Chapter Text
The debris fields above Detritus were beautiful in their own way. From the ground, they were hazy, a grey end to the slate-colored sky. It wasn’t until you were in a ship, thousands of feet up, that you could see any detail. The metal slabs resolved into patterns resolved into platforms. An ever-shifting maze of defenses, composed of auto-turrets and space stations and shields.
Extraordinary, and extraordinarily confusing. I was glad for the route we’d tagged that gave us directions back to Platform Prime. It would change, eventually, with the movement of the debris, but there was enough traffic between here and Alta Base that new maps would be made well before anyone got lost. I guided my Val-class fighter through the maze and slowed as we reached a clearing. As the rest of the flight caught up, I glimpsed our destination: Platform Prime, a welcome sight amid the debris field… and the force field.
“That’s new,” I said, opening a channel to the rest of Stardragon Flight. Out past the platforms, the planetary shield glimmered a bright blue. It blocked any view of the stars. I wondered if this was what the Earthen sky had looked like.
“Away for a week and they’re already redecorating!” Otter laughed. It was easy to pick out his ship on my sensors, darting between the others.
The ship beside me dipped its wings back and forth as if shrugging. Kamalie said, with his Huakaihele Cavern accent, “Looks like they got the shield generators working.”
“Thanks, Admiral Obvious,” Wesley said, her Bountiful Cavern accent strong across the radio. I could picture her eye roll perfectly. “And Platform Prime’s right where we left it.”
“Do the math, I don’t think it’s the same place,” said Kamalie. “The platform moves, the planet rotates—”
“Coastline, Whiny,” I said, using their callsigns, “why don’t one of you call ahead and have the ground crew open the doors for us?”
“Yeah, all right,” Wesley said, taking my provided exit.
One week on leave, and they were trying to pick fights with each other before we’d even gotten our first mission briefing. Kamalie was always trying to rope the others into roundabout discussions; he’d never let the language barrier stop him, and that hadn’t changed during our time off in Highway Cavern.
I let the others fly ahead of me as the hangar bay opened. Our Val-class starfighters were the smallest ships in the Defiant fleet, and that meant our flight shared a hangar, since we could all fit. Most of the other flights got individual bays. But I liked our ships. Long and pointed, with wings that arced straight back from the narrow fuselage. In my mind they were more akin to a falcon than a hawk, not quite as boxy as a Poco. More graceful, and certainly faster, though they sacrificed just about every offensive and defensive measure to be so.
“Stardragon Flight, sound off and confirm before landing,” I called out as we neared the edge of the hangar. The platform’s radios would be able to pick up our chatter now, and I wanted them to know we were incoming. Through the faint distortion of the shield, I could see the ground crew moving about, clearing the landing pads. “And,” I added quickly, “what was the highlight of your vacation.”
There was a chorus of groans from over the radio.
“You already heard about it on the trip up from Igneous!” Soraya said.
I sighed. “Humor me.”
“Not very funny,” Kamalie muttered, then said, louder, “Stardragon Two, callsign: Coastline, confirmed. Bonsai showed me the Highway Cavern archives! Very entertaining.”
His ship slipped past the shield and he landed lightly at the back of the hangar.
“You and I have different definitions of entertainment,” Bastian said. “Stardragon Three, callsign: Bonsai, present. The highlight of my vacation was sleeping, like, twelve hours straight.”
He had enough room to do a loop as he flew towards the hangar. Show-off.
“Stardragon Four, callsign: Whiny. Here.” There was a pause. “I visited Aubrey.”
“Aurora!” Otter exclaimed. “How is she?” Wesley’s twin sister had been a member of our flight until she was injured in the Battle of Alta Second. She’d been honorably retired, granted a full pilot’s pin, but I hadn’t been able to get anything more out of Wesley than that Aubrey had gone back home.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Wesley said, and she disappeared into the hangar, leaving the rest of us in silence.
