“It happens to all of us,” I said. “No need to be embarrassed. You should have seen me on my first days in the centrifuge back home.”
“Well,” he said, “I know you’ve said I was a pilot, but those experiences are lost to me. My current disposition is one of profound respect for the ground, I must admit.”
“I’ll try to avoid towing you into any more of these,” I said. “M-Bot, who was that enemy pilot?”
“Peg’s son, Gremm,” M-Bot said. “She indicated he wouldn’t join the fight, but by the markings on that ship, she was wrong.”
So I’d had my first brush with the champion. I grinned. Though he’d beaten me, that hadn’t been a true duel. I’d lost my shield fighting his companions.
He would see my true potential when we faced off. “How are you, M-Bot?” I asked, turning and scanning the sky, trying to gauge the progress of the battle. “That hit didn’t fry you or anything?”
“Fortunately,” M-Bot said, “the modifications we made to insulate my core systems appear to have worked.”
“I’m glad.”
“It honestly wouldn’t take too much effort to insulate all of the systems,” he continued, “so we won’t get locked up in fights like this.”
“What would be the sport in that?” Chet asked.
“Sport?” M-Bot said. “It’s not a game.”
“It is though,” I said. “As long as everyone plays by the same rules, nobody has to die.”
“From what I understand of the interactions between sapient beings,” M-Bot said, “someone is eventually going to seek an extra advantage. I’m shocked it hasn’t happened already, regardless of what Peg indicated.”
“Maybe,” I said. “You ever study small-group battles between tribes of early humans?”
“No.”
“You should. I think you’d be surprised by what kinds of rules a society will follow, when the stakes are different.”
Smaller groups of hunter-gatherers on Old Earth had rarely engaged in lethal combat. Their numbers had been too small, their communities too tight-knit. Yes, occasionally someone had died during their conflicts, but mostly the battles had been about boasting and intimidation.
Cobb had used this lesson to indicate that human nature wasn’t to fight and kill, which was why we needed to drill and train. But now I found something liberating in the idea that flying, the thing I loved, didn’t have to only be about killing. It could be about proving myself—to myself.
Behind, the remaining four enemy ships decided to pull out. Cutlass Flight’s timely return had let us win the day. I waited, pensive, as Peg and her son negotiated terms for the return of their disabled ships. They then began reactivating those vessels, a process that would take a few minutes.
Maksim finally arrived to fetch me, hauling my sorry rear back to the base, where the ground crews waited with some of the pilots who had already landed. A set of docking light-lances pulled me down, and I hit the manual release on my canopy, then cranked it open. As Chet and I climbed out, I braced myself for a lecture. I could hear Cobb’s voice ranting about how reckless I’d been in that fight. He always drilled good behavior, even when doing simulations.
Instead I climbed out to furious cheers and applause. Led by Peg herself, who—instead of berating me—grabbed me in an enveloping hug as I dropped to the ground.
“Four kills?” she shouted. “And three assists? Kid, you practically won that fight on your own!”
“The Jolly Rogers were sent running!” Maksim said. “You have no idea how good that feels!”
“We have our chance,” Peg said. “Gremm was impressed. He’s willing to duel you officially tomorrow.”
The others cheered again.
Scud. I’d been shot down, and they were cheering me? And her son thought I was worthy?
I grinned widely. How long had it been since I’d been this…well, excited after a fight? How long since I’d heard such joy from my flightmates? Last time I could remember was when I saved the DDF base from annihilation by grabbing the bomb. But those cheers had had an edge. A tension. Those had been cheers of relief.
These people were simply happy. I let their enthusiasm infuse me. It was an incredible feeling. And it was merely the beginning—because tomorrow, I was going to become pirate champion and give Peg her chance at uniting the factions.
Floating.
I became partially aware. Not awake, but aware. I was in the place where I had no shape, no senses other than my cytonic ones. I…remembered lying down, in my own room at the Broadsider base, after the skirmish.