For Kara,
Who carries my books to the world.

PROLOGUE

I floated in a void of nothing.

And felt like I belonged there.

So strange. I was a creature of flesh and blood. I knew that. Yet my soul—part of it at least—felt more at home here. In a vast void of meaningless time. The nowhere.

I was a person of two worlds. Spensa, the girl from Detritus, a warrior. Chet, the delver, a being outside space and time. We had become one.

We’d become a weapon.

I still didn’t know how that worked. But I had some connection to this place that I believed would let me attack the delvers. Delvers—the terrible, strange beings that had destroyed planets and threatened my reality. I could hurt them. I didn’t know how yet, but the thing I’d become … it could destroy them.

They were frightened of me. So they hid.

How can they hide? I thought. All time and space is one single point here.

They are looking inward, Chet responded. Part of my soul, yes, but we were still two individuals. It had been just over a week since I’d returned from the nowhere, and I was still learning how all this worked. But I did feel much more like myself now than when I’d first arrived.

I don’t understand, I sent to him.

We have no bodies, Chet explained. So you can only see us—what you call the eyes—when we are looking. It is complicated … as light only becomes visible when you interact with it, when it hits your eyes, you can only be aware of us when we are aware of you.

Yeah. He might have been stapled to my soul—and I might have felt like I belonged in this void—but a ton of this still broke my brain to think about.

How do we fight them? I asked him.

I don’t know, he replied. We need to learn. For now, isn’t it enough that they’re afraid of us?

It should have been. But something about that bothered me. An issue with their fear that I couldn’t quite explain yet. So for the moment I hovered, considering. Worried, but unable to explain why. Alone. In a place that was populated by thousands upon thousands of my enemies.

M-Bot? I thought, questing out with my cytonic senses.

No response. I didn’t know what had happened to him. Chet said he’d survived somehow, but despite searching each day since my return—coming here to the nowhere via cytonic mental projection—I’d not been able to find any sign of my friend. The ship I’d once flown, a delver in embryo.

I sighed and tried experimenting with my powers. Melding with the delver had changed me in two significant ways. First, in my vicinity the border between somewhere and nowhere seemed more … flimsy. Second, I had a connection to the delvers—and to others. I could enter minds more easily. I could feel emotions more easily.

Here in the nowhere, time was meaningless. Each person entering it, however, pulled a little bit of the somewhere in with them. Left an imprint, like a picture. On my journey, I’d been able to touch similar pictures left deliberately for me. Now I began to get glimpses of ones left unintentionally. Traces of what my friends had experienced while I’d been gone.

As I reached out, I found images. Impressions. Residual bits of emotion and experience left as my friends hyperjumped in and out of the nowhere. Bread crumbs that helped me experience what they’d been through while I was gone. They’d told me, of course, but now I saw it.

I saw their panic when I vanished to go to Starsight. I saw them befriend Alanik, the purple-skinned alien who had crashed on Detritus. With her, they’d eventually gone to rescue her world from the Superiority, bringing a small planet’s worth of people to our cause.

I saw the National Assembly, my people’s political leaders, try to make a deal with the enemy. And I saw a tragic betrayal as Winzik gleefully turned that summit into a trap—setting off an explosion that killed most of our leaders. I saw Gran-Gran and Cobb vanish into the nowhere, propelled by her talents, to protect them—and I saw them get trapped there.

Finally, I saw the kitsen. Small foxlike aliens who walked on two feet, and whose entire planet was in danger when the Superiority decided to attack. I saw interactions between them and my people, with Skyward Flight doing hard work to forge an alliance. Jorgen reluctantly taking up leadership not just of our flight, but of the entire military. Using his powers to rescue not only Gran-Gran and Cobb, but the kitsen cytonics, who had been trapped in an interdimensional prison for centuries.

These were mere glimpses—likely only possible because of my deep ties to my friends. When I tried to use the same abilities to spy on my enemies, I got nothing. But these images helped me fill in what had happened in my absence, and also left me feeling sorrowful. Because I hadn’t been there to help. Because they’d all learned so much, accomplished so much, and I was left as an observer to their lives.

