Cytonic (Skyward #3)(9)

For some reason, in that moment the pin felt more important. “Change of plans,” I said, running for Vlep.

Chet joined me in my charge. Vlep continued firing at the dinosaur, which was ignoring him in favor of snapping toward one of the ships as it took off. I hit Vlep from behind, right at the knees, sending him sprawling. Chet scooped up the gun while I pulled at the struggling heklo’s uniform coat, eventually yanking the pouch out of his pocket.



“Freeze!” a voice said from behind.

I spun and found the sleek ship hovering nearby, destructors pointed at me. Vlep took the chance to scramble away, leaving me without a captive. Chet dropped the gun and threw his hands up. Ship-mounted weapons would be powerful enough to vaporize us completely.

Fortunately, the pilot had forgotten the dinosaur. It seized the wing with a furious bite. I dove for the underbrush, and Chet was only a moment behind me. M-Bot belatedly swooped over to us.

I glanced at the last ship, but Vlep was climbing aboard—and the others were firing on the dinosaur. Crossing that clearing would be risking death from a stray shot.

“I believe,” Chet said, “Operation Ship-Steal will have to be canceled. My regrets.”

“It’s all right,” I said.

“Shall we?” he said, gesturing into the jungle. “I’d rather not remain in the line of sight of those vessels.”

In the clearing, the female burl had come out of her daze and slammed the male against a tree. He slumped to the ground, his eyes closed, and she turned immediately toward me—as if she could sense where I was. Her eyes looked like they’d grown over with skin, smoothing the sockets. But deep within her skull, two white dots—glowing with what I could feel distinctly was an intense hatred—shone through.

My breath caught in my chest. Then the burl pointed and screamed at me.

Scud.

I gave up any last hope of getting one of those ships. I joined Chet and dashed into the jungle, chased by the sounds of destructor fire and monster roars.





Chet ran in front of me, and he seemed to have a sixth sense for where to step—I was able to follow him fairly quickly, avoiding any pitfalls or hidden tree branches. I supposed jungle survival was part of an interdimensional space explorer’s standard repertoire.

M-Bot hovered along beside me. “Spensa!” he said. “I think I’m simulating fear! Or… No. It’s time to stop talking like that. I feel afraid. I am afraid!”

Well, that seemed like progress. The shouting faded behind us, and I was glad to put a large distance between me and that creature with the glowing eyes. Though I did feel another stab of worry for Doomslug. I assumed she’d hyperjumped home, but what if she’d only jumped somewhere nearby in here instead?

I felt terrible for not being able to do a longer search for her. But…well, hopefully if she was in here, she was safe. Honestly, if I had to lay bets on me, M-Bot, or the slug surviving in this jungle alone, she’d top the list.

We ran until we could no longer hear gunfire. Finally Chet nodded to me, and the two of us huddled down beside a moss-covered log. This place felt so alien. What did you do surrounded by all this life? Planet surfaces were supposed to be barren expanses of rock and craters. That was natural and normal. Not this greenery.



“Alas,” Chet said quietly, “the pirates finally seem to have noticed that the beast feeds on energy. You can’t hurt them with such weapons, but approach with a small power matrix as an offering and they become quite tame! Grigs are used as pack animals, for all their fearsome appearance. She should be full from all those blasts—I bet she’ll wander off and have a sleep now. Still, I think we should proceed as silently as possible, because of that thing with the shining eyes. I didn’t like the look of that at all.”

I nodded in agreement. “Thank you,” I whispered. “For your help. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself. Spensa Nightshade.”

“Excellent name!” he whispered back. “As for my help, it was a pleasure! I was already prowling Cannonade territory looking for some action, you might say. And I found it, yes I did! Helping a fellow cytonic is a hearty reward on its own. That said…” He trailed off, glancing at M-Bot. “Now I don’t want to pry, but…did I hear you speaking to that drone?”

“Oh, right,” I said. “This is M-Bot.”

“Hello!” M-Bot whispered. “I’m not so scared any longer. That feels nice.”

“Ah,” Chet said. “You, um, brought an AI into the nowhere, did you?”

“That’s…bad, I take it?”

“Yes, well, I believe that word to be an understatement, Spensa Nightshade. Do your people not know about the delvers?”

“We met one!” M-Bot exclaimed. “Well, Spensa did. I was being murdered at the time. But I heard about it on the news! Sounded scary.”

“Ah yes, well then.” Chet looked at me. “Your AI has gone fully sentient, I see? I thought you were newly arrived, but full sentience usually takes a few weeks.”

“Technically,” M-Bot said, hovering a few centimeters closer to him, “the word ‘sentient’ just means an ability to perceive and/or feel. Many people misuse this word. Instead, ‘sapience’ is the word for self-awareness—or intelligence like a human being. Which if you think about it is a human-centric definition. Those rascally humans and their linguistic biases.