I woke up snuggled into too many blankets, and reached out to feel the side of M-Bot’s cockpit—but my hand slapped the side of a bed frame.
Right. What time was it? I tapped my light-line to glance at its clock, raising a soft glow in the room. Just before five in the morning. Two hours until we had to be ready for class.
I should have been exhausted, as we’d stayed up talking until after one. Strangely, I felt wide awake. Perhaps my brain knew that if I wanted to use the facilities and get cleansed today, I’d need to do it now—while everyone else in the building was sleeping.
In fact, it was probably best if I snuck out and was seen walking back to the building before class. I climbed out of my nest and stretched, then grabbed my backpack. I tried to be as quiet as possible, though I probably shouldn’t have worried. If the others could sleep through Hurl’s snoring, my pack scraping the floor wouldn’t disturb them.
I slipped open the door, then turned and looked at the three sleeping girls. “Thank you,” I whispered. Right then, I decided I wouldn’t let them do this again. It was too dangerous; I didn’t want to get them on the admiral’s bad side.
This had been wondrous. Even if it left me knowing, for sure, what I was missing. Even if I felt sick to have to walk away, even if I twisted inside, I wouldn’t have traded this night for anything. My only taste of what it was like to be part of a real flight of pilots.
That thought loomed in my mind as I walked to the bathroom and cleansed. Afterward, looking in the bathroom mirror, I smoothed back my wet hair. In all the stories, the heroes had stark black, golden, or red hair—something dramatic. Not dirty brown.
I sighed, threw my pack on my shoulder, and slipped out into the empty hallway. As I walked to the exit, a light down a corridor caught my attention. I knew that room—it was our classroom. Who would be there at this hour?
My curiosity overcame my common sense. I snuck over to peek in through the window in the door and saw Jorgen’s cockpit engaged, the hologram up and running. What was he doing here at 0530? Getting in a little extra practice?
Cobb’s hologram in the center of the room projected a miniature version of the training battlefield, so I could watch Jorgen’s ship light-lance around a hovering piece of debris, then fire on a Krell. Something about that fight looked familiar …
Yes, it was the one where Bim and Morningtide had died. I’d seen Cobb watching this same recording.
Morningtide’s ship went down in flames, and I winced—though just before she hit, the hologram froze, then restarted. I watched again, picking out Jorgen’s ship as he flew from the other side of the battlefield, dodging debris, making for the ship that would destroy Morningtide. He fired off his IMP, but even as he took down the enemy shield, the Krell blasted Morningtide’s ship and sent her spinning downward.
The hologram restarted, and Jorgen tried again, going a different direction this time.
He’s trying to figure out if he could have saved them. I realized.
When Morningtide went down this third time, the hologram continued—but Jorgen heaved himself out of his seat. He ripped off his helmet and slammed it against the wall with a loud bang. I flinched and almost bolted, worried the noise might draw attention. But seeing Jorgen—normally so tall and imperious—slumped against the wall … I couldn’t walk away.
He looked so vulnerable. So human. Losing Bim and Morningtide had been hard on me. I’d never thought about how it had been for their flightleader—the one who was supposed to keep us all out of trouble.
Jorgen dropped his helmet. He turned away from the wall, then froze.
Scud. He’d seen me.
I ducked away, and was out the exit of the building before he could catch up. But … what now? Suddenly, a gaping hole appeared in our little subterfuge. What if the guards at the gate told the admiral that I’d never left last night?
Surely they didn’t report to the admiral every day about every person who went in and out of the base. Right? But if I left now, then came right back in, they’d definitely notice something was odd.
So, instead of going to the gate, I aimlessly walked the pathways of the base, between buildings. It was dark out, the skylights dim and the pathways mostly empty. In fact, I passed more statues than I did people: busts of the First Citizens—looking toward the sky—lined this part of the walkway.
A too-cold gust of wind blew across me, shaking the branches of a nearby tree. In the dim light, the statues were haunting figures, their stone eyes lost in shadow. The air smelled of smoke from the nearby launchpads, a pungent scent. A fighter must have returned to base on fire recently.
I sighed and sat down on a bench along the walkway, dropping my pack next to me. I felt … melancholy, perhaps a little wistful. The call light on the radio was still blinking. Maybe talking to M-Bot would kick me out of my funk.