What you were doing was important, Chet said to me. I nodded, as I knew it was true, but still …

I left the nowhere, coming aware in my bunk back on Detritus. I still had a problem, one bigger than my own emotional baggage: I didn’t know how these new powers would help me defeat the delvers. It was my job to protect my people from them. It was why I’d gone to the nowhere; I was supposed to become the weapon that could defeat them.

Despite all I’d learned, all I’d accomplished, I felt like I was still so very ignorant. I had no idea what I was doing.

Chet vibrated my soul in a way that was comforting. He was doing his best to help. I sighed, climbed out of my bunk, and prepared for the day. By all accounts, it was going to be a doozy. Fortunately, for the time being all I had to do was stand in place and try to look imposing. I stumbled to the mirror, and what looked back was anything but imposing. Frizzy hair, down past my shoulders now. Bags under my eyes.

And something within those eyes, something haunted. Something dangerous. Something I didn’t understand.

Myself, and what I’d become.

I shook my head. Heaved a long sigh.

Then took out my dress uniform.

PART
ONE

1

Five hours later, I stood at parade rest on stage.

I’d survived innumerable starfighter battles. I’d escaped the destructive power of the lifebuster bomb by a fraction of a moment. I’d traveled the nowhere itself, teasing out the memories and wisdom of the ancients. I’d looked straight at the delvers—the terrible, eldritch monsters that lived outside of time and space—meeting their eyes and refusing to back down. I was Spensa Nightshade, warrior.

Which meant, I had come to learn, that I was an important political tool.

And so today, instead of being out fighting, I had to wear something far less comfortable than a good flight suit. My chest was laden with medals—I was pretty sure they’d invented a few new ones to give me, just to make me look more impressive. Despite that, today’s ceremony wasn’t about me. I was, like the medals themselves, an ornament. A way to lend credibility to what was happening before me.

Jorgen Weight being named Defiant Defense Force admiral of the fleet. And, since the National Assembly had been destroyed, we were under martial law—meaning that as the DDF admiral of the fleet, he was also provisional head of our government. Until something else could be arranged.

Even with my glimpses of what had happened in my absence, I felt like I was behind. Still struggling to catch up.

Jorgen leaned forward as one of our elders placed the appropriate epaulettes on his shoulders, conferring his new rank. Then he stood up tall. Looking at his strong, determined features, you’d never have known that he’d broken down a few days ago, crying in my arms over the death of his parents. They had been Assembly members.

A part of my soul echoed with the cry of pain he’d made as the blast had killed them. What a fool’s errand that had been. I couldn’t believe the Assembly had really tried to make peace with the Superiority. They’d walked right into that trap. Still, I tried not to blame them. While I’d never gotten along with the Assembly members I’d met, for Jorgen’s sake I mourned. It was a major blow to all of us, not just those who had lost family. It blared out an insult loud as the galaxy itself: we weren’t even worth negotiating with.

Applause erupted in the long, broad hall where we’d gathered for the event. I stood to the side of the stage, along with Kimmalyn, FM, and several other distinguished DDF officers. My spot gave me a good view of the audience, which was strikingly varied. Despite what I’d seen, it was hard to believe that in my absence, my friends had accomplished so much. Two entire planets had joined with us in defiance.

Prominent among them were the kitsen, who stood on an array of floating platforms, with speakers to magnify their chirps of approval. In rescuing their long-lost cytonics, we now had a force of people with powers like my own—if more compact, in their fifteen-centimeter-tall furry frames.

Alanik’s people, the UrDail, were also there—though in smaller numbers. They had violet skin and prominent bone-white facial protrusions. The ones I’d met this week treated me cordially, but I could sense the awkwardness there. Alanik herself was near the front of their group, and although she and my flight had become good friends, she avoided my gaze. Fair enough. I’d impersonated her, and had done quite a bit in her name. Though she said she understood why … well, I wouldn’t have liked the idea of anyone running around impersonating me.

Jorgen stood before the crowd, accepting the applause. I could tell from that strained, too-responsible look in his eyes that he didn’t think he deserved it. I was proud of him for accepting it anyway. He had never wanted this; he, like me, just wanted to fly. But I hadn’t heard a complaint out of him since my return.

Someone had to step up and take the lead, and Jorgen was one of our most battle-hardened and experienced pilots. That itself was terrifying, considering his age, but it was the truth. We needed him.

