Skyward

by Brandon Sanderson

  “Ironsides?” she said, looking me up and down. “She doesn’t often have time for cadets. Who is your flight instructor?”

  “Cobb.”

  Her expression softened. “Oh, him. That’s right, he’s got a group of students this semester, doesn’t he? It’s been a few years. Is this a complaint about him?”

  “I…Something like that.”

  “Building C,” she said, pointing with her chin. “You’ll find the admiral’s personal staff in the antechamber of office D. They can move you to another flight. Honestly, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. I know he’s a First Citizen and all, but…Anyway, good luck.”

  I walked out of the building. My resolve grew more firm with each step, and I quickened my pace. I would explain what I’d done and demand punishment. I controlled my own destiny—even if that destiny was expulsion.

  Building C was a daunting brick structure on the far side of the base. Built like a bunker, with only slits for windows, it seemed the exact sort of place I’d find Ironsides. How was I going to talk my way past her staff? I didn’t want some minor functionary to be the one who expelled me.

  I peeked in a few windows on the outside of the building, and Ironsides wasn’t difficult to find, though her office was shockingly small. A little corner of a room, stuffed with books and nautical memorabilia. Through the window, I saw her glance at the old-fashioned clock on the wall, then close her notebook and stand.

  I’ll catch her on the way out, I decided. I moved to the front of the building to wait, preparing my speech. No excuses. Just an outlining of facts.

  As I waited, I heard another buzzing from my pack. Was that it, then? The call for me to report for discipline? I dug the radio out and hit the button.

  Something odd came through the line. Music.

  It was incredible. Otherworldly—unlike anything I’d ever heard before. A large group of instruments playing alongside one another in sweeping, moving, beautiful coordination. Not just a person with a flute or a drum. A hundred gorgeous winds, a thrumming pulse of drums—high brass, like the call to arms, but used not as a battle cry. More…more as a soul for the stately, powerful melody.

  I stood frozen in place, listening, stunned as it played over the radio. Like light somehow. The beauty of the stars, but…but as a sound. A triumphant, amazing, incredible sound.

  It cut off suddenly.

  “No,” I said, shaking the radio. “No, give me more.”

  “My recording is corrupted beyond that point,” M-Bot said. “I’m sorry.”

  “What was it?”

  “The New World Symphony. Dvořák. You asked me what human society was like, from before. I found this fragment.”

  Despite myself, I felt my knees buckle. I sat down on a planter beside the doors into the building, holding the precious radio.

  We’d created things like that? Sounds so beautiful? How many people had to get together to play that? We had musicians, of course, but before Alta, the gathering of too many people in one place had led to destruction. So by tradition, our performers were limited to trios. This had sounded like hundreds.

  How much practice, how much time, had been devoted to something so frivolous—and so wonderful—as making music?

  Set your sights on something higher.

  I heard voices approaching inside the building. I stuffed the radio away and, feeling foolish, wiped the corners of my eyes. Right. Turning myself in. Time to do this.

  The door swung open, and Ironsides—wearing a crisp white uniform—stepped out. “I can’t understand why your father would think that, cadet,” she was saying. “Obviously I’d have chosen a different instructor for you, if not for your family’s own demands—”

  She stopped in place, noting me on the pathway. I bit my lip. An aide was holding the door open for her—and I realized that I recognized that aide. A brown-skinned young man in a cadet’s jumpsuit and a uniform coat.

  Jerkface. So he had beaten me here.

  “Admiral,” I said, saluting.

  “You,” she said, lips turning down. “Aren’t you forbidden to use DDF facilities after the end of classes? Do I need to summon the MPs to escort you away? Honestly, we need to have a conversation about that. Are you really living in an uncharted cave instead of returning down below?”

  “Sir,” I said, still holding the salute. I didn’t look at Jorgen. “I take full responsibility for my actions. I find that I must formally request that I be subject to—”

  Jerkface slammed the door, making the admiral jump and me stop talking. He shot me a glare.

