Chapter Thirty-Three Sadie
Thirty-Three
Sadie
I sat in my ship with the canopy open, staring ahead at the dimly lit trees.
Twist had tucked my ship safely in the underbrush, while Nedd had snagged in the branches above and had to climb down out of a nearby tree.
Together, we’d listened while Gilaf and Arturo tried to fight long enough to get a second hyperjump out. And then…
I wasn’t sure what happened then, honestly.
The radio was silent, and I didn’t dare send a message for fear Ivy would use it to triangulate our location.
I didn’t know if our teammates were dead or alive.
When the radio went silent, Nedd had stalked off into the woods, and I wasn’t entirely sure where he’d gone.
The slugs were finding comfort by fusing themselves into one giant cuddle pile in the hammock by my seat, completely wedging themselves into the small space.
For some reason, that only made me feel more alone.
As if she sensed my distress, Nope slithered out of the pile and slid up my seat, tucking her blue-and-green body into my lap.
“Aw,” I said. “Thanks, Nope.” I scooped her into my arms, then climbed out of my ship and glanced around, waiting to see if any of the trees were going to start reaching toward me with their long, twisting branches.
The sky was quiet. No shots rained down through the trees. No ships patrolled over my head.
“Nedd?” I called.
“Nedd?” Nope echoed.
There was no response. The only sound was the wind blowing through the trees. Nedd’s parachute hung from a tree, his ejector seat dangling upside down from its ropes.
I walked past it in the direction Nedd had gone, my feet sinking into the soft ground. I found him sitting on a log a few dozen meters away, his back to me.
“Nedd?” I asked.
He didn’t turn around. I hovered behind him, not sure what to say. Maybe I should have let him be, but I wasn’t great at being quiet at the best of times.
“They might have survived,” I said.
“Survived!” Nope said helpfully.
Nedd continued to sit silently. He didn’t even turn around.
“Arturo had Naga,” I said. “He’ll have gotten away, and taken Dayan with him too. And Gilaf was going to run and hide. Maybe he made it.”
“Made it!” Nope added. Behind me in the ship, the other slugs echoed the sentiment in several octaves.
More silence.
“Nedd? Say something.”
“Something!” Nope chimed, squirming for me to release her. When I did, she slid over the forest floor in Nedd’s direction.
The silence was really starting to get to me. Obviously Nedd wanted me to leave him alone, but we were stranded here in this forest together, and we needed to make a plan. So against my better judgment, I walked around the log to face him.
And found his eyes puffy, his face, still red in patches from broken blood vessels, tracked with tears. Scud. Nedd was crying.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I can go.”
I probably should have been doing that rather than saying it. I stumbled back, but Nedd held up a hand.
“It’s okay,” he said. His voice was choked and hoarse and not at all Nedd-like. “Sorry for ignoring you.”
“No, it’s fine!” I said. Stars, his best friend might have just died, and here I was, upset that he wouldn’t talk to me. He probably wasn’t mad at me, just heartbroken by the situation. But it would have been easier to see him angry than so broken.
I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want to make it worse by forging ahead. So instead I sat down on the end of the log, about two meters away from Nedd, and waited for him to speak.
I waited.
And waited.
Stars, it was hard to be quiet when I knew someone was hurting.
“You weren’t around when I lost my brothers,” Nedd said finally. “You hadn’t started flight school yet.”
I was only six months younger than the original Skyward Flight, but sometimes it felt like a lot more. “Yeah,” I said. “I hadn’t even taken the pilot’s test.”
“There was this debris,” he said, “falling out of the belts around Detritus, and the Krell used it as cover to come after us.” His voice sounded far away, like a part of him was back there.
“This enormous facility was falling to the surface, and the Krell chased my brothers inside. They were lost in there, and I was trying to save them, to help them find their way out.”
“They didn’t make it,” I said. I knew the end of the story, though I’d never heard Nedd tell it.
“I almost died in there with them.” He shrugged.
“Sometimes I hear them talking to me. They’re trapped, and they can’t get out.
I hear them screaming at me in my dreams. I’m searching for them, but the light is so bright and I can’t see, I can’t find them.