Once the applause died down, FM barked an order, and those of us on the stage snapped to attention and saluted. Jorgen returned the salute, then walked to the podium to make his speech. That was the sign that the rest of us could break salute, step backstage, then make our way to our seats.

I ducked out first, wondering if maybe I could—

“Hey, Spin,” a voice said, and I turned to see Kimmalyn hurrying toward me. Kimmalyn wore her hair long, naturally forming tight curls that reached to her shoulders. She’d been forced to pin on nearly as many medals as me. “You all right?” she asked. “You look distracted.”

“Fine,” I said as others filed around us. Then I just stood there, silent.

Scud. I still didn’t know what to say to my friends. How did I even begin to explain what I’d been through? That I had a delver stapled to my soul? That I’d seen the origins of cytonics, then nearly lost myself in a place where time frayed like the edges of an old coat? That I’d almost decided to stay and abandon them?

“If you need—” Kimmalyn started.

“I’ve gotta hit the head,” I said, accidentally talking over her.

Her expression turned concerned again. Maybe a little hurt that I hadn’t opened up to her, as I once had.

I fled, but not to the head. I got “lost” on the way, and in under ten minutes I was in the cockpit of a Poco starfighter, boosting out into space to do a quick patrol of the region.

It was a selfish move. Someone might notice my empty seat, and it might start rumors. But scud … I’d been going to far, far too many meetings lately. One week since my return, and I’d barely had any time in a ship. Plus, I’d heard Jorgen’s speech six times already as he’d practiced.

So I flew, enjoying the sensation of the g-forces pushing me back in my seat. Enjoying the sight of Detritus’s many layers of platforms rotating above me, with the soft blue-grey stone ground extending before me. And in a moment of exultation, I activated my cytonic abilities and hyperjumped toward outer space, just beyond the planet.

The moment I jumped, Chet stirred, his soul stuffed inside my body like a parachute packed in its ejection pod.

I don’t know what to make of my new powers, I thought at him as—once again—we hung in the void and saw only blackness. The other day, I hyperjumped something without touching it.

Yes, he thought back. You are part delver now. Distance and space are … not as relevant to you as they once were.

Here, floating for a moment in the nowhere—and once again not seeing any delvers—I felt I understood a little better why I was dangerous to them. It had something to do with my deeper intrinsic connection to the nowhere and the delvers. One thing I’d learned in my travels was that they had hidden away parts of themselves, had intentionally forgotten their pain.

Now that I was part delver, I could see the truth. I could see what Chet had done to hide that same pain. I thought … I thought if I could figure it all out, this could be the secret to their destruction.

I took a moment to quest out for M-Bot again, but felt nothing, so I completed the hyperjump. I appeared back in the somewhere, in my ship, outside Detritus’s shell. And in that moment I realized something. Why I’d been concerned earlier in the day when Chet had noted the delvers were afraid of me.

He stirred. Yes, he thought at me. Why are you worried? It’s good that they’re frightened, yes?

Good, I thought back, and bad. Chet, they’re desperate. And desperate people do unpredictable things. I’d spent all this time learning to anticipate them—but now, who knew what they would do?

He settled back against my soul, like a person leaning back in a chair, and pondered on that. Because we were linked, he understood instantly what I meant. And soon I saw that he understood my worry as well.

Still, I tried to put those concerns out of my mind for the moment, so I could just enjoy the flight. Tried to ignore the weight upon my soul. The lingering sadness—though I tried to stamp it out—at having left the nowhere, where I could have explored without responsibility, behind. The worry about M-Bot. The sense of disconnect I felt, returning to a place where time flowed normally.

The implications that I was now one of them more than I was one of us.

My hyperjump, fortunately, gave me something gorgeous to distract me. We were in orbit around Evershore, the kitsen homeworld. A vibrant blue planet, like all the old pictures of Earth, with clouds and seas and life. It was breathtaking.

I soared through space between the two planets. Detritus, it turned out, could move. There was a reason it had been built with its own protective shell, able to maintain its warmth and a day-night cycle far from any sun. It was an enormous battle station, capable of using cytonics to hyperjump around the galaxy. Indeed, many of its platforms could move on their own, like smaller battle stations.

All the planet had needed was some maintenance and a whole lot of alien slugs. Fortunately, we’d managed to provide both.

