“Why?” she asked.
“Sitting here like this is tempting fate. The nowhere is changing in dangerous ways. Plus, I’m…getting too complacent. I want to be moving on.”
“All right, all right. Don’t toss tidos at me. Maybe we can move the timeline up.”
The fragments that had collided shattered into multiple pieces of acclivity stone. The largest portions stayed pushed together, fused in the center, while smaller bits went bouncing free, spraying out like enormous chunks of shrapnel.
“You know,” Peg said absently, “it’s almost like the nowhere just up and decided to try to kill us.” She laughed, though there was an edge to the sound.
“Let’s assault Surehold tomorrow,” I said. “Waiting will only give the Superiority a chance to notice that we’re gathering, preparing something. We’re ready. Let’s do it.”
Peg was silent for a time, and I couldn’t judge her body language, not in separate ships as we were. I tried to inch mine forward to glance in through the window of her tug.
“Peg?” I asked.
“All right. We’ll need to rush to get all the ships back together and do last-minute preparations. If we can manage that…then, yeah. Tomorrow. I’ll let the other faction leaders know.”
I got up the next morning eager, excited. I’d done a quick check-in with Jorgen to let him know what I’d overheard in regard to the delvers and Winzik. But I hadn’t stayed with him long; I’d known many of our team would be working all night on the ships. The pilots had been ordered to get a good night’s sleep, and so I had forced myself to do just that.
Indeed, the hangar was already a buzz of activity when I entered. Ground crew members were still dashing this way and that. By the large clock Peg had set up, we had two hours until departure—and there still appeared to be a lot to get done. Back home, I’d have left all these sorts of preparations to the professionals. That wasn’t how the Broadsiders worked though.
Instead I hurried to M-Bot’s ship, where Nuluba was working. She’d serviced the boosters and was just now putting the casing back on one of them. I sprang to help her lift the casing into place, and it occurred to me that this was a chance to do something I’d been meaning to for a while.
“Nuluba,” I said. “I…want to apologize to you.”
“Apologize, Spin?” she said, gesturing with one arm in a wide loop—something I thought was to express comfort. “You have made up for your theft of the ship.”
“It’s not about that,” I said. “It’s about how I might have treated you, particularly when I was first here. I…worry I was kind of abrasive to you.”
“Ah,” Nuluba said, using a drill to lock the bolts as I held the casing in place. “Yes, I did notice that. I assumed it was your natural human aggression.”
“It was more than that,” I said. “You heard about my past?”
“A freedom fighter,” she said. “From a human enclave.”
“Yes,” I said. “Most of our jailors were varvax, though we called them the Krell. And…well, I’ve never really gotten over that. Despite the fact that you’ve always been nice to me, I think I might have taken it out on you.”
“My, my,” she said, and I winced, thinking—even now—of Winzik. “That is very mature of you, Spin. Very mature and very wise. I cannot say I was so quick to reject my biases when I first met Maksim.”
“Really? You did it too?”
“Oh yes,” she said as we stepped away from the now-completed booster. “It is unfortunate, and I am embarrassed. I commend you for giving me a chance, Spin. If I had been imprisoned by humans for many years, I do not know that I would be so willing to accept one of them into my company.”
I smiled, and she waved her hands in response. How could I have ever hated this thoughtful creature? She was so calm, so relaxed. In a way, Nuluba represented something I’d never actually known: a person at peace with themself and their place in the universe. Or, well, the non-universe.
“You are ready to go,” she said, patting the booster. “Fully tuned. It was a pleasure.”
I looked at the ship, with its sleek shape and powerful boosters, and my excitement stoked further. “You’re always so serene with this work,” I said to Nuluba. “Whether it’s doing maintenance or taking inventory. Wouldn’t you like to fly one of these?”