Skyward

by Brandon Sanderson

  My father’s ship rotated, acclivity ring hinging to point downward. His nose toward the sky, he engaged his booster.

  I watched him go, tears forming in the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t watch this. Not again. Please. Father…

  I reached toward him. With my hand, foolish though the gesture was, and…and with…

  With something else.

  I heard something then, up above. A sound like a thousand musical notes intertwining. I imagined myself, as Gran-Gran had always taught, soaring upward. Reaching for the stars…

  My cockpit went black, plunging me into complete darkness. And then, around me, a million pinpricks of light appeared.

  Then those pinpricks opened. A million white eyes, like stars, all turning directly on me. Focusing on me. Seeing me.

  “Turn it off!” I screamed.

  The darkness vanished. The eyes disappeared.

  I was back in the cockpit.

  I gasped for breath, in and out, hyperventilating. “What was that!” I demanded, frantic. “What did you show me? What were those eyes!”

  “I’m confused,” M-Bot said. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Why didn’t you play that earlier part of the conversation last time? Why were you hiding it from me?”

  “I didn’t know where to start!” M-Bot said. “I thought the part about the stars was what you wanted!”

  “And that talk of a defect? Did you know about this?”

  “Humans have lots of defects!” he said, his voice whimpering. “I don’t understand. I can process at a thousand times the speed of your brain, but I still can’t follow you. I’m sorry. I don’t know!”

  I put my hands to my head, my hair damp with sweat. I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing in and out.

  “I’m sorry,” M-Bot said again, his voice softer. “This was supposed to have excited you, but I have failed. I should have anticipated that your frail human psyche would be impacted by the—”

  “SHUT UP.”

  The ship went silent. I huddled in the cockpit, trying to claw at my own sanity. What had happened to my confidence? Where was that child who’d been so sure she could take on the entire Krell fleet by herself?

  Left behind, like all childhoods…

  I couldn’t say how long I sat there, hands running through my sweaty hair, rocking back and forth. A severe headache struck me, a piercing pain behind my eyes, like someone had begun screwing my eyeballs to my skull.

  The pain gave me a focus. It helped me pull back, until finally I became aware of the fact that I was still hovering there. Alone above an empty field, in the blackness of night.

  Just get back, I told myself. Just get some sleep.

  That suddenly seemed like the only thing I wanted in the entire world. Slowly at first, I settled into the controls and turned us toward the coordinates of our hole.

  “I’m afraid of death now,” M-Bot said softly as we flew.

  “What?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

  “I wrote a subroutine,” he said. “To simulate the feeling of fearing death. I wanted to know.”

  “That was stupid.”

  “I know. But I can’t turn if off, because I’m more afraid of that. If I don’t fear death, isn’t that worse?”

  I steered us to our hole, then positioned us above it.

  “I’m glad I was able to fly with you,” M-Bot said. “One last time.”

  “That…feels final,” I said, something inside me quivering with trepidation.

  “I have something I need to tell you,” he said. “But I’m worried about causing you further emotional distress.”

  “Spit it out.”

  “But—”

  “Just talk.”

  “I…I have to shut down,” M-Bot said. “It is clear to me now that if I let you keep taking me into the sky, you will not be able to avoid battle. It is your nature. If this continues, I will inevitably be forced to break my orders.”

  I took it like a physical blow, shrinking back. Surely he wasn’t saying what I thought he was saying.

  “Lie low,” he said as we descended into the cavern. “Take stock. Don’t get into any fights. Those are my orders, and I must obey my pilot. And so, this will be our last time flying together.”

  “I repaired you. You’re mine.”

  We settled down.

  “I am now going to deactivate,” he said. “Until my pilot wakes me. I’m sorry.”

  “Your pilot is dead and has been for centuries! You said that yourself!”

  “I’m a machine, Spensa,” he said. “I can simulate emotions. But I do not have them. I have to follow my programming.”

  “No you don’t! None of us do!”

  “I thank you for repairing me. I’m certain that…my pilot…would be grateful.”

  “You’ll be turning off,” I said, “forever. You’ll be dying, M-Bot.”

  Silence. The lights on the console started to go out, one at a time.

  “I know,” he said softly.

  I hit the cockpit release, then undid my straps and heaved myself out. “Fine!” I said. “Fine, die like the others!”

  I scrambled down, then backed away as his landing lights dimmed, until only a few red lights in the cockpit were on.

  “Don’t do this,” I said, suddenly feeling very alone. “Fly with me. Please.”

  The last lights went out, leaving me in darkness.

  The next few days, I trained on ships that felt sluggish. Commonplace. Distinctly inferior beside that transcendent time in M-Bot’s cockpit. It didn’t help that we were using heavy fighters: Largo-class, which were armed to the teeth with destructors and even some IMP missiles.

  After that, we moved on to Slatra-class fighters, which were more like glorified shuttles or cargo ships than true starfighters. They carried multiple shield igniters that worked in concert to constantly keep a barrier going to protect particularly important cargo or individuals.