  “I…,” I continued, looking back at the admiral. “I must formally request that I be subject to disciplinary—”

  “Excuse me, Admiral,” Jerkface said quickly. “This is about me. Just a minute.” He marched over and grabbed my arm. He flinched as I immediately raised a fist, but I reluctantly let him pull me away.

  The admiral didn’t seem inclined to wait for two cadets. She walked on with a sniff and climbed into a sleek black hovercar waiting on the roadway.

  “What is wrong with you?” Jerkface hissed at me.

  “I’m turning myself in,” I said, lifting my chin. “I won’t let your side be the only side she hears.”

  “Stars above.” He glanced at the car and lowered his voice. “Go home, Spin. Are you trying to get yourself expelled?”

  “I’m not going to sit around and wait for you to send them after me. I’m going to fight.”

  “Haven’t you fought enough for one day?” He rubbed his brow. “Just go. I’ll see you tomorrow in class.”

  What? I was having trouble following his logic. He wanted me to suffer first, perhaps?

  “You’re planning to turn me in tomorrow instead?” I asked.

  “I don’t intend to ‘turn you in’ at all. You think I want to lose another member of my flight? We need every pilot.”

  I put my hands on my hips and studied him. He seemed…sincere. Annoyed, but sincere. “So…wait. Why are you meeting the admiral?”

  “We host the admiral once a week for formal dinner at my parents’ house in the lower caverns,” he said. “It’s only slightly worse than the other nights, when the National Assembly Leaders visit. Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have provoked you. A leader needs to pull people after him, not push them before him.” He nodded to me, as if that were enough.

  I wasn’t convinced. I’d gotten myself all built up for this, braced for impact, ready to take a destructor to the face. Now he was simply…going to let me go?

  “I stole your car’s power matrix,” I blurted out.

  “What?”

  “I know you suspect me. Well, I did it. So go ahead. Turn me in.”

  “Stars! That was you?”

  “Um…Yes, obviously. Who else would it be?”

  “The thing had a bad starter, and I’d called in a guild mechanic. I figured he’d come and worked on it for some reason.”

  “At the base?”

  “I don’t know! The bureaucracy in those places is incredible. When I called to complain, they made excuses, so I figured…” He put his hand to his head. “Why in the world would you rip out my power matrix?”

  “Um…I needed to destroy your morale.” I winced at the bad lie. “By leaving you powerless and impotent? Yeah, a symbol of my complete and total undermining of your authority! A defiant emblem! I carried it off, like an ancient barbarian warlord, who would steal the heart of—”

  “Wasn’t that a lot of work? Couldn’t you have just discharged the acclivity ring like a normal human being?”

  “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Never mind. You can make it up to me later. By, maybe, not insulting me in front of the rest of the flight. For one day at least?”

  I stood there, processing. He seemed to actually
not want a fight. Huh.

  “Look,” Jerkface said, glancing at the black car. “I know something of what it’s like to live in your parents’ shadow. All right? I’m sorry. I won’t do…what I did again. But no more punching me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He nodded to me and jogged off, apologizing to the admiral as he climbed into the car.

  “Next time I’ll kick instead!” I called after him. “Ha!” But of course he couldn’t hear. I watched them drive off, then shook my head and picked up my pack. I didn’t understand Jorgen at all. I was still in the DDF somehow. And he…Jorgen didn’t want revenge. He didn’t want to fight me.

  Though once I might have laughed at that, strangely I found the way he’d acted to be noble. He put the flight first.

  Set your sights on something higher…

  I lifted the radio to my head as I walked out of the base, a mess of conflicting emotions—but mostly relieved. “M-Bot. Play that song fragment for me a few times more, please.”

  I settled into my Poco, wearing my pressure suit and helmet—my first time in a real cockpit since Bim and Morningtide had died.

