Bim whistled. “Nice one, Spin.”
I released the light-lance and pulled up.
“You wanna try this one, Arturo?” Nedd asked as the two of them flew toward the third ring.
“I think our chances of victory are higher if we skip that ring each pass.”
“Too bad!” Nedd said, then hooked Arturo with his light-lance and pulled him after, diving for the ring.
Of course they both crashed. I hit the fourth ring easily, zipping between the two flying chunks of debris. But I missed the fifth one, spearing only air with my light-lance.
“Nedd, you idiot,” Arturo said in my ear. “Why did you do that?”
“I wanted to see what would happen,” Nedd answered.
“You wanted…Nedd, it was obvious what would happen. You just got us both killed!”
“Better here than the real world.”
“Better neither. Now we won’t win.”
“I never eat my first dessert though,” Nedd said. “Bad for the bod, my friend.”
The two went on bickering over the radio. FM, I noticed, didn’t try either of the difficult rings—she stuck to the three that were easier.
I gritted my teeth, focusing on the contest. I had to beat Jorgen. It was a matter of honor.
He finished his second run with four points again, making the third ring but skipping the last one, which was hardest. That put him at eight points, and me at only seven. FM, playing it safe, would be at six. I wasn’t sure about Morningtide, but she tried the last ring and missed, so I was probably ahead of her.
The four of us remaining swooped around for our final run. Again, Jerkface hung back, waiting for the rest of us to go first. Fine, I thought, hitting overburn and zipping through the first ring. I had to hit every one of these to have a chance. FM, notably, didn’t try to fly through even the first ring. She just zoomed carefully over the top of the course.
“FM, what are you doing?” Cobb asked.
“I figure these clowns will all get themselves killed, sir. I could probably win without any points at all.”
No, I thought, streaking through the second ring. He said we keep our points if we crash—we merely can’t get any more. So she wouldn’t win, careful or not. Cobb had accounted for that.
I approached the third ring, hands sweating. Come on…Go! I launched the light-lance and hit the debris square-on, but didn’t push into the throttle the right way, so I ended up swinging around, but missed the ring.
I gritted my teeth, but disengaged the light-lance and managed to pull out of the turn without smashing into anything. Morningtide tried the ring, and almost made it, but ended up crashing. Jerkface still waited outside, watching to see exactly how many rings he’d need to win. Clever. Again.
Scud, I hated that boy.
I was so distracted that I actually missed the fourth ring, which was one of the easy ones. Furious, my face growing cold, I used my light-line to spear the big square piece of debris, then spun downward—curving straight through the fifth ring, which so far as I’d seen, nobody had hit.
That left me with a total of ten points, while Jerkface was at eight. He would close that gap easily. I felt my anger boil as he finally started toward the course. Who did he think he was, sitting back there like some ancient king, watching the plebes scramble before him? He was so arrogant. But worse, he’d been right to wait. He’d been smarter than I had, and he’d gained a distinct advantage. He was going to win.
Unless…
A terrible idea took root in my mind. I spun and hit my overburn, accelerating to Mag-5 and sprinting back toward the starting line. Above me, Jerkface went through the first ring at a leisurely pace, at exactly the minimum speed.
“Hey, Spin?” Nedd asked. “Whatcha doing?”
I ignored him, turning upward, dodging through floating pieces of debris. Ahead of me, Jerkface approached the second ring, an easy one—and the one that would bring him to ten points.
Straight on…, I thought, overburning. Pushing my acceleration to the red line of where—in a climb like this—I’d risk dropping unconscious.
“Spin?” Bim asked.
I grinned. Then smashed my ship right into Jerkface’s, overwhelming both shields and blowing us to pieces. We exploded into light.
Then we both re-formed at the edge of the battlefield.
“What the hell was that?” Jerkface shouted. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking how to win,” I said, sitting back in my seat, satisfied. “The way of the warrior, Jerkface.”
“We’re on a team, Spin!” he said. “You brash, self-centered, slimy piece of—”
“Enough, Jorgen,” Cobb snapped.
Jerkface fell quiet, but notably didn’t give his usual obsequious “Yes, sir!”
The holograms switched off, and Cobb walked over to my seat. “You’re dead.”
“I won anyway,” I said.
“It’s a tactic that would be useless in a real fight,” Cobb said. “You don’t get to take home points if you’re dead.”
I shrugged. “You set the rules, Cobb. Ten points for me, nine for Jerkface. It isn’t my fault that he doesn’t get to try for the last few points.”
“Yes it is!” Jerkface said, standing up out of his cockpit. “It absolutely is your fault!”
“Enough, son,” Cobb said. “It’s not worth getting worked up over this. You lost. It happens.” He glanced at me. “Though I guess I’ll be wanting to change the rules of that game.”
I stood up, grinning.
“Five-minute break,” Cobb said. “Everyone cool down and don’t strangle one another. That causes too much damn paperwork.” He hobbled over to the door and stepped out, perhaps to fetch his midday coffee.
Kimmalyn ran over to my seat, her dark curls bouncing. “Spin, that was wonderful!”
“What does the Saint say about games?” I asked.
