Blown to Smithereens

By Ryan Viergutz

Silph Marron, an actress, travels to a planet to create a theatre company. With her security expert friend, Leah Erafallt, she comes in under the radar in an illegal spaceship. They have a secret purpose: they're resistance fighters notorious for their destructive capacity. They want to overthrow the authoritarian government who collaborates with the disturbing, and little understood, robots that control the solar system.

Silph soon learns that their spaceship, after a hard landing, has taken serious damage. She and Leah become a center of attention in the city, and become besieged by an array of spies, detectives, conspiracy nuts and groupies. When assassins begin to appear in the ranks of their followers, and the robot rulers send a strike team, Silph opens hasty negotiations with a Chinese crimelord.

Leah will encounter the general who murdered a hundred of her comrades ten years ago, and while she will take her revenge his motives will shake her convictions. Silph will close a deal with the crimelord, possibly make things worse or delay the inevitable. Lurking in orbit, the robot Controllers, led by Commander Worochre, plan to capture the women and rid the system of the "infection", ghosts taking root in Silph's consciousness.

Apocalyptic, psychological and merciless, Blown to Smithereens is the first book of four about Silph Marron, Leah Erafallt and hundreds of thousands of robots.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan Viergutz
• Release date: Sep 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301038930

Ryan Viergutz

I'm a freelancer, writer, roleplayer and gamer. I don't want to live in the same place any longer than a year for a very long time and I am always yearning for adventure. The first two overlap often enough that they're almost the same thing, though they aren't by anyone's measure. Regardless of the state I'm in, I am always roleplaying and I allow myself to indulge in gaming, usually of a video game variety, sometimes. At any given time I will have a scifi or fantasy book in my hands or in my travel bag.

Book preview

Chapter 1

As Silph Marron climbed down the ladder into an impenetrable darkness, she knew she wouldn't have a normal problem to manage. Above Silph, her friend and companion Leah Erafallt grunted and swore. Silph had tried to tell her to make less noise, but to no avail. Both of them had switched off their flashlights while they crept to the bottom tier. Silph felt little fear of the dark inside the bowels of this spaceship, but she did feel unease.

That unease had grown more prominent in the last few days. The Spark, as they had named this spaceship, creaked and moaned and snapped. None of its pieces had ever been strong, and they had grown weaker in the haste with which the ship had been built. They could have used more time, to help it and nurture it, but Silph felt time pressing down on her. She couldn't tell anyone why, because she didn't know the full reason herself.

Silph felt a hard surface beneath her boots and heard a loud clunk, a welcome change from the tedium of the ladder's rungs. She bent down to check the lacings on her boots, settled her jacket as well as she could, and turned on her flashlight. She stood out of the way of her friend, while Leah leapt from the third step from the bottom.

Leah gave Silph a wary look. She had black hair straightened with thick gel, a leather bodysuit with dozens of symbols and markings on its surface, and she carried as many weapons as she could place on her person. While Silph watched her, Leah turned on her flashlight and spun it back and forth to match her eyes, without a word.

We've finally done it, Silph said.

I would like it more if it worked, Leah said.

Silph shook her head and smiled. She crooked a finger over her shoulder and walked on into the hallways of the tier. She didn't have any better knowledge of the Spark than Leah did, but given time, she would. She thought about the work they had put into it, and the effort it had taken to build it beneath the radar of the authorities, and suppressed the memories before they could distract her.

We've attracted things in the last few weeks, Silph said. Keep your ears open and tell me if you hear anything, Leah.

It works better if you don't talk, Leah said.

Give me a break, Silph said. I'm excited. This is our maiden voyage.

And something went wrong, on the first day, Leah said.

Silph let Leah stew in her grumpy attitude and paid attention to the corona that flowed from the tip of her flashlight. She could see a few feet in front of her face, while the Spark muttered in every direction. One particular snap made her jump. Leah held out her arms and caught her. Silph tilted her head back at Leah, and her friend shook her head with a smile on her lips.

Try to keep calm, Leah said. There is something here with us.

Do you hear that? Silph said. Stay quiet, Spark.

This time, Leah chuckled. Do you think she cares?

Silph walked another few feet and stopped. A howl roared from behind them, seventy or eighty feet, if she guessed right. It didn't sound like any creature she had ever heard, and she had seen a lot of them, especially in the last few months. It could have been interested in them, or oblivious, but she cast a glance over her shoulder. Leah's pale face, between her black tresses, nodded.

