Evershore(Skyward #3.1)(2)

“Boom,” Boomslug said mournfully, looking at the wreckage. I didn’t know what to do with his sympathy, let alone everyone else’s. They were all staring at me, waiting to see what I was going to do. This was the moment a good commander should give an inspiring speech. Maintain morale. Treat this as a setback.

It wasn’t a setback. It was a scudding disaster. I didn’t have anything inspiring to say. I wasn’t even sure how I was staying on my feet.

I had to though. They were all looking to me. Or at me. I couldn’t really tell.

I wasn’t going to fall apart. Not here, not where my entire flight could see.

Fragments of the ship spun out into space, while others careened toward the planet. One hit the shield around Detritus and bounced off.

In my mind, my mother looked directly at me.

Do better than we did, she said.

Enough.

In the distance, the Superiority station that monitored Detritus blinked out of existence, hyperjumping away.

They wouldn’t even give us the dignity of revenge. They’d run like cowards. There was no one left for us to attack, just the terrible wreckage floating ever outward, a monument to our diplomatic failures.

“We’re going down to Platform Prime,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the others looking at each other, not sure what to make of that.

“Okay,” FM said. “But I think you need to stop for a minute—”

No. I couldn’t stop. This wasn’t about me. It wasn’t even about my parents. It was about what we were going to do for Detritus.

“Now,” I said.

The UrDail were expecting us back to finalize our alliance. That was more important now than ever. The war went on, and we were losing badly. We had to get back on track, and the only way to do that was to find Admiral Cobb and return power to the DDF.

The assembly’d had their chance. We were looking at the remains of it.

“I’m sorry, Alanik,” I said. “We’ll be a little late returning to ReDawn. There are some things we need to take care of first.”

“Jorgen,” FM said, “I think you should sit down for a minute.”

I couldn’t. “Put Gill in the hyperdrive,” I said to FM, mostly so she’d have to stop talking. “I’ll give him instructions to take us into the airspace beneath Platform Prime.”

FM hesitated long enough that I looked back at her.

It was a mistake. She was watching me with so much concern that I wanted to shout at her. Scream at the sky. Break things.

But I was the flightleader. It was my job to stay in control, at least until Cobb was back. He’d probably try to send me on leave then.

I’d tell him I didn’t want to go. We needed every person to face what was coming. Maybe Cobb would see that. Maybe he’d let me stay.

“Do it, FM,” Arturo said.

“Yeah, okay,” she said. She headed to the control room, and Rig went with her.

I turned to Alanik. “I need to know where Cobb is,” I said. “Where did Gran-Gran take them?”

“I don’t know,” Alanik said. “I’m looking for them, but I can’t find them.” I closed my eyes, reaching out toward the planet. It would make sense for Gran-Gran to take them somewhere beneath the surface—to her home maybe—but I couldn’t sense her mind. Not on Platform Prime, not on the surface, not in the caverns below.

“Keep trying,” I said. “Once you find Gran-Gran, we can go pick them up.”

I strode toward my ship, turning my back on the glowing wreckage. I didn’t need to see it again. The spiraling shape was already fixed in my mind, expanding outward forever.

“Boom,” Boomslug said.

“Boom,” I agreed with him.

“Jorgen,” FM called. “We’re ready.”

I reached out to Gill, giving him a clear impression of the airspace below Platform Prime. Wandering Leaf was an abandoned battle platform with hyperdrive technology, and its autofire could tear other platforms to pieces, so we’d need to park it far enough down in the upper atmosphere that the other platforms would be out of range.

Go, I told him.

And then I floated beneath the vast starscape of white eyes. They didn’t focus on me—we were invisible to them as long as we used the slugs to hyperjump. But I didn’t like the eyes any better when they couldn’t see me. I always felt as if they could see through me, like I was made of something flimsy and superficial with nothing substantial underneath. This time though, I felt something different, something new.

I hated them.

It was irrational; they weren’t the ones who’d spent the last eighty years raining down death on my people. They hadn’t trapped my parents in a ship and blown the thing to pieces. I didn’t know if they were responsible for these strange powers I had neither asked for nor wanted. As far as I knew, they weren’t even responsible for taking Spensa away. She’d done that herself.

But I still couldn’t smother the sudden startling feeling that at its core, everything bad that had happened to us was all their fault.

Wandering Leaf emerged far below the vast metal underside of Platform Prime, the current DDF headquarters. “Flight,” I said, “take your ships up to the landing bay.”

“What are you going to do?” Nedd asked.