Our homeworld was even more amazing than we’d ever known. It had provided a haven to slugs—hundreds of them hiding in the tunnels far beneath the surface. Thinking of that made me reach out to Doomslug, and I sensed her spike of joy at the contact. She sent me an image of a large room on one of the platforms, where she was being cared for. Dozens of slugs—of several different varieties—populated this room alone, with human caretakers engaging with them.

Doomslug was hiding in the corner with a little bowl of what appeared to be caviar. She perked up at my contact, and sent me an immediate emotional barrage of relief. After my time in the nowhere, I was getting better at understanding her—and these days I could make out basic words from the impressions she sent.

I thought you would be happy with the others, I sent, remembering her joy at first seeing all those other slugs.

Happy. And not happy, she sent back.

Why?

Confused, she said. Feel lost still. Feel alone still. Feel strange.

I immediately recognized that sensation: that feeling of no longer belonging. Of seeing things … differently from everyone else. Of being an oddity. I sent her welcoming thoughts, and in a moment she was in my lap. I hoped that wouldn’t cause the caretakers too much concern—I would have to send them a message. But I suspected the caretakers were accustomed to it. I’d heard from Rig and FM that caring for a large group of intelligent interdimensional teleporting slugs was proving … interesting.

Together, Doomslug and I flew through space, pretending it was the old days. I accelerated us to incredible speeds, impossible in atmosphere, and enjoyed the sensation of doing maneuvers between two planets. My brain kept panicking as it tried to track which direction was up, and I found it a neat sensation. Not too different, actually, from flying in the nowhere.

Unfortunately, duty soon came calling. My comm blinked, and a moment later Jorgen’s voice came through the earpiece of my helmet.

“Spensa?” he asked. “Are you flying?”

“Patrols,” I said. “Who can say when the Superiority will attack, you know?”

He seemed to understand, because he chuckled softly.

“Feeling better?” I asked. “Now that it’s over?”

“I would be,” he said, “only now I’m officially in charge. Which means I have to do something about our predicament.”

“Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone,” I said.

“Which is … why I’m calling you.”

I let out a deep sigh—but for his sake I muted myself first. I took my finger off the mute. “What do you need?”

“A meeting,” he said. “To discuss our options, and to plan our strategy.”

“Today?” I asked. “You just got promoted. Shouldn’t there be, I don’t know, a party or something?”

I knew him well enough to predict his response. In fact, I could have mouthed along.

“We can party once our people are safe,” he said. “I’d like you there, Spin. Your perspective is essential to our strategy.”

A dozen excuses popped into my head. They were all stupid. He was right; I was needed. Doomslug, sensing my emotions, let out a soft fluting sound of sympathy.

“When?” I asked.

“Fifteen minutes?”

“I’ll be there.”

2

The meeting took place on Platform Prime, our center of operations inside Detritus’s shell. This space station flew over the surface of the planet, but was well protected behind many outer layers of other platforms, flying gun emplacements, and shields.

At least Jorgen knew to pick the room with the best seats. I swiveled in my bucket-style chair, which was tight and curved, with high sides, almost like a little cockpit.

I forced myself to listen to what Ironsides was saying. The former DDF leader—now bearing the rank of admiral emeritus—had been dredged up from forced retirement because … well, we needed everyone we had. And Ironsides, for all her faults, had an eye for tactics.

“In a way, you could say we’re lucky,” the silver-haired woman said, gesturing at a star map on the wall that highlighted a wedge of space on the edge of the Milky Way. Our region of the galaxy, territory controlled by the Superiority. We were smack-dab in the middle of it.

“Lucky how?” Jorgen asked from his seat at the head of the long conference table. It was filled with a number of admirals, engineers, and foreign dignitaries, including Cuna, the sole senior dione on our side. A blue-skinned politician who had become a friend of mine during my days hiding as Alanik on Starsight.

“Here, let me explain,” Ironsides said, shuffling through some papers.

Jorgen waited, sitting primly on the edge of his chair. How could he look so uncomfortable? These chairs were comfy and you could even swivel them with your toe. Though you did have to lounge back a little to fit them properly, to melt into the form. That wasn’t a particularly Jorgenesque way of doing things.