“Well…” Soraya said. “Stardragon Five, callsign: Squire, confirmed. I went to a digball tournament—that was fun.”
She executed a quick turn into the hangar, landing further along the growing line of ships.
“Stardragon Six, callsign: Otter. All accounted for,” Osten said, moving his ship forward. “Highway Cavern’s home for me. I got to see some friends.”
“That’s great.” I turned my ship towards the hangar.
Kamalie coughed exaggeratedly over the radio. “Last but not least, our flightleader…”
“Yes, thank you, Coast.” My ship passed through the hangar’s shield, and suddenly the sound of the platform was all around me, along with the atmosphere. “Stardragon One, callsign: Robin, confirmed. I read two massive books for my vacation.”
“Nerd,” said Bonsai, a well-worn epithet.
I smiled and shook my head, angling my starfighter over the landing pad. The struts extended easily, and I touched down at the end of the line of ships.
“Amazing vacations all around,” Soraya said cheerfully. There was a whirring sound as the hangar doors started to slide closed around the shield. That was another benefit to sharing a hangar: all of the individual bays had to be pressurized, but here the atmosphere was kept in by a shield.
I popped open my canopy and reached over the fuselage to release the small steps that let me climb down the side of my ship. Swinging myself out, I set my helmet on the wing and grabbed my bag from behind the seat. The others were all getting out of their ships or already gathered at the entrance to the hall. I waved in greeting to the maintenance crew and strode across the metal deck to my flight, Soraya and Otter joining me along the way.
“I brought back cookies,” Otter said. “If we want to share them at dinner tonight?”
“Ooh, yes.” I grinned. The Lindstrom family had the best sugar cookie recipe. If I remembered right, Otter’s cousin ran a bakery in the deep caverns. “Don’t tell anyone else, we can surprise them.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Otter said as we joined the others.
“What secret?” Bonsai immediately asked, turning away from Wesley and Kamalie, who were discussing the possibility of new flightmembers.
“None-ya.” Soraya stuck up her chin. “See if I tell.”
Kamalie narrowed his eyes at her as we started walking down the hall. “What’s none-ya?”
“None-ya business!” Otter said, laughing, and ran ahead before Kamalie could punch him in the arm.
I smiled as we continued walking through the halls. Our footsteps were muted by the carpeted floors. Though everyone was carrying bags and still wearing pressure suits, I’d been told we needed to meet with command before heading to the bunks. And, really, I didn’t think my flight cared; we were all looking forward to getting a new mission. Though our vacation down in the deep caverns had been nice, we were all eager to get back to the sky. Or to space. Wherever the fight against the Krell—the Superiority—was taking place.
Wesley and Soraya took the lead like they usually did when we were out scouting. Wesley carried not a standard DDF-issue duffel bag but an oversized pink shoulder bag. It was totally impractical, and the bright shade clashed horribly with the dull colors of her pressure suit, but she’d used that bag since flight school. Behind the two wingmates, Otter and Bonsai were discussing some flight maneuver, gesturing wildly. I took up the rear with Kamalie, and we walked together in companionable silence.
The walkways that crisscrossed the platform were quieter than usual, though we passed a few aides and engineers, who we nodded to. A few pilots walking from the mess hall, who Otter and Bonsai said hello to. And then a face I recognized: Sadie, who’d been in our cadet group at flight school.
“Hello, Sadie!” I said, waving. She looked preoccupied, blue hair pulled back in a messy bun, but she brightened as she recognized me.
“Robin! And Stardragon Flight.” She stopped. “Back from R-and-R?”
“Yeah, it seems like we missed a lot,” I said. We’d all heard about the delver attack, and we’d seen firsthand the new planetary shield, but I was sure that wasn’t the end of it. Things always seemed to be happening when we weren’t around.
“Anything you can share?” Bonsai asked Sadie, raising his eyebrows.
