Jorgen, Alanik said, we could use some help down here.
I expanded my senses outward, taking in the whole of the battlefield. Our people were fighting, but they were scared. The appearance of Detritus and the scattering platforms both encouraged and confused them. Arturo was doing a good job with our people, but a lot of the UrDail and kitsen couldn’t understand him, and they lacked our organization and discipline. They were struggling.
I felt the kitsen cytonics wielding mindblades, hyperjumping their ships into better positions. I felt their joy at being reunited with their kinsmen and their terror that this day could be the last for their home. Down on the planet, I could feel the kitsen civilians huddling, frightened. And one mind listening carefully, with rapt attention and a fair amount of confusion.
Was that—
Cobb? I asked.
Son, he said, I don’t know what you’ve done up there, but for the North Star’s sake don’t stop now.
I closed my eyes. There were people all around, fighting and dying because of me. I’d worked so hard to find Cobb, but now I realized I was afraid to find him, afraid of what he’d think of what we’d done.
All this, all the resources we’d expended, moving the scudding planet, that was on me—
You WHAT? Cobb said.
Oh. He could hear me. Scud.
Sir, we—
Never mind, Cobb said. Focus. You’ve got a battle to win.
I felt like I should stop and give a full report, find out what my commander’s orders were. But I was pretty sure he’d given me an order, so…
Over by the control panel, Rig was fiddling with a radio, finding the flight’s channel. We knew he’d found it when Arturo swore loudly. “Is that Detritus up there?”
“Yes, it is,” Rig said. “If we couldn’t bring you home, we thought we’d bring home to you.”
“Saints and stars,” Sadie said.
I waited for Nedd’s wisecrack, but it didn’t come and my heart dropped.
“Amphi,” I said, “why don’t I hear Nedder?”
“Because he’s speechless for once,” Sadie said.
“Like the Saint says,” Kimmalyn said, “if you don’t have anything to say, you might scare your flightleader into thinking you’re dead.”
“I’m here,” Nedd said. “Just…wow.”
“Orders, Jerkface?” Arturo said.
“The enemy ships are scattering away from the platforms,” I said. The platforms were taking care of the area far above Dreamspring now, but even with their mobility they weren’t versatile enough to do all the work. “All flights, intercept those fighters and chase as many as you can in the direction of the platforms. We have the advantage now. Let’s use it.”
Arturo started giving orders, but I could already see what the problem was going to be. We had three different species of pilots in the air, and only some of them had translators in their ships. Defending a city was a more contained effort. Trying to catch and herd the enemy ships was going to take an enormous coordinated effort. We needed precision, but we had different training, and some of the kitsen ships probably had no training at all in working with a group this large. Communicating with them all was going to be impossible.
Unless.
Scud, I had an idea. I reached for Fine’s box and opened it, pulling him out into my arms.
Thank you for your help, I said. Mind lending me some more?
“Fine!” Snuggles said.
“Fine!” Fine said.
“Fine,” I said. And I focused on the battle again, on the many minds now scattering out over the planet. I felt Fine following me, his mind scanning over all the fighter pilots, a few of them winking out of existence, others blind with terror about what would become of them. Some determined. Fighting. Focused mostly on staying alive.
I could see the shape of the battle. I could see the patterns in the chaos, the places where we needed to push forward and those where we needed to pull back to manipulate the enemy. To stop their destruction and get them where we wanted them.
“Ready?” I said to Fine.
“Ready,” Fine said.
And I pushed outward toward their minds, sending them all the vision, helping them see what I could see. Not a mass of individual fighters, but a military so brave and strong and powerful that even the almighty Superiority was afraid of it.
This was it, I realized. The thing the Superiority feared the most. The power of all of us working together.
I could feel other commslugs joining us, amplifying the signal to my allies below. I could sense their minds responding. I couldn’t pick out individual voices, only this feeling. We were in this together, and in that we had hope.
I focused on the different fronts, directing our flights, pushing this one here, that one there. Pulling back some of our forces and urging others to retreat to the city, to cover the hospital area and the homes of the civilians. They all understood me, because in our minds there were no languages, no barriers. Around me Rig’s team continued to direct the platforms into place. Piece by piece the platforms were extending their shield across Evershore, trapping the enemy inside where my fighters hunted them mercilessly, driving them up into the fire of the platforms.
So many pieces, but I could see the larger pattern and I did my best to express it. Our fighters began to fly better, more precisely, taking more and more control of the skies—
And then I heard a whisper from the nowhere. One word, the sweetest of all.
Retreat.
The Superiority ships began to race for the edges of the shield, the fighters pouring into their remaining carrier ships, which blinked out of existence. Some of the fighters turned and ran without a ship to go back to, flying with blind terror, and my people picked them off one by one.
In my mind, one feeling resonated above all others.
Relief.
They were leaving.
We’d won.
It was only one battle, one raincloud from the oncoming storm. But we were going to hold out. We were going to keep fighting.
From now on, we’d do it together.
Twenty-One
When the battle was over, I hyperjumped with Juno down to the cliff above Dreamspring. The tidal wave had hit the lower city while I’d been gone, and there was considerable flooding, though the upper city remained intact and the water hadn’t reached the cliffs by the library. A few of the buildings had taken damage from falling ships or destructor fire, and bits of wreckage were scattered over the fins and ridges of the city.
“I’m sorry this happened,” I said to Juno.