I studied him, enjoying the cut of his chin, the intensity of his gaze, the determination of his posture. Yeah, this new job was a good choice for him. It fit Jorgen like a glove—albeit a new one he hadn’t quite broken in yet.

While Ironsides shuffled papers, the back door to the conference room opened and Cobb slipped in. He’d been the DDF head before Jorgen. Cobb had been my mentor, and was one of the wisest people I knew.

He looked like he’d aged twenty years since I’d left seven weeks ago. He leaned heavily on his cane, and his skin seemed to droop on his body. He’d nearly been killed by the bomb that had destroyed the National Assembly, but my grandmother had saved him—hyperjumping them both away. Their time in the strange trap that had held the kitsen cytonics for so long had not been kind to him.

I glanced toward Gran-Gran, sitting at the side of the room. Seeing my aged grandmother at these conferences had surprised me when I’d first returned. I mean, I knew she was a military genius and the oldest living Defiant—having lived on the starship that originally brought us to Detritus when she’d been a girl—but I never thought anyone else would appreciate that.

Jorgen did. And so she came to the meetings. Gran-Gran noticed my attention cytonically, and I sent her a question, something that was easy for me now that I’d fused with Chet.

Is he going to be all right? I asked.

Cobb, you mean? she asked. He’s the one who just came in?

Her cytonic senses had helped her adjust to losing her sight in some ways, but like all cytonics, her powers were duller when applied to regular people.

Yes, I said. He looks so old, Gran-Gran.

I’ll try not to be offended by the sorrow in that thought, Gran-Gran said. Being old isn’t that bad. Except for your body, your eyesight, your sense of balance, and waking up each morning feeling like you’ve been nailed in place. She smiled in my direction, then the expression faded. I don’t know how long it will take Cobb to recover. He didn’t respond to our excursion as well as I did.

Jorgen stood out of respect, which made the rest of us do likewise. Then Jorgen stepped over and conversed softly with Cobb, likely thanking him for coming. Cobb nodded, but looked exhausted by the walk from the infirmary, as Jorgen helped him to a seat reserved for him at the side of the room.

I knew Jorgen wished that Cobb was still in command, though Cobb had made it clear that was impossible in his current state. And so, with the weight of those bars on his shoulders, Jorgen settled back into his seat. I wished I’d been there to see him sweat when he’d finally taken command. He was cute when he went through deep personal crises balancing his belief in the rule of law with the practical need to get things done.

“Should we proceed?” Cuna asked. The dione sat with their palms pressed together, forearms on the tabletop, watching with an air of dignity and … well, a smidge of condescension. That wasn’t entirely Cuna’s fault though. They tried very hard, but had spent their entire life seeing themself as someone who needed to protect and guide the species of “lesser intelligence” in the Superiority. Changing such an entrenched worldview took time.

“Yes, I have my data ready now,” Ironsides said. The older woman turned, tucking her short silver hair behind her ear, and pointed at the wall as the screen changed. I leaned forward, hoping for some interesting shot of a battle—but it was just a slide with a bunch of numbers and statistics.

Great.

Why hadn’t anyone told me how many meetings galactic war would involve? Maybe I would have surrendered. Torture couldn’t possibly be worse than this. We spent longer sitting and talking than we did actually fighting anyone. Maybe I could throw something at Jorgen and get him to glare at me?

“The Superiority,” Ironsides said, “was shockingly easy for Winzik to conquer. Unlike a traditional government, it doesn’t rule by force but through control of travel and resources. There are thousands of planets in the Superiority, but almost none of them have active defense forces.”

“That’s because,” said one of the UrDail, a male named Rinakin, “they make people abandon their ‘warlike ways’ to join.”

“Is it so bad,” Cuna replied to him, “that we strive for peace and comfort instead of anger and strife?”

“Well, it left you exposed,” Rinakin said, pointing at the statistics. “No one could resist Winzik. He conquered the entire Superiority with barely a military.”

Yeah, I liked this guy. He made good points.

“I assume that is why you think we’re lucky, Admiral?” Jorgen cut in firmly. “Our enemy controls a great deal of space but not a lot of ships.”

“Exactly,” Ironsides said. “Our victories at ReDawn and Evershore prove that we can stand against Winzik. A lot of his military is needed to patrol, police, and maintain the territory he’s taken. The offensive force left to him isn’t that much bigger than our own. Maybe two or three times our numbers, which is remarkable, all things considered.”

