The day after Morningtide and Bim died, I arrived late for Cobb’s class. It was only by about five minutes, but it was still my first time being late.
Everything just felt so wrong.
I vaguely remembered tromping back to my cave the day before, ignoring M-Bot—Rig had already gone home—and curling up in my cockpit bed. Then I’d just lain there. Not sleeping, but wishing that I would. Thinking, but wishing that I would stop. Not crying … but somehow wishing that I could.
Today, nobody called me on my tardiness. Cobb wasn’t there yet, though almost all of the remaining cadets had assembled. Everyone but Kimmalyn, which worried me. Was she okay?
My boots squeaked on the floor as I walked over and sat. I didn’t want to look at the conspicuously empty seats, but that made me feel like a coward, so I forced myself to stare at Morningtide’s spot. Just two days ago I’d been standing there, helping her understand …
She’d almost never said anything, but somehow the room felt so much quieter without her.
“Hey, Spin,” Nedd finally said. “You’re always talking about ‘honor’ and the ‘glory of dying like warriors’ and crap like that.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So …,” Nedd said. “Maybe we could use a little of that crap right now.”
Nedd slumped in place, barely fitting into his mockpit. He was the tallest one in the room—and burly too. I’d always thought of him simply as the larger of Jerkface’s two cronies, but there was more to him. A thoughtfulness.
“Well?” he asked.
“I …,” I said, struggling to find words. “That all feels stupid now.”
I couldn’t rattle off some line about vengeance. Not today. Doing so would feel like playing a part in one of Gran-Gran’s stories—while the loss felt so very real. But … did that make my conviction all just bravado? Was I a coward hiding behind aggressive platitudes?
A real warrior would shrug it off. Did I really think these were the last friends I’d lose?
FM climbed out of her seat and walked over to me. She squeezed me on the shoulder, a strikingly familiar gesture from a girl I knew only passingly well, despite our time in the same flight. What was her story? I’d never found a way to ask.
I glanced toward Bim’s place, thinking of the incredibly awkward—yet wonderful—way he’d tried to flirt with me.
“Do you know where Kimmalyn is?” I asked FM.
“She got up and ate with us,” the tall girl whispered, “but she stopped at the restroom on the way to class. Maybe someone should go check on her.”
Before I could get up, Jerkface was on his feet, clearing his throat. He looked around at the other five of us. Me and FM. Hurl, slumped in her seat. She didn’t seem to be treating this like a game any longer. Arturo, who sat with hands clasped, tapping his index fingers together at a rapid pace, like some kind of nervous tic. Nedd sitting with his feet up and resting on the incalculably valuable hologram projector at the front of his mockpit. Remarkably, his bootlaces were untied.
“I suppose,” Jerkface said, “that I should say something.”
“Of course,” FM whispered, rolling her eyes, though she returned to her own place.
Jerkface began speaking in a stiff voice. “The DDF protocol handbook explains that to die in the cockpit—fighting to protect our homeland—is the bravest and greatest gift a person can give. Our friends, though taken too early, were models of Defiant ideals.”
He’s reading. I realized. From notes written … on his hand?
“We will remember them as soldiers,” Jerkface continued, now holding his hand up before him. “If you need counseling at this loss—or for any reason—as your flightleader, I am here. Please come to me, so I can make you feel better. I will gladly bear the burden of your grief so that you can focus on your flight training. Thank you.”
He sat down. And, well, that was probably the dumbest speech I’d ever heard. More about him than about those empty seats. But … I supposed he had tried?
Cobb finally limped through the door, holding a fistful of papers and muttering something to himself. “Flight positions!” he snapped. “We’re going to cover tandem maneuvering today—again. The way you guard each other is so sloppy, I’d expect to see you on a plate of mess hall food.”
We just kind of stared at him.
“Move!” he barked.
Everyone started strapping in.
I—instead—stood up. “Is that it?” I demanded. “Aren’t you going to say anything about them? About Bim, or Morningtide, or what the admiral did to—”
“The admiral,” Cobb said, “did nothing to you. The Krell killed your friends.”
“That’s ratcrap,” I blurted. “If you toss a kid into a lion’s den, can you really blame the lion?”