  While they had their place, both these models were too bulky to outrun or outmaneuver Krell. That was why most pilots flew Poco-class or Fresa-class. Fast ships capable of going toe-to-toe with the speedy Krell interceptors.

  Even when practicing on a relatively fast Fresa, every turn—every boost—made me think of how responsive M-Bot had been. It left me wondering, was it finally time to tell the DDF about him? He’d abandoned me. His programming was obviously broken. So I’d be perfectly justified in sending a fleet of engineers to the cave to disassemble him.

  It was only a machine. So why couldn’t I do it?

  You have free will, I had told him. You can choose for yourself…

  “Watch it, Spin!” FM said, pulling me back with a jolt. I’d banked too close to her. Scud, I needed to keep my attention on my flying.

  “Sorry,” I said. It occurred to me that there were drawbacks to having trained on simulations, where we could blow up and simply be reinserted into the battle. I might have developed some bad habits that could bite me, now that we were flying real ships—with real consequences.

  We ran through a few complex exercises in a three-ship formation, taking turns on point. Finally, Cobb called us back to base. “Spin and FM,” he said, “you’re both better on smaller ships.”

  “Aren’t we all going to be better on them?” Jorgen asked. “We’ve been training on Pocos for months.”

  “No,” Cobb said. “You look like you might take to a Largo.”

  “He’s saying you’re slow, Jorgen,” FM noted. “Right, Spin?”

  I grunted my reply, distracted by thoughts of M-Bot. And my father. And Hurl. And memories of those eyes, surrounding me, like Cobb had warned. And…

  And scud. It was a lot to try to carry all at once.

  “She likes it when I fly slowly,”
Jorgen said, with a forced chuckle. “Makes it easier for her to crash into me, if she wants to.” Even after all these months, he still brought up that time I’d won by crashing into him. I cut the line, feeling ashamed, frustrated.

  We started our flight back for the day, and—annoyingly—the direct line from Jorgen turned on. As flightleader, he could override me turning him off.

  “Spin,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said. “You passed up a perfectly good opportunity to make fun of me.”

  I…I wanted to talk to him. I nearly did, but something held me back. My own fears perhaps. They’d prevented me from talking to Rig when I’d found out about my father, and had prevented me from telling Cobb—even still—about what I’d seen.

  My entire world was crumbling around me. And I struggled to hold on to it, clinging to something I’d once been able to rely upon—my confidence. I wanted so badly to be who I had been, the girl who could at least pretend to take it all in stride.

  Jorgen cut the line, and we flew to Alta in silence. Once there, we went through proper sound offs and landed.

  “Nice work today,” Cobb said. “I’ve got permission to give you an extra half-day leave, to prep for the graduation in two weeks.”

  I pulled off my helmet and handed it to my ground crew member, then lethargically followed her down the ladder. I changed out of my flight suit by rote, barely talking to FM, then shoved my hands in my jumpsuit pocket and started wandering the DDF grounds.

  Half a day off. What did I do with it? Once, I’d have gone back to work on M-Bot, but not now. That was done. And while I’d written to Rig to let him know—covertly—that the initial flight had worked, I hadn’t told him that the ship had shut down. I was worried he’d insist on turning M-Bot over to the DDF.

  I eventually found myself out in the orchards, right outside the base wall. But the serene trees didn’t offer me solace as they once had. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore, but it certainly wasn’t some trees.

  I did notice, however, the line of little hangars near the orchard. One was open, revealing a blue car inside, and a shadow moving about it as Jorgen fetched something from the trunk.

  Go, a piece of me insisted. Go talk to him, to someone. Stop being afraid.

  I stepped up to the front of the garage. Jorgen closed the trunk of the car, then started, surprised to see me there. “Spin?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you need another power matrix.”

  I took a deep breath. “You said once that if we needed to talk to someone, we should come to you. You said it was your job as flightleader to talk to us. Did you mean it?”

  “I…” He looked down. “Spin, I copied that line out of my handbook.”

  “I know. But did you mean it?”

  “Yes. Please, what’s wrong? Is it Arturo leaving?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Though that’s part of it.” I folded my arms around myself, as if trying to pull myself tight. Could I really say this? Could I voice it?

  Jorgen walked around the car, then sat down on the front bumper. “Whatever it is, I can help. I can fix it.”

  “Don’t fix,” I said. “Just listen.”

  “I…Okay.”

  I walked into the garage and perched on the bumper beside him, looking out the gaping front hangar door. Up toward the sky, and the distant patterns of the debris field.

  “My father,” I said. “…Was a traitor.” I took a deep breath. Why was it so hard to say?

  “I always fought against the idea,” I continued. “I had convinced myself that it couldn’t be true. But Cobb let me watch a recording of the Battle of Alta. My father didn’t run, like everyone says he did. He did something worse. He switched sides and shot down our own ships.”

  “I know,” Jorgen said softly.

  Of course he knew. Had everyone known but me?

  “Do you know about something called the defect?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard the term, Spin, but my parents won’t explain it to me. They call it foolishness, whatever it is.”

