Cytonic (Skyward #3)(39)

Winzik is going to kill all the cytonics, I said. That’s the promise he made to the delvers. You know that. You’re the one who communicated the offer!

In response, she laughed. She either didn’t care or had some plan I didn’t understand. And…with my improving senses, I could feel a little more. That to her, my complaints were simplistic. Perhaps insultingly so.

She tried to rip my mind apart. But there was one thing I’d learned by sticking up for myself in the past: bullies expect you to fold.

I leaned into the fight. I didn’t whimper, or curl up, or back away. I threw myself at Brade with everything I had. Though I was formless, just a collection of thoughts, our minds could clash. Like two bursts of light throwing sparks. Two stars meeting.



She was trained. But I was ferocious.

Brade broke first, then fled, leaving me exhausted as I slowly faded into proper dreams, highlighted by half-shaven officers and epic journeys on sailing ships pulled by dragons.





Together, Chet and I slipped onto the pirate base fragment. Our touchpoint was a good half hour from the base, so as we crept closer and closer, Chet showed me how to keep a low profile and stay behind tree or hill cover. We also sent M-Bot to scout a path for us, telling him to use his infrared to watch for heat signatures that might indicate a sentry.

As we crept along, I thought of what I’d seen the previous night. Once again, my interactions with Jorgen and Brade were crisp and clear in my mind—and I’d been a little more in control, a little more active in what I’d been doing. That excited me. I was improving.

The terrain here was dotted with scraggly trees that were like stumpy, Spensa-size analogues to the massive ones from the last jungle fragment. Various boulders and hills made for a poor killing field. I’d have set up my base on a sturdy, flat fragment with minimal cover. Maybe losing one of their ships would teach these pirates a lesson, because getting up close was way too easy.

I was getting antsy. Eager. If this went well, I’d be flying before the hour was out. Chet and I staked out a tree-topped small hill some fifty meters from the base’s buildings. Together, on our bellies, we inched up beneath the trees to where we could see over the top of the hill and study the base.



As far as we could tell, we’d been able to approach unnoticed. Unfortunately, we couldn’t rule out hidden cameras. It would depend on what the pirates had been able to salvage. So I watched for any signs the pirates were on alert. Their base was made up of three large structures, rectangular with rounded tops. Like old-school hangars. It was a nostalgic design but didn’t make much sense with modern starfighters, which were universally VTOL aircraft thanks to acclivity stone.

“Do you suppose they built those structures?” I asked Chet.

“Doubtful,” Chet whispered back. “From what I understand, the pirate factions each set up on fragments with preexisting buildings. Old outposts or the like.”

“Will this fragment have a portal?”

“It’s possible, but unlikely. Most do not, after all.”

I nodded, thinking it through. We’d seen how fragments grew—matter collected around little pinprick weaknesses between dimensions, eventually forming into these landscapes. I didn’t know for certain if that matter slipped in from the somewhere or was just replicated here. Did this mean…the caverns of Detritus had formed because bits of rock had slipped into the nowhere?

There was no way to tell right now. But either way, it did seem Chet was right about the portals not being on most fragments. Maybe those only formed on fragments where the holes between dimensions were “big” enough that cytonics could get through?

Well, for now I needed to keep my mind on stealing a ship. Of the three hangars, two were dark at the moment. The third—the one in the center—had its bay door open wide, and flashes of light inside indicated welding or electrical work going on. I was surprised to see electricity at first—but most modern starfighters had energy-packed power matrixes that could last years. Plug one of those in, and you’d be able to power the lights and equipment of a hangar like this.



“My sensors indicate two people keeping watch,” M-Bot whispered from where he hovered at my side. “One at the window directly ahead in the lit hangar. Another right inside the bay doors. If they’re using electronic surveillance, it’s wired, as I don’t detect broadcasts on any known frequencies.”

“They won’t broadcast carelessly, abomination,” Chet whispered. “Old habits will prevent them.”

“Noted, wart-eyeball,” M-Bot said.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“Okay,” Chet whispered. “I…I have to ask. ‘Wart-eyeball’?”

“I was going to call you wart-face,” M-Bot said, “as humans often append ‘face’ to insults, but warts are frequently on faces. I instead picked a body part that doesn’t usually grow warts—a way of implying your stupidity is irrational to the point of implausibility.”

Chet glanced at me.

“Him being weird does not mean he’s an abomination,” I whispered.

“I was more trying to decide if that insult rated a one or a zero,” Chet muttered, looking back at the hangars. “So, Miss Nightshade, how would you like to proceed? I believe your military training supersedes my experience in this instance.”