of dodges, all while increasing speed. I misjudged a turn, and suddenly I swung out away from them. Quickly recovering, I matched their next turn and let out a blast of destructor fire—but now I was pretty far back and the shots went wild, vanishing into space.
M-Bot read off speeds and angles for me so I didn’t have to break concentration for even the fraction of a second it would take to look at my control panel. I leaned forward, trying to match the other starfighter turn for turn—swooping, spinning, and boosting. Seeking that critical moment when we’d align just long enough for me to take a shot.
They, in turn, could twist at any moment and fire back—so they were likely watching for the same thing that I was, hoping to catch me off guard during a moment of alignment.
This perfect focus. This boiling intensity. This bizarre moment of connection where the alien pilot mirrored my efforts, striving, struggling, sweating—drawing closer and closer in a paradoxically intimate contest. For a flash we’d be as one. And then I’d kill them.
I lived for this challenge. For fighting against someone real and knowing it was either me or them. In moments like this, I didn’t fight for the DDF or humankind. I fought to prove I could.
They swooped left just as I did. They spun and pointed toward me as we came into alignment briefly—and we both shot a burst at each other.
Their shots missed. Mine didn’t. The first of my blasts broke their weakened shield. The second hit them just left of their cockpit, ripping the disclike ship apart in a flash of light.
The vacuum consumed that eagerly, and I cut to the right, dodging the debris. I took deep breaths, struggling to slow my heart. Sweat soaked the pads on my helmet and leaked down the sides of my face.
“Spensa!” M-Bot shouted. “The drones!”
Scud.
I turned my ship and boosted to the side just as three flaring explosions lit my cockpit. I winced, but those lights weren’t the result of me getting shot—they were the lights of drones exploding one after another. Two DDF ships swooped past.
“Thanks, guys,” I said, tapping the group channel on the communications panel of my dash.
“No problem,” Kimmalyn replied over the channel. “As the Saint always said, ‘Watch out for the smart ones. They tend to be stupid.’ ” She had an accent and an unhurried way of speaking—somehow intrinsically upbeat, even when she was chastising me.
“I thought the idea was for you to distract the drones,” FM said, “then bring them back toward us.” She had a confident voice, the type that sounded like it should be coming from someone twice her age.
“I was planning to do it eventually.”
“Yeah,” FM said. “And that’s why you turned off your comm so Jorgen couldn’t yell at you?”
“It wasn’t off,” I said. “I just had M-Bot running interference.”
“Jorgen really hates talking to me!” M-Bot said enthusiastically. “I can tell by the way he says so!”
“Yeah, well, the enemy is retreating,” FM said. “And you’re lucky we were already on our way to help, even before you decided to admit you were in trouble.”
I was still something of a sweaty mess—heart racing, hands slick—as I reignited my shield, then turned my ship and flew toward the other two. The course took me past the wreckage of the ship I’d defeated, which was still moving along at roughly the same speed as when I’d hit it. That was space for you.
The ship had cracked apart rather than exploding completely, and so with a chill I was able to spot the corpse of the enemy ace. A boxy alien figure. Perhaps the armor it wore could protect it from the vacuum . . .
No. As I passed by, I saw that its armor had been broken apart in the blast. The actual creature inside was kind of like a small, two-legged crab—spindly and bright blue, with carapace along the abdomen and face. I had seen some of them piloting shuttles near their space station, which was farther out, monitoring Detritus from a distance. They were our jailers, and while the data we’d stolen called this crablike race the varvax, most of us still called them the Krell—even though we knew that was an acronym in some Superiority language for a phrase about keeping humans contained, not their actual race’s name.
This one was truly dead. The liquid bath that filled its armor had spilled out into the void, first boiling explosively, then