“Spensa!” M-Bot said. “New ship arriving!”
I pulled out of my trance, and the eyes vanished. M-Bot used the console display to highlight what he’d spotted. A new starfighter, almost invisible against the black sky, emerged from where the others had been hiding. Sleek, it was shaped like a disc and painted the same black as space. It was smaller than normal Krell ships, but it had a larger canopy.
These new black ships had only started appearing in the last eight months, in the days leading up to the attempt to bomb our base. Back then we hadn’t realized what they meant, but now we knew.
I couldn’t hear the commands this ship received—because none were being sent to it. Black ships like this one were not remote controlled. Instead, they carried real alien pilots. Usually an enemy ace—the best of their pilots.
The battle had just gotten far more interesting.
2
My heart leaped with excitement.
An enemy ace. Fighting drones was exciting, yes, but also lacking. It wasn’t personal enough. A duel with an ace instead felt like the stories Gran-Gran told. Brave pilots engaging in grim contests on Old Earth during the days of the Great Wars. Person against person.
“I will sing to you,” I whispered. “As your ship burns and your soul flees, I will sing. To the contest we had.”
Dramatic, yes. My friends still tended to laugh at me when I said things like that, things like were said in the old stories. I’d mostly stopped. But I was still me, and I didn’t say those things for my friends. I said them for myself.
And for the enemy I was about to kill.
The ace swooped toward me, firing destructors, trying to hit me while I was focused on the drones. I grinned, diving out of the way and spearing a chunk of space debris with my light-lance. That let me pivot quickly, while also swinging the debris behind me to block the shots. M-Bot’s GravCaps absorbed most of the g-forces, but I still felt a tug pulling me downward as I swung through the arc, destructor fire blasting into the debris, one shot coming very near me. Scud. I still hadn’t found a chance to reignite my shield.
“This might be a good time to head back and lead the enemy ships toward the others,” M-Bot said. “Like the plan said . . .”
Instead, I noted the enemy ace overshooting me—then I swung around and gave chase.
“Dramatic trailing-off of speech,” M-Bot added, “laden with implications of your irresponsible nature.”
I fired at the ace, but they spun on their axis, cutting their boosters. Momentum carried them forward, although they’d turned back-to-front and were now facing me. They couldn’t steer well flying in reverse, so the maneuver was usually risky, but when you had a full shield and your enemy had none . . .
I was forced to break off the chase, boosting to the left and dodging out of the way of the destructor fire. I couldn’t risk a head-on confrontation. Instead, I focused on the drones for a moment, blasting one out of the sky, then screamed through its debris—which scraped up M-Bot’s wing and smacked the canopy with a fierce crack.
Right. No shield. And in space, the debris didn’t fall after you shot the ship down. That felt like a rookie mistake—a reminder that despite all my training, I was new to zero-gravity combat.
The ace fell in behind me in an expert tailing maneuver. They were good, which was—on one hand—thrilling. On the other hand . . .
I tried to veer back toward the battle, but the drones swarmed in front of me, cutting me off. Maybe I was in a little over my head.
“Call Jorgen,” I said, “and tell him I might have let myself get cornered. I can’t lead the enemy into our ambush; see if he and the others are willing to come help me instead.”
“Finally,” M-Bot said.
I dodged some more, tracking the enemy ace on my proximity monitor. Scud. I wished I could hear them like I could the drones.
No, this is good, I thought. I need to be careful never to let my gift become a crutch.
I gritted my teeth and made a snap decision. I couldn’t get back to the main battle, so instead I dove toward Detritus. The defense shells surrounding it weren’t solid; they were made up of large platforms that had housed living quarters, shipyards, and weapons. Though we’d begun reclaiming the ones closest to the planet, these outer layers were still set to automatically fire at anything that got close.
I hit my overburn, accelerating to speeds that—in atmosphere—would have caused most starfighters to rattle or even rip apart. Up here I only felt the acceleration, not the speed.
I quickly reached the nearest space platform. Long and thin, it curved slightly, like a chunk of broken eggshell. The remaining drones and the single ace were still on my tail. At these speeds, dogfighting was much more dangerous. The time for me to react before colliding with something would be much smaller, and the smallest touch on my control sphere could veer me off course faster than I might be able to deal with.
“Spensa?” M-Bot said.
“I know what I’m doing,” I muttered back, concentrating.
“Yes, I’m sure,” M-Bot answered. “But . . . just in case . . . you do remember that we don’t have control of these outer platforms yet, right?”
I focused my full attention on sweeping down close to the surface of the metal platform without running into anything. The gun emplacements here tracked me and started firing—but they also started firing on the enemy.
I concentrated on dodging. Or really just weaving erratically—I could outfly the drones in a raw contest of skill, but they had superior numbers. Down near the platform, that translated into a liability for my enemies—because to the guns, we were all targets.
Several of the drones flared up in explosions—which vanished almost immediately, flames smothered by the vacuum of space.
“I wonder if those guns feel fulfilled, finally getting to shoot something down after all these years up here,” M-Bot said.
“Jealous?” I asked with a grunt, dodging.
“From what Rodge says, they don’t have true AIs, merely some simple targeting functions. So that would be like you being jealous of a rat.”
Another drone fell. Just a little longer. I wanted to even the odds a bit while I waited for my friends to arrive.
I sank into another trance as I flew. I couldn’t hear the controls of the gun emplacements, but in moments like these—moments of pure concentration—I felt as if I were becoming one with my ship.
I could feel the attention of the eyes back on me. My heart thundered inside my chest. With those guns trained on me . . . tails giving chase and still firing . . .
A little further . . .
My mind sank down, and I felt as if I could sense M-Bot’s very workings. I was in severe danger. I needed to escape.
Surely I could do it now. “Engage cytonic hyperdrive!” I said, then tried to do what I’d done once before, teleporting my ship.
“Cytonic hyperdrive is offline,” M-Bot said.
Scud. The one time it had worked, he’d been able to tell me it was online. I tried again, but . . . I didn’t even know what it was I’d done that once. I had been in danger, about to die. And then I . . . I’d done . . .
Something?
A blast from a nearby gun nearly blinded me, and with gritted teeth I pulled up and zipped out of the defensive guns’ range. The ace had survived, though they had taken a hit or two, so maybe their shield was weakened. Plus, only three drones remained.
I cut my thrust and spun my ship on its axis—still moving forward, but pointed backward—a maneuver that indicated I was going to try shooting behind me. Sure enough, the ace dodged away immediately. They weren’t so brave with a weakened shield. Instead of firing, I boosted after the ace—escaping the drones, which swarmed toward my former position.