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So he decided to try something. Brade called in, warning them:I might need you soon.Soon didn’t matter much to them, but it did to Brade. The delvers began processing this, spreading the idea. Bumping into one another, reinforcing it. A concept.

She will call. We will answer.

She will call. We will answer.

She will call. We will answer. What if she betrays us.

M-Bot added that last one, sending it moving through them. Infecting them. Until it was repeated back to him, like an echo, the delvers desperately adopting this phrase and concept instead of the other—so that they could all remain the same.

It worked.

32

JORGEN

Jorgen Weight stood in the battle command station of Platform Prime, well within Detritus’s defensive shell, accompanied by his command staff. He didn’t want to be here with them. He wanted to be on the flight deck of the newly commissionedDefiant,ready to lead a squadron of starfighters in the most important battle of their lives.

Instead, he stood tall before the holographic battle map, hands clasped behind his back. He could acknowledge his yearnings, but he also knew where he was needed.

If you can see this from among the Saints, I hope you’re proud,he thought to his departed parents.

“Captain Nightshade,” he said, bringing Gran-Gran up on a side monitor. “You have authorization to move forward and engage. Be warned, we’ll soon have to speak via radio communications and not cytonics, and there’s a much greater chance that the enemy will be able to listen in on us.”

“Understood and thanks,” she said. “If you’re listening in, you bastards, I hope you’ve bidden your families farewell. If not, I’ll try to record your screams as you die. For posterity.”

He grinned despite himself. Becca Nightshade hadn’t been raised in the military establishment, and didn’t speak like most officers. But he was accustomed to Nightshade ways.

The holographic projector was a large disc in the floor of the room, making a 3-D battle map hover in the air above it. As he leaned forward to inspect it, a kitsen platform hovered up on either side of him. Juno, his mentor in meditation, always seemed to be around these days. The little kitsen monk was snacking on a pudding.

Itchika, kitsen supreme tactician, hovered on his right. She had a whole collection of generals and admirals at the table to the side, conferring and making plans.

“And thus we commit,” she said softly. The white-muzzled kitsen wore a modern military uniform instead of the more formal, ancient outfits that some preferred. No medals. Not a single sign of her rank. Just a clean blue uniform and a military cap under her arm. “We just barely got the shadow-walkers back, and now we risk them all.”

“It’s the only way,” Jorgen said.

“I didn’t say I regretted the move,” she replied. “Merely that I…worry about our potential losses.”

Jorgen’s forces couldn’t fly into a large-scale battle like this without their own cytonic inhibitors. The kitsen had warned of terrible tactics used in the old days, such as teleporting explosives directly into a pilot’s cockpit. The Superiority hadn’t used those kinds of extreme measures yet; likely because they relied on slugs. Still, he could imagine them strapping a bomb to a taynix and forcing it to hyperjump next to one of his friends…

They didn’t have enough inhibitor slugs to outfit every ship, but the kitsen cytonics had stepped forward. Despite still being weakened by their long imprisonment, they’d been certain they could do this. And so, each starfighter had its own small inhibition field. That would limit the enemy’s ability to take advantage of the terrain.

It also increased the stakes of this battle. They weren’t just risking their ships; they were risking the bulk of their cytonics.

“Itisthe only way,” Cobb said, stepping up to the hologram opposite Jorgen and the kitsen. He was joined by Rinakin, the UrDail leader. Though Rinakin wasn’t much of a tactician, he’d been invited out of respect, and he seemed to understand that.

“We should have attacked earlier,” Jorgen said. “Spensa was right. Waiting only let them gather more resources.”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” Itchika said, rubbing her chin. “It is never wise to rush into a fight. Giving the enemy time to gather their troops is regrettable, but it allowed us to gather our wits.”

The battle map showed theDefiant,alone as it flew into enemy space. Enemy capital ships—threecarriers and two battleships, with six destroyers—hyperjumped in to form a blockade just out of range of Detritus’s cannons. The carriers released a swarm of smaller ships, preparing to engage.

“One against five,” Jorgen said softly. “The kitsen cruisers can maybe balance out those destroyers, Itchika, but we’re severely outnumbered. Can we win this?”

“That depends on how good your pilots are,” Itchika said, “and whether or not your shadow-walker battlechief can be rescued to turn the tide.”

That meant Spensa. Itchika and the others had seen the recordings of what she’d accomplished during the data storage facility strike. They had an almost mythical belief in her ability to win this battle, one that Jorgen hadn’t dissuaded them of. He believed it a little himself.

“We’re putting a lot of stock in one single person,” Rinakin said,“who abandoned us to engage in a duel with an enemy. Almost wantonly falling into their obvious trap.”