Skyward

by Brandon Sanderson

  “The boosters,” I said. M-Bot had room for three, a large one and two smaller ones.

  “I think he’ll fly fine with one central booster. But there’s no way I’ll be able to order something that large fabricated. So if we want to fly this thing, you’re going to need to find me a replacement. A standard DDF model should work—anything from an A-17 to an A-32 would fit in that space, with a little work on my part.”

  I sighed, resting against the stone. Finally, I wiggled out from under the ship to get a drink.

  A new booster. That wasn’t the sort of thing I could find in a junkyard, or even steal off a random hovercar. That was grade-A military tech. I’d have to steal a starfighter. Which would be above petty larceny…it would be actual treason.

  No, I thought. Fixing M-Bot was a cool dream, but I couldn’t go that far.

  I sighed, taking a long drink from my canteen, then checked my clock. 0605. Rig wiggled out himself, grabbing his own canteen.

  I whistled to Doomslug, who whistled back in a perfect imitation. “I need to get going,” I told Rig. “I need time to slip into the women’s room and cleanse before class.”

  “Sure,” Rig said, clanging the wing of the ship with his wrench. “Though I don’t know why you’d bother doing it there, as you could use the ship’s cleanser.”

  “It has a cleanser?” I asked, stopping in place.

  “It has full biofacilities, including waste reclamation, as part of the pod in the cockpit. I hauled up some soap yesterday and got the system working; the controls are the little keypad in the left rear of the cockpit. The canopy should dim, for privacy. Assuming you can trust the thing not to make fun of you while cleansing.”

  “Why would I make fun of her?” M-Bot said. “The frailties of human existence—and stenches caused by their inefficient generation of biological energy—are no laughing matter.”

  I just smiled. I was tired of sneaking into the cleanser at the base, constantly worried that Admiral Ironsides would use it as an excuse to oust me.

  “It makes sense you’d have a cleanser,” I said to M-Bot as I climbed into the cockpit. “You said you’re a long-range scouting and stealth vessel, right?”

  “Equipped for deep-space missions.”

  “With four destructors,” Rig noted from down below, “and advanced atmospheric scoops and an extremely fast design. He’s a fighter, Spin. But probably a long-distance one, as he said.”

  “So you had to be able to care for your pilot long-term,” I said, closing the canopy. “You traveled between the stars?”

  “Cytonic hyperdrive is offline,” M-Bot said.

  “But how did you do it?” I asked. “What is a ‘cytonic hyperdrive’? And what were you scouting for anyway?”

  The ship fell uncharacteristically silent. The cockpit—as promised—dimmed fully as I flipped a switch on the panel that Rig had indicated.

  “I have no records of any of it,” M-Bot said softly. “If I could feel fear, Spin, I’d…I’d be afraid of that. I’m not an autopilot; I don’t fly myself, that’s forbidden, save for very slow maneuvering. So all I really am is a repository of knowledge. That’s what I’m good for.”

  “Except you’ve forgotten it all.”

  “Almost everything,” he whispered. “Except…my orders.”

  “Lie low. Take stock. Don’t get into any fights.”

  “And an open database for cataloguing local fungi. That’s…that’s all I am now.”

  “I’m hoping Rig will be able to repair your memory banks, so we can recover what you lost,” I said. “If not, we’ll refill your banks with new memories. Better ones.”

  “Data doesn’t suggest either is possible.”

  “Data doesn’t need to,” I said. “You’ll see.”

  “GAFHOC,” M-Bot said. “I’d let you read the seven thousand pages I wrote, but I am programmed to avoid making humans feel inferior for their incredible weirdness.”

  I lowered the seat into a bed, then located the cleansing pod at the rear of the cockpit—it wasn’t obvious, but I now knew what to look for: a hole I could open and roll myself into. The long, narrow cleansing pod extended farther into the fuselage.

  I stripped down, stuffed my clothing into the clothing bay, then positioned my feet toward the hole and slid in on the rollers. I closed the latch by my head with the press of a button at my side, then activated the cleanser.

