. . 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.