said, voice trembling.
“Be ready to pick this guy off.”
“Oh! Um, okay. Okay . . .”
The enormous falling vessel loomed overhead. Arturo had been right; its descent was slow, steady. But it was old and broken, with gaping holes in it. The battlefield continued in a wide, shadowed section of open air underneath it, filled with dogfighting ships and lines of destructor fire.
My tail got a shot on me, and my shield crackled.
Focus. I’d practiced this a hundred times in simulation. I pulled up into a loop, my tail following. At the top of the curve, I performed a starfighter maneuver—ignoring air resistance, I turned my ship on its axis and slammed on my overburn, darting out of the loop to the side.
My GravCaps flared, buffering most of the g-forces, but my stomach still practically climbed up my throat. The simulations did not do justice to exactly how disorienting this was, particularly when the GravCaps cut out and I got slammed back into my seat.
I was supposed to be able to handle that kind of force, and I didn’t black out—so technically, I did handle it. But I nearly threw up.
My proximity alarm went off. The Krell ship, as hoped, hadn’t compensated fast enough. It had continued the loop, and I shot out of my maneuver right past it. I fought through the nausea and slammed the IMP—taking down my shield and that of my tail.
I braced myself. I was completely open. If that Krell got turned toward me and fired off a single shot—
A flash came behind me, and a shock wave washed across my ship.
“I got him,” Kimmalyn said. “I . . . I did it!”
“Thanks,” I said, exhaling in relief, letting off my overburners. I continued in a straight line, starting to slow, as I turned off my booster and primed my shield igniter. My helmet felt hot and sweaty against my head as my fingers moved through the familiar motions. Thank the stars for Cobb’s training; my body knew what to do.
A Krell ship came in, spotting me coasting on my momentum. I cringed, but a spray of weapons fire sent the ship scattering away.
“I’ve got you,” Nedd said, zipping overhead. “Quirk, join me in a defensive pattern.”
“Gotcha,” Kimmalyn said.
“No need,” I said, slamming the igniter. “I’m back up. Shall we get out of here?”
“Gladly,” Kimmalyn said.
I led the other two in a course that I hoped would get us out, then called Jorgen. “We’re at heading 304.8,” I told him. “Did the rest of you get out from underneath this thing?”
“Affirmative,” Jorgen said. “We passed out of the shadow at 303.97-1210.3-21200. We’ll wait for you here, Spin.”
He sounded calm, which was honestly more than I could say for myself. I couldn’t help imagining more empty seats in our classroom.
“Are you ready for my analysis?” M-Bot said.
“That depends on how often it will mention mushrooms.”
“Only once, I’m afraid. The thing you see looming overhead is around half of a C-137-KJM orbital shipyard with added delver training facility. I don’t know exactly what that is, but I believe it must have been for manufacturing starships. There’s no sign of the other half, but this chunk has probably been floating up there for centuries, judging by the low power output of those acclivity rings.
“My projections indicate its orbit has decayed now that it doesn’t have enough power for self-correction. It doesn’t seem to have an AI—or if it does have one, it refuses to talk to me, which is rude. The Krell attack patterns indicate a defensive goal, intended to keep you away from the station.”
“Really?” I asked. “Repeat that last part.”
“Hm? Oh, it’s obvious from their flight patterns. They aren’t worried about actually killing you or getting to your base or anything. Today, they just want to keep you away from this ship, likely because of the fantastic salvage it would provide for your backward, fleshy society of slow-ship-fliers.”
That made sense. They sometimes shot down debris to keep us from getting acclivity rings. How worried must they be about us capturing this thing, with hundreds of them?
“Also, it looks a little like a mushroom,” M-Bot added.
Another pair of DDF fighters—perhaps the same ones we’d seen before—bolted past, tailed by a large group of Krell.
“Hey,” Nedd said. “Spin and Quirk, you two get out. You’re almost there. I need to do something.”
“What?” I said, turning to look over my shoulder. “Nedder?”
He broke off from our flight pattern, giving chase to the Krell ships that had passed us. What did