That's what I heard, Leah said. Get us to the engines, Silph. Quickly, but don't run.

Silph picked up the pace and skirted down a second hallway. While they had shown problems an hour ago, they had functioned. Unless they had broken down, and she didn't want to consider that, she should have find their pulsations audible. She had walked half a mile by now, and she didn't hear them. That began to worry her, and when she got worried, she talked up a storm.

I don't like this, Silph said.

Stop talking, Leah said.

Leah... Silph said.

Leah's voice softened. She pulled her rapier out of the scabbard on her belt. When I say run, you run, and don't look back. I will be right behind you.

Do you know what it is? Silph said.

That's why I got my sword, Leah said.

Silph walked onward and for a fleeting moment thought she heard the pulse of the engines. Had they been that far back inside the tier last time she had come? Had her senses of direction and distance been skewed that day? Could the Spark change its structure without the say of its creators or human hands? If any of the parts had come from a Controller ship or the Jovian planets... Hadn't she checked them all?

She thought she might ask the Spark for input, whether the fickle intelligence would answer her or not in her sullen, cryptic, teenager attitude. Then Leah said Run!

All of Silph's thoughts fled her mind. She had learned that when Leah showed fear, to trust her friend's instincts. The sound of Silph's boots echoed through the hallway, with Leah behind her and claws ticking on the steel surface behind her. Silph followed the pulsating sound of the engines, uncertain whether it was real, or whether it was right. She had nowhere else to go.

In the level of gloom in the Spark, she had lost her bearings. She heard sounds of combat and struggle, a grunt and a roar, behind her, where Leah fought the creature Silph hadn't seen. She thought about turning back, concerned whether Leah could manage to fight in the dark, and the pulse of the engines screamed inside her head. She thought she could hear something else beneath it, too, a gnashing of teeth or a grumble.

The noise nearly incapacitated her, but before she slumped to her knees, she spun around and shone her flashlight toward the sound of the claws. She saw a glimpse of something lean and grey and a snatch of fur, and then it loped away. Leah had pushed herself close to the wall, breathing heavily, eyes wide and frightened. Her rapier sat a few feet away from her. Her right hand looked dark in the flashlight beam.

It hurt you, Silph said.

Leah turned toward Silph and made a chopping motion. Silph shut off the light.

Don't lure it, Leah said. I'm going to get my rapier and come after you. Can you find the engines?

Yes, Silph said. She hoped she could. Leah needed the hope.

Leah paused. Silph could hear her breathing. It had come closer than Silph wanted to admit. She felt hysteria threaten to surge from her throat.

When you get there, give me a light, Leah said.

I will, Silph said.

Silph got back on her feet and ran down the hallway. The engines pounded against her skull, and she knew that she had their destination in sight now. She tried to keep her thoughts under control, like Leah, but they came out in a rush anyway. How many more creatures would come out to attack them? How many did they have hiding in the crevasses of this spaceship? Had this been a foolish idea when they first planned it?

When she reached the engines, she felt a steel barrier and slammed her fist against it. The impact stung her knuckles. She took a breath, the anger receded, and she groped around the barrier to locate a possible opening. She found one beneath it and crawled inside the engine room. The noise throbbed. It should never have been this loud. It had spilled fluid and the leakage could damage its speed or immobilize the Spark.

Silph turned around to shine a light toward Leah, and the Spark beeped on her comm.

We have an emergency, the Spark said.

What is it? Leah said before Silph could reply.

We are being attacked, the Spark said.

Who? Leah said.

Who could it be? Silph said.

They're on to us already? Leah said. I'm on it. Fix the engines, Silph.

You have to go back up! Silph said.

I can handle it, Leah said. Get them running, and I'll get us away.

You're insane! Silph said.

We both are, Leah said, or we wouldn't have come up with this idea.

Silph nodded. I'll get them going, Leah. Go.

No one could hear anything but voices on the comm, so Silph turned to the engines and shone her flashlight on the cords and cables and fluid that indeed had leaked out onto the floor. When she swept her light over the liquid, she recognized most of it. The puddles lapped near her boots and touched their tips. She gauged the height of the spill and the distance to the end and stepped across it. By the time she had reached the two pipes that had burst, and a cable that sent loose lightning zipping a few inches out, the liquids had soaked through and coated her socks.

