We bolted down from the outer atmosphere. “Krell flight on our tail!” Jorgen radioed in. “Repeat. We have a full flight of Krell, perhaps two—twenty ships—chasing us.”
“What have you fool cadets done?” Nose asked.
Jorgen didn’t defend us, as I would have. “Sorry, sir,” he said instead. “Orders?”
“Each of you break off with a pair of experienced pilots. I’ll put you with—”
“Sir,” Jorgen interrupted. “I’d rather fly with my flight, if you allow it.”
“Fine, fine,” Nose said, then cursed as the Krell appeared out of the upper atmosphere. “Just stay alive. Nightmare Flight, all ships, go into evasive posturing. Draw their attention and watch for lifebusters. Riptide Flight is only a few klicks away; we should have reinforcements in short order.”
“Spin, you’re point,” Jorgen said, switching to our private flight channel. “You heard our orders. No showboating, no kill chasing. Defensive postures until reinforcements arrive.”
“Gotcha,” I said, and FM did likewise. We fell into a triangle position, and immediately five Krell swarmed in our direction.
I sent us diving to a lower altitude, then pivoted up using a large, mostly stationary chunk of debris. We swooped around, then flew back through the middle of the Krell who were trying to follow. They scattered.
“You call that defensive, Spin?” Jorgen asked.
“Did I shoot at any?”
“You were going to.”
I moved my thumb off the trigger. Spoilsport.
A skylight above dimmed and flickered off as the night cycle began. My canopy had good enough darkvision to lighten the battlefield, but a certain gloom fell on it—darkness punctured by red destructors and the glow of boosters.
The three of us stayed together, swooping and dodging through the mess as Riptide Flight arrived. “Two more flights of reinforcements are nearby,” Jorgen told us. “Waiting in case one of these debris falls contained enemies. We should have good numbers soon. Hold defensive postures for now.”
We confirmed, and FM took point. Unfortunately, right as she was moving into position, a group of Krell came in at us firing. Our defensive maneuvers sent Jorgen and me cutting in one direction and FM in the other.
I gritted my teeth, falling in behind Jorgen as we overburned and swung around a piece of debris, chasing after the two Krell who were now on FM’s tail. Destructors flashed around her as she spun, taking at least two hits to her shield.
“FM, cut right at my mark!” Jorgen said. “Spin, be ready!”
We obeyed, moving as a well-practiced machine. FM swung around a piece of debris while Jorgen and I performed rotating boosts, so we launched sideways to intersect her path. I fell back while Jorgen hit his IMP, then I fired, hitting one Krell and knocking it into a spinning descent. The other cut away from us, fleeing.
I caught Jorgen with my light-lance, and we used our momentum together to turn us after FM, who slowed down and fell in with us. The two of us then took a defensive position around Jorgen, who quickly reignited his shield.
It was over before I had time to think about what we’d just done. Hours upon hours of practice had made it second nature. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war. Sun Tzu had said. I was barely starting to understand what that meant.
From what I could judge of the battle, our numbers were roughly even with the Krell, who had been joined by more ships from above. That made me want to go on the offensive, but I stayed in formation, dodging Krell fire and leading groups of them on difficult chases around and through the fighting.
I focused on the battle until, from the corner of my eye, I spotted something. A larger ship just behind a slow-moving chunk of debris. Again, I hadn’t been looking for it specifically, but my brain—trained and practiced by now—picked it out anyway.
“Is that a lifebuster?” I said to the others.
“Scud!” Jorgen said. “Flight command, we’ve got a lifebuster. 53.1-689-12000 falling with an oblong piece of debris that I am marking right now with a radio tag.”
“Confirmed,” a cold voice said on the line. Ironsides herself. She rarely spoke to us directly, though she often listened to the chatter. “Pull back from that position, act as if you haven’t seen it.”
“Admiral!” I said. “I can hit it, and we’re out well beyond where a blast would be dangerous to Alta. Let me bring it down.”
“Negative, cadet,” Ironsides said. “Pull back.”
Flashes in my memory returned to the day Bim had died. My hand felt stiff on the control sphere, but I yanked it forcibly to the side, following Jorgen and FM away from the lifebuster.
It was surprisingly hard. As if my ship itself wanted to disobey.