Sadie was a member of Skyward Flight, but she’d been in our wave of cadets. Her cadet flight had dissolved at graduation, only two pilots left, so she’d gotten to join Skyward Flight when they were looking for members. A few pilots were jealous of them, but most were simply in awe. One of their flightmembers was Spensa, callsign Spin, who had strange, mind-bending cosmic powers. Skyward Flight was always being called up for one impossible mission or another. They’d been the ones to find the mysterious alien a few weeks ago, and last I’d heard were doing some kind of stealth mission. They were usually the first to know what was going on, with top clearance.
Sadie looked unsure. “I don’t know how much you’ve been told.”
“Basically nothing,” Wesley muttered. I shot her a look.
“I’ll let command fill you in, then.” Sadie shrugged. “That’s where you’re headed, right?”
I nodded.
“Great,” she said. “There’s a lot you missed. Have fun with your mission!”
“All right, then… Good to see you!” I frowned as she walked away. Usually Sadie was happy to chat for longer, but it seemed like there was much more that had happened while we’d been on leave, and she didn’t want to be the one to explain it all to us. She was probably busy, anyway.
As soon as she’d turned the corner, Otter burst out, “We’re in for it.”
“We are not in trouble, Otter,” I said, looping my hand through one strap of my pressure vest. I briefly wondered if we should have interrogated the other pilots we’d passed in the hall. Well, command would tell us what disaster was going on. We were almost to the meeting room now.
“If it were anything urgent,” Bonsai added, “we would have been called back up from leave. So it’s not to do with the delver.” He sounded unsure.
“It’s not the delver,” I said, although I didn’t really know that. That attack had ended as quickly as it had begun; we hadn’t even gotten a message until the battle was already over.
“Right,” Kamalie jumped in. “But something’s definitely going on.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Yeah, ‘cause usually there’s a lot of people out and about,” Wesley said. “It’s suspicious.”
“It’s not suspicious. It’s only—”
“What if the Superiority’s planned something else?” Soraya asked. “I heard Spensa came back with news from her mission.”
“Where did you even—”
I was interrupted again, everyone talking over each other.
“Do we actually…”
“And we’re still due new flightmembers…”
“Nobody’s said what…”
“Maybe another alien…”
“You don’t think it could be…”
“Obstacle! Obstacle!” I said, imitating the blaring alert, and everyone jumped. Bonsai tripped and barely caught himself; Wesley stumbled back and hit the wall. My entire flight turned to glare at me. I sighed, and pointed at a door. “It’s no use speculating, there’s the meeting room.”
Wesley pushed through the door without another word, and the others followed her. “Not cool,” Bonsai hissed as he passed the doorway, but he held the door open for me.
The briefing room was austere like all of the rooms on the Platform Prime were, white walls and grey carpet, but this one had a domed ceiling and a long table in the center. Admiral Cobb was seated at the end of the table, two members of Skyward Flight beside him. Or, no, one of them was an engineer.
“Sit down,” the Admiral said gruffly, taking a sip of his coffee. He had stacks of papers arrayed out in front of him, and there was a large box in front of the other two pilots, probably filled with more papers.
Kamalie pulled out a chair, and blinked as it swiveled out from the table. The rest of the flight shrugged and settled in, stowing their bags under their chairs and getting as comfortable as they could in their bulky pressure suits. I pulled out the chair closest to the door and sat down, putting my bag by my feet.
“Well, sir, we’re ready for a mission,” I said, unsure about asking for additional news. All of the pilots had been told about the delver attack, but it seemed like there was more going on. I didn’t know how much leeway Admiral Cobb would give me for this briefing. Depended how much coffee he had left. “After seeing the shield, my flight and I are excited to get back out there.”
“I’m sure you are,” Cobb said. “The situation has changed quite a bit. FM can explain.”
The girl from Skyward Flight looked alarmed. “I can—well, there’s a lot.”
