Nedd raised his hand. “So, why did we learn those moves?”
“GravCaps,” I said.
Cobb pointed at me and nodded. “Your ships can compensate for sudden extreme g-forces. DDF vessels have things called Gravitational Capacitors. When you change direction or accelerate quickly, the GravCaps will engage and deflect the force. GravCaps can work for about three seconds before needing a brief moment to recharge, so they’re of most use when making tight turns.”
I knew this already. In fact, Nedd probably would have known it, if he’d been forced to study for the test. So I let my mind wander, thinking of my broken-down ship. I hadn’t made much progress on the ancient ship, as I’d spent most of my time hunting and curing rat meat. I still needed to find a power matrix somewhere . . .
“Your ships have three kinds of weapons,” Cobb said.
Wait, weapons? My attention snapped back to the class, and I noted Bim also perking up. It was cute how he responded to any mention of weapons in an overeager-puppy sort of way.
“Yes, Bim,” Cobb said. “Weapons. Don’t wet yourself with excitement. The first of these three is your basic destructor—your primary weapon, but also your least effective. It shoots a concentrated beam of energy, and is usually fired in bursts at short range.”
Cobb stopped near Kimmalyn’s seat. “Or, less often, it can be charged for very precise long-range sniping. Most pilots only use this function for finishing off disabled ships, or perhaps picking off an enemy during an ambush. Hitting an active target at distance with a destructor requires incredible skill.”
Kimmalyn grinned.
“Don’t get cocky,” Cobb said, walking on. “A destructor is practically useless against a shielded foe—though you’ll still fire them at every opportunity, as it’s human nature to hope for a lucky hit. I’ll attempt to beat this out of you, but honestly, even full pilots cling to their destructors like they’re scudding letters from their childhood sweetheart.”
Bim chuckled.
“That wasn’t a joke,” Cobb snapped. “Holograms on.”
We powered up the devices, and suddenly we were on the launchpad. Once we were up in the air and had done verbal confirmations, Cobb’s voice crackled in my helmet’s speaker. “All right. Stars help us, it’s time for you to start shooting. The destructor trigger is the button next to your index finger on the control sphere. Go ahead.”
I hesitantly pressed the button. A burst of three white-hot blasts shot in rapid succession from the pencil nose of my ship. I grinned and pressed it again and again, firing bursts one after another. Just like that, I was granted the very power over life and death! And for more than rats!
“Don’t wear it out, Spin,” Cobb said. “See the dial on your throttle? The one you can rotate with the thumb of your left hand? That’s the destructor rate control. Top position is steady fire. It’s loved by every drooling, meathead, idiot pilot who didn’t train with me.”
“What about those of us who are still drooling, meathead idiots?” Nedd asked. “But did train with you?”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Nedder,” Cobb said. “I’ve never seen you drool. Second position on the dial is burst. Third position is a charged long-range shot. Indulge yourselves. Get it out of your system.”
He made a bunch of Krell ships appear in the air in front of us. They didn’t fly or move; they simply hung there. Target practice? I’d always wanted to do target practice—ever since I’d been a little girl, throwing rocks at other, more nefarious-looking rocks.
Together, we launched a hailstorm of death and devastation through the air.
We missed.
We missed by what seemed like miles. Even though the ships weren’t that far away. I gritted my teeth and tried again, switching between different destructor modes, angling my ship with my control sphere, firing with everything I had. But scud . . . for how close everything looked. there sure was a lot of empty space to shoot.
Jerkface finally got a hit, knocking one of the ships down in a spray of fire. I grunted, focusing on a single vessel. Come ON.
“Go ahead, Quirk,” Cobb said.
“Oh, I thought I’d give them a chance, sir!” Kimmalyn said. “ ‘Winning isn’t always about being the best,’ you know.”
“Humor me,” Cobb said.
“Well, okay.” Her ship charged for a couple of seconds, then released a focused line of light—which blasted a Krell ship from the sky. She repeated the feat again, and again, and then did it a fourth time.
“Kind of like trying to hit the floor with a rock, sir,” she said. “They aren’t even moving.”
“How?” I asked, in awe. “How did you learn to shoot like that, Quirk?”
“Her father’s training,” Hurl said. “Remember? The story with the mushroom that looked like a squirrel?”
FM laughed, and I even heard a peep out of Morningtide. But no, I didn’t know any stories about mushrooms or squirrels—it had to be a story they’d chatted about at night, in the bunks. While I was walking back to my cave.
I pressed hard on my destructor button, and managed—remarkably—to finally hit one of the targets. The way it sprayed sparks as it fell was immensely satisfying.
“All right,” Cobb said. “That’s enough of that stupidity. I’m shutting down your destructors.”
“But we only just got them!” Bim said. “Can’t we do a little dogfighting or something?”
“Sure, all right,” Cobb said. “Here you go.”
The remaining Krell fighters—the dozen or so we hadn’t managed to shoot down—suddenly came streaking toward us, destructors blazing. Hurl let out a whoop, but I snapped into focus and dove out of the way.
Kimmalyn went down first, in an immediate flash of light and sparks. I dove into a twirling spin, watching the red line on my canopy that indicated in the real world how much g-force I’d be feeling. Cobb was right—the GravCaps protected me when I did a quick turn, but I had to be careful not to run them out midturn, then slam myself with all that g-force.
I pulled up, and fire and explosions surrounded me, debris from the ships of other cadets raining down.
“We’ve tried to reverse engineer Krell technology,” Cobb said in a calm voice, a striking contrast to the insanity around me. Nedd screamed as he was hit. Morningtide went down quietly. “But we have failed. They have better destructors and better shields. That means, fighting them, you’re outgunned and outarmored.”
I was consumed entirely with survival. I swerved, dodged, and spun. Three Krell ships—three—swooped in on my tail, and one hit me with a destructor shot. I cut right hard, but another shot took me, and the warning light started flashing on my control panel. Shield down.
“You’ll have to hit a Krell a half dozen times to bring down their shields,” Cobb said. “But they will do the same to you with two or three hits.”
I pulled up into a loop. Blasts marked the deaths of my companions—flares in the dim sky. Only one other ship was still flying, and I knew—without needing to see the numbers on the fuselage—that it would be Jorgen. He was a way better pilot than I was.