Probably doesn’t want the other cadets asking for a ride. I thought. I resisted the urge to do something nasty to it. Barely.
I passed through the gate, then arrived at our training room before the others. I walked straight to my seat—already feeling like it had been too long since I’d been in a cockpit. I settled in, sighing, happy. I looked to the side, and found someone watching me.
I jumped practically to the ceiling. I hadn’t noticed Morningtide by the wall as I’d entered. Her real name was Magma or Magna, I couldn’t remember. Judging by the tray on the counter beside the Vician girl, she’d brought her food back here, and had eaten it alone.
“Hey,” I said. “What did they have? Smells like gravy. Algae paste stew? Potato mash? Pork chops? Don’t worry, I can take it. I’m a soldier. Give it to me straight.”
She just looked away, her face impassive.
“Your people are descended from marines, right?” I asked. “On board the Defiant? I’m the descendant of people from the flagship myself—the engine crew. Maybe our great-grandparents knew each other.”
She didn’t respond.
I gritted my teeth, then climbed out of the seat. I stalked right over to her, forcing her to look me in the eyes.
“You have a problem with me?” I demanded.
She shrugged.
“Well, deal with it,” I said.
She shrugged again.
I tapped her on the collarbone. “Don’t taunt me. I don’t care how fearsome the Vician reputation is; I’m not going anywhere except up. And I don’t care if I have to step over your body to get there.”
I spun and walked back to my mockpit, settling down, feeling satisfied. I needed to show Jerkface a little of that. Spensa the warrior. Yeah . . . felt good.
The others eventually piled into the room, taking their positions. Kimmalyn sidled over. Her long, curly dark hair shook as she looked one way, then the other, as if trying to see if she was being watched.
She dropped a roll into my lap. “Cobb told us you forgot to bring a lunch,” she whispered. Then she stood up and walked the other way, speaking loudly. “What a lovely view of the sky we have! As the Saint always said, ‘Good thing it’s light during the day, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to see how pretty daytime is!’ ”
Cobb glanced at her, then rolled his eyes. “Buckle in,” he told the group. “Time to learn something new.”
“Weapons?” Hurl asked, eager. Bim nodded as he climbed into his seat.
“No,” Cobb said. “Turning. The other direction.” He said it completely straight, and when I snickered, he glared at me. “That wasn’t a joke. I don’t joke.”
Sure you don’t.
“Before we get to turn on the holograms,” Cobb continued, “I’m supposed to ask how you feel about your instruction so far.”
“What?” Nedd asked, squeezing his large frame into his cockpit. “Our feelings?”
“Yes, your feelings. What?”
“I’m just . . . surprised, Cobb,” Nedd said.
“Asking questions and listening is a big part of effective teaching, Nedder! So shut up and let me get on with it.”
“Um, yes, sir.”
“Flightleader! Your thoughts?” Cobb said.
“Confident, sir. They’re a ragtag bunch, but I think we can teach them. With your expertise and my—”
“Good enough,” Cobb said. “Nedder?”
“Right now, a little confused . . .,” Nedd said. “And I think I ate too many enchiladas . . .”
“Hurl!”
“Bored, sir,” she said. “Can we just get back to the game?”
“Two-headed-dragon-stupid-name!”
“Amphisbaena, sir!” Arturo said. “I honestly haven’t been highly engaged by today’s activities, but I expect that practicing fundamentals will prove useful.”
“Bored,” Cobb said, writing on his clipboard, “and thinks he’s smarter than he is. Quirk!”
“Peachy!”
“Pilots are never ‘peachy,’ girl. We’re spirited.”
“Or,” I added, “briskly energized by the prospect of dealing death to the coming enemies.”
“Or that,” Cobb said. “If you’re psychotic. Morningtide.”
“Good,” the tattooed woman whispered.
“Speak up, cadet!”
“Good.”
“And? I’ve got three lines here. Gotta write something.”
“I . . . I can’t bother . . . of much . . .,” she said, her voice heavily accented. “Good. Good enough, right?”
Cobb looked up from his writing board and narrowed his eyes. Then he wrote something on the board.
Morningtide blushed and lowered her gaze.
She doesn’t speak English. I realized. Scud. I’m an idiot. The old ships had represented various Earth cultures—of course there would be groups that, after three generations of hiding as isolated clans, didn’t speak my language. I’d never thought about it before.
“Bim?” Cobb asked next. “Boy, you have a callsign yet?”
“Still thinking!” Bim said. “I want to get it right! Um . . . my response . . . er, when do we learn weapons again?”
“You can have my sidearm right now,” Cobb said, “if you promise to shoot yourself. I’ll just write ‘eager to get himself killed.’ Stupid forms. FM!”
“Constantly amazed by the toxic aggression omnipresent in Defiant culture,” said the well-dressed girl.
“That’s a new one.” Cobb wrote. “Sure the admiral will love that. Spin?”
“Hungry, sir.” Also, I was stupid. Extremely stupid. I glanced again at Morningtide, and thought back to how she’d always seemed standoffish. That had a new context, now that I listened for the thick accent and the misspoken words. The way she’d looked aside when someone talked to her.
“All right, that’s done, finally,” Cobb said. “Buckle in and fire up the holograms!”
14
“You are the weakest point in our defenses,” Cobb said, walking through the center of the classroom, speaking to the nine of us in our seats, our holograms not yet engaged. “Your ship can accelerate at incredible speeds and make turns you can’t survive. It is far more capable than you are. If you die up there, it won’t be because the ship failed you. It will be because you failed the ship.”
A week had passed already, almost in a blur. Training each day in the simulations, doing time in the centrifuge, then sleeping each night in the cockpit of the ancient ship. I was beyond tired of unseasoned rat and mushrooms.
“G-forces are your biggest enemy,” Cobb continued. “And you can’t just watch your g-forces, you have to be aware of which direction they’re pushing on you. Human beings can take a reasonable amount of g-force backward, like when you’re going in a straight line.
“But if you pull up or do a hard bank, the g-forces will push downward, forcing the blood out of your head into your feet. Many people will g-lock—go unconscious—after pulling only nine or ten Gs that way. And if you turn on your axis, then boost another direction like we’ve been practicing . . . Well, you can easily push over a hundred Gs, enough to turn your insides to soup by the sudden jerk in momentum.”