Skyward: Part 1 – Chapter 5

I exploded into the testing room like a fighter with its booster on full overburn.

I interrupted a tall older woman in a white admiral’s uniform. She had chin-length silvery hair, and she frowned at me as I pulled to a halt in the doorway. Then her eyes immediately went to the clock hanging on the wall.

The second hand ticked one last notch. Eighteen hundred hours on the dot.

I made it. I was a sweaty mess, my jumpsuit ripped and stained with dust from my near encounter with a piece of space debris. But I’d made it.

Nobody said a word in the room, which was located in the government buildings at the center of Igneous—near the elevators to the surface. The room was stuffed with desks; there had to be a hundred kids here. I hadn’t realized there were so many seventeen-year-olds in the Defiant caverns, and these were only the ones who wanted to test for pilot.

At that moment, every single one of them was staring at me.

I kept my chin high and tried to pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, the sole open desk I spotted was the one directly in front of the woman with the silver hair.

Did I recognize her? That face …

Scud.

That wasn’t just some junior admiral, it was Judy Ivans, “Ironsides” herself. She was a First Citizen and head of the DDF, so I’d seen her face in hundreds of paintings and statues. She was basically the most important person in the world.

I limped a little as I made my way over and sat down in front of her, trying not to show my embarrassment—or my pain. Dashing all this way had involved multiple crazy descents with my light-line through caverns and tunnels. My muscles were protesting the effort, and my right leg seized up with a cramp the moment I sat down.

Wincing, I dropped my pack to the ground by my seat. An aide snatched it and carried it to the side of the room, as you weren’t allowed anything at your desk but a pencil.

I closed my eyes—but then cracked them as I heard a distinct voice whispering nearby, “Oh, thank the homeworld.” Rig? I glanced and spotted him a few rows over. He had probably arrived three hours early, then spent the entire time worrying that I would be late. For absolutely no reason. I’d arrived with at least half a second to spare. I winked at him, then went back to trying not to scream in pain.

“As I was saying,” the admiral continued, “we are proud of you. Your work and preparation prove you to be the best and most promising generation that the DDF has ever known. You are the generation who will inherit the surface. You will lead us in a bold new era in fighting the Krell.

“Remember that this test is not to prove worthiness. You are all worthy. To field a single flight of pilots, we need hundreds of technicians, mechanics, and other support staff. Even the humble vat worker is a participant in our great quest for survival. The fighter’s booster or wing should not scorn the bolt that holds it in place.

“Not all of you will pass this test, but by simply choosing to be here, you live up to my lofty expectations of you. And to those who pass: I look forward to supervising your training. I take a personal interest in the cadets.”

I frowned. She seemed so aloof, so indifferent. Surely she didn’t care about me, no matter how infamous my father was.

As aides rushed to distribute the tests, Ironsides stepped to the side of the room, near some captains in sparkling uniforms. A short man in glasses whispered to her, then pointed toward me. Ironsides turned and looked at me again, her lips turning down sharply.

Oh no.

I glanced toward the other wall of the room, where some teachers—including Mrs. Vmeer—watched. She saw me, then shook her head as if in disappointment. But … I … thought I’d figured it out. They were just trying to see if I was truly Defiant.

Right?

An aide deliberately took a test off the bottom of the stack and placed it on my desk. Hesitant, I searched my pockets for a pencil, but found only my father’s pin. At a hiss from the side, I glanced toward Rig—who tossed me a spare pencil.

Thank you. I mouthed, then opened the test and turned to the first question.

My stomach sank. A question about algae? Yes, the tests often included random questions from our schooling, but … algae?

I flipped to the next page.

The next was about how sewage was treated, as was the one after that. I felt my face growing cold as I realized all fifty pages were questions about things like algae vats, sewage, or ventilation. Those were lessons I’d missed while hunting. I’d shown up in the afternoon classes for physics and history, but I simply hadn’t had the time to study everything.

I looked at Mrs. Vmeer again, and she wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I leaned over and stole a glance at Darla Mee-Bim’s test. Hers had a completely different question at the top.

A tight loop, a rolling twin-scissor, the Ahlstrom loop, a reverse backpedal, and a banking roll. Depending on how close they were, the nature of the battlefield, and what my wingmate was doing. I leaned to the side and checked the test of another neighbor, where I spotted some numbers with the words booster and throttle. A question about acceleration and g-forces.

An aide spoke up, loud enough for most people in the room to hear. “Be advised that no one sitting next to you will have the same test, so cheating is not only punishable by expulsion, it is useless.”