I switched it into receiving mode. “Hey, M-Bot.”
“I’m outraged!” M-Bot said. “This is an insult beyond insults! I cannot express with words my indignation, but my built-in thesaurus says that I am insulted, affronted, maltreated, desecrated, injured, ravaged, persecuted, and/or possibly molested.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to turn you off.”
“Turn me off?”
“I’ve had the radio off all night. Isn’t that what you’re angry about?”
“Oh, that’s just normal human forgetfulness. But don’t you remember? I wrote a subroutine to express that I’m mad at you?”
I frowned, trying to remember what the ship was talking about.
“You said I was a Krell?” he said. “I got mad? It was kind of a big deal?”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Apology accepted!” M-Bot answered. He sounded pleased with himself. “I projected a nice sense of outrage, don’t you think?”
“It was splendid.”
“I thought so.”
I sat for a time, silent. Something about last night. It left me feeling reflective, quiet.
She really isn’t ever going to let me fly. I thought, smelling the smoke from the launchpad fire. I can graduate, but it will be meaningless.
“You’re right though,” M-Bot noted. “I might be a Krell.”
“WHAT?” I said, practically smacking myself with the radio as I raised it to my lips.
“I mean, my data banks have mostly been lost,” M-Bot said. “There’s no saying what was in there.”
“Then why did you get so angry at me for suggesting you might be a Krell!”
“It seemed the correct thing to do. I’m supposed to simulate having a personality. What person would let themselves be slandered like that? Even if it was a completely logical assumption, and you are making a perfectly valid threat assessment by wondering about it.”
“I really don’t know what to make of you, M-Bot.”
“I don’t either. Sometimes, my subroutines engage with responses before my main personality simulator has time to rein them in. It’s very confusing. In a perfectly logical, machine way, not at all irrational like human emotions.”
“Sure.”
“You are using sarcasm. Be careful, or I’ll engage my outrage routine again. But if it helps, I don’t think the Krell are AIs, regardless of what your DDF thinkers have determined.”
“Really? Why do you think that?”
“I’ve analyzed their flight patterns. And yours, by the way. I might have some pointers to help you improve. It seems … I have entire subroutines dedicated to that kind of analysis.
“Anyway, I don’t think all of the Krell are AIs, though some might be. My analysis finds that most of their patterns are individual, not complying with easily determined logical routines. At the same time they are reckless, which is curious. I suspect they are drones of some sort, though I will say that Cobb is right: this planet exerts some interference on communications. I appear to have boosting technology that helps me pierce the interference.”
“Well, you are a stealth ship. Advanced communications technology probably helped with your missions.”
“Yes. My holographic projectors, active camouflage, and sonar avoidance are probably there for the same reason.”
“I didn’t even know you could do most of those things. Camouflage? Holograms?”
“My settings say I had these systems engaged on standby mode, creating an illusion of rubble over my ship and preventing scans from detecting my cavern, until recently when my backup power ran out. I’d give you the exact time to the nanosecond, but humans generally hate that kind of precision, as it makes me seem calculating and alien.”
“Well, that probably explains why nobody found you all those years.” I tapped the radio, thoughtful.
“Regardless,” M-Bot said, “I hope I’m not a Krell. That would be super embarrassing.”
“You’re no Krell,” I said—and realized I meant it. I’d worried earlier, but now … I just couldn’t explain why, but I knew he wasn’t.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll admit I’m … worried that I might be something evil like that, and not know it.”
“If you were a Krell, why would you have human living space and plugs that work with ours?”
“I could have been built to infiltrate human society by imitating one of your ships,” he said. “Or actually, what if the Krell are all rogue AIs originally created by humans? That would explain why I had your writing on me. Or maybe I—”
“You’re not a Krell,” I said. “I can feel it.”
“That’s probably some irrational human confirmation bias speaking,” he noted. “But my subroutine that can simulate appreciation … is appreciative.”
I nodded.
“That’s kind of what it does,” he added. “Appreciate things.”
“I would never have figured.”
“It can appreciate something at a million times per second. So you could say your comment is likely the single most appreciated thing you’ve ever done.”
“I’d appreciate you shutting up about how great you are once in a while,” I said, but I smiled and stuck the radio onto my backpack.
“I’m not appreciating that comment,” he noted softly. “Just so you know.”