“ ‘You can’t win if you don’t play,’ ” Kimmalyn said.
“Obviously.”
“Obviously!” She grinned again. Bim walked by and gave me a thumbs-up. Over his shoulder, I saw Jerkface glaring at me with unmitigated hostility as Arturo and Nedd tried to calm him down.
“Don’t worry, Jorg,” Nedd said. “You still beat Arturo.”
“Thank you very much, Nedd,” Arturo snapped.
Kimmalyn left the classroom to get something to drink, and I settled into my seat and dug one of my canteens out of my pack. I made sure to refill all three each day at the bathroom.
“So,” Bim said, leaning against my hologram projector, “you’re really into warriors and things, eh?”
“They inspire me,” I said. “My grandmother tells stories about ancient heroes.”
“You have any favorites?”
“Probably Beowulf,” I said, then took a long pull of water from the canteen. “He literally slew a dragon, and ripped the arm off a monster—he had to resort to his bare hands after his sword wouldn’t cut the thing. But then there’s Tashenamani—she slew the great warrior Custer—and Conan the Cimmerian, who fought in the ancient times before writing.”
“Yeah, they were great,” Bim said, and winked. “I mean…I hadn’t heard of them until now. But I’m sure they were great. Er. I’m thirsty.”
He blushed and walked off, leaving me confused. What was…
He was…he was flirting with me, I realized, stunned. Or, well, trying to.
Was that possible? I mean, he was actually cute, so why would he…
I looked at him again, and caught him in the middle of what seemed like a blush. Scud! That was the strangest thing that had happened to me since starting flight school, and I spent my mornings talking to a slug.
I thought about guys, but my life hadn’t exactly left me time for that kind of thing. The last time I�
��d had any romantic inclinations had been when I’d been eight and had given Rig a particularly nice hatchet I’d made out of a rock and a stick—then had decided he was gross the next week. Because, well, I’d been eight.
I jumped to my feet. “Uh, Bim?” I said.
He looked at me again.
“You ever heard of Odysseus?”
“No,” he said.
“He was an ancient hero who fought in the greatest war that ever happened on Earth, the Trojan War. It’s said he had a bow so strong that, other than him, only a giant could pull the string back. He…had blue hair, you know.”
“Yeah?” Bim asked.
“Pretty cool,” I said, then immediately sat down, taking a long gulp from my canteen.
Was that smooth? That was smooth, right?
I wasn’t sure what Sun Tzu or Beowulf would say about flirting with cute guys. Maybe share the skulls of your enemies with them, as a gesture of affection?
I felt kind of warm and gooey (in a good way) until I spotted Jerkface—across the room—watching me. I gave him a hard glare.
He, pointedly, turned to Nedd and Arturo. “I guess we shouldn’t expect real honor,” he said, “from the daughter of Zeen Nightshade.”
A bolt of coldness shot through me.
“Who?” Nedd asked. “Wait, who did you say she was?”
“You know,” Jerkface said, voice loud enough to carry through the entire room. “Callsign: Chaser? The Coward of Alta?”
The room went quiet. I could feel everyone’s eyes turning toward me. How had he found out? Who had told him?
I stood up. Scud, even Kimmalyn seemed to know who Chaser was. Her canteen dropped from her fingers and bounced against the floor, spilling water that she didn’t notice.
“Who?” Morningtide asked. “What is happen?”
I wanted to flee. Hide. Escape all those eyes. But I would not run.
“My father,” I said, “was not a coward.”
“I’m sorry,” Jerkface said. “I’m only stating the official history.” He stared at me, with that arrogant, so-punchable face. I found myself blushing in embarrassment—then in anger.
I shouldn’t feel embarrassed. I’d lived practically my entire life with this mantle. I was accustomed to those looks, those whispers. And I wasn’t ashamed of my father, right? So why should I care that the others had found out? Good. Fine. I was happy to be Chaser’s daughter.
It was just that…it had felt nice. To be able to make my own way, without standing in anyone’s shadow.
That thought made me feel like I was betraying my father, and that made me even more angry.
“She lives in a cave, you know,” Jerkface said to Arturo. “She goes there every night. The elevator operators told me they watch her hike out into the wilderness, because she’s not—”
He cut off as Cobb stepped in with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. Cobb focused immediately on me, then Jerkface. “Back to your seats,” he snapped at us. “We still have work to do today. And Quirk, did you drop that canteen?”
Kimmalyn unfroze and picked up her canteen, and everyone climbed into their cockpits without another word. At one point shortly after we went back to practicing with our light-lances, I caught Cobb looking at me with a grim expression, with eyes that seemed to be saying, It was going to happen eventually, cadet. Are you going to give in?
Never.
But that didn’t stop me from feeling sick through the whole set of drills.
* * *
—
A few hours later, I trailed out of the women’s bathroom, canteens refilled. A new pair of MPs walked me to the doors and saw me out, then—like normal—left me there.
I trudged across the base grounds, feeling frustrated, angry, and alone. I should have kept going out of the base, on toward my cave. But instead I took a path around the training building, one that let me walk past the mess hall.
