“You were in my way!”
“Boys, boys,” Hurl said, sauntering past. “Can’t we make peace? Find common ground and agree that you’re both terrible pilots?”
“Ha!” Arturo said. “You just watch—I’ll make you eat those words someday, Hurl.”
“I’m hungry enough that I’d eat them now,” she said, “if they had a decent sauce on them. The mess hall better not be closed. Quirk, can I have your dessert?”
“What?” the girl said, looking up from her harness—which she’d been clipping together and folding neatly in her seat, like she always did when getting out of her mockpit.
“You’re nice and stuff,” Hurl said. “I figure you’ll give in if I push hard enough. So, can I eat your dessert?”
“Bless your stars,” Kimmalyn said. “But touch my pie, and I’ll rip your fingers off.” She blushed when she said it, and lifted her hand in front of her mouth.
“She’ll do it, Hurl,” I joked. “It’s always the nice ones you have to worry about.”
“Yeah,” Hurl said. “Ain’t that the . . .” She trailed off as she realized I was the one who’d spoken. Then she turned and continued out the door.
I knew that look in her eyes. Ever since Jorgen outed me as Chaser’s daughter, things hadn’t been the same between Hurl and me.
The others piled out of the chamber. I sighed, gathering my pack, preparing for an exhausted hike back to my cavern. As I hefted it over my shoulder, I realized that FM hadn’t left. She was standing by the wall, watching me. She was so tall and beautiful. As cadets, we kept DDF pilot dress standards. For daily work, we could choose jumpsuits or standard DDF uniforms if we wanted. We just had to be ready to change into flight suits if a call came up.
Most of us simply wore the jumpsuits, which were the most comfortable. Not FM. Alongside her polished boots, she often wore a tailored uniform with a jacket that somehow looked more stylish on her than others. She was so perfect, she almost seemed more like a statue than a person.
“Thank you,” she said to me, “for what you said earlier. About Bim, Morningtide, and the stars.”
“You didn’t find it ‘overly aggressive’？” I asked. FM was always complaining that the rest of us were too aggressive, which didn’t make sense to me. Wasn’t aggression the point of war?
“Well, most of what you say is utter nonsense,” FM said. “Windy bravado made as an excuse to tout jingoistic mantras instilled in you by a lifetime of Defiant indoctrination. But what you said earlier, that was from the heart. I . . . I needed to hear it. Thank you.”
“You’re a weird girl, FM,” I said. I had no idea what most of what she’d said had meant.
At his desk, Cobb snorted and glanced at me from behind his paperwork. You, of all people, are calling someone weird? his glance seemed to ask.
I walked with FM out into an empty hallway; the other cadet flights had finished classes hours ago.
“I want to make it clear,” FM said as we walked together, “that I don’t blame you for your attitudes. You’re a product of enormous societal pressure, forcing young people into increasingly aggressive postures. I’m sure on the inside you’re sweet.”
“I’m actually not,” I said, grinning. “But I’m okay if people underestimate me. Perhaps the Krell will do the same, so I can savor the surprise in their eyes as I rip those very eyes from their skulls.”
FM looked at me aghast.
“If, that is, they have eyes under that armor. Or skulls. Well—whatever they have, I’ll rip it out.” I glanced at her, then grinned more broadly. “I’m joking, FM. Kind of. I say things like that because they’re fun. Like the old stories, you know?”
“I haven’t read those old stories.”
“You’d probably hate them. Why do you always talk about the rest of us being too aggressive? Aren’t you Defiant?”
“I was raised Defiant,” she said. “But I choose, now, to be what people down below call a Disputer—I raise objections about the way the war is being run. I think we should throw off the oppressive mantle of military government.”
I stopped in place, shocked. I’d never heard words like that spoken before. “So . . . you’re a coward?”
FM blushed, standing up taller. “I’d have thought you. of all people, would be careful about throwing around that term.”
“Sorry,” I said, blushing in return. She was right. But still, I had trouble understanding what she was saying. I understood the words, but not the meaning. Throw off military government? Who would be in charge of the war then?
“I am still willing to fight,” FM said, her head high as we walked. “Just because I want change doesn’t mean I’ll let the Krell destroy us all. But do you realize what it’s doing to our society to train our children, practically from birth, to idealize and glorify fighting? To worship the First Citizens like saints? We should be teaching our children to be more caring, more inquisitive—not only to destroy, but to build.”
I shrugged. Those kinds of things seemed easy to say when you lived in the deep caverns, where a bomb wouldn’t kill your family. Still, it was nice to get some answers about the woman—she was so poised, it was hard to think of her as a “girl” even though she was the same age as the rest of us.
If I walked too far with her toward the mess hall though, I might run into the MPs and get into trouble. They’d stopped escorting me out of class every day, but I didn’t believe for a moment that meant I could go to dinner. So I bade FM farewell, and she jogged off to catch up with the others.
I started toward the exit, digging in my pack for some water—but remembered I’d left my last full canteen by my seat in the classroom. Great. Feeling my exhaustion from the training return, I trudged back to the classroom.
Cobb had activated the hologram in the center of the room, projecting a small version of a battlefield. In front of him, ships the size of ball bearings zipped and flew among debris trailing fire and smoke. Krell ships, flat and no larger than merit chits, fired tiny destructors.
He’s rewatching the fight from yesterday. I realized. The one where Bim and Morningtide died. I’d had no idea the battles were recorded.
I picked out my ship as it zipped into the battle. I felt the overwhelming chaos again, the rush of finally being in a real fight. I could almost hear the explosions. Kimmalyn’s worried voice. The sound of my own breathing, excited, sharp.
Anticipation, even a little fear, rose inside me while I watched—powerless. Morningtide died again.
My gut clenched. But I wouldn’t let myself look away.
In the room, my ship zipped through the fray, picking up a tail. I dove around a falling piece of rubble—using my lightlance to pivot with exactness—then soared between two other Krell ships.
Cobb paused the simulation with a gesture. He stepped forward, focusing on my ship—frozen in the air amid a spectacular show of destructors, falling streaks of light, and exploding ships. Then he rewound the simulation and played it through again, watching my maneuver.