And then sometimes I’m wide awake, and I hear Callum calling to me, like he’s the one searching for me, still trying to find a way out of that place. ”
My heart broke for him. I knew he missed his brothers, but I hadn’t known how much they haunted him. “I’m sorry that happened,” I said.
Nedd shook his head. “I shouldn’t have gotten in a ship today. I shouldn’t even be here.”
“It wasn’t your fault that the battle went wrong,” I said.
“Arturo ordered us to land up there. It was the wrong call, but he couldn’t have known that going in.
” Stars, maybe we’d all gotten a little too used to being exceptional during the war, to pulling off close calls and winning against the odds.
Maybe our lucky streak was over, and we were going to die here one by one.
“You’re right,” Nedd said. “But when it comes down to it, I choke. I’m not like Jorgen or Arturo.
I feel…this desperation, you know? To save the people I care about.
When I was shot down during the war, I lost my arm, but the hyperslug who flew with me lost his life.
Chubs didn’t deserve that, and I don’t want anyone else to die because of me. ”
“Chubs didn’t die because of you,” I said. “He died because he was a soldier in a war. He died doing what he loved.”
“He died trying to protect me,” Nedd said.
“I didn’t want to put Alanik at risk today just because I can’t fly.
I wanted to prove I could do it. But I can’t, and watching the rest of you keep flying eats me up every day.
But even that pain is nothing compared to watching the people I love burn and not being able to save them.
That’s what I can’t stand. I shouldn’t be in command.
I shouldn’t be in a ship, not even as a copilot. I’m nothing but a scudding liability.”
I wished someone else were here in my place, someone who would have something wise to say.
I didn’t feel like I knew a lot about leadership, or about death or mourning or grief.
“I don’t know if it makes you a bad commander to feel that way,” I said, “but I do know it makes you a good person to care when people are in danger.”
Nedd leaned back, looking up at the trees. “I never wanted to be in command. I’ve been hiding behind Arturo and Jorgen this whole time. But I don’t want people to die because I can’t handle it. That’s worse than if I’d taken a ground position. Jorgen offered me one and I should have taken it.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
Nedd closed his eyes. “I didn’t want to disappoint Arturo. But it wasn’t just that. I wanted to stay with the flight. I didn’t want to be left behind.”
“I understand that,” I said. “Arturo didn’t want to bring me along, and I didn’t want to be left behind either.”
“Do you wish he’d left you now?” Nedd asked.
I considered that. “No,” I said. “Because I wouldn’t have seen this amazing planet with this incredible forest. You all still would have been in danger, but you would have had one fewer pilot to defend you.
And maybe it’s selfish, because some other pilot might have done a better job, but I’m glad it was me.
I’m glad I got the opportunity to fight alongside you, and Arturo, and Alanik, and Gilaf. And I’m glad you were here too.”
“Why?” Nedd asked.
“Because you’re Nedd,” I said. “Because you…” It was hard for me to put into words, the quintessential Neddness that made him a valuable member of the team.
“Because you’re not afraid to say the obvious thing that everyone is thinking.
And sometimes those things need to be said!
Because you’re a good, competent navigator and you keep us out of trouble.
Because you help keep the mood light, even when the mission gets scary as hell. Because—”
Because every one of us was valuable and contributed to the team, even if we didn’t do it in exactly the way someone else would. Because we didn’t.
“I’m glad we’re both here,” I said. “I wouldn’t trade the experience of it, even if parts of that experience are awful. Would you?”
Nedd shook his head. “No. If Arturo had flown off and died here, I would have regretted not being there with him for the rest of my life. I would have wondered if there was anything I could have done to stop it, even if there wasn’t.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But we don’t know that Arturo is dead. He and Gilaf may have made it.”
“You don’t know that,” Nedd said.
“I don’t. But I have hope. And I’m going to keep having hope until the universe proves otherwise.”
“How can you do that?” Nedd asked. “After everything we’ve been through? How do you stay so happy with all the violence and death and destruction we’ve seen?”
I thought about that. Was that who I was—Sadie, the happy one?
