looked up and met my eyes despite the distance, and I felt a growing coldness. That wasn’t a reflection. It was one of them.
I hit the call button, but the room went black, and even my floodlights went out. I was left hanging as if in a void of nothing. Like I’d entered the nowhere.
My hand froze on the call button. But before I could speak, everything went back to normal. In the blink of an eye I was in my cockpit again, hanging in that ancient room, Vapor moving her ship toward the exit.
“—coming, Alanik?” Vapor’s voice crackled onto my communication channel midsentence. “Or are you just going to sit there?”
“I’m coming,” I said, trying to shake the creepy feeling. “What do you see back there?”
“Just a room,” Vapor said. “Why?”
“I . . .” I shook my head, then guided my ship back out into open space, where I breathed a sigh of relief.
24
Outside, Vapor had me run the team through a few scatter formations—a maneuver where the flight would break apart and fly in different directions, then regroup. I figured those would be useful when fighting something like the embers, which would try to smash into us.
The others must have felt my shift in mood, because nobody gave me lip, and even Brade went through the exercises without complaint. Before long, it was time to head back to the Weights and Measures, the day’s training finished.
I landed my ship in the docking bay, then gave her console a fond pat. She wasn’t M-Bot, but she was a solidly built fighter. I popped the canopy and hopped down to join the others—and I could read in their attitudes a kind of exhausted enthusiasm. Exhausted because it had been a long day of training, but enthusiastic because it had been good training. We’d made progress, and were already starting to feel like a team.
Hesho laughed heartily at something that Morriumur said, and was again joined by the female kitsen in the red uniform, carrying a shield. I’d learned she was named Kauri, and was the ship’s navigator—as well as Hesho’s shieldbearer, though I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant in this context.
As we walked together, I found that I could pick out a few of the other kitsen by their voices. It was strange to think that our flight included not just the five pilots, but all fifty-seven kitsen crew members as well.
I liked it. I liked how much energy it brought us. It almost helped me forget the strange things I’d felt and seen in the maze.
We were ordered back to the jump room, and though a drone arrived to lead the way, Brade tried to rush on ahead. Perhaps to keep from being forced to interact with us.
I walked faster to catch up to her.
“Hey,” I said. “I like that maneuver you pulled just before we ended. The one where you wove between other members of the flight, without hitting them?”
Brade shrugged. “It was simple.”
“You’ve got flight experience,” I noted.
“Obviously.”
“Well, I’m glad to have you on the team.”
“You sure about that?” she said. “You know what I am. Sooner or later I’m going to lose it, and there will be casualties.”
“I’m counting on it,” I said.
She stopped in place, standing in the red-carpeted hallway, frowning at me. “What?”
“Where I come from,” I said softly, “a little passion is a good thing to have in a pilot. I’m not afraid of a little aggression, Brade. I think we can use it.”
“You have no idea what you’re asking for,” she snapped at me, then hurried on.
I lingered until the others caught up, then walked with them to our jump room. This time, I didn’t try to continue on toward the engine room—the guard there was already suspicious of me, judging by how their eyes followed me as I passed.
As we settled into our seats, I focused on doing Gran-Gran’s exercise. I closed my eyes and let my mind float out, imagining myself soaring among the stars, and I listened.
The voices of the chattering kitsen faded away. There. Hyperdrive ready, a voice said. It wasn’t in English, but as always, language didn’t matter. My mind picked out the meaning. Why were they communicating via cytonics? It was just the bridge calling the engine room.
Excellent. That was from Winzik. Engage.
I braced myself, waiting . . . but nothing happened. What?
A moment later, another communication was sent. Engine room, is there a problem?
Yes, unfortunately, the reply came. We’re reading cytonic interference from localized