Skyward

by Brandon Sanderson

  “Do you know where Kimmalyn is?” I asked FM.

  “She got up and ate with us,” the tall girl whispered, “but she stopped at the restroom on the way to class. Maybe someone should go check on her.”

  Before I could get up, Jerkface was on his feet, clearing his throat. He looked around at the other five of us. Me and FM. Hurl, slumped in her seat. She didn’t seem to be treating this like a game any longer. Arturo, who sat with hands clasped, tapping his index fingers together at a rapid pace, like some kind of nervous tic. Nedd sitting with his feet up and resting on the incalculably valuable hologram projector at the front of his mockpit. Remarkably, his bootlaces were untied.

  “I suppose,” Jerkface said, “that I should say something.”

  “Of course,” FM whispered, rolling her eyes, though she returned to her own place.

  Jerkface began speaking in a stiff voice. “The DDF protocol handbook explains that to die in the cockpit—fighting to protect our homeland—is the bravest and greatest gift a person can give. Our friends, though taken too early, were models of Defiant ideals.”

  He’s reading, I realized. From notes written…on his hand?

  “We will remember them as soldiers,” Jerkface continued, now holding his hand up before him. “If you need counseling at this loss—or for any reason—as your flightleader, I am here. Please come to me, so I can make you feel better. I will gladly bear the burden of your grief so that you can focus on your flight training. Thank you.”

  He sat down. And, well, that was probably the dumbest speech I’d ever heard. More about him than about those empty seats. But…I supposed he had tried?

  Cobb finally limped through the door, holding a fistful of papers and muttering something to himself. “Flight positions!” he snapped. “We’re going to cover tandem maneuvering today—again. The way you guard each other is so sloppy, I’d expect to see you on a plate of mess hall food.”

  We just kind of stared at him.

  “Move!” he barked.

  Everyone started strapping in.

  I—instead—stood up. “Is that it?” I demanded. “Aren’t you going to say anything about them? About Bim, or Morningtide, or what the admiral did to—”

  “The admiral,” Cobb said, “did nothing to you. The Krell killed your friends.”

  “That’s ratcrap,” I blurted. “If you toss a kid into a lion’s den, can you really blame the lion?”

  He met my eyes, but I wasn’t going to back down this time. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but at least this emotion—feeling furious at him, at the admiral, at the DDF—was better than emptiness.

  We glared at each other until the door squeaked and opened, and Kimmalyn stepped in. Though her long black hair was combed—as usual—into perfect curls, her eyes were puffy and red. Cobb glanced at her and his eyes widened, as if he was surprised to see her.

  He thought she’d given up, I realized.

  Instead, puffy eyes and all, Kimmalyn raised her chin.

  Cobb nodded toward her seat, and she strode over—a model of Defiant poise—and sat down. In that moment, she seemed more like a warrior than I’d ever been.

  I set my jaw, then took my seat and strapped in. Shoving Cobb around wasn’t going to relieve my anger at the admiral. I needed a control sphere in my hand and a destructor trigger under my finger. That was probably why Cobb wanted to work us hard today—to make us sweat, maybe make us forget for a little while. And…yeah. Yeah, I was on board for that.

  Cobb, however, didn’t turn on our projectors. Instead he slowly took a folding chair, then limped to the center of the room and unfolded it. He sat down, clasping his hands before him. I had to lean out the side of my rig to see him, as did most of the others.

  He looked old. Older than he deserved to.

  “I know how it feels,” he said. “Like there’s been a hole carved right out of you. A chunk of flesh that’s just not going to grow back. You can function, you can fly, but you’re going to leave a blood trail for a while.

  “I should say something here, about loss. Something wise. Old Mara, who taught me to fly, would have. She’s dead now.” Cobb shook his head. “Sometimes I don’t feel like a teacher. I feel like a munitions man, reloading artillery. I stuff you into the chamber, fire you into the sky, then grab another shell…”

  Hearing him talk that way was discomforting, unnatural. Like a parent suddenly admitting they didn’t know what love felt like. We’d all heard stories about flight instructors. Old, grizzled, quick to bite your head off, but stuffed full of wisdom.