I slumped back in my seat, anger boiling inside me. This was complete and utter trash. Had they prepared a special test for me, covering topics they knew I’d been forced to miss?

As I stewed there, several students rose and walked to the front of the chamber. They couldn’t be done already, could they? One of them—a tall, well-built young man with brown skin, short curly black hair, and an insufferable face—handed the admiral his test. From where I was sitting I could see it was blank except for his name. He showed her a pin—a special pin, blue and gold. The pin of a pilot who had fought at the Battle of Alta.

Children of First Citizens. I thought. All they had to do was show up and fill in their names, and they’d be given automatic entry into flight school. There were six of them today, each one getting a free slot that could have gone to other, harder-working students.

One by one the six left, and the admiral dropped their unfinished tests on a desk by the front wall. Their scores wouldn’t matter. Just like my score didn’t matter.

Dia’s words returned to me. You don’t really think they’d let the daughter of Chaser fly for the DDF, do you?

I tried anyway. Furious—holding my pencil so tightly I broke the tip and had to get a replacement—I scrawled on my stupid test. Each question felt intended to break my will. Algae vats. Ventilation. Sewage. Places I supposedly belonged.

Daughter of a coward. She’s lucky we don’t just toss her into the vats.

I wrote for hours, emotions dogfighting within me. Anger fought naive anticipation. Frustration fought hope. Realization shot down optimism.

I tried not to leave any questions blank, but on well over two-thirds of them, my answer boiled down to, “I don’t know. I’d ask someone who does.” And it hurt to answer them, as if by doing so I was proving that I was incompetent.

But I would not give up. Finally the bell chimed, marking the end of the five-hour time limit. I slumped as an aide pulled the test from my fingers. I watched her walk off.

No.

Admiral Ironsides had returned and was speaking—now that the test had ended—with a small group of people in suits and skirts, First Citizens or National Assembly members. Ironsides was known for being stern but fair.

I stood up and walked to her, fishing in my pocket, fist closing on my father’s pin. I waited, respectful, as the students filed out for the after-test party, where they’d be joined by those who had already settled on other careers, and who had been spending the day applying for and being assigned positions. Those who took this test and failed would be given second pickings later in the week.

Tonight though, everyone would celebrate together, future pilot and future janitor alike.

Finally, Ironsides looked at me.

I held up my father’s pin. “Sir,” I said. “As the daughter of a pilot who fought at the Battle of Alta, I would like to petition for acceptance into flight school.”

She looked me up and down, noting the ripped sleeve, the dirty face, the dried blood on my arm. She took the pin from my hand, and I held my breath.

“Do you really think,” she said, “that I would accept the pin of a traitor?”

My heart sank.

“You aren’t even supposed to have this, girl,” she said. “Wasn’t it destroyed when he crashed? Did you steal someone else’s pin?”

“Sir,” I said, my voice taut. “It didn’t go down in the crash with him. He gave it to me before he flew that last time.”

Admiral Ironsides turned to leave.

“Sir?” I said. “Please. Please. just give me a chance.”

She hesitated, and I thought she was considering, but then she leaned in to me and whispered. “Girl, do you have any idea the kind of public relations nightmare you could cause for us? If I let you in, and you turn out to be a coward like he was … Well, there is no way on this planet I will let you into a cockpit. Be glad we even let you into this building.”

It felt like I’d been slapped. I winced. This woman—one of my heroes—turned to leave.

I grabbed her arm, and several aides nearby gasped softly. But I held on.

“You still have my pin,” I said. “Those belong to the pilots and their families. Tradition—”

“The pins of actual pilots belong to the families,” she said. “Not cowards.” She pulled herself out of my grip with a shockingly firm yank.

I could have attacked her. I almost did; the heat was rising inside me, and my face felt cold.

Arms grabbed me from behind before I could do it. “Spin?” Rig said. “Spensa! What are you doing?”

“She stole it. She took my father’s …” I trailed off as the admiral walked out with her collected attendants. Then I sagged into Rig’s grasp.

“Spensa?” Rig said. “Let’s go to the party. We can talk about it there. How do you think you did? I think … I think did terribly. Spensa?”

I pulled away from him and trudged back to my desk, suddenly feeling too exhausted to stand.

“Spin?” he asked.

“Go to the party, Rig,” I whispered.

“But—”

“Leave me alone. Please. Just … let me be by myself.”

He never did know how to deal with me when I got like this, so he hovered about, then finally trailed off.

And I sat alone in the room.