The Krell wanted this. They wanted to draw our fighters into a battle far from Alta. They wanted to convince us that all of the Krell ships were engaged, so that we threw everything we had at them. Then they dropped a lifebuster on our AA guns to open the path.
That way, they could bring in more ships and another bomb.
Boom.
No more Defiants.
“Riptide Flight,” Admiral Ironsides said. “I want you back at Alta immediately! Full speed!”
“Sir?” the flightleader said. “We can disengage, but we’re a good thirty minutes out, even at Mag-10.”
“Hurry!” she said. “Get back here.”
Too slow. I thought. Alta was doomed. There weren’t any ships. There weren’t any pilots.
Except one.
49
Still, I hesitated.
I’d decided not to go with Nedd and the others because it was too dangerous. What about the defect?
In that moment, Hurl’s voice returned to me. A pact. she seemed to whisper. Brave until the end. No backing down, Spin.
No backing down. Alta was in danger, and I was just going to sit here? Because I was afraid of what I might do?
No. Because I didn’t know, deep down, if I was a coward or not. Because I worried not only about the defect, but about whether I was worthy of flying. In that moment, the truth struck me hard. Like the admiral, I was using the defect as an excuse to avoid facing the real issue.
To avoid discovering for myself who I was.
I stood up and dashed out of the restaurant. Forget the defect—they were going to drop a lifebuster to destroy both Alta and Igneous. It didn’t matter if I was dangerous. The Krell were far, far more so.
I raced down the street toward the base, a vague plan of going to M-Bot coalescing in my mind. But that would take too long—besides, he’d shut himself down. I imagined bursting into the cavern only to be confronted by a dead, empty piece of metal that wouldn’t turn on.
I stopped in the street, puffing, sweating, and looked out toward the hills—then toward Alta Base.
There was one other ship.
I dashed up the street and through the gates, flashing my cadet’s pin to gain admittance. I turned right, toward the launchpads, and scrambled up to the ground crew, who were launching medical transports to go to the AA guns. The bulky, slow ships rose smoothly into the air on large acclivity rings.
I spotted Dorgo, the ground crewman who often worked my ship, and ran up to him.
“Skyward Ten?” Dorgo said. “What are you—”
“The broken ship, Dorgo,” I said, puffing. “Skyward Five. Arturo’s ship. Will it fly?”
“We’re supposed to break it down for parts,” Dorgo said, taken aback. “We got a start on fixing it up, but shields are out and we never got replacements. Steering is compromised as well. It’s not battle-worthy.”
“Will it fly?”
Several members of the ground crew glanced at each other.
“Technically,” Dorgo said, “yes.”
“Prep it for me!” I said.
“Did the admiral approve this?”
I glanced at the side of the launchpad, where a radio like Arturo’s was belting out the flightleader channel. They’d been listening.
“There’s a second group of Krell heading straight for Alta,” I said, pointing. “And there are no reserves. Do you want to go talk to the woman who hates me for irrational reasons, or do you want to just get me into the scudding air?”
Nobody spoke.
“Prep Skyward Five!” Dorgo finally shouted. “Go, go!”
Two ground crewmen ran off, and I dashed into the locker room, emerging a minute later—after the fastest change ever—in a flight suit. Dorgo led me to a Poco that the crew was pulling out onto the launchpad with a ship tow.
Dorgo grabbed a ladder. “Tony, that’ll do! Unhook!”
He slammed the ladder into place even as the ship stopped.
I scrambled up and into the open cockpit, trying not to look at the black destructor scars on the left side of the ship. Scud, it was in bad shape.
“Listen, Spin,” Dorgo said, following me up. “You don’t have a shield. Do you understand? The system was burned out completely, and we ripped it free. You are totally exposed.”
“Understood,” I said, strapping in.
Dorgo pushed my helmet into my hands. My helmet, with my callsign on it. “Other than the shield, your acclivity ring is going to be your biggest worry,” he said. “It’s on the fritz, and I can’t say if it will cut out or not. Control sphere also got a write-up in our assessment.” He eyed me. “Eject still works.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because you’re smarter than most,” he said.
“Destructors?” I said.
“Still functional,” he said. “You’re lucky. We were going to scrap those tonight.”
“I’m not sure this counts as lucky,” I said, pulling on the helmet. “But it’s all we’ve got.” I gave him a thumbs-up.
He raised his own thumb as his team pulled the ladder away, and my canopy lowered and sealed.
Admiral Judy “Ironsides” Ivans stood in the command center. Hands clasped behind her back, she regarded a hologram projected from the floor, complete with tiny ships in formation.
The shipyard had been a decoy all along. Judy had been played; the Krell had anticipated what she would do, and used that knowledge.
It was one of the oldest rules of warfare. If you knew what your enemy was going to do, the battle was already half won.
At her quiet order, the holoprojection switched to the second group of enemy ships that were approaching Alta. Fifteen Krell. Glowing blue wedges, now visible to close-range radar, which was far more accurate than the long-range ones.
It showed that one of those ships was, indeed, a bomber.
The ships inched closer to the death zone—an invisible line past which, if they dropped a lifebuster, they’d destroy Alta. The Krell wouldn’t stop there though. They’d fly inward and try to drop it square on top of the base. That way, their bomb would penetrate all the way down and destroy Igneous.
I have doomed all of humankind. Ivans thought.
Fifteen blips of blue. Unopposed.
Then, rising from Alta, a single lonely blip of red appeared. A Defiant ship.
“Rikolfr?” Ironsides said. “Did the private owners actually respond to my call? Are they scrambling their fighters?” There were only eight of those in the deep caverns, but they would be better than nothing. Perhaps enough to prevent a disaster.
“No, sir,” Rikolfr said. “Last we heard, they were planning to evacuate.”
“Then who is that ship?” Ironsides asked.
All around the frantic command room, people turned from their workstations to look at the hologram and its single blip of red. A voice popped in on the flightleader channel. “Do I have this right? Confirm? This is Skyward Ten, callsign: Spin.”
It was her.
“The defect,” Ironsides whispered.
50
“This is Flight Command,” Ironsides said on my radio. “Cadet, where did you get that ship?”
“Does it matter?” I asked. “Give me a heading. Where are those Krell?”
“There are fifteen ships in that flight, girl.”