I flipped the radio off, then stood up and stretched. A few First Citizen busts seemed to glare at me from nearby. Including a younger Cobb. How strange to look at an image of him now that I knew him so well. He shouldn’t look young. Hadn’t he been born a crusty fifty-year-old man?
I shouldered my pack and wandered back toward the flight school building.
An MP stood right outside the main entrance.
I stopped in place. Then, worried, I approached.
“Cadet Nightshade?” the MP asked. “Callsign: Spin.”
My heart sank.
“Admiral Ironsides would like to speak with you.”
I nodded.
The MP led me to the building where I’d met Jorgen and the admiral that once. As we neared, my sense of resignation grew. Somehow I’d known this was coming. Staying with the girls last night had been a bad idea, but … this wasn’t about one little infraction.
It seemed to me, as I stepped into the building, that a confrontation had been growing inevitable. I deserved this for what I’d done to Jorgen, twice over. More telling, the admiral was the most powerful person in the DDF, while I was the daughter of a coward. In some ways, it was remarkable she hadn’t found a way to kick me out before this.
It was time for it to end. I was a fighter, yes, but a good fighter knew when a battle was unwinnable.
The MP deposited me inside the admiral’s shockingly messy office. Ironsides was drinking coffee at her desk, looking over some report, her back to me.
“Close the door,” she said.
I obeyed.
“There’s a note here on the security reports at the gate. You didn’t leave last night. Have you made a hidey-hole in one of the maintenance closets or something?”
“Yes,” I said, relieved that at least she didn’t know the others had helped me.
“Have you eaten mess hall food? Stolen by your own hand, or smuggled out for you by one of your flightmates?”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
The admiral sipped her coffee, still not looking toward me. I stared at her back, her silvery hair, bracing myself for the words. You’re out.
“Don’t you think it’s time to stop this farce?” she said, turning a page. “Drop out now. I’ll let you keep your cadet’s pin.”
I frowned. Why … ask? Why not just say the words? She had the power now that I’d broken her rules, didn’t she?
Ironsides turned her chair, fixing me with a cold stare. “Nothing to say, cadet?”
“Why do you care so much?” I asked. “I’m only one girl. I’m no threat to you.”
The admiral set down her coffee, then stood. She straightened her crisp white uniform jacket, then stepped up to me. Like most people, she towered over me.
“You think this is about my pride, girl?” Ironsides asked. “If I let you continue in the DDF, you’ll get good people killed when you inevitably run. So, I offer again. Walk away with the pin. In the city below, it should be enough to secure you any number of jobs, many quite lucrative.”
She stared at me, hard. And suddenly it made sense.
She couldn’t kick me out. Not because she lacked the power, but because … she needed me to prove that she was right. She needed me to drop out, give up, because that was what a coward would do.
Her rules weren’t about tricking me into an infraction. They were about making my life terrible so that I backed down. If she kicked me out, I could continue the narrative. I could claim my family had been wronged. I could scream about my father’s innocence. My treatment would only support my victimhood. Not being able to sleep in the cadet quarters? No food during my training? That would look terrible.
But if I walked away, she won. It was the only way she won.
In that moment, I was more powerful than the very admiral in command of the Defiant Defense Force.
So I saluted. “Can I return to my classes now, sir?”
A blush rose to her cheeks. “You’re a coward. From a family of cowards.”
I held the salute.
“I could destroy you. See you impoverished. You don’t want me as an enemy. Reject my kind offer now, and you will never have another chance at it.”
I held the salute.
“Bah,” the admiral said, turning from me and sitting down hard. She grabbed her coffee and drank, as if I weren’t there.
I took it as a dismissal. I turned and let myself out, and the MP, still standing outside the door, let me go.
Nobody came for me as I walked to the classroom. I went straight to my mockpit and sat down, then greeted the others as they arrived. When Cobb hobbled in, I realized I was excited for class. It felt as if I’d maybe, finally, escaped the shadow that had been hovering over me since Bim and Morningtide had died.
The girls and their kindness were part of that, but my conversation with Ironsides was a bigger part. She’d given me what I needed to keep fighting. She’d invigorated me. In a strange way, she’d brought me back to life.
I would fight. I would find the answers to what had really happened to my father. And Ironsides would regret forcing me to do both.
