inside my head. Just fragments of words.
. . . detonate . . .
. . . turn . . .
. . . booster . . .
Nedd and I burst back into that cavernous opening at the outer rim of the shipyard. My focus faded into relief, and I didn’t need M-Bot’s instructions to turn straight for the glowing gap in the wall.
Nedd and I darted out of the hole and nearly plowed right into the ground. The shipyard had almost hit the surface.
I pulled up and skimmed the blue-grey surface, kicking up dust behind me. Nedd cursed softly. We’d entered a narrow, shrinking gap of space between station and ground.
“The Krell have just detonated several large explosives on the top of the shipyard,” M-Bot said.
I bolted forward under the shipyard. The steel ceiling overhead lowered, chunks of metal breaking off and warping around us as the thing’s structural integrity collapsed.
“At current velocity, you will not escape the blast wave,” M-Bot said softly.
“Overburn, Nedd!” I shouted, slamming my throttle all the way forward. “Mag-10!” The GravCaps kicked in, but quickly overloaded, and a moment later I was smashed backward in my seat.
My face grew heavy, the skin pulling back from my eyes and around my mouth. My arms felt leaden and tried to slip away from the controls.
Ahead, the way out—freedom—was an ever-shrinking line of light.
My Poco started to rattle as I hit Mag-10, then continued, pushing to Mag-10.5. The vibration got worse, and my shield grew bright from the sudden heat of wind resistance.
Blessedly, it was enough. Nedd and I exploded out from underneath the shipyard as it crashed down, spraying dust and debris after us. But at these speeds, we quickly outran that—and outran the sound of the crash, since we were going several times the speed of sound.
I breathed out, decelerating carefully, the rattling subsiding.
Nedd on my wing, we swooped around—and in those seconds of flight after escaping, we’d gotten far enough away that I couldn’t even see the dust of the crashing shipyard. My sensors barely registered the shock wave when it finally hit us on our way to rendezvous with the others.
Eventually, we did get close enough that I could make out the enormous dust cloud the crash had caused. The wreckage itself was just a big dark shadow in the dust, swarming with smaller specks above. Krell ships, making sure nothing useful could be salvaged from the enormous wreck. Acclivity stone could often be recovered from the core of fallen debris, but concentrated destructor fire—or the intense heat from the right kind of an explosion—would ruin it.
“Finally,” Jorgen said as we fell in with the flight. “What in the stars were you two thinking?”
I didn’t respond, instead doing a count of our team. Seven ships, including mine. We’d all made it. We were sweaty, rattled, and solemn—almost nobody said anything as we met up with Riptide Flight for the return to base. But we were alive.
Coward.
Nedd’s voice echoed inside my brain, more distracting than the heat from the sensors in my helmet, or the surreal place my thoughts had gone as we flew out. Had I really thought I’d heard voices?
I wasn’t a coward. Sometimes you had to retreat. The entire DDF had pulled back from this fight. I wasn’t less of a soldier because I had convinced Nedd to escape. Right?
It was growing dark by the time we landed at the launchpad. I stripped off my helmet and climbed from the cockpit, exhausted. Jorgen met me at the bottom of the ladder.
“You still haven’t answered me,” he snapped. “I left you alone during the flight back, as I’m sure you’re rattled, but you are going to explain yourself.” He grabbed me by the arm and held on to it tightly. “You nearly got Nedd killed with that stunt.”
I sighed, then looked at his hand.
He carefully let go. “The question remains,” he said. “That was crazy, even for you. I can’t believe you’d—”
“As much as I like being the crazy one, Jerkface, I’m too tired to listen to you right now.” I nodded toward Nedd’s ship in the dim light. “He flew in. I followed. You’d rather I let him go alone?”
“Nedd?” Jorgen said. “He’s too levelheaded for something like that.”
“Maybe the rest of us are getting to him. All I know is there were a couple of Sigos from Nightstorm Flight who picked up some enemy tails, and Nedd would not let go.”
“Nightstorm Flight?” Jorgen asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
Jorgen fell silent, then turned and walked toward Nedd’s