Starsight

That had saved our lives a dozen times over when the fighting had gotten bad. Here, as soon as the enemy came at us—in the form of drones that had been outfitted with rock casings to imitate flying asteroids—the team broke apart. Brade darted in to attack them without a word from Vapor. Morriumur started shooting, but . . . well, their shots were way off, and I had to boost farther out of formation to be sure they didn’t accidentally hit me. And to be honest, I undercompensated, as this new ship wasn’t as responsive as M-Bot, and I wasn’t used to how it maneuvered.

Vapor was so busy talking to us that she forgot that her job as sniper was to start blasting the enemy ships while they were distracted. The only one of us who didn’t embarrass himself was Hesho, whose ship performed its ordered maneuvers with precision. The diminutive fox poet might have been a little dramatic, but his crew was obviously well trained. He managed to bring down four of the drones.

These drones didn’t act like the ones we fought on Detritus. Whoever was piloting them had been instructed not to dodge, but just fly around and try to collide with us. Which made sense, since they were imitating chunks of stone being moved by the delver. I was glad to see that when one got close enough to have hit Morriumur, however, it broke off before colliding and instead radioed to say Morriumur was dead. So maybe the Superiority really had learned not to use live fire during training.

We regrouped for another run, and again Brade engaged the embers immediately. Morriumur—apparently thinking that they should use Brade as a model—waded into the fight and nearly got smashed up by an approaching drone for the second time. This one didn’t pull back fast enough, but I barely managed to spear it with my light-lance and tow it away. I was rewarded by Morriumur panicking and shooting at me in a moment of confusion. Hesho, sensing that his allies were in trouble, barreled forward and started shooting in all directions.

A private line opened from Vapor to me. “Wow,” she said softly. “They seem . . . confused.”

“Confused? It’s a mess. This flight needs way more work on fundamentals.”

“If you think so, then give the orders.”

“You’re the flightleader.”

“And I’m making you my assistant flightleader,” Vapor said. “How would you fix this situation? I’m curious.”

Great. I had no leadership experience. But . . . I winced, watching the others fight. Someone needed to stop this before we ended up as rubble.

“What do you idiots think you’re doing!” I shouted into the general line. “That was the most embarrassing excuse of a hostile approach I’ve ever seen! Brade, you were ordered to clear the firing path, not fetch a fist of enemy nose hairs! Morriumur, get back here! Don’t learn bad habits by chasing someone who disobeys orders. And Hesho, you’re flying well, but you have the fire control of a child with a new toy. Everyone, disengage and fall back.”

Next, I temporarily added the Weights and Measures to the channel. “Flight Command,” I said, “Flight Fifteen is going to need to run some exercises and learn how to coordinate. Call back the drones and reset their attack vectors. Don’t send them in again until I say we’re ready for it.”

“Pardon?” a voice asked. “Um . . . you’re supposed to try flying into one of those approach tunnels in the—”

“I’m not letting my flight anywhere near your training machine until I’m sure they can fly in formation!” I shouted. “Right now, I’m convinced they’ll mistake their own backsides for the approach tunnels, and end up rammed so far up there we’ll need spelunking gear to get them out!”

Hesho chuckled softly on the line.

“Um . . . ,” Flight Command said. “I guess . . . I guess we can do that?”

The others started flying back, and the drones disengaged. Brade kept flying toward the delver maze though, so I opened a private line to her. “Brade, I’m serious. Vapor made me her XO, and I’m giving you an order. You damn well better get back in line, or I will flay you. I hear people will pay good money for a human skin to hang on their walls.”

With obvious reluctance, Brade disengaged and spun around to boost back toward us.

And . . . had that all really come out of my mouth? I sat back in my seat, my heart thundering inside me as if I’d run a race. I hadn’t specifically intended to say any of that. It had all just kind of . . . happened.

Scud. Cobb would be laughing his head off if he could hear me right now. As the others gathered back together, a private call came to me from Vapor.

“Well done,” she said. “But perhaps a tad aggressive for this group. Where did you learn to talk like that?”

“I . . . um, had an interesting flight instructor back home.”

“Tone it down,” Vapor suggested. “But I agree with you—we should do some more training before we fight. Organize them to do so.”

“You’re really going to make me do the hard part, aren’t you?” I said.