But in the moments between the action, Nedd’s voice haunted me.

Coward.

I thought about it again as I sat in my classroom mockpit, running through exercises. I’d broken off the chase and had forced Nedd to abandon his brothers. Was that something any hero of legend would ever have done?

“Statistical projections indicate that if you’d remained in your pursuit for another seven seconds,” M-Bot said as I ran through a holographic dogfighting exercise, “you’d have died in the crash-down or subsequent explosion.”

“Could you have broken into the radio channel?” I said to him, whispering because we were in the classroom. “And called Nedd’s brothers?”

“Yes, I probably could have.”

“We should have thought of that. Maybe if we’d coordinated, we could have helped them escape.”

“And how would you have explained your sudden ability to hack DDF communications signals?”

I dove in my chase of the holographic Krell, and didn’t reply. If I’d been a true patriot, I’d have long ago turned the ship over to my superiors. But I wasn’t a patriot. The DDF had betrayed and killed my father, then lied about it. I hated them for that… but hate them or not, I’d still come begging to them to let me fly.

Suddenly, that seemed to be another act of cowardice.

I growled softly, using my light-lance to spin around a chunk of hovering debris, then slamming my overburn. I darted past the Krell ship and hit my IMP, killing both of our shields, then rotated on my axis. That pointed my nose backward while I was still flying forward—but I managed to spray destructors at the Krell behind me, destroying it.

That was a dangerous maneuver on my part, as it oriented me the wrong way for watching where I was going. Indeed, another Krell ship immediately swooped in on my right flank and fired on me. I died with my “shield down” klaxon blaring in my ear.

“Pretty stunt,” Cobb said in my ear as my hologram reset. “Great way to die.”

I unbuckled and stood up, tearing off my helmet and tossing it aside. It bounced off my seat and clattered against the floor as I walked to the back of the room and started to pace.

Cobb stood in the center of the circle of imitation cockpits, little holographic ships spinning around him. He wore an earpiece to speak with us over our helmet lines. He eyed me as I paced, but he let me be.

“Scud, Quirk!” he yelled at Kimmalyn instead. “That fighter was obviously going through an S-4 sequence, trying to bait you! Pay attention, girl!”

“Sorry!” she exclaimed from inside her cockpit. “Oh, and sorry about that too!”

“Sir?” Arturo asked, shrouded in his training hologram. “The Krell do that a lot, don’t they? Lead us along?”

“Hard to say,” Cobb said with a grunt.

I continued to pace, working out my frustration—mostly at myself—as I listened. Though they were seated in the circle, their voices were muffled by their helmets and the mockpit enclosures. Hearing it all reassured me that when I whispered to M-Bot in my mockpit, the others wouldn’t overhear, so long as I remembered to be very soft.