  In that moment though, I saw the man, not the instructor. That man was afraid and distraught—and as pained to lose students as we were to lose friends. He wasn’t some grizzled veteran with all the answers. He was a man who had, almost by coincidence, survived long enough to be made into a teacher. He had to teach us both the things he knew and the things he clearly hadn’t yet figured out himself.

  “Claim the stars,” I said.

  Cobb looked up at me.

  “When I was a girl,” I said, “I wanted to become a pilot so I would be celebrated. And my father told me to set my sights higher. He told me to ‘claim the stars.’ ”

  I looked upward, and tried to imagine those twinkling lights. Past the roof, up through the sky, piercing the rubble belt. Where the Saints welcomed the souls of the fallen when they died.

  “It hurts,” I said. “More than I thought it would. I knew so little about Bim—only that he liked to smile. Morningtide, she could barely understand us. But she refused to give up.”

  For a moment, I thought I could imagine myself soaring upward among those lights. Like Gran-Gran had taught me. I felt everything falling beneath me, becoming distant. All I could see were those points of light streaking around on all sides.

  “They’re up in the sky now,” I said softly. “Forever among the stars. I’m going to join them.” I snapped out of the trance, and was suddenly back in the room with the others. “I’m going to strap in, and I’m going to fight. That way when I die, at least I’ll die in a cockpit. Reaching for heaven.”

  The others stilled, ushering in an uncertain silence, like the moment between two meteor impacts. Nedd had sat up in his seat, no longer lounging, and he gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up and a nod. Across from me, I found Jerkface staring at me, an inscrutable frown on his face.

  “All right,” Cobb said, standing up. “Let’s stop wasting time. Helmets on.”

  I grabbed my helmet and pulled it on, ignoring Jerkface’s stare. I immediately jumped, however, and pulled the helmet off.

  “What?” Cobb said, limping over to me.

  “The diodes inside are warm,” I said, feeling them. “What does it mean?”

  “Nothing,” Cobb said. “…Probably.”

  “That doesn’t reassure me, Cobb. What is going on?”

  He lowered his voice. “Some medical types who think they’re smart believe they can tell from a bunch of readouts if you’re…going to run away like your father.”

  “My father didn’t—”

  “Calm down. We prove them wrong about you with good flying. That’s your best tool. Can you wear that?” He nodded to the helmet.

  “Yeah. They aren’t painfully hot; I was just surprised.”

  “Put it on then, and let’s get to work.”

  Cobb kept his promise—he worked us hard that day.

  We practiced coordinated banking, formations, and wingmate guarding exercises. We worked until my fingers felt stiff as gears, my arms ached like I’d been lifting weights, and my brain basically turned to mush. He even worked us through lunch, forcing an aide to bring everyone else sandwiches. I ate rat jerky and mushrooms like always.

  The diodes in my helmet cooled down as I worked. The admiral thought she could tell from some readouts if I would be a coward? What kind
of insanity was that?

  There was no time to worry about it though. Cobb ran us through debris dodging, light-lance turns, and shield reignition drills. It was exhausting in a good way, and the only time I thought of Bim was when I realized that nobody was complaining that—yet again—we weren’t being allowed to use our weapons.

  When Cobb at long last let us go, I felt as if I could have curled up right there and dozed off.

  “Hey, Arturo,” Nedd said as he stood and stretched, “these projectors are pretty good. You think they could simulate a world where you’re not a scudding terrible pilot?”

  “All we need for that,” Arturo said, “is an Off button for your radio. I’m certain we’d all improve by huge leaps if we didn’t have to listen to your incessant jabbering. Besides, as I recall, you were the one who ran into me earlier.”

  “You were in my way!”

  “Boys, boys,” Hurl said, sauntering past. “Can’t we make peace? Find common ground and agree that you’re both terrible pilots?”

