as a female, and has asked that you call her simply Vapor.”
Hesho sat up at this. “A figment, you say?” he said, tapping his furry chin with a single clawed finger. “This is some comfort, at least.”
Huh? What was this? A “figment”? I looked around, trying to see if I could pick out what they were referencing. However, before I could ask, the official continued speaking.
“Excellent,” the official said, then pointed absently at Morriumur. “Now, you. Please follow me, and I’ll tell you about your placement.”
“What?” I said, suddenly alert. “Morriumur isn’t with us?”
“They shall be placed in their own solo flight,” the official said. “As is appropriate.”
Morriumur stood up slowly, looking sad. “I enjoyed speaking with you, Alanik.”
“No,” I said, feeling my face flush with outrage as I stood up. “We’re a flight. Morriumur stays with us.”
Both Morriumur and the official looked at me with shocked expressions. Well, let them be shocked. I folded my arms. “What good is a flight of one? Leave Morriumur with us.”
“You already have four in your team,” the official said. “This is the number we decided as a flight size.”
“Surely there isn’t an exact multiple of four in this room,” I said, gesturing to the pilots filling the tables around us. “Besides, we’re already a strange flight with a human in it. So we could use the extra pilot with us, in case the vicious creature turns against us.”
“Well,” the official said, rattled as they typed on their tablet, “well, I guess we can rearrange.” They glanced up at me warily, then went back to typing. “Just be ready for the shuttle pickup tomorrow. A Superiority flight suit will be issued to you and will arrive in the morning. You’ll be delivered back to Starsight each evening, so will not need to pack changes of clothing, but if you require sustenance at midday, be prepared with your own food supply. Be on time in the morning.”
At that, the dione turned and hurried away.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Morriumur said to me. “I came into this knowing that I’d be isolated.”
“Yeah, well, I rarely let go of someone once I have my teeth in them,” I said. “It’s the warrior’s way.”
“What a . . . profoundly disturbing metaphor,” Morriumur said, settling back down. “Thank you, in any case. I should like to not be on my own.”
“Wait,” I said, looking around our table. “They said four people were in our team. Who is this Vapor they mentioned?”
“It’s me,” a quiet whisper of a voice said. I jumped, and turned to look, but no one was there. I was hit with the striking scent of cinnamon. Burned cinnamon, actually.
“Welcome, unseen one,” Hesho said, standing, then bowing low. The others of his crew did likewise.
“You’re . . . invisible?” I asked, surprised.
“I am a figment,” said the soft feminine voice, and I realized I knew that voice. I’d heard it before.
“The drone ship that helped me save Morriumur!” I said. “You were on that ship.”
“Figments,” Hesho said, “are known to be able to infiltrate ships and take control of them.”
“So, are all the drones piloted by . . . by people like you?” I asked.
“No,” the disembodied voice said. “There aren’t many of us. I simply took control of one of the ships for this test, against the will of its remote pilot.”
Incredible. But what was she? A smell? Was I talking to a smell?
The distinct scent trailed away, but I didn’t know if that meant Vapor was leaving, or . . . something else? I found the idea of a creature that I couldn’t see to be distinctly disturbing. Who knew when she would be watching us?
The lunch was breaking up, creatures from other tables filing out to return to their ships. Hesho bade us farewell with gusto, then climbed down the ladders set up by his crew. Together, the group of over fifty diminutive foxes gathered their things and trotted out the doors.
Morriumur and I followed, eventually emerging out into the open air at the top of the station. Black sky overhead, speckled with stars. Ships were launching a few at a time for the flight back to Starsight.
I bade farewell to Morriumur, then walked over to M-Bot and hauled myself up onto his wing so I could get into the cockpit.
“Some engineers came to try to inspect me while you were below,” M-Bot said, “but I scared them away by making it seem like they’d accidentally tripped an alarm system.”