“FM can summarize.” The Admiral made a mark on one of the papers. It seemed he was too busy to lead the briefing.
“Right.” FM glanced at the engineer beside her, then back at me and my flight. “How much have you been told about cytonics?”
“We haven’t heard much beyond ‘magic space powers,’” I said, thrown off by the question.
Otter chimed in, “Spensa has them.”
“They’re dangerous,” Soraya added, and beside her, Bonsai nodded.
FM shook her head. “They have the potential to be dangerous, but a lot of what’s been passed down in the deep caverns is propaganda. None of us fully understands what the powers can do—not even Spensa, though she pretends otherwise—but there’s a lot of possibilities to use them in the fight against the Superiority. Teleportation, communication, and defense are known applications. Cytonics can make a huge difference in the war.”
“What does this have to do with us?” Wesley asked, arms crossed. “We’re not cytonic.”
“Are we getting a new flightmember?” Otter asked hopefully.
A cytonic in our flight would be useful. And with six members, we were short on pilots anyway. But leading this flight was already like herding rats, and I didn’t know what a new person would do to the mix.
“In a way,” FM said. She tapped the box in front of her; I’d assumed it was full of papers, but suddenly there was a strange fluting noise. Kamalie, who’d been resting his crossed arms on the table, startled back.
“What’s that?” I asked, leaning forward.
“Let me just show you.” FM reached into the box. She pulled out a creature unlike any I’d ever seen. It was about the size of a loaf of bread, though small enough that she could carry it with one hand, and it looked squishy. It was banana-yellow, and covered along its back with flexible blue spines that straightened up as the creature turned to stare at us. At least, I assumed it was staring at us. It didn’t have any eyes, just slightly longer spines—antennae?—at the top of its head.
“Tirda.” Bonsai’s voice was a whisper. “What is that?”
“A… slug,” I said. I thought that was the right word for it, though I didn’t know much about Old Earth animals. This one seemed bigger than the ones I’d heard about. Didn’t they use to live in gardens, or under rocks?
“A cytonic slug,” FM confirmed, putting it on the table. It squirmed around to look at her.
“They’re technically taynix, but everyone’s been calling them slugs,” said the red-haired engineer from beside her. “And this one’s a hyperslug. It can hyperjump—basically, it can teleport.”
“No way.” Soraya’s eyes were wide. “Where did that even come from?”
“The deepest caves,” FM said. “And they’re going to help us against the Superiority.”
We all stared. The slug, for its part, seemed to sniff the air, unconcerned with how strange it was.
“How—how, exactly, can a slug help us?” I watched as the taynix crawled down the table. Otter reached out to touch it and froze when it turned towards him.
“I know this is a lot to wrap your head around,” FM said apologetically. She shot a look at the Admiral, who was shuffling through papers. “And I’m probably not the best person to explain this. But these slugs all have cytonic powers, like Spensa.”
“Spensa has slug powers,” Bonsai said, nodding.
FM didn’t comment on that. “She’s been away on an important mission, so we’ve been searching for another edge in the battle. Especially after the fight with the delver. These slugs are the answer.”
I furrowed my brow. “You said these slugs. There’s more like this one?”
Beside her, the boy reached into the box. He pulled out two more taynix, and set them on the table. One was purple with orange spines, and the other was teal with green spines. The teal one was smaller than the other two. They all turned to crawl back towards each other.
“They know each other,” Soraya said, watching them closely.
“Yes,” said FM with a smile. “That’s how we’re going to work with them. We can bond with them, teach them commands, and they want to help us. They see us as friends.”
“Friends!” The purple slug spoke. Its voice was high pitched, yet song-like. At this point, my entire flight was staring, eyes wide.
“They echo sounds,” the engineer explained. “They don’t seem to speak our language, exactly, but they know what different words mean.” He tapped the table in front of the yellow slug. “Get Drape.”
The slug looked up at him. We all stared at it.
“You know Drape,” FM said. “Get Drape.”