“Well done, Spin,” Cobb said over a private line. “You have the passion. Now you’re showing restraint. We’ll make a real pilot of you yet.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “But the lifebuster …”
“Ironsides knows what she’s doing.”
We fell back, and other flights were ordered higher into the sky. The battlefield changed shape, as the lifebuster—seemingly ignored—got close to the ground and started toward Alta. I tracked it, nervous, until four aces from Riptide Flight detached and swarmed after it. They would engage it far enough away from the main fight to protect the rest of us if the bomb detonated. If they failed, then the soon-arriving reinforcements would catch the lifebuster.
Our trio of ships picked up some tails, so I had to dodge to avoid heavy fire. The entire pack of Krell followed me, but a second later Jorgen and FM swooped in and drove them off. FM even got a kill, overwhelming a shield without needing the IMP.
“Nice,” I said, relaxing from the sudden, intense burst of flying. “And thank you.”
Off in the distance, the aces had engaged the lifebuster. Like before, in the flight with Bim, a group of smaller ships had detached from the bomber and were protecting it. “Cobb,” I said, hitting the comm. “Have you learned anything about those ships that travel with the lifebuster?”
“Not much,” Cobb said. “It’s newer behavior, but they’ve been appearing with all bombers recently. The aces will deal with them. Keep your attention on your flight, Spin.”
“Yes, sir.”
I still couldn’t help watching the fight for the lifebuster. If it blew, we’d have to be ready to overburn away before its sequence of explosions completed. So I was relieved when eventually, the lifebuster and its escort pulled up into the sky, retreating. The aces gave token chase, but eventually let the bomb escape back up where it had come from. I smiled.
“Mayday!” a voice called on the general line. “This is Bog. Shields down. Wingmate down. Please. Someone!”
“55.5-699-4000!” FM said, and I looked toward the coordinates, spotting a beleaguered Poco trailing smoke and fleeing outward, away from the main battlefield. Four Krell followed. The best way to get yourself killed was to let them isolate you, but Bog clearly didn’t have a choice.
“Skyward Flight here, Bog,” Jorgen said, taking point. “We have you. Hold on and try to bear left.”
We stormed after him and fired at will on Jorgen’s order. Our hailstorm of destructor fire didn’t bring down any enemy ships, but it made most of them scatter. Three went left—which would cut Bog off. Jorgen turned after those, and FM followed him.
“There’s still one on his tail,” I said. “I’ll take it.”
“All right,” Jorgen said with a moment’s pause. He obviously hated splitting the flight.
I fell in after the ship. Straight ahead, Bog was going through increasingly crazy maneuvers—reckless ones—to avoid being hit.
“Shoot it!” he screamed. “Please shoot it. Just shoot it!”
Desperation, frantic worry—things I hadn’t expected of a full pilot. Of course, he looked young. Though it should have occurred to me earlier, I realized he’d probably graduated in one of the classes right before mine. Six months, maybe a year, as a pilot—but still an eighteen-year-old boy.
I picked up two tails that concentrated fire on me. Scud. Bog had led our chase so far out, it was going to be hard to pick up support. I didn’t dare IMP, not with destructors flashing around me—but that Krell ahead of me still had a shield up.
I gritted my teeth, then hit my overburn. G-forces pressed me back in my seat, and I got closer to the Krell, sticking to its tail, barely able to dodge. I’d hit Mag-3, and at this speed, flight maneuvers were going to be difficult to control.
Just a second longer …
I got in close and speared the Krell ship with my light-lance. Then I turned, pulling the Krell ship out of line with Bog.
The cockpit trembled around me as my captive Krell cut in the other direction, fighting me, sending us both into a frantic out-of-control spin.
My tails turned and concentrated fire on me. They didn’t care if they hit the ship I had lanced; Krell never cared about that.
A storm of fire swallowed me, hitting my shield and drilling it down. The Krell ship I’d speared exploded under fire from its allies, and I was forced to pull into a sharp climb on full overburn to try to get away.
That was a risky move. My GravCaps cut out, and the g-force hit like a kick to the face. It pulled me downward, forced the blood into my feet. My flight suit inflated, pushing against my skin, and I did my breathing exercises as trained.
