“Out!” Jorgen said. “Accelerate to Mag-5 and follow my lead. Local heading 132, away from those dogfighters behind us.”

I engaged my booster, zipping forward, Hurl on my wing.

“That’s a ship.” Arturo said. “Look how slowly it’s falling. Those are functioning acclivity rings across the bottom. Hundreds of them.”

A shadow blanketed the land. I leaned into my throttle, speeding up to Mag-5, well above normal dogfighting speeds. Any faster, and we wouldn’t be able to respond to our surroundings. Indeed, as a fighter-size chunk of debris fell near us, we barely had time to react. Half of our flight dodged left, the other half right.

I went left with Kimmalyn and Nedd, slowing for more maneuverability. Destructor blasts sprayed in front of me as two of our starfighters barreled past, followed by six Krell ships. I cursed and dodged around them, followed by a whimpering Kimmalyn, who took my wing position.

“Analysis complete!” M-Bot said. “Oh! Wow. You’re busy.”

I dove, but we had picked up a tail. The Krell ship sprayed blasts around me. I cursed, then pulled back. “Go ahead of me, Quirk!”

She sped past and I broke right, getting the Krell ship to focus on me—the closer target.

“You really should have waited for my computations before beginning,” M-Bot noted. “Impatience is a serious character flaw.”

I gritted my teeth, spinning through a sequence of dodges.

“Spin, Quirk, Nedder,” Jorgen said on the line. “Where are you? Why didn’t you follow my—”

“I’m taking fire. Jerkface,” I snapped.

“I’m on you, Spin,” Nedd said in my ear. “If you can level out, I’ll try and shoot him down.”

“You won’t get through the shield. Quirk, you still there?”

“At your three,” she said, voice trembling.

“Be ready to pick this guy off.”

“Oh! Um, okay. Okay…”

The enormous falling vessel loomed overhead. Arturo had been right; its descent was slow, steady. But it was old and broken, with gaping holes in it. The battlefield continued in a wide, shadowed section of open air underneath it, filled with dogfighting ships and lines of destructor fire.

My tail got a shot on me, and my shield crackled.

Focus. I’d practiced this a hundred times in simulation. I pulled up into a loop, my tail following. At the top of the curve, I performed a starfighter maneuver—ignoring air resistance, I turned my ship on its axis and slammed on my overburn, darting out of the loop to the side.

My GravCaps flared, buffering most of the g-forces, but my stomach still practically climbed up my throat. The simulations did not do justice to exactly how disorienting this was, particularly when the GravCaps cut out and I got slammed back into my seat.

I was supposed to be able to handle that kind of force, and I didn’t black out—so technically, I did handle it. But I nearly threw up.

My proximity alarm went off. The Krell ship, as hoped, hadn’t compensated fast enough. It had continued the loop, and I shot out of my maneuver right past it. I fought through the nausea and slammed the IMP—taking down my shield and that of my tail.