“He thought it would be easy,” I said. “He assumed nobody would fight back. And if they did, he thought he’d have the delvers as the perfect threat to keep everyone under control. Hard to resist a tyrant when he’s the only thing standing between you and a group of interdimensional horrors.”

“Nightshade has the right of it,” Ironsides said. She met my eyes. We had a history, the two of us, but she’d been a worthy foe. Right up until she’d almost gotten everyone blown up, of course.

“So, what does this tell us?” Jorgen said. “How do we proceed?”

“Though we’ve been lucky so far, sir,” Ironsides said, “the admirals and I are worried.” She flipped to a slide that showed what seemed to be production capacity. “Winzik doesn’t have a large military yet—but he has access to an enormous infrastructure. Here we see a list of manufactories capable of spitting out spaceworthy fighters. These numbers here indicate possible production speeds, without accounting for any hidden military fabrication plants.”

We took that all in. And it was daunting. Once Winzik brought all of his resources to bear, he’d be able to create whole fleets faster than we could build a single ship. Yes, he’d have to staff them with raw recruits, but what did that matter when you could flood a battlefield with fighters?

I saw Ironsides’s point immediately. Though we’d been lucky so far, we absolutely could not win an extended war against the Superiority. Once Winzik ramped up production, we were done for.

I glanced around the table to see what the others were thinking. The other junior admirals were nodding. Arturo—current head of Skyward Flight, here representing all the pilots—took it in with a frown. FM—now Jorgen’s right-hand woman and our head diplomat—had put her hand to her lips as she read the numbers, her eyes wide. She looked across the table, meeting my gaze.

I spared a thought for the fact that three members of my flight—all still relatively young—were in high leadership positions in the government. Unfortunately, our planet’s history was such that there just weren’t a lot of older officers. Our desperate fight for survival over the decades had turned that much more deadly near the end; even the junior admirals were all in their twenties. The sad reality of the DDF’s struggle was that by the time we’d “won” and pushed the enemy back, almost everyone with any real battle experience had been killed.

Jorgen was, I thought curiously, the same age as Alexander the Great had been when he’d begun his conquest.

I continued scanning the room, and found it was harder to read the aliens than my friends. Rinakin looked pained, but with their violet skin and impressive bone ridges across the cheeks, his race always appeared intimidating. Made me wish my skeleton stuck out in a few places for a similar effect.

I had more experience reading the kitsen, though I didn’t personally know Itchika, the female kitsen to my right, hovering above the tabletop on her platform. Her fur was greying and her clothing extremely formal, robes in an ancient style.

She was joined by a small group of other kitsen: some of their elected senators, a few newly rescued cytonics, and their head generals. Those used little chairs on the tabletop, as if at a parade. At Itchika’s side stood a nervous younger kitsen. Kauri, one of their ship captains—and a friend of mine.

“So,” Itchika said, gesturing to the numbers on the screen, “our time is limited. Yes, I see.” Like the other aliens, she spoke in her own language, which was translated to English by her translation pin.

Ironsides looked at us, grim. “Based on our intel, he already has all of these plants fabricating for him. In weeks they’ll be able to field thousands of new drone fighters.”

“Drones,” I said. “That’s annoying. You mean I won’t get to feast on the blood of my enemies?” I paused. “I wonder what motor oil tastes like.”

Everyone in the room gaped at me. Except Jorgen, who laughed.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” I snapped at the others. “You invited me. This is what you get. Ironsides, what about capital ships?”

“Those will take longer to produce,” she replied. “But they will come. Thousands of battleships—and hundreds of carriers—by the end of the standard year.”

Scud. I’d checked what we had, adding in the kitsen and UrDail fleets. We had starfighters, yes. As many as five hundred if we needed them. But barely any capital ships.

“Spin can handle starfighters,” FM said. “Now that we have her back, we shouldn’t need to worry about drones. The remote ones fall easily to cytonics, and the autonomous ones are no match for a living pilot—at least not with the limited AI that the Superiority dares to use.”

