“Not unless the enemy does first,” Peg said. “Remember, these ones we’re fighting—they’re not really our enemy. They’re merely a bunch of frightened sods trapped between two forces. We’re going to come in not as raiders, but as liberators. So keep your rounds nonlethal. Call me or one of the tugs if you see a locked-up ship—even an enemy—about to collide with terrain. Stay focused on the fight, and if you face a pilot who’s too good, call for help.”
She got a round of agreement, and I was impressed. She and her sons had done an excellent job laying the groundwork for this battle.
“Okay!” M-Bot said in our cockpit. “I feel trembly, but somehow still eager to go forward.”
“Fear and eagerness?” Chet said. “That sounds like enthusiasm.”
“No, I think there would be more happy-eagerness,” M-Bot said. “This is nauseous-eagerness.”
“Perhaps exhilaration?” Chet said.
“I could go with that,” M-Bot replied. “Exhilaration. Yup, I’m exhilarated!”
“What are you two on about?” I asked.
“The AI and I have been bonding,” Chet said with a proud tone to his voice. “He’s been wanting help defining his specific emotions. I agreed to assist him.”
“Now?” I demanded.
“What better time?” Chet asked. “He is likely to be feeling a lot of strong emotions, after all.”
“We’ll do it quietly,” M-Bot promised.
Great. I didn’t believe that for a moment. Still, we continued on, entering Superiority territory. It didn’t look much different to me, though there were more fragments and they hung closer together. We flew straight toward the center, that enormous glowing white light. It felt as vast and intimidating as it ever had.
“Heads up, Broadsiders,” Peg said. “They’re incoming. Prepare for engagement.”
Her ship had a better scanner than mine; it took another two minutes for my sensors to see the oncoming ships. M-Bot counted them as they arrived, eventually settling on ninety-three ships. Slightly more than our numbers, and I didn’t see any retrofitted civilian ships among them. Hopefully Peg was right, and we had the better pilots.
Regardless, my excitement built. And the excitement was pure—no tension, no worry. A chance to fly and fight. A huge battle. I was ready.
“That’s odd,” Shiver said over the comm. “Captain, you see that?”
“Yeah,” Peg said. “Everyone, zoom your displays out.”
My proximity display expanded, revealing a larger view of the nearby fragments. Two just ahead of us were unnaturally close. They were going to bump…no, collide.
“Captain?” RayZed said. “Didn’t you…say that collisions between fragments were incredibly rare?”
“I did,” Peg replied.
“Now we’re encountering a second one, only a day after the last. Is…something wrong?”
“Can’t say,” Peg told us. “But…words. I’m pulling up IDs on some of those enemies. It appears the Cannonade Faction has come to join the party after all.”
I frowned until M-Bot’s scans indicated a group of new ships flying in to enter the fight. It was the Cannonade Faction. But they didn’t join us—instead they swooped around and fell in with the Superiority.
“Wonder how much they were paid to grow those flivis,” Semm grumbled. “Does Vlep really think the Superiority will keep whatever promises they made him?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Peg said on the wide comm. “Just a few more easy targets—and a few traitors to embarrass. Watch the debris from that collision—stay away from the fragments if you can. I don’t see the former champion on the scans, but he might be hiding in there somewhere. Do not engage if you spot him. Leave him to one of our aces.”
“He’ll come for me, Peg,” I said on a private line. “Hesho will want a rematch.”
“Bring down as many enemies as you can before it happens, Spin,” Peg said. “I think we’re better than they are—but I wouldn’t mind if you evened out our numbers.”
“Got it,” I said as we drew closer. Then the two groups finally broke, starfighters screaming toward one another—meeting right above those colliding fragments. My proximity sensor went ballistic as the landscapes impacted and chunks of rock began to break apart.
I grinned and launched into the middle of the chaos. It was so liberating to not have to worry about the safety of my companions. Cobb would have yelled at me for not bringing a wingmate, but here I could fly as I’d always secretly wanted to. Reckless. Free.
I lit up a ship in front of me, neatly blasting away its shield. That sent it into a series of panicked evasive maneuvers. Trusting my gut, I chased for a moment, then backed off and gave them space to screw up. They did just that, trying so hard to get away from me that they took a shot from Peg.
My grin widened as I dove to the side and shot down one, then two, then three enemy ships. Scud, this was awesome! I dove among the crazy mess, blue destructor blasts lighting the sky in all directions. M-Bot highlighted some enemies on the monitor: my reckless attacks had earned me two tails.
“So, let me see…” M-Bot said. “This emotion…is frustration at the crazed attack, mixed with the teensiest amount of fondness. And a desire to bonk her on the head with something that isn’t too heavy, but just heavy enough.”
“Vexation,” Chet said.
“Wow!” M-Bot said. “That’s perfect. Spensa is, like, vexation incarnate!”
“I thought you two said you’d be quiet,” I said.
“You’d rather not be able to hear us talk about you?” M-Bot asked.
Actually, no. I gritted my teeth in a half grin, half grimace and accelerated, diving to dodge the fire from our tails. At the risk of being called foolhardy, I pushed us low, weaving between parts of the landscape of one crumbling fragment.
Chet’s face on the corner of my screen looked a little pale. “How you doing back there, Chet?” I asked.
“Trying my best to enjoy the expert course in being vexed, Miss Nightshade!” he called. “I recognize this kind of fragment. It is from a twilight planet—those that grow in a dark solar system, feeding off a star that doesn’t glow brightly in the visible spectrum but still provides radiation.
“Those places tend to have plants and animals with much bioluminescence—and even a kind of mineral-luminescence. Judging from what I’ve seen, these rocks will likely explode in great showers of light if hit by destructor fire. Perhaps you can use that?”
Excellent. I spotted a hole in the breaking fragment ahead—and so I pushed for that. I wove up in a loop, then straight through the hole. My tails followed, but as I expertly wove between falling pieces of rock, their destructor shots hit on all sides of me. As Chet had suggested, the explosions lit up like flares. Indeed, the falling debris acted like flak ejection, intercepting the disruptor fire.
So long as I didn’t hit any big chunks, I’d actually be safer in here. Even as I was thinking that, I did hit one moderately sized chunk. Only one, and my shield deflected it.
“A sense of disbelief,” M-Bot said, “mixed with an absolute expectation that something like this would happen. Because of course she’d dive through a radioactive, explosive natural minefield.”
“Resignation,” Chet said with a chuckle.
“Quiet, you two,” I muttered as I pulled up and darted along underneath the ripping fragment, weaving between chunks of dropping earth. My two tails, blinded by the explosions, evidently lost track of me, as they broke off pursuit.
“That was well done, Spensa,” Chet said.