I braced myself. I was completely open. If that Krell got turned toward me and fired off a single shot—

A flash came behind me, and a shock wave washed across my ship.

“I got him,” Kimmalyn said. “I… I did it!”

“Thanks,” I said, exhaling in relief, letting off my overburners. I continued in a straight line, starting to slow, as I turned off my booster and primed my shield igniter. My helmet felt hot and sweaty against my head as my fingers moved through the familiar motions. Thank the stars for Cobb’s training; my body knew what to do.

A Krell ship came in, spotting me coasting on my momentum. I cringed, but a spray of weapons fire sent the ship scattering away.

“I’ve got you,” Nedd said, zipping overhead. “Quirk, join me in a defensive pattern.”

“Gotcha,” Kimmalyn said.

“No need,” I said, slamming the igniter. “I’m back up. Shall we get out of here?”

“Gladly,” Kimmalyn said.

I led the other two in a course that I hoped would get us out, then called Jorgen. “We’re at heading 304.8,” I told him. “Did the rest of you get out from underneath this thing?”

“Affirmative,” Jorgen said. “We passed out of the shadow at 303.97-1210.3-21200. We’ll wait for you here, Spin.”

He sounded calm, which was honestly more than I could say for myself. I couldn’t help imagining more empty seats in our classroom.

“Are you ready for my analysis?” M-Bot said.

“That depends on how often it will mention mushrooms.”

“Only once, I’m afraid. The thing you see looming overhead is around half of a C-137-KJM orbital shipyard with added delver training facility. I don’t know exactly what that is, but I believe it must have been for manufacturing starships. There’s no sign of the other half, but this chunk has probably been floating up there for centuries, judging by the low power output of those acclivity rings.

“My projections indicate its orbit has decayed now that it doesn’t have enough power for self-correction. It doesn’t seem to have an AI—or if it does have one, it refuses to talk to me, which is rude. The Krell attack patterns indicate a defensive goal, intended to keep you away from the station.”

“Really?” I asked. “Repeat that last part.”

“Hm? Oh, it’s obvious from their flight patterns. They aren’t worried about actually killing you or getting to your base or anything. Today, they just want to keep you away from this ship, likely because of the fantastic salvage it would provide for your backward, fleshy society of slow-ship-fliers.”

That made sense. They sometimes shot down debris to keep us from getting acclivity rings. How worried must they be about us capturing this thing, with hundreds of them?

“Also, it looks a little like a mushroom,” M-Bot added.

Another pair of DDF fighters—perhaps the same ones we’d seen before—bolted past, tailed by a large group of Krell.

“Hey,” Nedd said. “Spin and Quirk, you two get out. You’re almost there. I need to do something.”