ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)

“No,” FM said. “But it’s hard for most people to ignore the dominant messaging sometimes, especially when no one is willing to speak against it.”

“Oh,” I said. “No, the official curriculum is tailored to make us look good for the Superiority, but there has always been turmoil on ReDawn as to whose ideas are the best. There is no shortage of differing opinions here.”

“That must be so confusing,” Rig said.

“Sometimes,” I said. “But it’s also liberating. With so many different ideas, it’s easier to choose what to believe. Unity would like us to all unite under one set of beliefs, one agreement about what is best. But that takes away our knowledge, reduces our ability to decide what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“So you need each other’s ideas to really be free,” FM said. “I like that idea.”

I didn’t feel like we needed Unity, but maybe that was true. Maybe if Independence won we’d do the same, simplifying what we taught to make us always in the right. Maybe the tension between us was what truly allowed the conversation to happen.

If we wanted to maintain that tension, I needed to make sure the Independents survived.

    Jorgen still stood to the side with his arms folded. I couldn’t tell what he thought, and I didn’t think he’d appreciate being called out in front of the others after his confrontation with FM.

You disagree with this idea? I asked in his mind.

No, Jorgen said. But I agree with Rig that it sounds confusing.

“Let’s try the cytonic defense systems now,” Jorgen said to Rig. “If we can inhibit the platform or turn on the shield, we’ll buy ourselves more time.”

Rig nodded and extended his hand to the blue slug, who seemed to sniff it even though it didn’t have a visible nose. After giving the slug a moment to acclimate to him, he picked it up and set it gently into one of the defense systems boxes and closed the door.

Nothing happened.

“What are you supposed to do now?” I asked. “Ask it to do something?”

“I don’t know what to ask it to do,” Jorgen said. “I can’t give it an image of an inhibitor. It doesn’t look like anything.”

“Maybe you could try to show it an image of a cytonic approaching us, let it know what we’re afraid of.”

“We’re not going back to scaring the slugs into submission,” FM said.

“Right,” Rig said. “But there’s a difference between frightening them and communicating with them. You could, like, explain the situation?”

Jorgen looked doubtful, but FM nodded and went back to staring at the floor.

“All right,” Jorgen said. “I’ll try to…explain.” He closed his eyes, and I listened in the negative realm, trying to hear what he was communicating.

    There were no words here, only ideas. Jorgen showed the slug his own fear, and then a picture of a cytonic emerging in the control room. I could feel the slug’s own fear—it didn’t like the way it had been treated by cytonics in the past.

By the branches. These things were intelligent.

Still, the slug didn’t do anything.

“Can you ask it to protect us?” I asked. They said the slugs understood abstract concepts like danger…

Jorgen sent an image, almost like a request. An impression of the platform being shut off to outside cytonics.

Arturo’s slug made a squeaking noise and then the universe around me stopped vibrating, as if the whole of it had suddenly died. It was gone—my ability to reach out, to find the others, to reach the whispering voices that told me I wasn’t alone. Maybe that was what Jorgen meant when he said Spensa could hear the stars. It wasn’t so much stars I could hear, but all the matter in the whole of space and time.

And now they were gone.

Jorgen looked as disoriented as I felt. Boomslug had his face buried beneath Jorgen’s arm, and Snuggles lay deflated in the sling across his chest. Gill huddled around FM’s shoulders.

“I can’t hear them anymore,” Jorgen said. “It worked, but—if we can’t use our own powers, we can’t keep track of the enemy, or listen in on them.” He turned to me. “How did we do that on Detritus? Some kind of impression?”

“There should be a code that lets us use cytonics while we’re within the inhibitor. I don’t know how you got it back on Detritus, but you did. Maybe because your powers manifested there, you grew up with the code in your mind?”

    “That would explain how the taynix got it too,” FM said.

“There might be a key here somewhere,” Rig said. He leaned over the control panel. “There are some recordings in the database, but they seem to be blank.”

“Play them,” I said.

“Sure,” Rig said, and he fiddled with some of the buttons.

An impression pushed into my mind like a key being slipped under a door. I concentrated on it, committing it to my memory, and the world began to vibrate around me again like a chorus of insects beginning to chirp again after a windstorm.

“Stars,” Jorgen said. “That’s better.”

“Better,” Gill and Boomslug both agreed, their voices forming a strange harmony.

I reached out, finding the minds of the slugs farther away on the platform, and I offered the impression to them. I could feel each of their relief.

“That should give us some cover,” Rig said. “I can work on getting the shield up and spend some time fixing Alanik’s ship so she’s battle ready. Then we can try out the weapons systems and the hyperdrive.”

“All right,” Jorgen said. “That seems like a good plan.”

“We think we can use the slugs to move the platform,” Arturo said. “But what will we do with it if we can?”

“It’s a large and powerful tool,” I said. “But not the stealthiest, to be sure. If we start moving the platform around, Unity will take notice. We need to figure out a way to use the distraction to save Rinakin.”

    “We’re assuming he wants to be saved,” FM said. She turned to Rig. “We want to rescue her friend, but we heard him over the radio saying he was defecting to the other side.”

“Wonder what that would feel like,” Rig said.