Starsight

Cuna gave a helpless gesture of their fingers, still staring up at the terrible sight. The awesome scale of the thing made it difficult to tell, but Cuna could feel the thing drawing closer, approaching the city.

“He’ll destroy us,” Cuna realized. “The high minister is still in attendance. Winzik will take out the Superiority’s government, leaving only himself.”

“No,” Zezin said, smelling of hot spices. “Even he is not so callous. This is a mistake, Cuna. He summoned it, but cannot control it as he assumed. It has come here of its own volition.”

Yes. Cuna realized the truth of it immediately. Winzik wanted to be known as a hero; he would not destroy Starsight. This wasn’t just a mistake—it was a disaster of the highest order. The same foolishness that had made the humans fall.

Ships began to stream away in a panic, and Cuna wished them speed. Maybe some would escape.

It was a dubious hope. Starsight was doomed, and Cuna couldn’t help feeling an awful responsibility. Would Winzik have ever decided upon this course if the two of them hadn’t brainstormed a potential defense force, years ago?

Embers began to launch from the delver, slamming into the shield around Starsight and bursting with incredible explosions. Soon the shield would fall.

The air turned a sour scent of rotting fruit—sorrow and anguish from Zezin.

“Go,” Cuna whispered. “You might be able to move quickly enough to escape.”

“We . . . we will stop this from going further, Cuna,” Zezin promised. “We’ll resist Winzik. Clean up his mess.”

“Go.”

Zezin left. Figments could move quickly through the air, or even the vacuum. They both knew that alone, Zezin could perhaps reach a private ship in time to fly out beyond the shield and hyperjump away.

An old dione, however . . . Was there anything Cuna could do to help? Send a last broadcast perhaps, exposing Winzik? Give courage to those fleeing? Was there even time for that?

Cuna gripped the banister, looking out at the delver. Shrouded in its veil—glowing from its own light—the thing had a terrifying beauty to it. Cuna almost felt like they were standing alone before a deity. A god of destruction.

Then, an incongruity finally ripped Cuna’s attention away. An impossibility amid the fear.

A small group of fighters, just outside the shield, had appeared and now flew straight toward the delver.

43

I streaked toward the delver, Vapor and the kitsen on my wings. In my mind, the lingering horror of the nowhere shadowed my memories—that had been a bad jump, with so many of them watching me. But the one specific delver that had been so close lately hadn’t been there. I could somehow tell the difference.

It wasn’t hard to guess exactly where that delver was. It loomed just beyond Starsight, and had already begun launching embers by the hundreds into the shield. Chaotic emergency information channels said the city had opened the shield on the side farthest from the delver, allowing ships to escape.

“Kauri,” I said, glancing at the flagging kitsen ship. “You’re trailing smoke.”

“Our boosters are barely working,” she replied. “I’m sorry, Alanik. I don’t know how useful we’re going to be in a battle against those embers.”

“Vapor and I should be able to manage it,” I said. “Fly back and see if you can get anyone’s attention on the military channels. We need the city to go silent. The delver can hear their radio signals. I don’t know how we’re going to drive the thing away, but I suspect it will be a lot easier if this city isn’t screaming at it.”

“Understood,” Kauri said. “We’ll do what we can. Good luck.”

“Luck is for those who cannot smell their path forward,” Vapor said. “But . . . perhaps today that is us. So good luck to you too.”

The Swims Upstream broke off from us and started back. Vapor and I continued along just outside the atmosphere bubble. Beneath us, ships were swarming and trying to escape.

“M-Bot?” I asked, trying the secret line the two of us had been using, connected via my bracelet.

There was no response, and using my onboard sensors I was able to get a zoomed-in picture of my embassy building as we passed. The rooftop was empty. So maybe he’d gotten away somehow? Scud, I wished I knew.

Together, Vapor and I approached the delver itself. It evoked an awful sense of scale—and was far more daunting than a mere planetoid would be. Embers emerged from the dust, then smashed repeatedly into the city’s shield, exploding soundlessly in the void—but some of the blasts were the size of entire battleships.

“I can’t help churning upon myself a little,” Vapor said as we approached, “and thinking our training was horribly incomplete.”

“Yeah,” I said. No training in a simulation could approximate the strange sensations the delver sent at me, a kind of crushing feeling upon my mind. It somehow heightened my fear, my anger, and my sense of horror. It was getting worse the closer we got.

A small blip flashed on my proximity sensor.

“What’s that?” Vapor asked.