  I kept my eyes closed as I was bathed in suds and flashes of light. It felt…decadent to have my own cleanser. Back in my neighborhood, the three cleansers had been shared among dozens of apartments. Your daily usage was precisely scheduled.

  “I think I made you feel bad anyway, didn’t I?” M-Bot asked.

  I wasn’t a particularly shy person, but his voice made me blush. I wasn’t used to being talked to while in the cleanser.

  “I’m fine,” I said once the cleanser finished my face. “I like the way you talk. It’s different. Interesting.”

  “I didn’t invent GAFHOC to make you feel bad,” he said. “I just…I needed an explanation. For why you said things that aren’t true.”

  “You really hadn’t ever heard of lying before?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I had. And it’s simply…gone.”

  He sounded fragile. How could a large, heavily armored starfighter sound fragile?

  “You’re the only source of information I have,” M-Bot said. “If you tell me things that aren’t true, what can I commit to my memory banks? This puts me at risk of retaining false data.”

  “That’s a risk we all live with, M-Bot,” I said. “We can’t know everything—and some of what we think we know is going to turn out to be false.”

  “That doesn’t frighten you?”

  “Of course it does. But if it helps, I’ll try not to lie to you.”

  “It does. Thank you.”

  He fell silent, and so I relaxed, enjoying an extra-long, luxurious cleansing—during which I imagined scenarios of flying M-Bot into battle with guns blazing, saving my flight from certain doom, like Joan of Arc on her loyal steed.

  They were good daydreams. Even if my steed kept asking for mushrooms.

  “All right,” Cobb’s voice said in my ear as the group of us hovered outside a holographic battlefield. “I’m almost convinced you won’t run nose-first into the first piece of debris that falls past you. I think you lot might just be ready to learn some advanced weapons techniques.”

  Even still, two weeks after losing him, I expected Bim to pipe up eagerly and ask after destructors. When he didn’t, I said it instead, in his memory. “Destructors?”

  “No,” Cobb said. “Today we will train with the IMP.”

  Oh, right. We’d spent so much time training with the light-lances, I’d almost forgotten we had a third weapon, which could knock down enemy shields.

  While I waited for Cobb to send today’s wingmate pairings, I switched the radio to a private channel and called Hurl. “I almost thought he was going to let us do guns, eh, Hurl?”

  Hurl only grunted.

  “Made me think of Bim,” I said. “Wish we’d at least helped him choose a callsign, you know?”

  “I’m with Quirk today,” Hurl said as Cobb highlighted us in pairs on our sensor screens. “Hurl out.” She killed the channel.

  I felt my face grow cold and gritted my teeth, silently cursing Jerkface for outing my heritage. While I was used to this kind of thing, I’d liked Hurl. The fun-loving, eager girl had almost seemed like a friend.

  I moved my ship over next to Nedd, my wingmate for the day. Ahead of us, a group of Krell ships appeared in the sky and began to fly through lazy patterns. Debris fell, mostly large, fiery chunks that dropped from above quickly, trailing smoke.

  “All right,” Cobb said. “Basic shield usage. Spin, give us a rundown.”

&nb
sp; He did this occasionally, testing our knowledge. “Shipboard shields can absorb roughly 80 kus of energy before they get overwhelmed and break,” I said. “That’s around two to three shots from a destructor, a small debris strike, or a glancing collision. If your shield goes down, you’ll have to reignite it—which uses power from your booster. That means losing thrust and maneuverability for a good half a minute.”

  “Good. Amphisbaena, what did she miss?”

  I was reasonably impressed that he could pronounce Arturo’s “two-headed-dragon” callsign thing.

  “Not much,” Arturo said. “Always warn your wingmate if your shield breaks so they can cover you with their destructors while you reignite. Not that we know much about using destructors…”

  “You pull the trigger, smart boy,” Cobb said. “Doesn’t take a brain to use a destructor. The IMP though, that’s another matter. Inverted Magellan Pulse. It breaks any shield—including your own—within fifty meters.”

