I was still barely halfway to the rubble belt, which I’d been told was in low orbit starting at around a million feet. However, from this height, I could see it far better. What I saw from the surface as only vague patterns now manifested as enormous swaths of metal upon metal, vaguely lit by some sources I couldn’t make out.
Looking at it, realizing it was still well over a hundred kilometers away, the grand scale of it finally started to strike me. Those little specks that looked like individual dots . . . those had to be as large as the piece of debris that had crashed down during that fight a week back.
It was all so enormous. My jaw dropped as I gazed at it, taking in the many sections, all rotating and churning in esoteric orbits. Mostly just shadows, moving, swirling, layers upon layers.
“Would you like to get closer?” M-Bot said.
“I don’t dare. They said that some of the junk would shoot at me.”
“Well, those are obvious remnants of a semiautonomous defense grid,” he said. “With the shadows of outer habitat platforms behind, I’d say—all interspersed with broken shipyards and matter reclamation drones.”
I watched it shifting, moving, and tried to imagine a time when this had been functional. Used. Lived in. A world above the world.
“Yes, some of those defense platforms are clearly operational,” M-Bot said. “Even I would have difficulty slipping past them. Note those asteroids I’m highlighting on your canopy; slag formations on the surface indicate their ancient purpose. Some strategies for suppressing a planet include towing interplanetary bodies into position and dropping them. This can accomplish anything from the removal of a specific city to an extinction-level disaster.”
I breathed out softly, horrified to imagine it.
“Er . . . not that I was originally a combat ship. mind you,” M-Bot said. “I don’t know about orbital bombardment from my own programming. I suppose somebody must have told it to me once.”
“I thought you didn’t lie.”
“I don’t! I genuinely believe that I’m an advanced, well-armed, stealth-capable ship because it will help me harvest fungi better. That is not at all irrational.”
“So all the Krell really would need to do to deal with us,” I said, “is shove some of these asteroids down?”
“It’s a little harder than you make it sound,” M-Bot said. “The Krell would need a ship large enough to move something of such a sizable mass. That would likely require a capital ship—which those defense platforms would probably be able to shoot down with ease. Small ships could get through some of those gaps though. Which I guess you already know, considering how often you fight them.”
I settled back in the seat, letting myself enjoy the view. The expansive world below, the sky that somehow felt smaller than it once had. It was only a narrow band around the planet, capped by the rubble belt.
I stared upward for a time, admiring the grand motions of the rubble belt—the enormous shells and platforms, moving according to their ancient and esoteric design. There must have been dozens of layers, but in that moment—for only the second time in my life—it all aligned. And I saw out into space. True infinity, broken by a few twinkling stars.
Which I swore I could hear. Whispers. No distinct words, but something real. Gran-Gran was right. If I listened, I could hear the stars. They sounded like the horns of battle, calling out, drawing me toward them . . .
Don’t be a fool. I thought. You don’t have a booster. If the Krell find you, you’ll be little more than target practice.
Reluctantly, I began to ease us downward. That was probably enough for one day.
We descended slowly, letting gravity do most of the work. Unfortunately, we’d drifted some distance in the wind, so when we landed, I had to inch us—with those tiny maneuvering thrusters—back toward the hole.
It took long enough that by the time we got there, I was yawning. Doomslug imitated the sound of my yawn from where she’d settled down into the blanket behind my seat.
Finally, we lowered into the cavern and landed near M-Bot’s original resting spot. “Well, I’d call that a great first run,” I said.
“Er, yes,” M-Bot said. “We went very high, didn’t we?”
“If I can only figure out a way to get a booster, we’ll have you flying for real in no time.”
“Um . . .”
“You could try fighting the Krell, if you wanted,” I said, testing whether I could push him further. “We could do that while ‘lying low’—we just wouldn’t tell anyone what or who we are! The black phantom ship with no callsign! Flying in to help the DDF in times of need!”
“I don’t think—”
“Imagine it, M-Bot! Dodging and swooping amid exploding barrages. Soaring and striving, proving yourself stronger than your enemies. A grand symphony of destruction and power!”
“Or, even better, sitting in the cave! Doing none of that!”
“We could fight with stealth mode on . . .,” I said.
“That is still the opposite of lying low. I’m sorry, Spensa. I must not fight. We can fly again—I kind of liked it—but we cannot ever fight.”
“Ever fight,” Doomslug added.
I turned off the ship’s nonessentials, then leaned back my seat, feeling sick. I had access to something awesome, something powerful, something amazing—but I couldn’t use it? I had a weapon that didn’t want me to swing it. What should I do?
I didn’t know. But I found it most disturbing that my ship was . . . well, a coward.
I sighed and started getting ready for bed. My frustration with M-Bot faded; I was too excited by the fact that I’d actually gotten him into the air.
As I finally settled down—seat reclined, blanket pulled around me, Doomslug moved to a fold-out shelf in the canopy—M-Bot spoke again, softly. “Spensa?” he said. “You don’t mind, do you? Staying out of combat? I have to obey my orders.”
“No you don’t.”
“Um, I’m a computer. That’s basically all I do. I literally can’t even count to zero without an order.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I said. “Considering the things you’ve said to me.”
“That’s a personality programmed to interact with humans.”
“Excuses,” I said, yawning, dimming the lights. “You might have a machine mind, but you’re still a person.”
“But—”
“I can hear you,” I said, yawning. “I can hear your soul. Like the stars.” It was a faint hum in the back of my mind, and I hadn’t noticed it until right then. But it was there.
Whatever he thought, M-Bot was more alive than he gave himself credit for being. I could simply feel it.
I started to drift off.
He spoke again, his voice even quieter. “The orders are the only thing I know for sure, Spensa. My old pilot, my purpose. That’s who I was.”
“Become someone new then.”
“Do you have any idea how hard that is?”
I thought about my own cowardice. The feelings of loss, and of inadequacy, now that I actually had to do the things I’d always bragged that I would. I pulled my blanket close.