  “Ha!” Arturo said. “You just watch—I’ll make you eat those words someday, Hurl.”

  “I’m hungry enough that I’d eat them now,” she said, “if they had a decent sauce on them. The mess hall better not be closed. Quirk, can I have your dessert?”

  “What?” the girl said, looking up from her harness—which she’d been clipping together and folding neatly in her seat, like she always did when getting out of her mockpit.

  “You’re nice and stuff,” Hurl said. “I figure you’ll give in if I push hard enough. So, can I eat your dessert?”

  “Bless your stars,” Kimmalyn said. “But touch my pie, and I’ll rip your fingers off.” She blushed when she said it, and lifted her hand in front of her mouth.

  “She’ll do it, Hurl,” I joked. “It’s always the nice ones you have to worry about.”

  “Yeah,” Hurl said. “Ain’t that the…” She trailed off as she realized I was the one who’d spoken. Then she turned and continued out the door.

  I knew that look in her eyes. Ever since Jorgen outed me as Chaser’s daughter, things hadn’t been the same between Hurl and me.

  The others piled out of the chamber. I sighed, gathering my pack, preparing for an exhausted hike back to my cavern. As I hefted it over my shoulder, I realized that FM hadn’t left. She was standing by the wall, watching me. She was so tall and beautiful. As cadets, we kept DDF pilot dress standards. For daily work, we could choose jumpsuits or standard DDF uniforms if we wanted. We just had to be ready to change into flight suits if a call came up.

  Most of us simply wore the jumpsuits, which were the most comfortable. Not FM. Alongside her polished boots, she often wore a tailored uniform with a jacket that somehow looked more stylish on her than others. She was so perfect, she almost seemed more like a statue than a person.

  “Thank you,” she said to me, “for what you said earlier. About Bim, Morningtide, and the stars.”

  “You didn’t find it ‘overly aggressive’?” I asked. FM was always complaining that the rest of us were too aggressive, which didn’t make sense to me. Wasn’t aggression the point of war?

  “Well, most of what you say is utter nonsense,” FM said. “Windy bravado made as an excuse to tout jingoistic mantras instilled in you by a lifetime of Defiant indoctrination. But what you said earlier, that was from the heart. I…I needed to hear it. Thank you.”

  “You’re a weird girl, FM,” I said. I had no idea what most of what she’d said had meant.

  At his desk, Cobb snorted and glanced at me from behind his paperwork. You, of all people, are calling someone weird? his glance seemed to ask.

  I walked with FM out into an empty hallway; the other cadet flights had finished classes hours ago.

  “I want to make it clear,” FM said as we walked together, “that I don’t blame you for your attitudes. You’re a product of enormous societal pressure, forcing young people into increasingly aggressive postures. I’m sure on the inside you’re sweet.”

  “I’m actually not,” I said, grinning. “But I’m okay if people underestimate me. Perhaps the Krell will do the same, so I can savor the surprise in their eyes as I rip those very eyes from their skulls.”

  FM looked at me aghast.

  “If, that is, they have eyes under that armor. Or skulls. Well—whatever they have, I’ll rip it out.” I glanced at her, then grinned more broadly. “I’m joking, FM. Kind of. I say things like that because they’re fun. Like the old stories, you know?”

  “I haven’t read those old stories.”

  “You’d probably hate them. Why do you always talk about the rest of us being too aggressive? Aren’t you Defiant?”

  “I was raised Defiant,” she said. “But I choose, now, to be what people down below call a Disputer—I raise objections about the way the war is being run. I think we should throw off the oppressive mantle of military government.”

  I stopped in place, shocked. I’d never heard words like that spoken before. “So…you’re a coward?”

  FM blushed, standing up taller. “I’d have thought you, of all people, would be careful about throwing around that term.”

  “Sorry,” I said, blushing in return. She was right. But still, I had trouble understanding what she was saying. I understood the words, but not the meaning. Throw off military government? Who would be in charge of the war then?

