ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)(43)

“Interesting,” Rig said. “Maybe it requires a hyperdrive to move? Get me something to stand on so I can get a look above the boxes and see how they’re interfaced with the platform.”

    Everything useful in this room that wasn’t screwed down appeared to have been looted, but T-Stall and Catnip hauled in a chunk of metal that was tall enough for Rig to boost himself up. While they did, Kimmalyn slipped into the room with us and linked her arm through FM’s. She and Jorgen were both still silent. Jorgen leaned against the wall opposite FM with his arms crossed, and FM actively avoided looking at him. It was an improvement over the yelling. The more they fought, the more I worried they’d decide ReDawn wasn’t worth the trouble. Though if that happened, perhaps I could convince FM to stay and keep the taynix with her. Jorgen was their cytonic, so he could influence the slugs to go with him.

But as we’d discovered, he wasn’t the only one.

Rig stared at the debris as Catnip and T-Stall deposited it on the floor. “Is that a piece of a starfighter wing?”

“Yep,” one of them said.

“Is it a piece of one of our starfighter wings?” Rig asked.

“I had a little trouble with the landing,” I said, and the other one snickered.

Rig looked at me like he wondered how I was still alive. “We’ll tell you all about it later,” Jorgen said. “Right now we need to know what the taynix can do if we interface them with the platform.”

Rig boosted himself up on the wing, first knocking on the wall and then swinging open a panel to reveal a circuit board.

“This all looks like it’s intact,” Rig said. “Either it’s not valuable, or the salvagers didn’t know it was here. The holoprojectors would have been much more recognizable.” Rig climbed down again. “These boxes are labeled underneath, but not in English. Alanik?”

    I had to lean over the control panel and crane my neck upward to see the labels. They were in neither English nor my own language, but Mandarin. “This box says it’s for the weapons system,” I said. “But that doesn’t make sense, does it? The weapons systems aren’t cytonic.”

Rig and Jorgen exchanged a look.

“The autoturrets aren’t,” Arturo said. “But the map had those facilities in another location. Are there…cytonic weapons systems?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I’ve never heard of that.”

Still, while the writing on the boxes was a bit antiquated, the meaning was clear. The next few boxes were for the comms system. On the opposite wall I found one with a different label. “This one is for the navigation system.”

“So it does have a hyperdrive,” FM said.

Rig nodded. “There’s only one spot for a navigation slug, and several for the hypercomm. Probably so you could have commlinks open with many people at once. It only takes one slug to move the platform.”

I examined the boxes along the third wall. “These are for the defense systems.”

“Could be a shield like the one back home,” Rig said. “That would be useful. Though I don’t know how that would work, because on Detritus the platforms combine to become the shield, and the shield mechanism doesn’t require a taynix.” He turned to me. “Do you know how this platform was used in the past? Was it part of a larger system?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The Superiority doesn’t like us teaching the details of our military history. Rinakin taught me some things, but most of our education is limited to being told we were wrong to fight.”

    “You don’t believe that though,” FM said. “Why not, if that’s what you were taught?”

“Do you believe everything you’re told?” I asked.

“No,” FM said. “But it’s hard for most people to ignore the dominant messaging sometimes, especially when no one is willing to speak against it.”

“Oh,” I said. “No, the official curriculum is tailored to make us look good for the Superiority, but there has always been turmoil on ReDawn as to whose ideas are the best. There is no shortage of differing opinions here.”

“That must be so confusing,” Rig said.

“Sometimes,” I said. “But it’s also liberating. With so many different ideas, it’s easier to choose what to believe. Unity would like us to all unite under one set of beliefs, one agreement about what is best. But that takes away our knowledge, reduces our ability to decide what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“So you need each other’s ideas to really be free,” FM said. “I like that idea.”

I didn’t feel like we needed Unity, but maybe that was true. Maybe if Independence won we’d do the same, simplifying what we taught to make us always in the right. Maybe the tension between us was what truly allowed the conversation to happen.

If we wanted to maintain that tension, I needed to make sure the Independents survived.

    Jorgen still stood to the side with his arms folded. I couldn’t tell what he thought, and I didn’t think he’d appreciate being called out in front of the others after his confrontation with FM.

You disagree with this idea? I asked in his mind.

No, Jorgen said. But I agree with Rig that it sounds confusing.