The liquid felt soft and gooey, like the texture of a rotting gelatin. Some of the chemicals in that mix were toxic and could kill her if she ingested too much of it, but the touch wouldn't give her boils or flesh eating disease or anything. Even with that, they make goosebumps stick out on her skin. She placed her bag on an engine block and pulled out a pair of clamps, a pliers, thick electrical tape and a wooden stick.

The sound of the engines pummeled her brain while she bent down and got to work. She forced one of the pipes closed with the pliers and screwed the clamps around either end of the break. As she let hands do the work of fighting against the flow of the liquid, she looked at the room that held this part of the engine. It had grown since the last time she had come here, she could have sworn.

She couldn't see it in the dark but the full engine apparatus had a special characteristic on board this ship. It took up a whole room on thirteen of the fourteen tiers. At the bottom, where she was, the chemicals that powered the Spark mixed together into the brew that had made a mess on the floor. Each of the segments, when the ship worked according to plan, could be accessed through an elevator shaft.

This time, the elevators had been out of order, and she had had to descend the ladder from the bridge on the sixth tier. It had felt miserable and depressing, especially with the darkness that surrounded them. Silph twisted the clamp more than she needed to and unwound it to its proper tension. If only her shoulders would do the same, she thought. She couldn't wait until she knew the Spark in and out and didn't feel this level of fear.

Silph finished with the second pipe and walked over to the cable. The stream of lightning that poured from it made her walk gingerly and quietly. It carried an unimaginable wield of power inside it and could zap her to a crisp if she took the full brunt of it. It might make her a black spot on the floor, for all she knew. She snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, just to be sure, and pointed the stick at the cable.

She didn't manage success on the first try, or the second. The tape kept falling off. She adjusted her ideas of its strength. With the thickness of her wrist, or her forearm, it must have had less power than she thought, because it couldn't be able to carry it. On the third try, she had turned her effort into a pattern, and she looped the tape around the cable until it stayed steady. The sparks hadn't stopped, so she kept going until they did.

When she finished, she touched her comm and got ready to tell Leah she would be returning, and then froze on her feet. The furred, clawed animal that had attacked Leah howled out in the darkness again, followed with two or three sounds she wasn't able to recognize. Silph picked her bag off the engine block, slung it over her shoulder, and listened to see if they continued.

They didn't. She moved through the liquids on the floor, as slowly and quietly as she could, and kept listening. The howls had stopped, but they had while she worked, too. She kept her flashlight turned to a low beam and watched the furthest reaches of the puddle. The steel barrier stood before her, and this time, she saw what it was. She had walked beneath an emergency escape route that hadn't closed all the way.

Fitting, she thought, until claws slammed into it from the outside. The creatures howled again, and closer, and she looked behind at her at the engine blocks. Could the steel barrier hold them off? It wouldn't be good if they came in and tore apart the machines, not least of which because she wasn't sure the Spark could still function without them.

Silph? Leah said.

I'm busy, Silph said.

They want to board, Leah said.

Silph's hands started to become jittery and she tightened them into fists. Can it move?

I am, right now, Leah said. I need my navigator.

Silph nodded. Okay. Give me a minute.

The creatures slammed on the barrier again and Silph thought she heard it creak from the outside. She grabbed the wooden stick in her hands and backed into the puddle. Her splash attracted the animals, and they moved their arms along the barrier. A moment later, they had found the opening in the bottom, and Silph ran back into the engine room. She didn't hear them at all, too scared by the howls and snarls from the animals's throats.

Instead of going toward the part she had repaired, she fled into an opening to her left. It didn't give her a lot of space, being about the size of an elevator shaft, but she spun her flashlight to try and find something to use. The liquid had spilled here, too. She found herself wishing she had kept the cable in two, if only as a possible answer to the animals.

With no sword or taser or lightning to shoot back at the creatures, she didn't know what to do. She took a steel girder from the floor that she could barely hold, but maybe she could manage a blow with it. The jaws of one of them flashed in the darkness, reflected in her light, and then she saw a plastic gallon on the floor. She took it, pointed it at them, and gasoline spread all its form.