The slug made a strange echoing sound and continued to sit there.
“I don’t think it’s doing anything,” I said.
“We’re still working on commands.” The engineer rubbed the back of his neck. “They’ll do better when you bond with them. Other than the yellow hyperslugs, the purple ones are commslugs, and the blue ones are inhibitor slugs.”
“Which are…?” Wesley leaned back in her chair.
“Oh, right. Commslugs can send messages cytonically—we’ve found a few different communication centers on the platforms so far, and these slugs are how they’re used. Inhibitor slugs block cytonics, and they help with the shields. There’s another variety, but they’re a bit… unpredictable. You won’t see much of them.”
“So let me get this straight,” I said. “Our new flightmembers are these three magic slugs, which might share their magic powers with us, but only if we make friends with them.”
“That’s right.” FM somehow managed to look perfectly poised, as if this was something that happened every day. Maybe it was, in Skyward Flight.
“It’s kind of cute,” Soraya said. The purple taynix had wriggled over to her and she was petting it hesitantly along its orange spines. The other two slugs, seeing the attention their friend was getting, moved towards her. Bonsai reached out to touch one, and it stretched its head forward to tap its antennae against his hand. He flinched back, and Otter laughed.
“Watch and learn,” he said, picking up the teal slug with both hands. The spines on it shivered, and it curled in on itself like it was getting comfortable. It was small enough to fit cozily in Otter’s palms. Otter grinned and held it up to Kamalie, who jumped back, pushing his swivel chair as far away from the table as it would go.
“No thank you,” Kamalie said tersely, and Otter frowned at him, pulling the slug close to his chest. It hummed, a sound which the others repeated in harmony. Strange.
Wesley looked back at FM. “Do we have a mission other than babysitting?”
“Bonding with slugs is a very important mission,” Otter said, but he turned towards FM expectantly, the inhibitor slug cradled in his arms.
“It is an important mission,” FM agreed, “but yes, there’s some other tasks we have for your flight.”
She looked hopefully over at Cobb, who was sipping his coffee and checking boxes on his paperwork. I supposed there probably were a lot of forms to assign a group of slugs to every flight.
FM sighed. “The exploration crews put together a list of platforms that might have the technology to interface with the slugs.”
“Joy,” said Wesley, deadpan. “Another platform to explore.”
“You’re really living up to your callsign today, Whiny,” Soraya said. Her smile met Wesley’s glare.
“These other platforms are really incredible,” the engineer said, in the same tone of voice that Bonsai used when he was talking about a new maneuver that he wanted to try. “We think that to the people who used to live in these platforms, the taynix were just a part of life. They help power the cytonic communication systems, and we think there’s even a way the hyperslugs could move the platforms.”
I nodded along. Beyond the simple fact of the taynix’s (as yet unexhibited) powers, which were striking on their own, the possibility of improving the platforms was formidable. We’d always known that the platforms had outstanding defensive capabilities, and the process of discovering Platform Prime after the Battle of Alta Second had proven that. To be able to use them against the Superiority, to take the fight to the Krell…
“We’ll have the mapping data sent to your ships. And details about cytonic hardware have been added to all the scouting checklists.” FM drummed her fingers against the table in a staccato rhythm. “Any more questions? Don’t answer that,” she added quickly.
I laughed, taking the obvious hint, and motioned at my flight. I slid my bag over my shoulder as I rose from my chair. “We’ll stow away our things and get right on it.”
“Are we taking the slugs?” Otter asked, struggling to balance his bag in one hand and the blue slug in the other.
“Yes,” I said. “Squire, you can take the commslug…” As Soraya settled it in the crook of her arm, I looked around at my flight. Wesley and Kamalie were avoiding my gaze, gathering their bags from under the table, and Bonsai was hesitantly reaching out a hand to the hyperslug, then flinching back when it moved towards him. After their initial reactions to the idea of cytonics, I would have expected Soraya to be the one more scared of the slugs, not Bonsai. But I supposed she had grown up near a fish hatchery, and had more experience with animals than Bonsai did.
