I fixed my gaze on the body, slowing M-Bot, and hummed softly one of the songs of my ancestors. A Viking song for the dead.
Well fought, I thought to the Krell’s departing soul. Nearby, some of our salvage ships came swooping in from where they’d watched the fight in relative safety nearer the planet. We always salvaged Krell ships, especially those that had been flown by living pilots. There was a chance we’d be able to capture a broken Superiority hyperdrive that way. They didn’t travel using the minds of pilots. They had some kind of actual technology that let them travel between stars.
“Spin?” Kimmalyn called to me. “You coming?”
“Yeah,” I said. I turned away and fell into line with her and FM. “M-Bot? How would you judge that pilot’s flying abilities?”
“Somewhere near your own,” M-Bot said. “And their ship was more advanced than any we’d faced before. I’ll be honest, Spensa—mostly because I’m programmed to be incapable of lying—I think that fight could have gone either way.”
I nodded, feeling much the same. I’d gone toe-to-toe with that ace. On one hand, it was a nice affirmation that my skill wasn’t tied only to my abilities to touch the nowhere. But coming fully out of my trance now—feeling the odd sense of deflated purpose that always tailed a battle—I found myself strangely worried. In all our time fighting here, we’d seen only a handful of these black ships piloted by live beings.
If the Krell really wanted to kill us, why send so few aces? And . . . was this really the best they had? I was good, but I’d been flying for less than a year. Our stolen information indicated that our enemies ran an enormous galactic coalition of hundreds of planets. Surely they had access to pilots who were better than I was.
Something struck me as off about all of this. The Krell used to only ever send a maximum of a hundred drones against us at once. They’d relaxed that, and now they would field upward of a hundred and twenty at once . . . but that still seemed a small number, considering the apparent size of their coalition.
So what was going on? Why were they still holding back?
Kimmalyn, FM, and I rejoined the rest of our fighters. The DDF was growing stronger and stronger. We’d lost only a single ship today, when in the past we’d lose half a dozen or more in each battle. And we were gaining momentum. In the last two months we’d begun deploying the first of our ships fabricated using technology learned from M-Bot. It had only been half a year since our casualties in the Battle of Alta Second, but the boost to our morale—and the fact that our pilots were surviving longer to hone their skills—was making us stronger by the day.
By intercepting the enemy out here, and not letting them get in close, we’d been able to expand our salvage operations. Because of this, we were not only reclaiming the closest of the defense platforms, but we were also able to scavenge materials for more and more ships.
All this meant shipbuilding and recruitment were both increasing dramatically. We’d soon have enough acclivity stone, and enough pilots, to field hundreds of starships.
Together, it was an ever-increasing snowball effect of progress. Still, a part of me worried. The Krell’s behavior was odd. And beyond that, we had a huge disadvantage. They could travel the galaxy, while we were trapped on one planet.
Unless I learned how to use my powers.
“Um, Spensa?” M-Bot said. “Jorgen is calling, and I think he’s annoyed.”
I sighed, then hit the line. “Skyward Ten, reporting in.”
“Are you all right?” he asked with a stern voice.
“Yeah.”
“Good. We’ll discuss this later.” He cut the line.
I winced. He wasn’t annoyed . . . he was furious.
Sadie—the new girl who had been assigned as my wingmate—flew up behind me in Skyward Nine. I sensed a nervousness to the posture of her ship, though perhaps I was reading too much into things. According to our plans, I’d left her behind when the Krell had sent an overwhelming force to destroy me. Fortunately, she’d had enough sense to follow orders and stay close to the others rather than tail me.
We had to wait for orders from Flight Command before flying back toward the planet, so we hovered in space for a short time. And as we did, Kimmalyn nudged her ship up beside mine. I glimpsed