“That isn’t the sort of thing a ‘few tips’ can achieve, Peg,” I said. “But there are some formation exercises I could teach you while we fly.”
“Excellent,” Peg said.
Over the next half hour, I explained to Cutlass Flight some basics that I thought they were lacking. The importance of a wingman. The value of drilling on formations. The purpose of group responses. I soon had them paired off—Maksim with Peg, the two resonants together—and doing sprints. One would spring forward, fire their IMP, then fall back to reignite, while the other darted forward in a guard position.
They took my instruction without complaint, and after a short time I had a solid gauge of their abilities. Shiver was good, Dllllizzzz not far behind her. Peg was better than she claimed, though her shuttle wasn’t terribly fast. She was more a gunship and support flyer. Maksim wasn’t great, but he was so excited and eager, which counted for a lot.
After the team sprints, I taught them some scatter formations—where the four would fly together, then break apart and weave through the air defensively before coming back into the same configuration. They picked that up quickly.
“Good,” I told them. “Now watch as I sketch this next formation on your monitors. I want you to do the same break and scatter, but then return into a group of three. One of you is going to hang back to fire at the enemy, who has hopefully been confused by your maneuvers.”
“Fascinating,” Shiver said. “It’s like…shining with part of your body to distract, while the rest of you grows in another direction.”
“Yeah, or like a street-fighting trick,” I said. “Get them to watch one hand while you prepare to claw their eyes out with the other one.”
“Uh…” Shiver said. “You are a unique individual, Spin.”
“Yeah, I know. Bless my stars,” I said. “Just trust me—learn to work as a group and you’ll have a huge advantage on the battlefield.”
They did as I asked, slowly figuring out this more complex formation. I gave tips, digging back to what Cobb had taught me when I’d been new.
“You’re good at this,” Chet said from behind me as they ran through another scatter formation. “I see a natural teacher in you!”
“I’m good at pretending,” I said. “Most of this is just stuff I’m regurgitating from what I was taught.”
“And what precisely do you think teaching is, mmm?” he said. “You have confidence, credibility, and empathy. I think you are excellent at this duty.”
I sat a little taller at those words, and the experience made me want to fall back into the role I’d taken with the team on Starsight: that of the drillmaster. That was dangerous. I wasn’t going to be with the Broadsiders long enough to train them extensively.
I gave them a short break, with a compliment on their skills, and Peg pulled up on my wing. Her shuttle looked slapped-together, but that was deceptive. It held an exceptionally strong shield and powerful guns. In a proper fire team, with faster ships to keep the enemy from swarming her, she’d be a force to reckon with.
Though she was the leader, she’d done as I directed during instruction without complaining or pulling rank. That said a lot about her, all of it good. She was humble enough to take direction in order to achieve her goals.
“How do you feel?” she asked. “Memories are good?”
“They are,” I said. “I can remember my name, my friends. Most of it.”
“There’s something about being part of a team that helps us all,” she replied. “Even when we aren’t immediately close to one another. It’s like how a forest is stronger than a tree, eh? The roots interlock, and the fruit grows for all in more abundance.”
“It’s like a crystal lattice, Peg,” Shiver said over the comm. “The structure of a crystal is strong because of how the individual atoms align together.”
“Well,” Maksim said, “I guess I’m supposed to say it’s like a herd of cattle. Or maybe a line of fence posts. Or some other cowboy crap.”
“Cowboy?” I asked.
He paused a moment when I spoke. Perhaps I was reading too much into it, but I felt he had to struggle not to snap at me. Because of how I’d betrayed his trust.
He continued speaking though. As if he were trying to give me a second chance. “Haven’t I told you, Spin? In the Superiority, everyone thinks of humans as these ravening monsters—and so they love our old lore. Pirates, Gurkhas, the Tuskegee Airmen, and—unfortunately—cowboys. So they’d always expect me to talk like one. Even though my heritage from Old Earth is Ukrainian.”