  “Fifty meters,” FM said softly. “That’s very close range.”

  “Ridiculously close range,” Cobb said. “You’ll have to practically be smelling Krell BO before you can IMP them.”

  “Sir,” Jorgen said. “I’m worried about the flight’s ability to get in that close.”

  “If only we’d just spent a month drilling on maneuvering and close-quarters light-lance grappling while the other cadets played popgun,” Cobb snapped. “Look, Krell shields are strong. You fight my way, and you completely negate their advantage. And if you don’t want to fight my way, you can go suck on hot rocks and become an algae farmer.”

  With that, he threw us into it. And I didn’t complain. After so many weeks practicing what amounted to a bunch of fancy turns, I was eager to get to something that felt even a little like real combat.

  We were each assigned to a mock Krell ship flying in a simple pattern. Our job was to approach as a wingmate pair flying exactly fifty-five meters apart. We would cut in across the Krell ship’s path, and one of us would engage their IMP. Then we’d stop and perform a quick-reignition drill.

  We didn’t get to shoot the Krell down. We just practiced IMPing their shields, over and over. And even with the Krell ships flying in simple patterns, it was hard. You had to get in so close, you felt like you were going to slam right into them. Turned out fifty meters was just under the threshold for a comfortable pass. The first twenty times or so, I pulled away too quickly and the IMP broke my shield—but not the enemy’s.

  Swoop in. Engage IMP. Dodge out. Reignite.

  Repeat.

  “You know,” Nedd said as we flew, “I’d enjoy shooting a few of those goobers down.”

  “Don’t extrapolate, Nedder,” Cobb said in our ears. “Today, the exercise is about knocking out their shields. That’s it.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll get to destroying them later. These next few days, we’re going to focus on basic IMP strategies.”

  Nedd sighed on the group line. “A few days of just doing this? Does anyone else find that idea boring?”

  A few of the others called out agreements, but I didn’t. Every moment flying, even in simulation, was a joy. This explosion of speed, this precision…this was freedom.

  I remembered my father better when I flew. That spark of anticipation in his eyes, the tilt of his head looking skyward—and longing to return. Each time I flew I shared something new with him, something personal.

  Nedd and I did a few more IMP runs, and oddly—on my turn—the Krell ship flew out of line and forced me to chase it down harder. That wasn’t the normal exercise, but it did challenge me. When I finally IMPed it, I found myself breathing hard, but grinning at the thrill of it.

  “Tell me that last one wasn’t fun,” I said on the private line to Nedd. I looked across to where he flew beside me, the hologram reproducing him—helmet and all. He was a bit of a brute, oversized, with a face that seemed too big for his head. I couldn’t imagine how it must feel to squeeze into one of these cockpits at a hundred and ninety-three centimeters like he was.

  “Fun is sitting at home,” he said, “with your feet up, enjoying a mug of something warm. All of this is over my head.”

  “Oh, please,” I said. “I’m not buying your act, Nedd.”

  “What?” he said. “I’m just a normal guy.”

  “Who grew up in the deep caverns?”

  “I actually grew up here. In Alta.”

  “What, really?” I said, surprised.

  “Yeah, I went to school with Jorgen and Arturo down below, but my parents keep the orchard.”

  “So you’re not just some normal guy,” I said. “You were schooled with the elite, and your parents volunteered to do the toughest job on Detritus. Beyond that, how many brothers do you have who are pilots?”

  “Dunno,” he said. “Can’t really count that high.”

  “You do the worst job of playing dumb I’ve ever seen.”

  “Then I can’t even do that right,” he said. “Extra proof, right?”

  I rolled my eyes as we joined another run. Nedd seemed determined to pretend he was some kind of big, dumb crony. But he overdid it, likely by intent. Even rocks weren’t as stupid as Nedd acted sometimes.

  On the battlefield, Hurl and Kimmalyn zipped past a Krell ship. Hurl got her IMP off just right, but Kimmalyn had not only been flying too close—so she got caught in the blast too—she panicked when her shield went down and veered to the side. Which smashed her into the Krell ship.