  That immediately made something inside me hurt. Would it be like this every time, from now on? Would I always have this quiet worry at the back of my mind? The one that whispered, “Which of your friends won’t make it home from this mission?”

  Today was supposed to be something more routine though. Not a battle. I powered on the Poco and felt that wonderful hum—the one the simulation couldn’t imitate.

  I gripped the control sphere in my right hand, the throttle in my left, then lifted off and climbed into the sky alongside the other six fighters. Jorgen counted us off with confirmations, then called Cobb.

  “Skyward Flight ready. Orders, sir?”

  “Go to 304.16-1240-25000,” Cobb said.

  “Flight, set coordinates,” Jorgen said. “I’ll take point. In case of a Krell ambush, I’ll fall back with Arturo and FM. Nedd, you’re with Quirk in the middle formation. Spin and Hurl, I want you in the rear prepared to spray covering fire.”

  “There won’t be an ambush, cadet,” Cobb said, sounding amused. “Just get to the indicated location.”

  We flew, and stars…it felt good. The ship trembled as it moved, responding to my commands. Wind currents were so much more alive than the simulation made them seem. I wanted to swoop back and forth, fly low and skim the crater-marked surface, then soar up high and buzz the debris field at the very edges of space.

  I kept myself under control. I could do that.

  Eventually, we approached a large group of fighters flying way up higher. There were a good five flights up there.

  “Nearing coordinates,” Jorgen said to Cobb. “What’s going on? A training exercise?”

  “For you, yes,” Cobb said. Overhead, a few streaks of light marked smaller bits of debris breaking into the atmosphere. I watched, concerned.

  “Hey, know-it-all,” Cobb said.

  “Yes, sir?” Arturo answered immediately.

  “What causes debris falls?” Cobb asked.

  “Various things,” Arturo said. “There are a lot of ancient mechanisms up there, and though many still work, their power matrixes are slowly running out, so their orbits decay and they fall. Other times, collisions happen.”

  “Right,” Cobb said. “Well, that’s what we’re facing here. There was some kind of collision between two enormous chunks of metal above, and that’s making some debris lose its orbit. We can expect a Krell incursion, and those fighters are here to watch. But you’re here for another reason: a little target practice.”

  “On what, sir?”

  Several large chunks of debris dropped out of the sky, burning past the flights above us.

  “The debris,” I guessed.

  “I want you flying in pairs,” Cobb said. “You’re going to practice formations and do careful runs. Pick a larger piece of debris, follow it for a few seconds, then tag it for salvage to investigate. Your destructors have been outfitted to fire beacons if you pull the rate control dial out until it clicks.”

  “That’s it?” Hurl said. “Tagging pieces of space junk?”

  “Space junk can’t dodge,” Cobb said, “doesn’t have shields, and accelerates predictably. I figure that’s right about your skill level. Besides, you’ll often be ordered to tag salvage during debris falls, while waiting to see if the Krell attack. It’s good practice—so don’t complain, or I’ll stuff you back in the simulations for another month.”

  “We’re ready and willing, sir,” Jorgen said. “Hurl included. Thank you for this opportunity.”

  Hurl made a few gagging noises into a private line to FM and Kimmalyn—the lights on the console under the ship numbers showed me who was listening—and she didn’t leave me off. Which seemed like maybe a step forward?

  Jorgen arranged us into pairs and set us to work. When larger chunks of debris fell from the sky, we’d swoop down behind them and match speed—like we’d been taught—before shooting a radio beacon into them. The most useful debris were the ones that glowed blue with acclivity stone. We could salvage that to make ships.

  I let myself enjoy the work. It wasn’t actual fighting, but the feel of the dive, the thrill of targeting and firing…I could imagine the chunks of space debris as Krell ships.

  “Are you ignoring me again?” M-Bot asked in my ear. “I think you’re ignoring me again.”

  “How can I ignore you,” I said with a grunt, tagging another chunk of debris, “if I don’t know you’re listening?”

