I rolled my eyes.

“That’s called logic.” He waited a moment, then added, softer, “I’m super good at it.”

Ahead, Kimmalyn finished her run with the Krell ship escaping. She never fired her IMP.

But she could have shot the thing out of the air. I thought, irritated on her behalf. Assuming its shield was down.

Cobb kept saying we needed fundamentals, and I supposed that made sense. It still didn’t quite seem fair. Like… we weren’t using her to her fullest.

“Spin,” Cobb said. “You’re up.”

“Up for what?” M-Bot asked me. “What are we doing? I don’t have a video feed. Just audio.”

“We’re flying,” I whispered, then hit my booster and soared into the holographic debris—which was constantly renewed with new debris falling from the sky above.

My target appeared, a Krell ship weaving between pieces of junk. I leaned in and chased after it, overburning through the junk. Almost close enough…

A light started blinking on my dash. I had a tail? What? This was supposed to be a solo, one-on-one exercise. Apparently Cobb intended to make this more difficult for me.

So be it.

I rolled in a spinning dodge as the tail started firing its destructors. My maneuver saved me, but let the target get ahead of me. No you don’t. I thought, hitting my overburn and blasting after it, taking a corner at speed and gaining ground. The tail stuck to me, continuing to fire.

I took a hit that nearly overwhelmed my shields. But I focused on the ship in front, which dove downward. So I cut my acclivity ring and slammed on my overburn, turning into a gut-wrenching dive. Lights flashed on my control panel to warn that without my acclivity ring, nothing would prevent me from slamming right into the ground.

“I don’t know who you’re fighting,” M-Bot said. “But those warning beeps indicate that you’re not doing a good job.”

As a companion to his words, the line on the top of my canopy warned that I’d just overwhelmed my GravCaps, and the g-force indicator started to flash red. In a real ship, I’d be hit with all those g-forces, which—in a dive—would push the blood to my head and make me start to red-out.

“Try not to die,” M-Bot noted. “I don’t want to be left alone with Rodge. He’s boring.”

I passed into the trail of another chunk of falling, burning metal—sparks bouncing off my shield, making it light up and crackle with energy. I’d lost the tail, which had fallen far behind, but I wasn’t close enough to the one in front.

It can’t keep diving. I thought. We’re approaching the ground.

I gritted my teeth, then lanced the chunk of debris right as my target cut to the side and flew back up. I swung all the way around the debris, then reengaged my acclivity ring and hit my overburn again. The maneuver made me swoop in a complete circle and dart upward, right past the Krell ship.