“I’ll take the yellow one,” I declared. It seemed to understand my intentions, because it turned towards me as I reached over the table for it. Its antennae waved, and after a moment’s hesitation, I picked it up the way Otter had picked up his, with two hands around its middle. Though it draped lightly around my hands, it was still heavier than I’d expected. Its skin was leathery, almost soft.
Holding the slug in front of me, I turned back to FM and Admiral Cobb. “We’ll report back as soon as we can, sir.”
“Thank you, Commander,” the Admiral said, finally glancing up from his paperwork.
I couldn’t salute with a slug in my hands, so I settled for a nod to each of them. Pushing open the door with my elbow, I led my flight out of the meeting room. We gathered in the hallway as the door swung closed.
After a moment of standing around staring at each other, I looked around to get my bearings and started off down the hall towards the bunks. The others trailed after me.
“What do we think of the new mission?” I asked eventually.
“I’d thought we would get new pilots for our flight,” Kamalie said, looking sideways at the slugs.
“What do you mean?” Otter smiled down at the teal slug in his hands. “Our new flightmembers are great.”
“They don’t even do anything,” Wesley grumbled.
“Anything,” the purple slug said. It seemed more talkative than the rest of the slugs. I glanced back at it, then continued down the hall.
“That engineer said we needed to bond with them,” I pointed out. Maybe it would take some time for the taynix to use cytonics; maybe they couldn’t use them without the platform’s technology. Although, FM had seemed to think the yellow one would teleport when told to. I looked at the slug in my hands. Its antennae were waving, and it seemed interested in our journey through the halls. It turned its head to “look” every time we passed an intersection.
Otter angled over to walk with Wesley and Bonsai, who, along with Kamalie, had stayed aloof from the slugs so far. Bonsai eyed the inhibitor slug as Otter held it up in front of them.
“This one’s really friendly,” Otter said.
“It probably just thinks you’ve made a convenient nest for it,” Wesley said.
Bonsai frowned. “Do slugs have nests?”
“Scud, I don’t know.” Wesley rolled her eyes. “Ask it. They talk, don’t they?”
Bonsai looked hesitantly at the taynix in Otter’s hand. “Do you live in nests?”
“Nests,” the slug said back, and curled up in Otter’s palm.
“I don’t think that answers the question,” said Bonsai, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Wesley looked thoughtful. “I guess they’re not birds, so they probably don’t have nests.”
“Birds aren’t the only animals with nests,” Bonsai said. “There’s, uh… rooks.”
“That’s a type of bird.”
“No, I thought—the thieving one. Lives in trees, fluffy. With stripes?”
“Raccoons?”
“That’s it!”
Wesley laughed, turning to Kamalie. “Do you know what Bastian’s talking about?”
“Hey,” Kamalie said, “I know Old Earth things.”
“So do I!” Bonsai crossed his arms. “I just get words mixed up sometimes.”
“English is confusing,” agreed Kamalie. “One thing that I can’t make sense of, is idioms. You say ‘under the weather’ when someone doesn’t feel well. Aren’t we always under the weather?”
“We’re on a platform above the atmosphere, so right now we’re above the weather,” Bonsai pointed out.
“Right, but on the surface of a planet…”
That conversation carried on until we finally reached the bunks, an absurd number of turns later. Platform Prime was truly labyrinthine; I’d heard some of the engineers had taken to printing out maps. I paused to look at the duty schedule on the wall. It looked like most of the other flights were out scouting or doing drills, although Ivy Flight and Nimbus Flight were scheduled for a rest period.
“All right,” I said. “We’ll meet back here in ten. Scatter!”
The boys gave mock salutes and disappeared down one hallway. With Soraya and Wesley leading the way, I turned down another. Up ahead, voices echoed down the white hall, probably from the girls’ common area.