I looked through the window there and spotted the others seated along a metal table—chatting, laughing, arguing. They’d even bullied Jerkface into joining them tonight—a rare treat for the plebes, as he usually drove off to the exclusive elevator. Nedd said it could reach the lower caverns in under fifteen minutes.
So there he was, enjoying what I was forbidden, after tossing away my secret like a fistful of expired rations. I hated him. In that moment, I kind of hated them all. I almost hated my father.
I stalked off into the night, leaving the base through the front gates. I turned to my left, toward the orchard, and the shortcut through it toward the wilderness. My path took me straight past the small hangars where Jerkface parked his hovercar.
I stopped there in the darkness, eyeing his bay. The front door was closed this time, but the side door was open, and I could see the car inside. It took me all of about half a second to come up with another really terrible idea.
Looking around, I didn’t see anyone watching. Darkness had come early tonight, the skylights moving away, and the orchard workers had already gone home. I was far enough from the front gates of the base that the guards there shouldn’t be able to see me in the gloom.
I slipped in the side of the small hangar and closed the door, then lit my light-line for a bit of illumination. I found a wrench on the wall of the small shed, then pulled open the hood of the blue hovercar.
Jerkface could walk home tonight. It would only be fair. After all, I had to walk home—and tonight I would have to do it while lugging a large, car-size power matrix tied to my back.
I woke up the next morning groggy and sore, with a face full of stuffed bear. I groaned, turning over, my muscles aching. Why did I hurt so much? Had I…
I bolted upright and flipped on my light-line bracelet, peering out of my cockpit bed. The light illuminated my little kitchen, a pile of mushrooms waiting to be sliced, some rocks I’d placed as seats there, and…
And a car’s power matrix, the size of a small nightstand.
It lay where I’d dumped it after lugging it all the way to the cavern. I’d been so worn out after that, I hadn’t plugged it in, but had climbed right into bed.
I groaned and flopped back, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palms. I’d been so angry last night that…well, I hadn’t been thinking clearly. Stealing the power matrix had seemed like a great idea—but now the holes in my clever plan were stark.
Gee, I wonder who vandalized your car, Jerkface? Could it be the only one of us who wasn’t at dinner, and who had immediate and powerful reasons for wanting revenge on you?
When it became known that I’d destroyed another cadet’s property, I’d get tossed out of flight school so fast, I’d get whiplash. I groaned again, a sound that was unhelpfully mimicked by Doomslug, who had snuggled into a spot on the dash.
Why? Why couldn’t I stay focused? Why did I have to let them get to me? Beowulf or Xun Guan wouldn’t let themselves be goaded into acting this stupid!
I felt sick as I trudged to Alta that morning. I didn’t even have the will to try out the power matrix. As if there were anything I could do to prevent my doom at this point. Why couldn’t “rational Spensa” and “determined Spensa” get together for a battle briefing once in a while?
I fully expected the MPs to be waiting for me, but the guards at the gates just waved me through. Nobody stopped me on my way to the classroom. Jerkface came in while I was settling down in my seat, and he didn’t so much as glance at me. Cobb limped in and started class like normal.
At one point during a break, I managed to catch Jerkface’s eyes. He met them and didn’t look away. There was a challenge in them, yes. But how was I to read this? Was he waiting for some specific point to turn me in?
As the day progressed, and we practiced using the light-lances on moving targets, I started to wonder if maybe he wasn’t going to get me into trouble. Maybe…maybe he was taking the
warrior’s way. Rather than running to the admiral for help, was he planning his own vengeance?
If that was true, then…scud. I might have to give that boy a little respect.
Not much, mind you. He’d still aggressively and maliciously branded me a coward in front of the others. Arturo, Nedd, FM, and even Bim trod more softly around me, peering at me out of the corners of their eyes. It didn’t seem to affect our training, but during our breaks everyone was dancing around the news. They asked me about other things, then exited conversations quickly.
The only one who didn’t act odd was Kimmalyn. That didn’t mean she ignored what had happened, of course.
“So,” she said, hovering beside my seat as I rested and drank from my canteen, “is that why you’re always so bellicose?”
“Bellicose?” I asked, unfamiliar with the word.
“So willing to seize the stars with one hand and shove them in your pocket,” Kimmalyn said. She leaned in, as if the next part were somehow naughty. “You know. Heated.”
“Heated.”
“Maybe even…once in a while…cross.”
“Is my father why I’m such a mess of anger, bravado, and temper? Is the fact that they call him a coward the reason I walk around with my sword in hand, screaming that I’ll make a pile of everyone’s skulls, then stand on that to help me behead the people who were too tall for me to reach?”
Kimmalyn smiled fondly.
“Bless my stars?” I asked her.
“Every single one of them, Spensa. Every single bouncing star.”
I sighed and took another drink. “I don’t know. I remember liking Gran-Gran’s stories even before he was shot down, but what happened certainly didn’t help. When everyone looks at you as the coward’s daughter—not a coward’s daughter, but the singular Coward’s Daughter—you develop an attitude.”
“Well, bless you for standing up straight,” she said, then put up her fists. “Pride is a virtue in those who make it one.”
“Said the Saint.”
“She was a very wise woman.”
Skyward Page 13