat from my hands. That maneuver had let Hesho get behind me again, unfortunately. He started firing, and I barely dodged.

It was time to see if I could exploit his muscle memory. I started a routine maneuvering sequence, one I’d drilled into him and the others as I’d trained them outside the delver maze. A warm-up meant to teach good fundamentals.

Hesho fell in behind me as I moved, and his disruptor shots trailed off. Yes, I thought. You know this routine. You flew it with me dozens of times.

“Why did he stop?” Chet asked.

I didn’t respond, continuing the motion. Hesho inched forward, and I let him fall almost into my wingmate position. I’d been intending to break out of this maneuver unexpectedly and throw him off, maybe earning me a breather to reignite my shield. But this seemed to be triggering a memory in him.

Together we soared over the new fragment, no longer fighting. No longer worried about other ships—as we were getting increasingly distant from the others, who were staying away from the debris. I continued the motions. I could almost feel Hesho’s longing, his thoughts stretching toward mine…

Then my mind went cold. It was like I’d been doused by a bucket of ice water. I pulled my ship back to be even with his, then glanced toward his cockpit. It was tinted dark, which prevented me from making out any of his features.

It wasn’t dark enough, however, to obscure the two powerful white spots that were shining deep within the cockpit where Hesho’s eyes would have been. The delvers had taken him.

Hesho broke out of our two-person formation, then flared his boosters and barreled away from me.

“Oh, scrud,” Chet said.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “What’s wrong?”

“Let her fly, AI,” Chet said as I fell into pace behind Hesho. “Something is very wrong.”

“What?” M-Bot asked.

“The delvers,” I said. “They…took him. His eyes are glowing white.”

Chet cursed softly. “I’d hoped we would be safe from such direct intervention in a group. We must be too spread out on this battlefield.”

I stayed on Hesho’s tail as he looped around and flew through the center of the large debris field of hanging buildings. The remaining fighters on both sides had moved to the perimeter, as it had gone from dangerous to insane to fly here, with chunks spinning and colliding like an asteroid field.

Two buildings smashed together ahead of us, spraying shards of glass like rain—and as I flew through it they snapped against my hull and canopy, reminding me that I’d never found a chance to reignite my shield.

Why did the delver want to fly through this? In the past, they’d chased me. Now this one wanted me to chase it?

Well, I was game. It wanted to see how good I was? Let it watch. I expertly trailed Hesho-delver. We darted down through the narrowing crack between a chunk of rock and a free-flying factory, then flew underneath the still-crumbling fragments. That took us through a stream of falling water that was spraying from a building above.

Was this the delver actually flying? No…these maneuvers were familiar. Somehow it was leaning on Hesho’s skills. Well, I was going to rise to its test. We soared between crashing pieces of rock, down alongside a falling roadway, through sprays of debris that clattered against my canopy.

Everything else faded, and I absently muted other comm chatter. Nothing mattered but me and the chase.

The delver tried increasingly difficult moves to get me to trip up. Soon I was sweating—my attention tight like a narrow scanner band. Just me, that ship, and the immediate terrain.

Hesho-delver miscalculated on a light-lance pivot and slammed into a big chunk of stone, side first. His shield fuzzed, briefly visible as it absorbed the brunt of the impact. I grinned as I took the turn without a problem. Another hit like that, and he’d…

He’d…be dead.

My focus shattered like glass. I was suddenly aware not merely of my immediate surroundings—the cockpit, my sweaty hands on the controls, Chet breathing heavily in the copilot seat, the beeping proximity sensor—but the battlefield as a whole. Falling rock, crumbling buildings, hanging acclivity stone chunks.

It wasn’t just a series of obstacles anymore. It was a death trap. And this wasn’t some contest to see how good I was.

My stunned recovery took a moment, during which we came dangerously close to hitting a piece of a falling building.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “The rest of the fighting has paused. Most of the ships on both sides have been locked up, but there are fifteen remaining functional fighters on the enemy side, while our side has twelve, including Gremm and Peg. But everyone has agreed to a cessation for now, as the battlefield is too dangerous. They want to make sure everyone locked up gets pulled out to safety before resuming.”

Ahead, Hesho wove between falling chunks. He’d slowed, taunting me to follow. They wanted to coax me into danger. They were willing to throw away Hesho’s life for a chance to hurt me. I needed to end this chase. Now.

I grabbed the control sphere and started firing, causing Hesho to slam on his overburn and blast away. His ship’s faster speed shouldn’t matter among all this debris. Unfortunately, that same debris blocked my shots. I ended up pelting a chunk of acclivity stone—broken off what appeared to be a storefront.

As Hesho dodged, he took another collision from a falling piece of rock. His shield went down. Scud. Shooting at him was making him more reckless. I followed, uncertain what to do, my worry deepening—but Chet and M-Bot stayed quiet and gave me time to think. And as I did, memories returned to me out of the cloud that was my past. Flying with Hesho and the kitsen—and with Brade, Vapor, and Morriumur. Days spent training—memories I hadn’t even realized I’d lost.