  “I’m always listening.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little creepy?”

  “Nope! What are you doing?”

  I pulled out of my dive, with Hurl on my wing, and settled back into formation to wait for my next turn. “I’m shooting space junk.”

  “What did it do to you?”

  “Nothing. It’s just practice.”

  “But it can’t even shoot back!”

  “M-Bot, it’s space junk.”

  “As if that were an excuse.”

  “It…It actually is,” I said. “It’s a really good excuse.”

  Kimmalyn took a run, Arturo at her wing. She did pretty well, for her, though Jorgen still found reason to nitpick. “Pull in tighter,” he told her as she swooped down. “Now don’t ride it too close—if you were using real destructors to shoot it, chunks might fly back and hit you. Make sure you don’t squeeze too hard when you fire…”

  “Not to complain,” she said, sounding tense, “but I do believe I should focus right now.”

  “Sorry,” Jorgen snapped. “I’ll try to be less helpful in the future.”

  “Dear, I think you’ll find that difficult.” She tagged the chunk of debris, then sighed in relief.

  “Nice work, Quirk,” Jorgen said. “Nedder, you take next run with FM on wing.”

  Kimmalyn fell into line as, up above, several chunks of space debris fell at once. The regular fighters moved out of the way, letting them pass. We were flying relatively high, to give us time for good dives, so the ground was far below—though we were still very far from the rubble belt itself, the lowest layers of which flew three hundred kilometers above the surface of the planet.

  Nedd picked one of the chunks and fell in behind it, ignoring the other three. So Kimmalyn charged her destructors for long range and then sniped all three pieces, tagging one right after another, without missing a single time.

  “Stop showing off, Quirk,” Cobb said.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  I frowned, then called Cobb in private. “Cobb? Do you ever wonder if we’re doing this wrong?”

  “Of course you’re doing it wrong. You’re cadets.”

  “No,” I said. “I mean…” How could I explain? “Quirk, she’s a really good shot. Isn’t
there a better way to use her? She feels like a failure in most of our exercises, because she’s the worst pilot. Maybe she could just snipe for us?”

  “And how long do you think she’d sit out there popping off Krell before they swarmed her? Remember, if they decide any one pilot is too dangerous, they focus on that person.”

  “Maybe we could use that. You said that anytime you can anticipate an enemy, that’s an advantage, right?”

  He grunted. “Leave the tactics to the admirals, Spin.” He turned off the line as Nedd successfully tagged the debris.

  “Good night, sweet prince,” M-Bot whispered as the junk crashed to the ground. “Or princess. Or, most likely, genderless piece of inanimate space junk.”

  I looked up above, watching for more debris. Hurl would be on the next run, and I’d be her wing. Some junk was definitely moving up there. Several pieces of it…swarming down…

  Not junk. Krell.

  I bolted upright, hand going tense on my control sphere. Multiple flights of the enemy emerged from the rubble belt, and the full pilots moved to engage them.

  “Fly down to twenty thousand feet, cadets,” Cobb said. “You’ll be here as reserves, but those pilots should be able to handle this. Looks like…only about thirty enemy ships.”

  I settled back, but couldn’t relax as explosions began to light the sky. Soon, the debris falling around us wasn’t solely from the rubble belt. Cobb called for Hurl to do her run. Apparently we were going to continue despite the fighting, which was probably good training, as I thought about it.

  Hurl performed an excellent maneuver, with a precise set of shots at the end. “Nice,” I told her as we fell into line. I didn’t get a reply, of course.

  “Alas, poor space junk,” M-Bot said. “I would have pretended to know you, if I were capable of lying.”

  “Can’t you do anything useful?”

  “…This isn’t useful?”

  “What about those Krell up there?” I asked him. “Can’t you…I don’t know, tell me about their ships or something?”

  “At this range, I have access only to general scanners,” he said. “They’re merely little blips to me, no specifics.”