Decades ago, our people had been part of a fleet of space vessels. We’d been chased by the Krell to this planet and had crashed here, where we’d been forced to split up to survive. Now we lived in clans, each of whom could trace their lineage back to the crews of one of those starships.
Gran-Gran had told me these stories many times. We’d lived for seventy years here on Detritus, traveling the caverns as nomadic clans, afraid to congregate. Until now. Now we’d started to build starfighters and had made a hidden base on the surface. We were starting to fight back.
“Where’s Alta Base?” I asked. “You said we’d come up near it. Is that it?” I pointed toward some suspicious rocks. “It’s right there, isn’t it? I want to go see the starfighters.”
My father leaned down and turned me about ninety degrees, then pointed. “There.”
“Where?” I searched the surface, which was basically all just blue-grey dust and rocks, with craters from fallen debris from the rubble belt. “I can’t see it.”
“That’s the point, Spensa. We have to remain hidden.”
“But you fight, don’t you? Won’t they eventually learn where the fighters are coming from? Why don’t you move the base?”
“We have to keep it here, above Igneous. That’s the big cavern I showed you last week.”
“The one with all the machines?”
He nodded. “Inside Igneous, we found manufactories; that’s what lets us build starships. We have to live nearby to protect the machinery, but we fly missions anywhere the Krell come down, anywhere they decide to bomb.”
“You protect other clans?”
“To me, there is only one clan that matters: humankind. Before we crashed here, we were all part of the same fleet—and someday all the wandering clans will remember that. They will come when we call them. They’ll gather together, and we’ll form a city and build a civilization again.”
“Won’t the Krell bomb it?” I asked, but cut him off before he could reply. “No. Not if we’re strong enough. Not if we stand and fight back.”
He smiled.
“I’m going to have my own ship,” I said. “I’m going to fly it just like you. And then nobody in the clan will be able to make fun of me, because I’ll be stronger than they are.”
My father looked at me for a moment before he spoke. “Is that why you want to be a pilot?”
“They can’t say you’re too small when you’re a pilot,” I said. “Nobody will think I’m weird, and I won’t get into trouble for fighting because my job will be fighting. They won’t call me names, and everyone will love me.”
Like they love you. I thought.
That made my father hug me for some stupid reason, even though I was just telling the truth. But I hugged him back, because parents liked stuff like that. Besides, it did feel good to have someone to hold. Maybe I shouldn’t have left Bloodletter behind.
Father’s breath caught, and I thought he might be crying, but it wasn’t that. “Spin!” he said, pointing toward the sky. “Look!”
Again I was struck by the expanse. So BIG.
Father was pointing at something specific. I squinted, noting that a section of the grey-black sky was darker than the rest. A hole through the layers of debris?
In that moment, I looked out into infinity. I found myself trembling as if a billion meteors had hit nearby. I could see space itself, with little pinpricks of white in it, different from the skylights. These sparkled, and seemed so, so far away.
“What are those lights?” I whispered.
“Stars,” he said. “I fly up near the debris, but I’ve almost never seen through it. There are too many layers. I’ve always wondered if I could get out to the stars.”
There was awe in his voice, a tone I’d never heard from him before.
“Is that . . . is that why you fly?” I asked.
My father didn’t seem to care about the praise the other members of the clan gave him. Strangely, he seemed embarrassed by it.
“We used to live out there, among the stars,” he whispered. “That’s where we belong, not in those caverns. The kids who make fun of you, they’re trapped on this rock. Their heads are heads of rock, their hearts set upon rock. Set your sights on something higher. Something more grand.”
The debris shifted, and the hole slowly shrank until all I could see was a single star brighter than the others.
“Claim the stars, Spensa,” he said.
I was going to be a pilot someday. I would fly up there and fight. I just hoped Father would leave some Krell for me.
I squinted as something flashed in the sky. A distant piece of debris, burning brightly as it entered the atmosphere. Then another fell, and another. Then dozens.
Father frowned and reached for his radio—a superadvanced piece of technology that was given only to pilots. He lifted the blocky device to his mouth. “This is Chaser,” he said. “I’m on the surface. I see a debris fall close to Alta.”
“We’ve spotted it already, Chaser,” a woman’s voice said over the radio. “Radar reports are coming in now, and . . . Scud. We’ve got Krell.”
“What cavern are they headed for?” Father asked.
“Their heading is . . . Chaser, they’re heading this way. They’re flying straight for Igneous. Stars help us. They’ve located the base!”
Father lowered his radio.
“Large Krell breach sighted,” the woman’s voice said through the radio. “Everyone, this is an emergency. An extremely large group of Krell has breached the debris field. All fighters report in. They’re coming for Alta!”
Father took my arm. “Let’s get you back.”
“They need you!” I said. “You’ve got to go fight!”
“I have to get you to—”
“I can get back myself. It was a straight trip through those tunnels.”
Father glanced toward the debris again. “Chaser!” a new voice said over the radio. “Chaser, you there?”
“Mongrel?” Father said, flipping a switch and raising his radio. “I’m up on the surface.”
“You need to talk some sense into Banks and Swing. They’re saying we need to flee.”
Father cursed under his breath, flipping another switch on the radio. A voice came through. “—aren’t ready for a head-on fight yet. We’ll be ruined.”
“No,” another woman said. “We have to stand and fight.”
A dozen voices started talking at once.
“Ironsides is right,” my father said into the line, and—remarkably—they all grew quiet.
“If we let them bomb Igneous, then we lose the apparatus,” my father said. “We lose the manufactories. We lose everything. If we ever want to have a civilization again, a world again, we have to stand here!”
I waited, silent, holding my breath, hoping he would be too distracted to send me away. I trembled at the idea of a battle, but I still wanted to watch it.
“We fight,” the woman said.
“We fight.” said Mongrel. I knew him by name, though I hadn’t met him. He was my father’s wingmate. “Hot rocks, this is a good one. I’m going to beat you into the sky, Chaser! Just you watch how many I bring down!”