Starsight

Cuna paused, then looked toward the pilot and made an odd expression, their top lip curling back in a way no human’s could. “How odd. I . . . I am honestly surprised.”

“Why? Is it because they’re not supposed to be mingling in the activities of lesser species like us?”

“Mingling with lesser species is fine,” Cuna said, as if not understanding that I considered the term lesser to be an insult. “But trying out for a test like this? It is . . . odd.” They stepped back from my ship. “I shall watch your performance with interest, Emissary. Please be careful. I am not yet sure what this test will entail.”

Cuna retreated, and I sighed, climbing up and into my cockpit.

“Could you make any sense of that exchange?” I asked M-Bot as the cockpit closed.

“It seemed straightforward,” M-Bot said, “and yet not, at the same time. Organics are confusing.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, then—upon receiving terse orders via radio—took off and headed to the edge of the asteroid field.

14

I fell into line with the other ships—the wide variety of which was still astounding to me—and looked out at the tumbling asteroids. They were closer together than I had expected, and we’d barely have room to maneuver through some of them. Perhaps they had been towed here for processing.

While we waited for instructions, another vessel pulled into line a few ships down from me. It was a sleek, black-canopied Krell fighter. The type that I had fought back on Detritus, the type that always carried a Krell ace.

My mind immediately went on alert, my body rigid, my hands tight on my controls. In a line of bulky shuttlecraft, this ship looked like a knife ready to cut.

Calm down, I told myself. It’s not surprising that someone would bring a ship like this to a piloting test.

It still set me on edge, and I kept finding myself glancing out of the corner of my eye toward it. Who was piloting the thing? That dione with the two-tone face? No, I’d seen him getting into a simple shuttlecraft, not some sleek fighter. In fact, I was sure I hadn’t seen this ship on any of the launchpads. Who . . .

I felt a sense from the ship as I glanced at it again. A kind of . . . ringing sound, soft and distant, and I immediately knew who it was. The human was here.

Cuna and Winzik were playing some political game, and using cytonics like me and Brade as their pieces. However, the knowledge—the surety—that Brade was in there left me feeling even more disturbed. That was a human flying a Krell fighter. It was wrong on an indescribable number of levels.

“Thank you for answering our call,” Winzik’s voice said over the general instructions channel. “As a reminder, we are removing ship-to-ship radio rationing for this exercise. Permit 1082-b, authorized by me. So you may communicate with one another, if you find reason to do so.

“We recognize and commend your bravery. If at any time during this test you feel excessive anger or aggression, please remove yourself from contentions by powering down your ship and flashing your emergency signal lights. One of our ships will come and tow you back to the mining station.”

“Seriously?” I asked softly. My mute button was on, so I was speaking only to M-Bot. “If we feel ‘aggression’ during a fighting exercise, we’re supposed to pull out?”

“Perhaps, unlike you, not all people are accustomed to turning every single item in their lives into a competition,” M-Bot said.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “I’m not that bad.”

“I recorded you trying to get Kimmalyn to have a tooth-brushing contest the other night in the barracks.”

“Just a little fun,” I said. “Besides, gotta kill that plaque good and dead.”

Winzik continued on the general channel. “Today, we will test not just your flight skill, but how well you maintain your composure under fire,” he said. “I implore you not to be reckless! If you are concerned by the danger of this fight, please power down and flash your emergency lights. Do be aware, however, that this will remove you from further consideration as a pilot. Good luck.”

The comm cut off. And then my proximity sensors went insane as dozens of drone ships detached from the bottom of the mining platform and began swarming toward us. Scud!

I started moving before my mind specifically registered the danger. Accelerating to Mag-3, I maneuvered around large clumps of asteroids, my back pressing into my seat.

Behind me, the five hundred other hopefuls basically went crazy. They scattered in all directions, looking like nothing so much as a bunch of insects suddenly discovered hiding under a rock. I was glad my quick instincts got me out ahead of them, because not a few bumped into each other as they failed to coordinate flight paths. I didn’t see any full-on collisions or explosions, fortunately. These ships were shielded, and the pilots weren’t incompetent. Still, it was immediately obvious that many of them had never flown in a battlefield setting.