While Wesley and Soraya continued to their bunks, I shouldered my way into my room. I let the door shut behind me and surveyed the space. As a flightleader, I’d gotten my own room—most of the others had two- or three-person bunks. A step up from Alta Base, though a small one. There was just enough room for a narrow bed and a desk, with a low dresser wedged underneath the bed. I had a DDF recruitment poster up on the wall, which showed a picture of a Val-class starfighter darting over the rocky hills of Detritus, and the words ‘Defiant Defense Force’ arcing under the stylized platforms.
My desk was mostly empty, just some pens and a pad of paper scattered across it, so I set the taynix there. It fluted at me and went to investigate the pens. With a sigh, I dropped my duffel bag at the end of my bed and sat down beside it. I could unpack later—I was already wearing my pressure suit, and I’d need to wear it for the mission. I plucked a hair-tie from a pocket and pulled my hair back into an approximation of a bun. My black hair was short enough and curly enough that it fought anything that I tried to do with it, and sorting arguments between my flight was the only peacekeeping that I felt like for today.
I pulled an empty backpack from one of the drawers under my bed and set about getting ready for our scouting trip. A small first aid kit, a few packs of algae chips, extra ration bars. A handheld radio, one of the privileges of scouting. My notepad, and the pens I had to scoop away from the slug. I debated bringing my uniform jacket, but left it folded away. I was always getting cold, used to the warmth of Igneous, but my pack was full enough now. I zipped it up, put it on, and turned back to the slug.
“You ready to go on a mission?” I asked it.
“Mission!” it seemed to sing. I found it odd that they repeated our words back, but added their own inflection to them. Like the stories of Echo, cursed to repeat what other people said. Except these slugs seemed to enjoy picking which words they wanted to mimic.
“Yeah, I’m excited to go, too.” I picked it up and offered it a seat on my shoulder. It seemed to like that idea, crawling across and settling itself half on my backpack, half on one shoulder. This was certainly better than having my hands full all the time while carrying it around. The slug hummed as I stepped back out into the hall.
I still had some time before meeting up with the others, so I set off towards the girls’ common area. It was a wide room with low couches and circular tables, prefect for impromptu discussions and playing card games. As I got closer, I could pick out some of the voices as pilots from Ivy Flight.
I knocked on the doorframe as I entered and was greeted with waves and smiles. There were two girls reading books on one of the couches and another five gathered around a table. As they turned back to their discussion, I saw that there were two yellow slugs sitting in the center of the table.
“Hi, Robin!” the Ivy flightleader, Tempest, said. She preferred to go by her callsign, and she always assumed everyone else was the same. “Did your flight get slugs, too?”
I turned to show off the yellow slug balancing on my backpack. “This one, and two others, all different kinds. Otter was really hoping for more pilots.”
“Hey, but I heard they’re going to be reassigning some of the new graduates from Zenith’s class,” said one of the girls from Nimbus Flight. Zenith had been my flight instructor, specializing in training scout pilots. Anyone could fly a Poco, but it took a different kind of pilot to fly a Val, which relied more on speed and IMP bursts than destructors and shields.
“That’s promising.” I nodded towards the table. “How are you all doing with your slugs?”
“Great!” Tempest said. She pointed at an array of algae strips, chocolate chips, and dried apples. “We’re trying to decide what foods they like best.”
“What do they eat?” I asked as one of the slugs investigated the apples.
“Well, we were told they like mushrooms. Corgi definitely does. But we need to have something to use as treats, for training.”
I nodded, although I was unsure how you were supposed to train a slug. FM had seemed to think they knew names, and it was obvious that they were pretty smart by the way that they chose which words to echo.
“Oh, and here,” said Bridget from Ivy Flight, handing me a bag that had been helpfully labeled ‘mushrooms’. “We’ve been keeping extra in the pantry,” she added, pointing towards the cabinets on the far wall.