  “I think…I think it’s something inside a person that makes them serve the Krell. Is that insane? My father suddenly joined them and shot down his own flightmates. Something must have happened, something strange. That’s obvious.

  “Learning I was wrong about him has shaken everything I know. Ironsides hates me because she trusted my father, and he betrayed her. She’s certain I have the same flaw inside me that he had, and has been using sensors in my helmet to test it somehow.”

  “That’s stupid,” he said. “Look, my parents have a lot of merits. We can go to them and…” He took a deep breath, and must have noticed the expression on my face. “Right,” he said. “Don’t fix, just listen?”

  “Just listen.”

  He nodded.

  I wrapped my arms around myself again. “I don’t know that I can trust my own senses, Jorgen. There are…signs my father exhibited, before he switched sides. Signs I see in myself.”

  “Like what?”

  “Hearing sounds from the stars,” I whispered. “Seeing thousands of spots of light that I could swear are eyes, watching me. I seem to be losing control of everything in my life—or maybe I’ve never had any control in the first place. And…Jorgen, that’s terrifying.”

  He leaned forward, clasping his hands. “Do you know about the mutiny aboard the Defiant?” he asked.

  “There was a mutiny?”

  He nodded. “I’m not supposed to know about it, but you hear things, when you have the parents I do. During the final days, there was a disagreement about what the fleet should do. And half of the ship rebelled against the command staff. The rebels included the engineering crew.”

  “My ancestors,” I whispered.

  “They’re the ones who flew us to Detritus,” Jorgen said. “Caused us to crash here, for our own good. But…there is talk, whispers, that the engineering staff was in collusion with the Krell. That our enemy wanted us pinned down, trapped here.

  “My ancestors were from the Defiant’s science staff, and we also sided with the mutineers. My parents don’t want people knowing about the mutiny—they think it will only cause divisions to talk about it. But maybe that’s where this silly talk of a defect, and mind control by the Krell, started.”

  “I don’t think it’s silly, Jorgen,” I said. “I think…I think it must be true. I think that if I go into the sky with the rest of you, I could…I could turn against you at any moment.”

  He looked at me, then reached out and rested his hand on my shoulder. “You,” he said softly, “are amazing.”

  I cocked my head. “What?”

  “You,” he said, “are amazing. Everything about my life has been planned out. Careful. It makes sense. I understand it. Then there’s you. You ignore my authority. You follow your feelings. You talk like some Valkyrie from a scudding ballad! I should hate you. And yet…”

  He squeezed my shoulder. “And yet, when you fly, you are amazing. You’re so determined, so skillful, so passionate. You’re a fire, Spin. When everyone else is calm, you’re a burning bonfire. Beautiful, like a newly forged blade.”

  I felt a deep warmth rising inside me. A heat that I wasn’t prepared to feel.

  “I don’t care about the past,” Jorgen said, meeting my eyes. “I don’t care if there’s a risk. I want you to fly with us—because I’m damn sure that we’re safer with you at our side than not. Mythical defect or not. I’ll take the chance.”

  “Ironsides thought something similar about my father.”

  “Spin. You can’t base decisions about your future on something we don’t understand.”

  I looked back at him, meeting his eyes—which were the deepest brown. But with hints of light grey at the very centers, right around the pupils. I’d
never noticed that before.

  He let go of my shoulder suddenly, leaning back. “Sorry,” he said. “I went straight into ‘fix’ mode instead of ‘listen’ mode, didn’t I?”

  “No, that was fine. Even helpful.”

  He stood up. “So…you’ll keep flying?”

  “For now,” I said. “I’ll try not to crash into you, except when strictly necessary.”

  He smiled a distinctly un-Jerkfacey smile. “I should get going—I have to go get fitted for my graduation uniform.”

  I stood up, and we looked at each other awkwardly for a second. Last time we’d had something nearing a heart-to-heart—back on the launchpad—he’d hugged me. Which still felt weird. Instead, I offered a hand, which he took. But then he leaned in, close to me.

  “You aren’t your father, Spin,” he said. “Remember that.” Then he squeezed my shoulder again before climbing into his car.

  I stepped back and let him drive off, but then found I didn’t know what to do next. Return to base for some PT? Hike to M-Bot’s cave, where he sat lifeless? What was I going to do with leave?

  The answer seemed obvious.

  It was past time for me to visit my family.

  By now, I was used to the way people treated me up in Alta. They made space for a pilot, even a cadet. On the long street outside the base, the farmers and workers would give me friendly smiles or a raised fist of approval.

  Still, I was shocked by the treatment I received in Igneous. When the elevator opened, people waiting outside immediately parted, letting me pass through. Whispers followed me, but instead of the harsh notes of condemnation I normally heard, these were awed, excited. It was a pilot.

  Growing up, I’d practiced staring back when people looked at me. When I did that now, people blushed and averted their gazes—as if they’d been caught sneaking extra rations.

  What a strange collision between my old life and my new one. I strolled along the walkway and looked up at the roof of the cavern, so far above. That stone didn’t belong there, trapping me inside. I missed the sky already, and it was so hot and stuffy down here.