Silph turned her shoulder toward it and swung the steel bar. It worked about as well as she had expected. The creature took a huge bite out of her jacket and the skin beneath and drew out a yelp from her. The steel fell out of her hands, but she searched inside her bag and pulled a lighter out of it. She flicked it to life, saw the light dance in front of her face, and pointed it at the creature when it came toward her.

It took a bite out of her forearm this time, and its claw got caught in her jacket. Flames had burst out on the creature's fur and she saw that it had canine teeth and a lot of black fur. Its eyes had gone wild, and it dived headfirst into the puddle. Its companion had bounded off into the darkness, and she chased after it, holding the lighter.

Leah! Silph said. I'm coming!

Chapter 2

Leah put the comm on the console and resumed the shouting match with the commander of the Controller's ship. She knew who she was talking to, and she knew what could possibly happen, and she didn't give a damn about it.

I will not halt! Leah said.

The disembodied head of the Controller hovered a few inches above a hole on the console, beside the comm. Ripples and waves rolled through it like it worked through static. For all Leah knew, he did. So many parts of the Spark didn't work like they were supposed to, and this whole trip had started off on such a wrong foot, that anything could happen. Its form changed and eluded any recognition of its features.

You are in violation of the third protocol of the interplanetary traffic and transport accords, statute four hundred sixty, the Controller said. You are required to stop immediately and acquiesce to our authority.

Leah slammed her fist into buttons and flipped levers for energy pressure and forward thrusters. Neither made a move, and she bit her lip, worried. Silph hadn't called since she had entered the engine room and Leah wondered if she would be all right. She couldn't be caught and imprisoned by the Controllers, no matter what. She had worked too hard, struggled too long, to have it all disappear from her grip.

You know what I'm going to say, Leah said. Come and get me.

The Controller's head annoyed her and she brushed a hand through the blue and red hologram where it hovered. She felt a buzz as her hand passed through the digital recreation. The head elongated and looked like an oval. She wondered if it looked more like the real thing in the ship a thousand kilometers behind the Spark.

We are on our approach vector, the Controller said. We will be there soon. Do not attempt to struggle or resist, or we will subdue you.

The Spark's AI appeared beside the Controller's head. Unlike the Controller, she had a full body, and could appear as a doll-like figure anywhere inside the ship. It had taken effort to stop her from doing so near Leah or Silph. It liked human companionship, but they didn't like the distraction.

The Spark had the black hair and eyeliner of a fifteen-year-old Goth. She had a morose sense of humor and sometimes spoke up. Don't let him catch me.

Leah glared at her. Of course not. That will not happen, if I have any say in it. She looked at the two displays on the front window of the bridge. One showed the proximity of the two ships, the Spark and the Controller pursuit behind her, and the other charted a path to the nearest planets, space stations and asteroids. Leah kept her attention off the second, because she already knew where she wanted to go.

According to the first, if Silph didn't repair the engines, the Controllers would arrive in ten to fifteen minutes. Leah imagined they could take even less long than that, if they could surge power to their engines. They had faced few threats in the past hundred years in human space, and if there had been any resistance, the news had never carried to the majority of humanity.

Leah wanted to change that supremacy. Silph had agreed. And now it could all come to a fast, screeching end.

Silph, Leah said. How are you doing?

I'm busy, Silph said.

The Controller chose that time to give her another round of challenges and warnings, and Leah snarled at him. If Silph had said more, she hadn't heard it.

Shut up, Leah said to the Controller. I have more important things to worry about than you.

I doubt that very much, the Controller said.

Silph! Leah said.

Did you know I can see your face clearly on my screen? the Controller said. I don't know who you are, yet, but you have black hair and smooth skin.

Stop it, Leah said. Shut up.

There is nothing you can do, the Controller said.

Leah didn't reply this time and pounded the buttons and levers again. A wire fell out of the ceiling and she had to snake it back into place. Others came out around her and she got out of her chair and dug around inside it. Rats stared back out at her, and after a look at her face, retreated into the ductwork. Leah tried to remember if this wire led to the air intake or the landing gear.

I've got it! Silph said. I'm coming.

Leah stared down at the red comm on the console, shaped like the wings on a Valkyrie's helmet, and dropped into the pilot's chair. She ran through the diagnostics, saw that the energy had finally surged into the engines and carried its current through the wiring inside the Spark. The AI hologram strengthened into a solid form and puffed out her corset-clad chest. She looked at Leah and flexed her biceps.

