“What?” I said, turning to look over my shoulder. “Nedder?”

He broke off from our flight pattern, giving chase to the Krell ships that had passed us. What did he think he was doing?

I turned and followed. “Nedder? Scud.”

“Spin?” Kimmalyn said.

“We’re not leaving him. Come on.”

We raced after Nedd, who was tailing the six Krell ships. They—in turn—were flying after two Sigo-class fighters painted blue, indicating they were from Nightstorm Flight. Nedd clearly intended to help, but one cadet against six Krell?

“Nedd!” I said, “I’m all for fighting—you know that—but we also need to follow orders.”

He didn’t respond. Ahead, the two Nightstorms—overwhelmed by the enemy fire—did something desperate. They flew up close to the large shipyard, then curved around and flew into a hole in its side. A gaping blackness, perhaps where another section of the shipyard had once been attached.

The whole structure was still falling, but very slowly. Eventually it would crash down—and I doubted we wanted to be anywhere nearby when it did. I watched as the Krell ships pursued our pilots into the depths of the ancient ship, and Nedd barreled after them. So I gritted my teeth and followed.

“Spin,” Kimmalyn said. “I don’t think I can do that. If I try to fly in there, I swear I’ll crash.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Go join Jorgen and the others.”

“All right,” she said. She zipped off to the left, flying out from underneath the shadow of the falling machine.

I, instead, dove into the breach, chasing into the darkness after Nedd.

26

I hurtled through the innards of the ancient station—a large open blackness, rimmed by cranes and other construction equipment, lit by flickering emergency floodlights. The writing on one wall, in a circular pattern, reminded me of some of the old equipment down in the caverns—like the strange room I had often passed where the ceiling and floor had been covered in this writing. I could only assume the old occupants of this planet had constructed ships in here—but why had they needed so much space? Our starfighters were swallowed by the cavernous chamber.

The two DDF fighters soared upward, chased by the six Krell, who fired liberally, spraying destructor blasts through the darkness. Nedd tried to catch up, and I tailed him—hitting my over-burn for a moment of extra acceleration.

I couldn’t call the other fighters. Cadet ships weren’t normally equipped with radio channels to call full pilots. They didn’t want us interfering.

I switched to Nedd’s direct channel. “This is insane,” I said. “Thank you so much for giving me an excuse to try it.”

“Spin?” he said. “You’re still with me?”

“So far. What’s the plan?”

“Help those fighters somehow. Maybe we can get close? Those Krell are flying in a—” He cut off as he buzzed past an old crane, nearly clipping it. “They’re flying in a group. We could hit them all at once, with a well-placed IMP.”

“I’ll follow your lead,” I said, dodging underneath the crane. “But if Jerkface asks, I’m totally going to claim I tried to talk you out of this.”