“Right, thanks.” I opened my backpack from the side in an effort to avoid disturbing my slug. Stuffing the bag of mushrooms in, I zipped it up before anything could fall out.
“Thanks,” the slug said, matching my tone, and was echoed by the two slugs at the table. The girls laughed.
“Aww, Snickers, how polite,” said the Nimbus flightleader, stroking one of the slugs along its spines. “You deserve a treat for sure.”
“I’d better get back to my flight before they convince the taynix to start a revolt,” I said, moving towards the exit. “See you later!”
A chorus of goodbyes followed me out into the hall, and I walked towards the sound of voices coming from the other direction. It sounded like my flight had already finished stowing their things. My ears were proven correct as I stepped into the corridor to find Otter and Bonsai showing something off to the others—a new accessory, a sling for the slugs.
"Vintage said that slugs like going places with their flight," Otter said, spinning so that everyone could see the slug tucked into the sling on his back. It was poking its blue-and-green head out from one end and trilling happily. Soraya had acquired a sling from somewhere as well, and was petting the purple taynix along its orange spines.
"Ketrin from Valkyrie Flight does embroidery," Bonsai added. "Whenever we decide on names, they can each have their own sling!"
It seemed that Bonsai had gotten over his apprehension about the slugs. Wesley, meanwhile, turned towards me.
"Rio, tell them they look like dorks," she said. "I tell them that too much, I don't think it has any effect anymore."
"I think it’s a great idea," I said. Wesley groaned dramatically.
Kamalie, closest to the main hallway, started walking, and the rest of us followed. Soraya stepped next to me and patted the hyperslug. From the sling at her side, the commslug lifted its head to sniff at my backpack.
“I got food for them,” I told the others. “They eat mushrooms, but I think they like apples as well.”
“As long as they don’t like cookies,” said Bonsai. “Otter, did your family send you back with any?”
Otter made a noncommittal noise and pretended to be busy with a frayed edge on his slug’s sling. I quickly changed the subject.
“All right, so, plan for the mission.” Normally I would have started walking backwards so that I could see everyone, but I didn’t trust my ability to navigate in reverse. Plus, Kamalie was still several yards ahead of the rest of the flight.
“Same-old, same-old.” Wesley ran a hand along the smooth white wall. “Fly there, draw up a map, get back in time for dinner.”
“I think you’re missing several important steps there,” Soraya said. “Like checking whether there’s atmosphere in the platform? Artificial gravity?”
Wesley waved a hand. “Minutiae. Besides, most of the platforms we’ve found so far had those systems left on.”
“We should still check,” I pointed out. “And we’re also supposed to be looking for tech that could interface with the slugs.”
“We can work on training them while we’re there!” said Otter. “The yellow one’s supposed to teleport, right?”
“Right!” the hyperslug said, and we all looked back to where it was balancing on my backpack. It waved its antennae.
“…Right,” Wesley repeated, brows furrowed. She quickened her pace. “I’m not flying with one of those.”
Otter followed after, holding up the blue taynix. “Oh, give them a chance, Wesley!”
“It’s fine, Osten,” said Soraya. “More slugs for us! This one can fly with me.”
“Hey,” Bonsai said. “You told me I could have a turn with the slug.”
We turned the corner to the hangar, and everyone’s voices echoed in the wider space.
“I don’t know…” Soraya patted the commslug on the head. “What if the taynix don’t like flying? We should keep them with people they’re comfortable with.”
Bonsai scoffed. “You’ve had the slug for twenty minutes. I don’t see why—”
Otter stepped in before the conversation could turn into an argument. “Bonsai, you can take mine.”
“That’s not the point. The slugs belong to the whole flight.”
“Of course,” Soraya said. “I only mean, for the trip there—“
“That’s enough arguing,” I said as I stepped up to my ship. “The slugs can fly with me.”
