“Projecting…” M-Bot said. “Using this method, they will find us in under a minute.”
“I doubt Doomslug can last much longer than that anyway,” I said, grabbing the controls. “We need to fly for the lightburst.”
It was under a hundred meters away—eighty-eight, according to the monitor—but blocked by a wall of steel ships. Scud. I had no choice but to try ramming our way in. Perhaps I could approach slowly, then push through without crashing?
“Why did she have you land first, though?” M-Bot said. “We aren’t invisible, Spensa.”
Yeah, I’d figured that out. If we moved, a floating rock or giant pile of chalk would immediately inform the delvers where we were. They’d shoot us down.
“Scud,” I said. “I…”
I…
No. Warriors did not give up. I seized the controls again. We had full shields and could take about four hits. I’d push us toward the exit, and…and if we exploded when I collided, then at least we died as warriors.
Hesho nodded to me, again holding the fruit Peg had given me. He’d protected it so far. “It has been a sublime experience traveling with you,” he told me. “I consider myself lucky to have earned your friendship not once, but apparently twice.”
I nodded, then—
“Wait!” M-Bot said. “What’s that outside?”
Something blinked on my proximity monitor, indicating an object moving right outside.
“Huh?” I asked.
“It’s another slug!” M-Bot said. “No, two more! Other icons. They must have sensed Doomslug.” He cracked the canopy, which I worried would bring the delvers, but the motion apparently wasn’t noticeable—not with the debris the destructor shots were sending everywhere.
“Get them, Spensa!” M-Bot said. “Use Doomslug to lure them!”
Shocked, I squeezed out through the dusty canopy, cradling Doomslug. I dropped onto the white chalky ground, my figure casting an eerie, too-long shadow. Hesho followed out onto the wing.
All I could see was whiteness. Infinite whiteness.
“M-Bot,” I said. “What—”
“I,” he said as the cockpit clicked closed, “made you look.”
I felt an immediate burst of annoyance. At a time like this, he cracked a joke?
Wait. I spun around.
The starfighter’s acclivity ring powered on. M-Bot lightly shook the wing, dumping Hesho—and Peg’s fruit that he was carrying—into the dust. Then M-Bot hovered into the air just beyond reach.
Doomslug fluted sorrowfully.
“M-Bot!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”
“I feel it now, Spensa,” M-Bot said, his voice coming softly out his front speakers.
“Feel what? What is going on?”
“I feel,” he said, “why you left me. Back in the somewhere. You abandoned me. Because you had to. I understood it logically earlier. But I feel it now. I can feel what it’s like to know you have to do something, even if your emotions are telling you to do something else.”
Oh…Saints. He was saying…
“If they can sense me,” M-Bot said, “then I can make them chase me. I might be an abomination, but I am one who can fly on my own now. Choose for myself. And I can show them what an ‘abomination’ can do.”
“No!” I said. “You don’t want to do this, M-Bot!”
“Of course I don’t. That’s what makes it courageous though, right?”
“Please don’t. Don’t leave me…”
“Hey,” M-Bot said with a quiet perkiness, “that’s what I said to you. Do you remember?”
I nodded, feeling tears at the corners of my eyes.
“But you went anyway,” M-Bot said. “Why?”
“Because it was the right thing.”
“The right thing,” M-Bot said softly. “You promised me then you’d try to come back for me. Can you do that again?”
I bit my lip. Nearby, Hesho had climbed from the dust. He bowed to the ship.
“All right,” I whispered. “I’ll find you, M-Bot. I’ll come back for you. Somehow.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Makes it feel better.”
With that, he turned and blasted off into the sky. I flopped down and watched the delvers orient on him. Doomslug’s whining softened—it was obviously easier to hide just me, her, and Hesho. The solemn kitsen walked over and joined me in watching as the delvers, as one, turned and focused on M-Bot. Then all hundred of the free-flying ships took off after him.