“We’ll survive,” FM answered. “Though it is odd with him gone. There’s no one to constantly explain things to me that I already know.”
“What a strange flight you must have,” Drama said. “I know Jorgen, and I’ll bet he doesn’t open his mouth except to give you an order or chew you out. Right? And Spin is obviously quiet. So your flights must be silent. Our line is always filled with chatter, even with only four of us.”
Her flightmates defended themselves in a good-natured way, but I found myself stuck on that line about me. Quiet? They thought I was quiet?
I supposed I had been pretty reserved lately. But quiet? I honestly didn’t think I’d ever been described that way in my entire life. Huh.
Dinner broke up, and after we cleared our table, FM nodded toward our bunk. “Heading back to rest? Or doing some PT?”
“Neither,” I said. “I think I need a walk tonight.” Actually, I needed to check on M-Bot and Doomslug. It had been a few days.
“Suit yourself.” She hesitated. “Hey, you still worried about Arturo? He’ll get to fly, just not on missions.”
“Sure,” I said. “I know.” Stars. Days later, and she thought I still needed consoling?
I left the base. I really should have gone and done some PT, but I felt guilty for leaving M-Bot alone for so long. I’d dropped in a few times to help Rig with the booster, but now that I lived on base, it was tough to find the time. I wanted to savor the privileges I’d been denied so long.
The skylights had dimmed to indicate night, and the air was cool as I made the familiar trek over the dusty ground. It was refreshing to get away from the sights and smells of Alta, to simply be out under the sky again.
I reached the cavern and let myself down with my light-line, bracing for the inevitable string of complaints. M-Bot was not fond of my new sleeping arrangements. He was convinced he was going to rot away, his personality subroutines degrading from lack of use.
I reached the ground. “Hey,” I said, my voice echoing.
“Hey!” Doomslug was on a rock nearby. I shined my light on her, then walked over and scratched her head.
“Massacrebot?” I said into the darkness.
“We still have to discuss that nickname,” his voice said. “I never agreed to it.”
“If you don’t pick a good callsign, someone else will pick one for you. It’s how these things go.” I smiled, walking up to the ship, expecting him to go off on some tangent. But he was silent as I approached. Was something wrong?
“Well?” he said. “Well?”
“Uh . . .” What did I do this time?
“Are you excited!” he asked. “Are you just about ready to burst! Isn’t it great!”
Great?
The booster. I realized with a start. Rig had finished installing it. I’d done a terrible job of tracking his progress—I’d been so busy these few weeks. But his tools were gone, the area cleaned up, and a note was taped to the back of M-Bot’s fuselage.
Doomslug was sitting on the wing near the note. “Stupid junky piece of worthless imitation life,” she said in a fluting imitation of Rig’s voice. “Scud! Scud! Scud! Scudding scud and stupid scud!”
“Careful, girl,” I said. “You’ll get recruited for the ground crews with a mouth like that.”
She produced a sequence of bangs, mimicking the sound of a hammer on metal—something she’d probably heard a lot of the last few weeks.
I picked up the note. Done. the note read. I was going to take it up and test it, but I felt you should get the first shot. Besides, I wouldn’t put it past the AI to crash me on purpose.
Working on this ship has been the most wonderful experience of my life （don’t tell M-Bot that）。 The designs I’ve drawn . . . the things I’ve learned . . . I’m going to change the DDF, Spin. I’m going to transform the entire way we fly and fight. I’ve not only been approved for the Engineering Corps, I’ve been offered a position directly in design. I start tomorrow.
Thank you for giving me the chance to find, in this work, my own dreams. Enjoy your ship. I hope that it is, in turn, what you have always dreamed it would be.
I lowered the note, looking up along M-Bot’s dangerous, razorlike wings. The ship’s landing lights flashed on, setting a glow along his length. My ship.
My. Ship.
“Well?” M-Bot said. “Are we going to go flying?”
“Scud, yes!”
43
“Acclivity ring, online,” M-Bot said as we slowly rose into the air. “Booster and maneuvering, online. Life support, online. Communications and stealth features, online. Lightlance and IMP anti-shield blast, online.”
“Not bad, Rig,” I said.
“Destructors are still offline,” M-Bot said. “As are self-repair features and cytonic hyperdrive.”
“Well, since I still don’t know what that last one is, we’ll take it as a net win. Are your stealth features engaged?”
“Of course. You promise we aren’t going into combat today. Right?”
“No combat,” I promised. “Just a quick flight to test that booster.”
We rose through the fake ceiling of the cavern and I felt myself growing tense, excited. I’d been flying every day, but this was different. M-Bot’s control panel somehow made the most complex of the DDF ships seem simple, so I stuck to the buttons I understood.
The open sky called. I tried to relax, settling back into my seat. The control sphere, throttle, and altitude lever were exactly like the ones I knew. I could do this.
“Are you ready?” M-Bot asked.
In response, I slammed on the overburn.
We blasted forward, and his advanced g-force management immediately kicked in. I expected to get pressed back in my seat, but I barely felt it, even on full overburn.
“Scuuuud,” I said softly.
“Nice, isn’t it?” M-Bot said. “I’m far better than those other ships you waste your time with.”
“Can we accelerate even faster than this?”
“Not on one booster. But I’m outfitted with two slots for smaller boosters under the wings, so it’s possible.”
We accelerated a little slower than a Poco—which made sense, considering we were heavier than one but using the same booster. I noticed a real difference, however, as we got to speed. We blazed past Mag-6, Mag-7, Mag-8 . . . Scud, in a Poco, the ship would be shaking itself almost to pieces right now. But M-Bot hit Mag-10 and I couldn’t even tell. It was as smooth a ride as if I were at Mag-1.
I tried some maneuvers at speed, and the controls were incredibly responsive. It had been a while since I’d overcompensated for turns by accident, but I got the hang of it quickly. I slowed to normal dogfighting speeds, and practiced some banks and then some starship turns.
It all went so well that I accelerated to Mag-3 again, then performed some complex dodging moves. Swerves, spins, and a sharp loop at the end with an overburn on the descent.
It was perfect. This was perfect.
I really needed to get Rig up in this thing. Or perhaps Jorgen. I owed him one, for helping me get the booster. He’d be grouchy about being forced to come out all the way to my hole—since Jorgen was grouchy about basically everything—but surely he’d enjoy the flying. Soaring, free from constraints and expectations, and . . .