Let's get going, the Spark said.

Leah tried to hold in the glee she felt. She estimated the distance of the Controllers from the Spark, closer to three hundred kilometers and four or five minutes now, and shoved three fourths of the power into the thrusters. The others she kept in the shields she and Silph had installed as one of the last things in the production. Moments after, the Controller ship sent a blast that glowed red on the screen and rocked the Spark.

Strapped into the pilot's chair, the impact shoved Leah forward. Her head snapped forward and back and her body strained against the leather and nylon harness. It kept her intact, but she felt woozy and had to shake herself to get her mind going. The readout said that the shields had held, but Leah hadn't expected that kind of effect. She sent a little more energy into them and dragged two of the Spark's directional levers away from her.

The Spark groaned and roared, a sound Leah had only heard two times before, and the enormity of it sent a chill up her spine. She felt a laugh escape her throat and watched the Spark crawl a few kilometers away from the Controllers' vessel. For a time, she sat there, her gloved hands on the levers, and revelled in the small victory she had achieved. Another burst came from the Controllers and, with so much energy into motion, Leah couldn't maneuver out of its path in time.

An entire rear segment of the Spark glowed red, then diminished into a grey. Leah flipped a switch and a storage compartment filled with junk meant for exactly that purpose broke off from the Spark and drifted off into space. The Controllers sent another burst, and another, and Leah veered the Spark around to escape them. She couldn't do this forever. They would catch on and intercept her, and then they would back to where they had begun, or worse.

Silph, where are you? Leah said.

Silph, panting hard, dropped into the navigator's seat to Leah's right. Leah turned to her, recognizing her friend's dark blonde hair and blue worker's clothes. Neither of them said anything. Leah looked at her again, heart pounding. While Silph strapped herself into the chair, Leah saw that she had taken a beating from the Controller's attacks. She had bruises on her skin and scratches and tears on her suit.

Are you okay? Leah said.

Yeah, Silph said. I think I am. Where are we?

Leah eyed her. What happened down there?

Silph scrolled her eyes down the monitor. She slipped a pair of gloves on her hands, moved them in front of her face, and the diagram on the screen changed. The lights flickered across her skin and made it glow.

I got in a fight, Silph said. I'll explain later.

According to the graphics, Leah had pulled the Spark ahead of the Controllers's vessel by a few hundred meters, out of range of their weaponry. The expanse between them surged forward to five kilometers and kept growing. However close they had come, it felt too easy. Leah kept her attention on the Controllers's vessel. If they didn't have fighters, or more gunnery, or a different kind of energy blast, she would be surprised.

Lots of human factions on the three planets in the solar system had weapons like that. She had seen dozens of gun models, grenade types, rocket launchers, and so on and so forth in her time with the station-based special operatives. It stood to reason that the Controllers had at least as much variety in their spaceships. Maybe they didn't need them? There hadn't been many other human challenges to their rule. That would be the day.

Did the Controllers fight amongst each other? There were a lot more of them than there were people, Leah knew that much. Whenever they had briefed her on her missions, two of them had talked to her. Sometimes they met in person, but they carried a field around their bodies like the head hovering above her console. They had the same purpose for her to achieve, but they gave her conflicting paths and routes, like they had to fill in the gaps in their plan. She had never understood that.

Small red balls interrupted her thoughts. She still didn't have a good sense of the size or the structure of the Controller's vessel. It had gone too far off the screen to determine it. Even so, while Leah didn't have full awareness of its capabilities, she saw a dozen balls fly out from the vessel. Thin lines trailed them across the black chart and showed their established and potential trajectories.

The Spark's avatar shrugged. I tried to take a good guess.

If you're right, we're in deep trouble, Leah said. Those are fighters, and they're circling around us.

We can't handle fighters, Silph said. We don't have the defenses we need to deal with them. They would shoot us out of the sky while we sat there with our heads between our legs. She shifted in her seat and nibbled her right hand's fingernails. We do have other weapons, though. If you can align us into position, we could try to shoot back at them.

We can try it, Leah said. Hold on.

Wait, Silph said.

Leah groaned, hands on the levers. What?

What do we do if we succeed? Silph said. They know where we are, Leah. Even with the radar and our wider scans, they sneaked up on us when we weren't watching for them. She looked down at the Spark. Were you?

