Starsight

“A good commander knows when to appoint a good drill instructor. You’ve been in the military before. You obviously know this.”

I sighed, but she was right, and I’d walked right into the job. As the flight gathered together, I explained one of Cobb’s old formation exercises, one he’d adapted for space fighting once we’d started training out in the vacuum. Vapor quietly joined the line, and soon I had them flying pretty much in an organized way. As much as I hated being put in charge, I could run these exercises practically in my sleep, so I was good at watching the others and giving them tips.

They soon got the hang of it. Much faster than Skyward Flight had, actually. This group had good piloting instincts; most just didn’t have formal combat training.

Vapor is used to working on her own, I decided as we flew through a shifting exercise where we traded places in formation to confuse an oncoming enemy flight.

Morriumur was timid, but willing to learn. Hesho was accustomed to having people follow his lead, and was often surprised when the rest of us didn’t know instinctively what he wanted to do. He needed to learn better communication.

Brade was the worst. Though she was the best pilot, she kept trying to go on ahead. Far too eager.

“You need to stay with the rest of us,” I said, calling her. “Don’t keep trying to go ahead.”

“I’m a human,” Brade snapped. “We’re aggressive. Deal with it.”

“Just earlier you said you didn’t spend time around humans,” I said, “and therefore didn’t know their habits. You can’t play the ‘I’m not like them’ card, then use your nature as a human as an excuse.”

“I try to hold back,” Brade said, “but deep down I know the truth. I’m going to lose my temper. It’s hopeless to plan for anything else.”

“That’s a load of yesterday’s slop,” I said. “When I started training, I was hopeless. I lost my temper so often, you could have set your clock by my tantrums.”

“Really?” Brade asked.

“Really. I literally assaulted my flightleader in class one day. But I learned. So can you.”

She fell silent, but seemed to be trying harder as we went through another exercise. As the day progressed—and we stopped for lunch in our cockpits—I found myself most impressed by Morriumur. All things considered, their flying ability was remarkable, and they were extremely eager to learn. Yeah, they couldn’t aim worth spit, but Cobb had always said he’d rather have students who could fly well. Those could stay alive long enough to be taught to fight.

I pulled my ship up beside Morriumur’s as we finished lunch and moved back into formation. “Hey,” I said, “when we do this next batch, try to watch and stay tighter in formation. You keep veering toward the outside.”

“I’m sorry,” they said. “I’ll do better. And . . . also, I’m sorry I almost shot you earlier.”

“That? That was nothing. At least you didn’t mean to try to kill me—that’s more than I can say for most.”

They chuckled, though I thought I could hear tension in their voice. I remembered my first few training sessions under Cobb—the worry that I’d get something wrong and be kicked out, the growing lack of confidence that I belonged, the frustration at not being able to do all the things I’d imagined myself capable of accomplishing.

“Don’t worry,” I told them. “You’re doing fine, particularly considering how new to this you are.”

“As I mentioned, my leftparent was a drone pilot during their youth,” Morriumur said. “I got a piece of that experience, fortunately.”

“You really get skills from your parents?”

“Of course,” Morriumur said. “Some of the knowledge and skills of the parents pass on to the child. I guess it isn’t that way for your species?”

Was it? Scud. I didn’t actually know, at least not for Alanik’s species. Without M-Bot there to whisper explanations into my ear, I could get myself into trouble.

“Anyway, I was lucky in this,” Morriumur continued. “But also unlucky. My leftparent has had some latent aggression, and I ended up with an extra measure of it. My first few days alive, I got a reputation for snapping at others.”

“Snapping at people is aggressive among your kind?”

“Very,” Morriumur said.

“Wow. I’d have never made it to being born. They’d have killed me right out.”

“That’s a common misconception,” Morriumur said. “If my parents decide not to bear me with this personality, I won’t be killed—they’ll simply recombine me in a new way. What you see in me is just a draft, a prospect, a possibility of who I could be. Though . . . if I were to be born, I’d retain these memories, and my personality would become real.” They paused. “And I do wish for that to be the case.”

I tried to imagine a world where I remembered being forced to prove I was worth existing. No wonder this society had issues.

We finished the next batch of exercises, and I was pleased at how well the group kept formation. “This is actually working,” I said, calling Vapor. “I think we might be able to make something of them.”