  I winced. It had been a while since any of us had made a mistake that blatant. Nedd whistled slowly, then hit the comm. “Nice explosion, Quirk. Seven out of ten. Try to spin your wreckage a little more next time you fall.”

  “Bless. Your. Stars.” She muttered it, which was practically cussing from Kimmalyn.

  “Heh,” Nedd said.

  “You shouldn’t taunt her,” I said on the private line to him. “She’s trying hard.”

  “Everyone needs someone to blow steam at, even her. Especially her. She’s so uptight sometimes, I think she must have done her belt up two extra notches.”

  “She’s just from a different cavern,” I said. “Her culture makes her more polite.”

  “She’s nervous,” he said. “She knows she’s our worst pilot. Ignoring it will only make her more nervous. Trust me.”

  Huh. “And what do you think of Hurl?”

  “She’s good,” he said. “But not as good as she thinks she is.” He grew silent for a moment. “She used to pretend all this was a game. She was an athlete, you know.”

  “Like, a real one?”

  “Yeah. Digball player. Carrier position, one of the best in the student league. Seems like everything’s a competition to her, but then we lost Bim and Morningtide, so now she’s gone all quiet. She doesn’t know how to react now that she can’t see flying as a game.”

  “I thought you said you were stupid.”

  “Dumb as cold rocks.”

  “And your insightful read on our companions?”

  “Just making small talk. Saying whatever pops in my head, you know? You’re lucky it made any sense whatsoever. Usually it comes out as grunts.”

  “Oh please.”

  We flew a few more exercises, during which Nedd made some pointed grunting noises. Seriously, I couldn’t tell if he was childish, or an elaborate prankster…or, well, he was certainly both of those things. But maybe something else too?

  Cobb eventually called for us to line up, then take runs one at a time, so he could watch us each and give us specific feedback on how to improve. And though I was enjoying this, I was glad for the break—it was grueling work.

  I watched each of the solo runs, and we were actually starting to look like real pilots. The way Hurl spun after her dodging Krell was impressive. And while FM could be too careful, her flying had
an inspiring precision to it.

  Kimmalyn did her solo run next, and she actually managed to IMP the Krell. I smiled, and called her when she came back. “Hey,” I said over the private line. “Good job.”

  “I didn’t crash,” she replied. “So that’s new.”

  “You almost never crash.”

  “I almost never win a drill either.”

  “We’ve all got talents. Yours is sniping from a distance. Mine is swearing at people.”

  “Swearing at people? You almost never—”

  “Shut it, scudface.”

  She giggled, which made me smile. Maybe Nedd was right. Maybe she did need a chance now and then to blow off steam.

  “Now dear,” Kimmalyn said, “far be it from me to offer criticism. But that was hardly an imaginative cuss. I’ve heard that word, oh, every day since leaving Bountiful Cavern! Where I come from, you need to be circumspect.”

  “What’s the point of that?”

  “Well, you can’t have people realizing you’re disparaging them. That would be embarrassing!”

  “So you insult people…without insulting them?”

  “It’s our way. But don’t worry if that doesn’t make sense to you—personally, I think it’s inspiring that you’re comfortable being the way you are. It must have given you so many chances to learn life’s lessons!”

  “That’s…huh.” I grinned. “I like that.”

  “Thank you.”

  Our line crackled, and Jerkface’s obnoxious voice came on. “Quirk, Spin, are you two watching Hurl’s performance? You should be paying attention.”

  “I’m watching,” I snapped.

  “Good. Because from my vantage, it looked like you were sitting around gabbing and giggling.”

  “Jorgen,” Kimmalyn said, “I just want to let you know how you’re regarded as a flightleader. As the Saint is Goodly and Just, I’m certain you’ll be rewarded with everything you deserve in life!”

  “Thanks, Quirk. Stay sharp. Jorgen out.”

  I watched until the light indicating that he was on the line winked off, then I burst into a fit of laughter. “That was the most glorious thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”