My tail got a shot on me, and my shield crackled.
Focus. I’d practiced this a hundred times in simulation. I pulled up into a loop, my tail following. At the top of the curve, I performed a starfighter maneuver—ignoring air resistance, I turned my ship on its axis and slammed on my overburn, darting out of the loop to the side.
My GravCaps flared, buffering most of the g-forces, but my stomach still practically climbed up my throat. The simulations did not do justice to exactly how disorienting this was, particularly when the GravCaps cut out and I got slammed back into my seat.
I was supposed to be able to handle that kind of force, and I didn’t black out—so technically, I did handle it. But I nearly threw up.
My proximity alarm went off. The Krell ship, as hoped, hadn’t compensated fast enough. It had continued the loop, and I shot out of my maneuver right past it. I fought through the nausea and slammed the IMP—taking down my shield and that of my tail.
I braced myself. I was completely open. If that Krell got turned toward me and fired off a single shot—
A flash came behind me, and a shock wave washed across my ship.
“I got him,” Kimmalyn said. “I . . . I did it!”
“Thanks,” I said, exhaling in relief, letting off my overburners. I continued in a straight line, starting to slow, as I turned off my booster and primed my shield igniter. My helmet felt hot and sweaty against my head as my fingers moved through the familiar motions. Thank the stars for Cobb’s training; my body knew what to do.
A Krell ship came in, spotting me coasting on my momentum. I cringed, but a spray of weapons fire sent the ship scattering away.
“I’ve got you,” Nedd said, zipping overhead. “Quirk, join me in a defensive pattern.”
“Gotcha,” Kimmalyn said.
“No need,” I said, slamming the igniter. “I’m back up. Shall we get out of here?”
“Gladly,” Kimmalyn said.
I led the other two in a course that I hoped would get us out, then called Jorgen. “We’re at heading 304.8,” I told him. “Did the rest of you get out from underneath this thing?”
“Affirmative,” Jorgen said. “We passed out of the shadow at 303.97-1210.3-21200. We’ll wait for you here, Spin.”
He sounded calm, which was honestly more than I could say for myself. I couldn’t help imagining more empty seats in our classroom.
“Are you ready for my analysis?” M-Bot said.
“That depends on how often it will mention mushrooms.”
“Only once, I’m afraid. The thing you see looming overhead is around half of a C-137-KJM orbital shipyard with added delver training facility. I don’t know exactly what that is, but I believe it must have been for manufacturing starships. There’s no sign of the other half, but this chunk has probably been floating up there for centuries, judging by the low power output of those acclivity rings.
“My projections indicate its orbit has decayed now that it doesn’t have enough power for self-correction. It doesn’t seem to have an AI—or if it does have one, it refuses to talk to me, which is rude. The Krell attack patterns indicate a defensive goal, intended to keep you away from the station.”
“Really?” I asked. “Repeat that last part.”
“Hm? Oh, it’s obvious from their flight patterns. They aren’t worried about actually killing you or getting to your base or anything. Today, they just want to keep you away from this ship, likely because of the fantastic salvage it would provide for your backward, fleshy society of slow-ship-fliers.”
That made sense. They sometimes shot down debris to keep us from getting acclivity rings. How worried must they be about us capturing this thing, with hundreds of them?
“Also, it looks a little like a mushroom,” M-Bot added.
Another pair of DDF fighters—perhaps the same ones we’d seen before—bolted past, tailed by a large group of Krell.
“Hey,” Nedd said. “Spin and Quirk, you two get out. You’re almost there. I need to do something.”
“What?” I said, turning to look over my shoulder. “Nedder?”
He broke off from our flight pattern, giving chase to the Krell ships that had passed us. What did he think he was doing?
I turned and followed. “Nedder? Scud.”
“Spin?” Kimmalyn said.
“We’re not leaving him. Come on.”
We raced after Nedd, who was tailing the six Krell ships. They—in turn—were flying after two Sigo-class fighters painted blue, indicating they were from Nightstorm Flight. Nedd clearly intended to help, but one cadet against six Krell?
“Nedd!” I said, “I’m all for fighting—you know that—but we also need to follow orders.”
He didn’t respond. Ahead, the two Nightstorms—overwhelmed by the enemy fire—did something desperate. They flew up close to the large shipyard, then curved around and flew into a hole in its side. A gaping blackness, perhaps where another section of the shipyard had once been attached.
The whole structure was still falling, but very slowly. Eventually it would crash down—and I doubted we wanted to be anywhere nearby when it did. I watched as the Krell ships pursued our pilots into the depths of the ancient ship, and Nedd barreled after them. So I gritted my teeth and followed.
“Spin,” Kimmalyn said. “I don’t think I can do that. If I try to fly in there, I swear I’ll crash.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Go join Jorgen and the others.”
“All right,” she said. She zipped off to the left, flying out from underneath the shadow of the falling machine.
I, instead, dove into the breach, chasing into the darkness after Nedd.
26
I hurtled through the innards of the ancient station—a large open blackness, rimmed by cranes and other construction equipment, lit by flickering emergency floodlights. The writing on one wall, in a circular pattern, reminded me of some of the old equipment down in the caverns—like the strange room I had often passed where the ceiling and floor had been covered in this writing. I could only assume the old occupants of this planet had constructed ships in here—but why had they needed so much space? Our starfighters were swallowed by the cavernous chamber.
The two DDF fighters soared upward, chased by the six Krell, who fired liberally, spraying destructor blasts through the darkness. Nedd tried to catch up, and I tailed him—hitting my overburn for a moment of extra acceleration.
I couldn’t call the other fighters. Cadet ships weren’t normally equipped with radio channels to call full pilots. They didn’t want us interfering.
I switched to Nedd’s direct channel. “This is insane,” I said. “Thank you so much for giving me an excuse to try it.”
“Spin?” he said. “You’re still with me?”
“So far. What’s the plan?”
“Help those fighters somehow. Maybe we can get close? Those Krell are flying in a—” He cut off as he buzzed past an old crane, nearly clipping it. “They’re flying in a group. We could hit them all at once, with a well-placed IMP.”
“I’ll follow your lead,” I said, dodging underneath the crane. “But if Jerkface asks, I’m totally going to claim I tried to talk you out of this.”