“Um,” I said. “Some unimportant troubles back home. But it’s possible I might have to leave in a little bit, then come back again.”
“Whatever you wish. For now, you’ve got dock clearance. Berth 1182, which is in the seventh sector. An official will meet you there. Enjoy your visit.”
With that, they turned around and flew back toward the station.
I remained tense. Surely this was a trap. Surely they’d seen through my crude attempt at subterfuge. I eased forward on the throttle, following after the two ships—and they didn’t react.
I had them right in my sights. I could have blown them both from the sky, particularly with how closely—and lackadaisically—they were flying. How in the name of the Seventy Saints could they stand having their backs to me? The smart thing would have been to have me fly on ahead at a safe distance, so they could watch me from a position of power.
I accelerated, but stayed in range to fire on the ships if they turned on me. They didn’t seem to even notice. If this was a trap, they were doing an awfully good acting job.
Doomslug fluted nervously. I agreed.
“M-Bot,” I said, “have you calculated where we are yet?”
“Indeed,” he said. “We’re not too far from Detritus—only some forty light-years. This station, which you correctly named Starsight, is an important trading waystop. It houses the Superiority regional government.”
“Give me the coordinates—the direction and distance—to Detritus.”
“Easy,” M-Bot said. “Data is on your screen.”
Several long numbers popped up on my proximity screen’s readout. I frowned, then reached out to locate them with my fledgling cytonic senses. Only, reached out to . . . where? Those numbers were so large, they barely meant anything to me. Sure, they told me where Detritus was, but I still didn’t know where it was. Couldn’t feel it, like I had when Alanik sent me her cytonic impression of Starsight’s location.
“That’s not going to work,” I said. “I won’t be able to get us out unless I figure out more about my powers.”
“Theoretically,” M-Bot said, “we’ll be leaving with a stolen Superiority hyperdrive, right?”
“That’s the plan. I’d just feel better about this if I knew we had an escape route. How long would it take to fly back to Detritus the long way?”
“By the ‘long way’ you mean at sublight speeds?” M-Bot said. “That would probably take us roughly four hundred years, depending on how close to light speed we managed to get before using half our power, then accounting for deceleration on the other end. Sure, time dilation would make it seem like less time passed for us—but only about four years’ difference at that speed, so you’d still be super-dead by the time we arrived.”
Great. That wasn’t an option. But Jorgen and I had both known that I might end up trapped here. This was the mission. It was unlike anything I’d undertaken before, but I was the only one who could do it.
I boosted, drawing closer to the station, which was larger than I’d estimated. Scale and size were difficult to judge in space. The station looked kind of like one of the platforms that surrounded Detritus. A floating city—shaped like a disc, with buildings sprouting from both sides. A bubble of something glowing and blue surrounded it.
I’d always assumed that people lived inside stations like this, but as we drew closer and closer, I saw that wasn’t the case. People lived on the surface of this station, walking about with the open blackness above them. That bubble must keep in air and heat, making it habitable. Indeed, as we drew closer, the two patrol ships passed through the bluish shield.
I stopped outside that shell. Then, one last time, I tried to use my cytonic senses. I reached out in the direction M-Bot had indicated, and felt a faint . . . fluttering at the edges of my mind. That was the right direction. I could feel someone there. Alanik, maybe?
It wasn’t enough. I couldn’t teleport myself back. So it was time to enter the enemy’s base. I braced myself, then guided my ship through the envelope of the air shield.
10
It was beautiful.
As my alien guides led me closer, I could see that the station flowed with greenery. Parks filled with trees that towered some ten or fifteen meters tall. Large swaths of a dark green substance that M-Bot identified as a kind of moss, soft to walk on.
Back on Detritus, life was austere. Sure, there was the occasional statue, but