The Spark nodded, eyes wide. They looked wider in the black eyeliner. I was, Ms. Marron. They sneaked up on me out of nowhere and started to scream at me. I tried to be sharp and professional when I called you, but it scared me. I didn't know they were able to do that. What would they do to me if they caught me?

I don't know, Leah said.

With the engines back up and enough power charged into them, there are three options where we can hide, Leah. We're going to have to go to ground and escape them. I hope to hell those fighters can't go into the atmosphere, because if they can, I'm not sure we'll be able to escape, Silph said.

Can the Spark? Leah said.

It'll hurt, the Spark said. But it's better than them. I can.

The fighters filled the screen with red dots, lines, and brackets around the rear ends of the Spark that told of a lock-on of some sort. Hold on. It's time for some evasive maneuvers.

Silph braced herself on her seat and Leah bared her teeth. The Spark, in an exhibition of her horrible sense of humor, stood with her hands on her hips. The girl was going to dance.

Chapter 3

Leah dropped the goggles from the ceiling, put her feet into the braces on the floor, and yanked back on the two throttle levers. Through the optics of the goggles and the pressure of the pedals connected to the braces, she could feel the Spark while it moved beneath her. She hadn't grown used to the feeling yet, and she wasn't sure what would happen if she stayed this way for too long. It gave her a perspective she imagined a lot like what the Spark's AI saw.

Unlike the front window that gave her a two-dimensional glimpse of the nearby system, the optics in the goggles had more sensitivity and allowed her a complete three dimensions. In them, she could see and hear any objects that passed too close to the Spark. If, and she and Silph suspected, the fighters carried missiles, she could outrun them.

It hadn't come to that yet. She kept the Spark on a straight trajectory, with a slight variance to play with the vagaries of outer space, and tried to lure the fighters into the belief that she wouldn't do anything crazy. The vessel had sent a dozen of them at her, and they had arced around the Spark in groups of three.

Silph was right, as much as Leah hated to admit it. No matter how the Spark could fly, and how much distance she had the fighters, they would catch up to her eventually. Leah had to lose them or hide on a station or planet. She had enough practice in simulators and on the field to know she could escape them, but where would they go? If they had already passed through the area of space that held Sunspot Rack, who would let them in?

One of the fighters sent a missile at the rear end of the Spark, a few feet closer than the earlier strike. Leah moved the Spark out of the way with a touch of the starboard lever. The fighter stayed in position and lost some distance. It looked larger than Leah had expected, with four wings that could have acted as arms and legs in a pinch and two gun placements on the two situated furthest out from the body.

Silph? Leah said.

We're coming close to the Sunspot, Silph said. Do you want to go for it? We aren't going to have another chance at this.

Leah watched the Sunspot reach out from the depths of space and envelop her view, like she had gone for a spacewalk. Its twenty hangar docks held shuttles and transports. She didn't see any Controller vessels near the Sunspot. She couldn't see the dock that been saved for them from here, but she could sneak around the back end and get in if she traveled fast enough. She could get away from the fighters and the vessel.

The Sunspot held a little more than a million people on it. Situated inside the gravity well of a larger asteroid mine and Knife's Edge, the planet, it would take the Controllers anywhere from a few weeks to a month to find them. Bureaucracy caught the Controllers in its net more often they wanted to admit, and reinforcements wouldn't arrive before they had already left.

Unless... Unless, somehow, she or Silph had contracted the infection the Controllers had such a fondness of talking about. They had mentioned to her in her briefings and they mentioned it on the mass transmissions in the cities three or four times a year. No one knew what it meant, but the theories ran the gamut from aliens to abductions to prophecies about the End of Days to a lie to keep humans frightened.

What if we missed it? Leah said. They would know where we went. They would round up our people and silence them.

That gives us two choices, Silph said. We can try to find a hidden hangar on Shone Zio, or we can land on Knife's Edge. She laughed. They'll never find us on Knife's Edge. Can we make it?

Leah turned a thumb up at Silph. Won't be anything.

We're insane, aren't we, Silph said.

You got that right, Leah said. Give me the route, Silph.

Silph listed the coordinates. A missile grazed the edge of the Spark's starboard and rocked Leah in the pilot's chair. The vibration had been so mild that Silph hadn't felt it, but the Spark's AI shook her head like she had a headache. After Leah took a look at her to