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“Understand that I take this duty as the most solemn of responsibilities. Those of us of prime intelligence bear a heavy charge—that of protecting and nurturing those who have not yet achieved equivalent status. My words today are thus for the weaker of our wonderful species.

“Your natural inclination might be toward panic, anger, or even violence! My, my. Howterribleit must be to live with secondary intelligence. You must resist these shocking emotions. The Superiority is strong, and those of us who lead itwillprotect you from the human scourge. As the galaxy has survived their horrific attacks in the past, so we will weather them this time.

“Already we have the outbreak partially contained, and the fighting is limited to the outskirts of the Superiority. It might take decades to properly bring the humans down, but I am determined to do the job asked of me. For now, know that there is absolutely no danger to you. It is the duty of those of us who have achieved primary intelligence to fight on your behalf, so you do not have to risk the dangers of aggression and rage. Live your lives as usual, knowing I will protect you.”

On one hand, I was impressed. Winzik could likely milk this for decades, pretending that—even long after we’d been defeated—he needed this power to protect everyone from the terrifying humans. On the other hand, if Winzikactuallythought he could contain me, then he would soon find out firsthand how wrong he was.

On the screen, the message started repeating—and rather than hear it again, I shot the monitor a few times. When the others looked at me in shock, I gave them a shrug.

I’m sorry,M-Bot said in my head, perhaps sensing my frustration at the situation.For what you had to do today.

“It’s my job,” I whispered to him, watching the door, my gun at the ready.

It’s not what you dreamed.

“I gave up that dream in the nowhere,” I said to him. “I could have stayed there, fighting battles without consequences. I came back. Because things like this have to happen.”

Do they?

“For now,” I said. “The goal is to stop them from being necessary. Somehow.” That was the difference. Ithadto be. Winzik was intent on domination, destruction, and even extermination. We fought for something better.

I knew the same justification had been used by virtually every terrorist force in the past. I wasn’t naive. But I also wasn’t so cynical, or so foolish, as to paint them all as equivalent. A woman had to follow her conscience. I believed in what we were doing.

It still felt terrible.

I glanced to Rig. “I think we can pull all of this out,” he whispered to me. “Why copy when we can just take?” He grinned, then pointed to several slugs they’d set up.

Cool. He hyperjumped out with his team—taking multiple large data storages with them. Servers and all.

Seconds later, my strike force—all of us back in our ships—hyperjumped away after him. And to those we’d left alive, I knew we’d be just as mysterious and terrible as the Krell had been to me.

8

As we landed back in the hangar, there was something different about the air of victory this time. I remembered well—like the memory of a lost loved one—returning from saving us from the lifebuster bomb. I remembered celebrations, cheers, toasts—the enthusiasm unchecked for an unexpected victory.

Today, pilots climbed tiredly from their ships. Perhaps it was our casualties—two dead from Vanir Flight, two taynix lost, Nedd severely wounded. But almost every action cost us lives; it was part of the metric of maintaining a fighting force. Another damper was the knowledge that this wasn’t a definitive win—this was one step toward victory, but only the first of many.

Then, of course, there was what I’d done.

You were supposed to have totouchthings to hyperjump them. You were limited to complete objects, not chunks of them. Large structures, like battleships, usually required specialized architecture built into them to make hyperjumping the entire thing possible for the cytonic.

I’d violatedallof those supposed rules. Just like the delvers did.

As I climbed down from my ship, it seemed that those in the room shied back from me. And why shouldn’t they? I was moreweapon than human. Even a few members of Skyward Flight—Sadie, notably—watched me with unbridled awe.

Something’s wrong,M-Bot said in my head.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I—”

Not with you. With me. The delvers have spotted me. I need to hide again.

“I still don’t understand how you do that,” I said. “Aren’t you all in the exact same point in space?”

Yes and no. There’s no space here. So there are no points. No reality at all. It’s trippy. But they can sense my connection to you. I need to turn inward and vanish. That or pretend to be one of them. Which might work better.

“Can you do that?”

Spensa, I’m super sneaky. It’s what I was built for, remember?