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We have no bodies, Chet explained. So you can only see us—what you call the eyes—when we are looking. It is complicated…as light only becomes visible when you interact with it, when it hits your eyes, you can only be aware of us when we are aware of you.
I was Spensa Nightshade, warrior. Which meant, I had come to learn, that I was an important political tool.
Why are you worried? It’s good that they’re frightened, yes? Good, I thought back, and bad. Chet, they’re desperate. And desperate people do unpredictable things.
Being old isn’t that bad. Except for your body, your eyesight, your sense of balance, and waking up each morning feeling like you’ve been nailed in place.
Why hadn’t anyone told me how many meetings galactic war would involve? Maybe I would have surrendered. Torture couldn’t possibly be worse than this.
“I assume that is why you think we’re lucky, Admiral?” Jorgen cut in firmly. “Our enemy controls a great deal of space but not a lot of ships.”
Jorgen was, I thought curiously, the same age as Alexander the Great had been when he’d begun his conquest.
“Drones,” I said. “That’s annoying. You mean I won’t get to feast on the blood of my enemies?” I paused. “I wonder what motor oil tastes like.”
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” I snapped at the others. “You invited me. This is what you get. Ironsides, what about capital ships?”
Oh, is that Jorgen? He seems concerned. He’s always concerned,
Please don’t call an exorcist, if you have any. I understand that would be bad. You’re not actually a ghost. I don’t know that—and you don’t either. So, boo!
“I don’t even know what I’m doing. I can’t control it, but not in an ‘Oh no, I’m too inexperienced’ sort of way. More in an ‘Oh scud, I absorbed a space monster’ sort of way. It just happens. I’ll try to keep it from being a danger to anyone.”
How worried should I be for you? Are you all right? You feel distant.” “Space monster,” I muttered, meeting his eyes. “In my soul.”
“Jorgen?” I forced out. “When I was in there…lost…you were my anchor. You are the lighthouse that brought me home.”
“Things get done when you’re around.” “Things, yes,” I said. “Things like me running off and moonlighting as an interdimensional space pirate! ‘What would Spensa do?’ Honestly, Jorgen, I thought better of you.”
“You’re not a monster, Spensa,” he whispered. “You’ve never been a monster.” “I never said I was.” “You feel it,” he said. I agree, M-Bot said to me. You’re not a monster, Spensa.
At the end of the story…at the end of the story, the hero came home, and found herself transformed…into someone who didn’t belong, and could never belong, with the people she’d left behind. It was the same in almost every story I’d read. Heroes didn’t get to stay and live in the new world they helped create. Even if I pulled off some kind of miracle and saved my people…that
“Next thing you know,” I said, “everyone will be quoting Sun Tzu and savoring the sounds of bones breaking! I won’t be the least bit special anymore.”
“Rig,” I declared to him, “I need science.” “You need therapy.” “You need better jokes.” “You need a better sense of humor.”
Me to ib
I was barely listening. Fifteen-centimeter-tall. Furry. Ninjas. Scud. The universe was awesome after all.
“Well?” I finally snapped. “In the caverns where I grew up,” Kimmalyn said, “it’s not polite to ask folks about demonic entities attached to their souls. One simply doesn’t bring up such topics.” She smiled.
Doomslug fluted softly on my shoulder. She felt…as intimidated as I did. She didn’t want to go into the room either. Because…well, scud. She was shy.
When he died, they didn’t know how to respond to their grief so…all of this. The result of one former AI’s emotional constipation. Ew.
“Fear not,” I announced to them, “though I have returned, I come not for your blood! Turns out I prefer peanut butter. Enjoy your respite, fell beasts.”
“Me attacking you back in flight school wasn’t romantic?”
“Why do all of these examples involve me being embarrassed, humiliated, or bullied?”
“How weird you’ve been?” I said from his lap. “Jorgen, I’m the one with a delver piggybacking my soul.” “Yeah, but that sort of thing is expected of you.” “It is?”
“But—” “Spensa, I can feel the tension in you. You can’t show me your soul and then think you can lie. Besides, I’m well aware how hard these last few months have been for you.”
“Stop that,” Gran-Gran said, rapping her knuckles against mine. “I trained you to be a bold warrior. Not a Chihuahua.”
it either, then?” “It’s very secret,” Kimmalyn agreed. “So secret that we’re not telling command. And we’re…kind of ignoring them.” “Again?”
The woman took us in, then spun on her heel and closed the door with a clear “above my pay grade” sort of attitude.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think there’s an elegance to a military chain of command.” “You do?” he said. “You certainly enjoy ignoring it.
“This is one truth the Superiority was correct about. They warned us that one person having too much power would lead to a civilization without freedom.
“Did you just cut through an inhibitor?” she snapped. “How?” How indeed?
Jorgen in the long window overlooking the flight deck. He stood in a brilliant white uniform, hands clasped behind his back, medals shining on his breast. Face like stone. Yeah. I deserved that.
“You’re not bad at being a friend,” Rig said, “you’re just hard to be friends with. That’s different.”
“Prepare a bandage too,” I said, climbing to my feet. “I’m half-convinced he’s going to stab me for even daring to ask.”
I didn’t just hyperjump into Jorgen’s room, like I normally would have. I didn’t even march up to his door and bang on it, like a proper warrior would. I made an appointment. With his secretary.
I could name you an airman in charge of floor mopping, and it wouldn’t make a difference.”
“This was a whole lot more fun when you were my rules-obsessed boyfriend and I could corrupt you. Why’d you have to go and become the guy in charge of everything?”
“I didn’t choose that so much as have it forced upon me…” “Sure,” I said. “You can just up and decide to be admiral, but if I try to change my rank…”
“So…” I continued, “can I please go duel Brade to the death in ...
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“She’s been popping up in my head lately, connecting to me cytonically. She invited me to come try to kill her. Can I go do it, please please please?”
Should I go duel Brade? That was a decision for me, not for him, right? It would mean doing something while waiting on Jorgen and the— “Are you thinking,” he said to me, “that because I’m delaying on this plan you literally just dreamed up, you should go back to dueling that woman?” “…Maybe,”
On one hand, injecting myself with a random syringe I found on my enemy was…well, one of the most Spensa-like things I’d ever done.
I slammed my hands down on the room’s large metal desk. Her eyes went wide. I teleported the desk directly above her head.
She was stronger, had more resources, but I. Would. Never. Stop. I was vengeance incarnate. I was death. I—
SHE IS HURTING THE LITTLE DELVERS?
Yes now go kill brade 👹
KILLING THE LITTLE DELVERS? KILLING THE ONES WHO HELD US? KILLING THE ONES WHO LOVED US?
Well, hell below.
