Well, she might not have had kidneys in the right place, but she did have knees. Joints had to be a weak spot, and I needed to end this quickly. So I allowed her to get close enough to grab hold of my coat. Then I twisted, fell to my knees, and rammed my elbow into her right knee. She flinched, so I hit her with my elbow again—which was screaming in pain already from the first blow. The hit worked though, sending Peg stumbling back. Directly into the tool shelf.
Metallic peals rang through the room as tools dropped free. I grabbed a wrench and—Peg still holding my jacket in a tight grip—I hit her again. Two-handed. Directly in the same knee.
She let out a howl and released me. I stepped away as she drooped forward and held her knee, grimacing. My own eyes were watering from the pain in my elbow, but I kept a tight hold of the wrench and glanced around the room.
Both Nuluba and Maksim had pulled guns on me. Great.
“I’ve defeated your leader!” I shouted at them, raising my wrench. “By virtue of trial by combat, I am taking over command of the Broadsiders!”
“Like hell you are,” Maksim said.
Yeah, that always had seemed too convenient when it worked in the stories. Scud. I lowered my wrench.
Then a blue light shone behind the others. An ominous shape rose into the air, lit from below—at least until the twin destructors under the wings powered up, glowing brightly, focused on both armed Broadsiders. Maksim glanced over his shoulder, then stumbled away, his eyes wide. M-Bot had finished his upload.
They shouldn’t have backed down. They could have run for me and gotten close enough to control the situation. Ship-scale weapons weren’t precise enough to hit someone close to me without risking hitting me too. But that was easy to say and difficult to think of, when you were facing a pair of guns as big as you were. Both Maksim and Nuluba dropped their weapons.
I didn’t wait for further invitation. I dashed between them—scooping up one of the sidearms as I ran—then leaped and pulled myself onto the wing of the hovering starfighter. I unplugged the drone, then the cockpit opened and I climbed in.
“Turn toward Shiver’s ship,” I said to M-Bot. “Make sure she doesn’t power on.”
He did so as I settled into the seat. Saints, it felt good to be in a cockpit again. It felt like it had been an eternity. I set aside the drone—there wasn’t nearly as much room behind the seat as I was used to—and the comm crackled.
Finally, M-Bot’s voice came out. “Wow. This comm system is old. I feel like I’m inhabiting a record player.”
“I have no idea what that is,” I said, doing up the buckles. Outside, Maksim and Nuluba ran to check on Peg. The resonants hadn’t powered on their acclivity rings. They obviously realized I could blast them the moment they tried. I considered it briefly—that would prevent pursuit—but no. They might not be friends, but I also wasn’t going to execute them in cold blood.
I felt a momentary pang for what could have been, then grabbed the controls. “Can you get the hangar doors open?”
“Give me a second…yes. This ship’s system has the transmitter locked behind three layers of security. They were really worried about attracting delvers when they built it.”
As the door opened, I kept my weapons trained on the two fighters. At last I caught blue light coming from beneath Shiver’s ship.
“Don’t make me unload on you two,” I said, hitting the comm.
I was given no reply, though the mechanism said my words had gone through. As soon as the hangar was open, I turned the ship toward the opening.
“Spensa,” M-Bot said. “Would it be all right if…if I flew?”
I hesitated. M-Bot’s programming had always prevented him from flying. When he’d wanted to come rescue me on Detritus, he’d needed to convince Cobb to fly him. This was the first time in his life that he had a chance to truly pilot a starship.
I’d been yearning for this moment, tasting it, dreaming of it. But he’d been waiting for centuries.
“Go for it,” I said, lifting my hands—with effort—from the controls.
“Oh, thank you!” he said. The ship continued turning of its own volition, then inched toward the exit—using maneuvering thrusters, not the main boosters, to avoid vaporizing the people behind us.
Oh, scud, I thought. M-Bot is a highly advanced AI. He can think faster than any human, respond in a split second. Why would anyone ever need a human pilot? In this moment, I saw the end of my time flying a starfighter.