My vision still blackened at the edges.
Flashing lights on my console.
My shield was down.
I cut my acclivity ring, spun on my axis, then overburned right back downward. The GravCaps managed to absorb some of the whiplash, but a human body simply wasn’t meant to handle that kind of reversal. I felt sick, and almost threw up as I passed through the middle of the Krell.
My hands were trembling on the controls, my vision growing red this time. Most of the Krell didn’t respond in time, but one of them—one ship—managed to spin on its own axis as I had.
It focused on me, then fired.
A flash on my wing; an explosion.
I’d been hit.
Beeps screamed at me from my console. Lights flashed. My control sphere suddenly didn’t seem to do anything, going slack as I tried to maneuver.
The cockpit rocked, and the world rotated as my ship started spiraling out of control.
“Spin!” I somehow heard Jorgen’s shout over the chaos of the beeping.
“Eject, Spin! You’re going down!”
Eject.
You weren’t supposed to be able to think during moments like these. It was all supposed to happen in a flash. And yet, that second seemed frozen to me.
My hand, hovering as it reached for the eject lever between my legs.
The world a spinning blur. My wing, gone. My ship on fire, my acclivity ring unresponsive.
A moment frozen between life and death.
And Hurl, in the back of my head. Brave to the end. Not cowards. A pact.
I would not eject. I could steer this ship down! I was NO COWARD! I was not afraid to die.
And what will it do to them. something else within me asked, if you do? What would it do to my flight to lose me? What would it do to Cobb, to my mother?
Screaming, I grabbed the eject lever and yanked hard. My canopy exploded off, and my seat blasted out into the sky.
I woke to silence.
And … wind, brushing against my face. My seat lay on the dusty ground and I faced the sky. The parachute flapped behind me; I could hear the wind playing with it.
I had blacked out.
I lay there, staring upward. Red streaks in the distance. Explosions. Blossoms of orange light. Just faint pops, from this far down.
I shifted to the side. What was left of my Poco burned in the near distance, destroyed.
My future, my life, burned away with it. I lay there until the battle ended, the Krell retreating. Jorgen did a flyby to check if I was all right, and I waved to him to allay his worry.
By the time a rescue transport came for me—lowering silently on its acclivity ring—I had unbuckled. My radio and my canteen had survived the ejection attached to my seat; I had used one to call in and drank from the other. A medic had me sit on a seat in the transport, then inspected me while a member of the Survey Corps walked out and looked over the wreckage of my Poco.
The salvage woman eventually walked back, holding a clipboard.
“Well?” I asked softly.
“In-seat GravCaps kept you from smashing your own spine,” the medic said. “You seem to have only minimal whiplash, unless there’s a pain you’re not telling me about.”
“I didn’t mean me.” I looked at the salvage woman, then over at my Poco.
“The acclivity ring is destroyed,” she said. “Not much to salvage.”
That was what I’d been afraid of. I strapped into the transport’s seat, then looked out the window as it took off. I watched the burning light of my Poco’s fire fade, then vanish.
At last we landed at Alta, and I climbed out of the vehicle, stiff, body aching. I limped across the tarmac. Somehow I knew—before I even saw her face—that one of the figures standing in the darkness beside the landing site would be Admiral Ironsides.
Of course she had come. She finally had a real excuse to kick me out. And could I blame her, now that I knew what I did?
I stopped in front of her and saluted. She, remarkably, saluted me back. Then she unpinned my cadet’s pin from my uniform.
I didn’t cry. Honestly, I was too tired, and my head hurt too much.
Ironsides turned the pin over in her fingers.
“Sir?” I said.
She handed my pin back. “Cadet Spensa Nightshade, you are dismissed from flight school. By tradition, as a cadet who was shot down soon before graduation, you’ll be added to the list of possible pilots to call up should we have extra ships.”
Those “possible pilots” could be summoned by the admiral’s order only. It would never happen to me.
“You can keep your pin,” Ironsides added. “Wear it with pride, but return your other gear to the quartermaster by twelve hundred tomorrow.” Then without another word, she turned and left.
I held a second salute until she was out of sight, pin gripped in the fingers of my other hand. It was over. I was done.
Skyward Flight would graduate only two members after all.