  “I am still willing to fight,” FM said, her head high as we walked. “Just because I want change doesn’t mean I’ll let the Krell destroy us all. But do you realize what it’s doing to our society to train our children, practically from birth, to idealize and glorify fighting? To worship the First Citizens like saints? We should be teaching our children to be more caring, more inquisitive—not only to destroy, but to build.”

  I shrugged. Those kinds of things seemed easy to say when you lived in the deep caverns, where a bomb wouldn’t kill your family. Still, it was nice to get some answers about the woman—she was so poised, it was hard to think of her as a “girl” even though she was the same age as the rest of us.

  If I walked too far with her toward the mess hall though, I might run into the MPs and get into trouble. They’d stopped escorting me out of class every day, but I didn’t believe for a moment that meant I could go to dinner. So I bade FM farewell, and she jogged off to catch up with the others.

  I started toward the exit, digging in my pack for some water—but remembered I’d left my last full canteen by my seat in the classroom. Great. Feeling my exhaustion from the training return, I trudged back to the classroom.

  Cobb had activated the hologram in the center of the room, projecting a small version of a battlefield. In front of him, ships the size of ball bearings zipped and flew among debris trailing fire and smoke. Krell ships, flat and no larger than merit chits, fired tiny destructors.

  He’s rewatching the fight from yesterday, I realized. The one where Bim and Morningtide died. I’d had no idea the battles were recorded.

  I picked out my ship as it zipped into the battle. I felt the overwhelming chaos again, the rush of finally being in a real fight. I could almost hear the explosions. Kimmalyn’s worried voice. The sound of my own breathing, excited, sharp.

  Anticipation, even a little fear, rose inside me while I watched—powerless. Morningtide died again.

  My gut clenched. But I wouldn’t let myself look away.

  In the room, my ship zipped through the fray, picking up a tail. I dove around a falling piece of rubble—using my light-lance to pivot with exactness—then soared between two other Krell ships.

  Cobb paused the simulation with a gesture. He stepped forward, focusing on my ship—frozen in the air amid a spectacular show of destructors, falling streaks of light, and exploding ships. Then he rewound the simulation and played it through again, watching my maneuver.

  “I almost
blacked out,” I noted from the doorway. “I didn’t have control of my speed, and didn’t cut the turn before the GravCaps overloaded.”

  “It was still quite the maneuver,” he said. “Particularly for a cadet. Remarkable, almost unbelievable.”

  “Jerkface is better than I am.”

  “Jorgen is an excellent technical pilot, but he doesn’t feel it like you do. You remind me of your father.” He seemed…grim as he said it.

  I suddenly felt awkward, so I crossed to my simulator and grabbed my canteen. Cobb played out the rest of the battle, and I forced myself to watch as my ship and Bim’s chased the Krell bomber. Cobb froze the simulation again as the four strange guard ships broke off the enemy bomber—the ones who would, momentarily, shoot down Bim.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “Something new. They haven’t altered their tactics in over a decade. What changed now?” He narrowed his eyes. “We survive by being able to anticipate the Krell. Anytime you can guess what your enemy is going to do, you have an advantage. No matter how dangerous they are, if you know their next move, you can counter it.”

  Huh. That struck me, and I found myself nodding.

  Cobb shut down the hologram and hobbled back toward his desk. “Here,” he said, sliding a box off the top and handing it to me. “I forgot to give this to you earlier.”

  A personal radio?

  “Normally, we only give these to full pilots who get off-duty time down in Igneous. But since you live off base, I figured you should have one. Keep it on you at all times. You’ll get a general warning call when the Krell attack.”

  I took the device, which was rectangular and boxy, maybe the size of a small one-handed training weight. My father had carried one of these.

  Cobb waved to dismiss me, then settled down in his seat and started looking through his papers.

  I lingered though, a question on my mind. “Cobb?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why don’t you fly with us? The other flight instructors go up with their cadets.”