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Their heads are heads of rock, their hearts set upon rock. Set your sights on something higher. Something more grand.”
So I was wandering down there, imagining the glory of the awesome battle happening above, when my father infamously broke ranks and fled from the enemy. His own flight shot him down in retribution. By the time I got home, the battle had been won, my father was gone.
And I’d been branded the daughter of a coward.
“That,” Cobb said, “was somehow the most embarrassing and inspiring display I’ve ever seen out of cadets! You should be ashamed. And proud.
‘You can’t win if you don’t play,’
I wasn’t sure what Sun Tzu or Beowulf would say about flirting with cute guys. Maybe share the skulls of your enemies with them, as a gesture of affection?
“You realize none of us have any idea which Saint you’re talking about.” Kimmalyn patted me on the head. “It’s okay, dear. You can’t help being a heretic. The Saint forgives you.”
My ship was talking to me.
“I appear…to be missing some code,” M-Bot said. “Curious. Oh, what an interesting fungus!”
And Morningtide died in a massive explosion. She didn’t have a chance to eject.
The adult story has begun
“A distraction to you, maybe. A blow to your morale. The way you’re acting is a disgrace to the DDF.” “For all intents and purposes, I am the DDF. Stars help us. There’s nobody else left.”
Cobb finally met my eyes. He held them this time, and didn’t look away—but he also didn’t answer my question. I saw him harden as he set his jaw. And in that moment, I knew that his nonanswer was an answer. He’d given me the official story. And it was a lie.
“And there’s a lot written about it?” Rig said. “By me,” M-Bot said. “Earlier today. I wrote seven thousand pages. My processors work very quickly, you realize. Granted, most of what I wrote is just ‘humans are weird’ repeated 3,756,932 times.”
“Not that I’d know anything about things like that,” he added. “Being a noncombat machine. Obviously.” “You have four guns.” “Someone must have stuck those on when I wasn’t looking.”
“What did it do to you?” “Nothing. It’s just practice.” “But it can’t even shoot back!” “M-Bot, it’s space junk.” “As if that were an excuse.” “It…It actually is,” I said. “It’s a really good excuse.”
“Good night, sweet prince,” M-Bot whispered as the junk crashed to the ground. “Or princess. Or, most likely, genderless piece of inanimate space junk.”
“Also, it looks a little like a mushroom,” M-Bot added.
“I’d be offended if I could be offended,”
“Maybe I should start calling you a cow, since you have four limbs, are made of meat, and have rudimentary biological mental capacities.”
“I refuse to be trapped by bonds of autocracy and nationalism,” FM said. “To survive, our people have become necessarily hardened, but alongside it we have enslaved ourselves. Most people never question, and doggedly go through the motions of an obedient life. Others have increased aggression to the point that it’s hard to have natural feelings!”
“Since we’re being honest here…can I tell you something? Truth is, I make up most of those quotes I say.”
“No!” Kimmalyn said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I came up with them myself! I simply don’t admit it, because I don’t want to appear too wise. It’s unseemly.”
“Spin, maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s some big conspiracy that has pinned a great betrayal on your father. Or maybe, you know, he just got scared. Maybe he was human, and acted like humans sometimes do. Maybe the problem is that everyone has made such a big deal of it.”
My processors are busy anyway, trying to devise a proper joke about the fact that Rig is installing me a new butt. My logic circuits are arguing that the expeller I use for old oil is actually a better metaphoric anus.”
“Sometimes, the answers we need don’t match the questions we’re asking.” He looked up at me. “And sometimes, the coward makes fools of wiser men.”
“I’m the other kind of rich. The poor kind.”
“Don’t use the Saint’s name in vain,” Kimmalyn said. “You do all the time!” “I’m religious. You’re not. So it’s okay for me.”
“I got a good look at him, while we were dogfighting. We passed close enough that I could see straight into his cockpit. It was him, Spensa. The angry snarl on his face has haunted me ever since.”
“I wrote a subroutine,” he said. “To simulate the feeling of fearing death. I wanted to know.”
“You two looking for a flight when you graduate?” Nose asked. “We’ve got a couple of holes.”
“Flight Command,” a familiar girl’s voice said over the line, “this is Skyward Eleven, reporting for battle. Callsign: Spin.”
Epic
“Tremble and fear, all enemies!” he shouted. “For we shall shake the air with thunder and blood! Your doom is imminent!”
“Quake and tremble at my majestic destructive power!” M-Bot added.
“Hey!” M-Bot said. “Just for that, I shall hunt your firstborn children and laugh with glee as I tell them of your death in terrible detail, with many unpleasant adjectives!”
“Mushrooms are the preferred offering,” M-Bot said to them. “As many varieties as you can dig up.”
mushrooms!
