“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Why would I ever want to be anyone else?”
He didn’t respond, and eventually I drifted off to sleep.
31
My flight with M-Bot, though brief and mostly linear, still managed to overshadow the next two weeks of simulation training.
I performed a maneuver, chasing a Krell ship through a series of tight turns around chunks of debris, Hurl on my wing. But my mind started to drift. The Krell ship got away.
“Hey!” Kimmalyn said as we regrouped. “Did you guys see? I didn’t crash!”
I listened with half an ear—still distracted—as they all chattered.
“I crashed though,” FM admitted. “I hit a piece of debris and went down in a fiery heap.”
“Not your fault!” Kimmalyn said. “As the Saint always said, true failure is choosing to fail.”
“Besides, FM,” Arturo added, “you’ve still crashed fewer times than the rest of us, total.”
“I won’t hold that record for long, if I keep this up,” FM said.
“You’re just trying to be subversive by crashing today,” Hurl said, “because nobody expects it from you. You rebel you.”
FM chuckled softly.
“You could all do what nobody expects,” Jorgen said on the group line, “and actually line up straight for once. Amphi, I’m looking at you.”
“Right, right,” Arturo said, hovering his ship into place. “Though I guess technically Jorgen has crashed less than you, FM. He’s flown half as often. It’s hard to blow up when all you do is sit around complaining and giving orders.”
“As the Saint always said,” Kimmalyn added again in a solemn voice, “true failure is choosing to fail.”
Jorgen didn’t defend himself, though I thought I heard a quick intake of breath from him. I grimaced. It was true that Jorgen tended to hang back and watch us run exercises, offering instruction rather than flying himself. But maybe the others would act differently if they knew he spent late nights practicing on his own afterward.
I felt ashamed, suddenly. Jorgen’s callsign, and the way the others treated him, were partially my fault. He didn’t deserve all that. I mean, he could be insufferable, but he was trying to do his best.
As Cobb sent us in for another round of dogfighting, Rig’s words floated up from the back of my mind.
What about me? Am I a coward, Spensa?
I was certain he wasn’t. But I’d lived my childhood clinging to a simple rule, reinforced by Gran-Gran’s stories. Good people were brave. Bad people were cowards. I knew my father had been a good person, so it was obvious to me that he couldn’t have run away. End of story. Close the book.
It was getting harder to hold to that particular black-and-white line. I’d promised Hurl I wouldn’t be a coward. But did any coward intend to turn and run? I’d never felt like fleeing a battle, but I was still surprised by the real emotions of being a pilot. By how much it had hurt to lose Bim and Morningtide, by how overwhelmed I sometimes felt.
Was it possible that something similar, for a brief moment, had caused my father to retreat? And if he had, could I really promise that I wouldn’t someday do the same?
I dodged around a chunk of debris, but almost clipped Hurl’s wing.
“Come on, Spin,” she said. “Head in the game. Eye on the ball.”
“The ball?”
“Sorry. League metaphor.”
“I didn’t get to go to many games.” Workers got tickets as rewards for exemplary merits. But it would be good to talk about something, to get my thoughts off my worries. “I barely know what you did. Something about hoverbikes? Did you fly?”
“Not quite,” Hurl said as we dodged back and forth, a Krell ship—as per the exercise—coming in behind us. “The Digball League gets acclivity rings that are too small to fly ships. Our bikes could go full three-D in little bursts, but each bike is allotted a fixed amount of air time. Part of the strategy is knowing when to use it.”
She sounded wistful. “Do you miss the game?” I asked.
“A little. Mostly my team. This is way better though.” A flash of destructor fire sprayed around us. “More dangerous. More of a rush.”
We did a wave-dodge, where we split in opposite directions under heavy destructor fire. Hurl stayed on our target while I looped back down and offered fire support, chasing off the enemy.
I caught up at the next turn, falling in behind Hurl. Our target flew extra low, only a hundred feet or so off the ground. We descended, tossing up plumes of blue-grey dust behind us, and darted past an ancient piece of debris. Long since scavenged for its acclivity stone, it lay exposed like the skeleton of a disturbed grave.
“So,” Hurl said as we flew through valleys, staying on our target, “what about you? You never talk about what you used to do before the DDF.”
“Aren’t we supposed to keep our ‘head in the game’？”
“Eh. Except when I’m curious.”
“I . . . I was a ratcatcher.”
“Like, for one of the protein factories?”
“No. I was solo. The factory scouts hunt the lower caverns out pretty well, so I built my own speargun, explored farther caverns, and caught them on my own. My mom sold the meat for requisition chits to workers on their way home.”
“Wow. That’s badass.”
“You think so?”
“Totally.”
I smiled, feeling warm at that.
The Krell turned and accelerated upward. “I’m going in,” I said, and hit my overburn. I raced up at an angle, my g-force line going to max.
Tonight. I thought to the Krell, your ashen remains will mix with the planet’s dust, and your howls of pain shall echo upon the wind! I cut into the ship’s wake, getting just close enough to hit my IMP and destroy its shield.
Hurl flew past me, her destructor fire sounding over the blaring klaxon that warned my shield was down. The Krell ship exploded into molten debris.
Hurl let out a whoop, but then I blushed, remembering my line of thought. Ashes mixing with dust and howls on the wind? That sort of thing—once so exciting to me—now seemed . . . less the words of a hero, and more the words of someone trying to sound heroic. My father had never talked like that.
As I reignited my shield, a light on the communication panel lit up, announcing that Cobb was listening in. “Nice work,” he said. “You two are starting to make a good team.”
“Thanks, Cobb,” I said.
“It would be better if Spin could spend time with the rest of us,” Hurl added. “You know—instead of sleeping in her cave.”
“Let me know when you intend to take that up with the admiral,” Cobb said. “I’ll be sure to leave the building so I don’t have to listen to her shout at you. Cobb out.”
The light went off, and Hurl hovered her ship down beside mine. “The way she treats you is stupid, Spin. You are a badass. Like that stuff you always say.”
“Thanks,” I answered. I could feel my cheeks heating up. “Those things make me feel self-conscious now though.”
“Don’t let them get to you, Spin. Be who you are.”