It wasn’t such a bad role. But—“I’m not sure I am happy,” I said, “at least not all the time.” It felt like I was revealing a dark secret, one I spent a lot of time trying to ignore.
Nedd seemed surprised, and I wondered if it made him think less of me.
But at the same time, my words still weren’t quite right.
“I guess there’s enough horror and pain and terror in the world.
I can’t change what’s happened. I can’t stop what’s coming.
So there’s no reason to borrow more, right?
Why assume the others are dead, when it’s possible they aren’t?
Why cause myself the trauma, the mourning, the agony, if there’s still a chance I won’t have to feel it? ”
“Maybe because it’s scary to hope,” Nedd said. “Scary to believe something and then discover it isn’t true.”
“It is scary,” I said. “But do you think his death will hurt less if you resign yourself to it?”
“No,” Nedd said. “It’s going to be horrific either way.” He looked down at his biological hand, flexing it. “Maybe I should look at the bright side more.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “It’s not like I think we should ignore all the terrible things that are happening.
Or that you should try to forget about your brothers or not feel sad.
I just think that even though there’s a lot of darkness and destruction, there’s a lot of hope and beauty too.
And even if they don’t balance each other out, even if the good stuff doesn’t erase the bad stuff…
the bad stuff doesn’t get to erase the good stuff either, you know?
The hope and the pain, they can exist simultaneously. ”
I was circling the point I was trying to make, and I wasn’t sure I was making sense.
But Nedd was still listening, so I kept trying.
“Maybe you need to look at all the sides, the bright and the dark. Like, your brothers are dead, and that’s horrible.
But you aren’t, and that’s pretty great.
And Arturo might have died up there and that’s terrifying.
But maybe he didn’t. He and Naga have been in tight spots before, and they may have gotten out. ”
“Gotten out!” Nope said. “Gotten out!”
“We don’t know,” Nedd said quietly.
“Know!” Nope said loudly. She was kind of interrupting the moment, but I didn’t correct her. We all dealt with stress in our own way, I supposed.
“Stars, I’ve been rambling again. I’m sorry. I never know the right thing to say.”
“Are you sure?” Nedd said. “Because that was pretty perfect.”
“Yeah?” I said. I hated that Nedd was suffering. But if I couldn’t change the things that caused Nedd pain, it felt pretty good to be able to make a tiny piece of it a little less horrible.
“They probably made it,” Nedd said quietly, as if he was testing the words.
“Made it!” Nope said.
“Probably,” I added.
“Made it!” Nope said, getting louder and shriller with each outburst. “Made it! Made it! Know! Know!”
Human-slug communication was difficult at the best of times, but Nope sounded so…certain. “Oh,” I said. “Do you think…Do you think Nope…knows?”
“Knows!” Nope shrieked. “Knows knows knows!”
“Oh!” I said. “The slugs can talk to each other! And if Bob can talk to Naga and Bob can talk to Nope—”
“Bob! Nope! Naga!” Nope cried. “Made it!”
“Hey!” I said. “They made it!”
Nedd still looked afraid to believe it. For a moment he hesitated, and then a smile broke out across his face as he let himself give way to the hope.
“They’re okay,” Nedd said. “Thank the stars.” He grinned at me, and I grinned back at him. Stars, looking Nedd in the eyes like that, seeing him look so happy—it gave me a tingly feeling all over. I knew I should look away. This was about Arturo being alive and not about my stupid crush.
But we were just talking about how one should appreciate the beautiful things where one found them because the Saint knew there were enough awful things in the world to go around.
So I let myself soak it all up, me and Nedd, alone in the woods.
He was still watching me, a thoughtful look in his eyes, until all at once he broke eye contact and seemed to need to look literally anywhere else.
Oh, no. Was I being obvious? I was probably being obvious. I felt my face flush and cursed myself for ruining a perfect moment.
“I—” Nedd said. “I, um. Stars.” He looked around, as if just now realizing we were lost in woods inhabited by scions. “If the others are okay, we need to find them.”
He probably wanted to get away from the clingy girl with the wrong idea as soon as possible. “Yeah,” I said. “And we have a hyperslug, so let’s see if Twist can help us out.”