He met my eyes, but I wasn’t going to back down this time. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but at least this emotion—feeling furious at him, at the admiral, at the DDF—was better than emptiness.
We glared at each other until the door squeaked and opened, and Kimmalyn stepped in. Though her long black hair was combed—as usual—into perfect curls, her eyes were puffy and red. Cobb glanced at her and his eyes widened, as if he was surprised to see her.
He thought she’d given up. I realized.
Instead, puffy eyes and all, Kimmalyn raised her chin.
Cobb nodded toward her seat, and she strode over—a model of Defiant poise—and sat down. In that moment, she seemed more like a warrior than I’d ever been.
I set my jaw, then took my seat and strapped in. Shoving Cobb around wasn’t going to relieve my anger at the admiral. I needed a control sphere in my hand and a destructor trigger under my finger. That was probably why Cobb wanted to work us hard today—to make us sweat, maybe make us forget for a little while. And … yeah. Yeah, I was on board for that.
Cobb, however, didn’t turn on our projectors. Instead he slowly took a folding chair, then limped to the center of the room and unfolded it. He sat down, clasping his hands before him. I had to lean out the side of my rig to see him, as did most of the others.
He looked old. Older than he deserved to.
“I know how it feels,” he said. “Like there’s been a hole carved right out of you. A chunk of flesh that’s just not going to grow back. You can function, you can fly, but you’re going to leave a blood trail for a while.
“I should say something here, about loss. Something wise. Old Mara, who taught me to fly, would have. She’s dead now.” Cobb shook his head. “Sometimes I don’t feel like a teacher. I feel like a munitions man, reloading artillery. I stuff you into the chamber, fire you into the sky, then grab another shell …”
Hearing him talk that way was discomforting, unnatural. Like a parent suddenly admitting they didn’t know what love felt like. We’d all heard stories about flight instructors. Old, grizzled, quick to bite your head off, but stuffed full of wisdom.
In that moment though, I saw the man, not the instructor. That man was afraid and distraught—and as pained to lose students as we were to lose friends. He wasn’t some grizzled veteran with all the answers. He was a man who had, almost by coincidence, survived long enough to be made into a teacher. He had to teach us both the things he knew and the things he clearly hadn’t yet figured out himself.
“Claim the stars,” I said.
Cobb looked up at me.
“When I was a girl,” I said, “I wanted to become a pilot so I would be celebrated. And my father told me to set my sights higher. He told me to ‘claim the stars.’ ”
I looked upward, and tried to imagine those twinkling lights. Past the roof, up through the sky, piercing the rubble belt. Where the Saints welcomed the souls of the fallen when they died.
“It hurts,” I said. “More than I thought it would. I knew so little about Bim—only that he liked to smile. Morningtide, she could barely understand us. But she refused to give up.”
For a moment, I thought I could imagine myself soaring upward among those lights. Like Gran-Gran had taught me. I felt everything falling beneath me, becoming distant. All I could see were those points of light streaking around on all sides.
“They’re up in the sky now,” I said softly. “Forever among the stars. I’m going to join them.” I snapped out of the trance, and was suddenly back in the room with the others. “I’m going to strap in, and I’m going to fight. That way when I die, at least I’ll die in a cockpit. Reaching for heaven.”
The others stilled, ushering in an uncertain silence, like the moment between two meteor impacts. Nedd had sat up in his seat, no longer lounging, and he gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up and a nod. Across from me, I found Jerkface staring at me, an inscrutable frown on his face.
“All right,” Cobb said, standing up. “Let’s stop wasting time. Helmets on.”
I grabbed my helmet and pulled it on, ignoring Jerkface’s stare. I immediately jumped, however, and pulled the helmet off.
“What?” Cobb said, limping over to me.
“The diodes inside are warm,” I said, feeling them. “What does it mean?”
“Nothing,” Cobb said. “… Probably.”
“That doesn’t reassure me, Cobb. What is going on?”
He lowered his voice. “Some medical types who think they’re smart believe they can tell from a bunch of readouts if you’re … going to run away like your father.”
“My father didn’t—”
“Calm down. We prove them wrong about you with good flying. That’s your best tool. Can you wear that?” He nodded to the helmet.
“Yeah. They aren’t painfully hot; I was just surprised.”
“Put it on then, and let’s get to work.”
