Cytonic (Skyward #3)(19)

“No, I’m not dead,” I said, hoping he’d hear. Or sense. Or whatever. “Though I probably should be, all things considered.”

He cocked his head.

“Can you hear me?” I asked.



“I can…feel the meaning of your words. Where are you? What’s happening?”

“I’m in the nowhere,” I said. “The dimension where we go when we hyperjump. I…kind of fell in. On purpose. In my defense, I was being chased by half an army at the time.”

He grinned, and the lines around his eyes softened. I could literally feel the tension melt out of him. He’d been worried about me. I mean, I’d expected he would be, but feeling it made me choke up a little. I’d spent my life being the person most others tried to avoid.

That had changed. I had a place where I belonged. With him and the rest of my friends in Skyward Flight. How I longed to return to them. How I—

A flash of red destructor fire slammed into his ship’s shield, crackling. His low-shield alarm started throwing a fit on his dash.

“Jorgen!” I shouted. “Fly! You’re in the middle of a firefight, idiot!”

“I’m trying! It’s a little distracting to have your ship suddenly be haunted by the ghost of your not-dead girlfriend!” He steered the ship in a precise evasive pattern.

I melted a little. Girlfriend? Was that how he thought of me? I mean, we’d kissed. Once. But…I didn’t think it had been formalized or anything. I hadn’t even brought him any dead orc carcasses, which I was pretty sure was the way the stories said to show a guy you wanted to go official.

Apparently my feelings radiated, because Jorgen—still steering—continued. “Or…you know…whatever it is you are. To me. And I am, to you.”

“It works,” I said. “I’ll get you an orc later.”

“What?”

“It might look a lot like a rat. Fair warning.”

He grinned, diving away from the destructor fire. Judging by his proximity monitor, he’d lost his tail.

I wished I could touch him. He looked up and met my eyes in the reflection, and I knew he felt the same.



“Nothing can ever be normal for us, huh?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “My life was pretty normal about a year ago. Then something remarkable happened.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t go back for the world. Here, let me get us a little breathing room.”

He called in the flight to go on the defensive and give him time to reignite his shield. He flew his ship out of the main battle and some members of Skyward Flight stuck nearby, offering support and distracting enemies who drew too close.

I finally shook out of my stupor of meltiness. “Jorgen, what’s the sitrep? How long has it been?”

“A few days since you came here, then vanished,” he said.

Good. I’d spent a few days unconscious in a Superiority hospital, then one day in the nowhere. So it seemed that time passed at around the same speed in both the somewhere and the belt. Good to know.

“We’ve heard from your friend Cuna,” Jorgen added.

“Oh, Saints! They are alive? I’d worried.”

“Yeah,” he said. “They’re safe, but trapped. We’re trying to figure out how to make the slugs work for hyperdrives.”

“Slugs?”

“You missed that part,” he said, diverting power from his boosters to the shield igniter. “We have a whole flock of them. Um, a herd? A pod? A bunch of slugs. They were in the caves.”

“What, really?” I asked. “How did you find them?”

“I…um…heard them,” he said. “As I’m hearing you.”

“You’re cytonic!” I said, pointing. “Your family feared it was in your bloodline! Ha! That must be why I could find you.”

“I’ve been training with Gran-Gran,” he said. “I’m…not very good at any of it.” He grew solemn. “Spensa, it’s bad. The war.”

“How bad?”

“The entire Superiority is mobilizing. I had no idea how many planets they controlled. And we’re isolated here. We’re trying to get the slugs to work, but we have so much to learn, and…” He again met my eyes in the glass. “And we need you. I need you. What can we do to get you out of there?”



I winced. Not because I didn’t appreciate the sentiment, but… Well, he had to know.

“Jorgen, I came to the nowhere by choice,” I said. “When I jumped through the portal, I realized I could come home, but I decided not to. Because…” Scud, how did I put this? “I have something I need to do here, Jorgen.”

He frowned, looking at me in the reflection.

“I can’t come back yet,” I explained. “Not until I’ve learned what this place can teach me. I’m sorry, but if I did return, I’d be just another fighter. I need to be something more.”

“You think they’ll use the delvers again,” he said, perhaps reading my emotions.

“I know they will,” I said. “Winzik won’t give up because of a single setback. And Jorgen, I need to be able to stop him. To do that, I have to understand what I am—and more importantly, what the delvers are. Does that make sense?”