While I appreciated her faith in me, I wasn’t nearly so confident. Maybe once upon a time I’d have boasted I could fight hundreds on my own, but I wasn’t that person any longer. I was a good fighter, but I couldn’t win a war by myself. I had a stark memory of being swarmed by hundreds of enemy ships a week ago, in the nowhere. I’d quickly been overwhelmed.

Jorgen voiced the concern for me. “How many drones could you shoot down in one fight, Spin?” he asked softly. “Twenty? Thirty?”

“Twenty maybe,” I said. “A few more if I’m lucky.”

“See?” FM said.

“And if they send ten thousand?” he asked. “Twenty thousand? Do you have any idea how many ships their industrial complex can churn out, once it spins up?”

FM sat back, disturbed, and the room fell silent.

Finally, a deep voice spoke from my right. “The raging river is never kind to the lone leaf.” A kitsen on a hovering platform moved up to my right. He wore a ceramic mask, white with red stripes. Hesho, once emperor of the kitsen. He’d taken to covering his face and calling himself Darkshadow, the Masked Exile.

Scud, I wished I could get away with something that awesome.

“So we have to move quickly,” Rinakin said. “Win fast. Any chance we can recruit more planets to our cause?”

We looked to FM, who had been leading recruitment efforts.

“We’ve been trying,” she said. “We have a few leads. But … most of them are afraid. Our three planets found one another because we were all in the right position—technologically advanced enough to have our own fighters, but not fully subsumed by the Superiority. Most of the others are either too strongly indoctrinated or not advanced enough to fight back. The burls might join us. And perhaps the tradori—but their planet has seventy different governments!”

Seventy? Different nations, on one planet? I mean, I knew that Earth had once had far more, but it still boggled my mind.

They dug deeper into the details, and the discussion grew more grim. I shuffled in my seat, suddenly finding it less comfortable. Sure, the mighty three hundred Spartans had stood against overwhelming numbers at Thermopylae … but they’d fallen in the end.

I couldn’t help thinking about my friends dying, one at a time, as we were overwhelmed by enemy ships. And as I did, something trembled inside me. A quivering that started at my core, vibrating like a muscle spasm, but bearing with it a sense of power. Panicked, I tried to fight it down.

But I failed.

Cups on the table started to rattle. The wall screen went haywire, flashing on and off. Objects in the room started to vanish, popping in and out of reality. Chet trembled as he felt my emotions. And the voices … my thoughts … my fears … began to radiate and echo through the room.

Dead. All dead.

Lost. All lost.

Failed. All failed.

I gasped, trembling, and slapped my hands on the table, bringing the entirety of my will to bear against the strange outburst. I clawed back control with effort, and the trembling lessened and then ceased. I looked up, sweat streaming down my face.

The room had gone silent, and I knew that they’d heard those words in their minds. I’d broadcast them uncontrollably. Cuna looked up from where they’d been writing on a notepad—which had been teleported away, leaving them holding empty air.

Scud. I felt ashamed. And horrified. I’d done something like this the other day, by accident, but not on this scale. Today’s outburst was far worse.

Whatever I was—whatever we were—it wasn’t human any longer.

“You … all right, Spin?” Jorgen asked.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. His expression was compassionate—bless him—but most of the others looked somewhere between terrified and uncomfortable. Cuna was smiling, showing teeth—a sign of aggression for their people—and the kitsen had pulled back in a huddle. Hesho hovered in beside me, seeming stoic, though he was hard to read behind that mask.

“Perhaps,” Jorgen said, “we should take a short break. There are refreshments in the adjoining room.”

The meeting participants nodded, rising and chatting softly. I huddled down deeper in my pod of a chair, and didn’t look at Ironsides as she walked past. She’d been one of those who had warned against the dangers of cytonics—people with the “defect.” She had stopped after my ability to hyperjump had saved us all from the lifebuster, yet I couldn’t help feeling I had now become the very thing she’d warned us against. A dangerous, uncontrolled entity.

Did I belong in this meeting? Or did I belong in a holding cell somewhere?

Well, that was dramatic! a voice said in my head.

I was getting more and more accustomed to the sensation of another cytonic speaking into my mind. I’d been practicing with Gran-Gran, Jorgen, and even Alanik. But this wasn’t any of them. It was a perky, faintly masculine voice—excitable and …

“M-Bot?” I whispered. “What in the heavens?”

I’m a ghost, he said in my mind. Boo!