I gritted my teeth, vision going red as I reached the group of Krell. I hit my IMP by touch. It couldn’t take down my shield, after all. It was already gone.

I didn’t see how many of them I caught. I was too close to doing myself permanent harm. I leveled out, my head pounding, my eyes aching. As my vision returned, I started my shield reignition and craned my head, trying to search for Hurl. Was she safe?

“I’m taking heavy fire!” Arturo said. “I need help!”

“Reinforcements are here!” Jorgen said.

Everything was chaos. I could barely comprehend the mess, though for the moment—remarkably—nobody seemed to be targeting me.

An explosion flashed off to my right.

“Got him!” Hurl said.

There. Hurl had shot down her target—but two Krell ships were still tailing her.

“Pull up, Hurl!” I said. “You’ve still got tails. Get up into the range of the AA guns!”

She turned upward, listening—finally. Two ships chased her. I ignited my shield, then turned after her, trying to help, but I’d lost a lot of ground.

“Shields down,” Hurl said with a grunt.

“Quirk!” I said, desperate, flying—too far away—toward my friend. “Pick them off. I IMPed that group. Their shields are down too. Fire!”

“I…” Kimmalyn sounded rattled. “I…”

“You can do it, Quirk! Just like in the sims. Come on!”

A flash of light from a charged destructor sliced the air above us, firing toward the ships tailing Hurl.

And missed.

Hurl took a hit a second later, and her wing exploded, scattering pieces. The blue glow underneath her ship started to flash, the light flickering.

No…

Hurl’s ship plummeted. From a distance, she was like any other piece of debris.

“Hurl!” I screamed. “Eject! Get out!”

“I…” Her voice was soft; I could barely hear it through the warnings going off on her dash and mine. “I can control it… I can steer…”

“Your acclivity ring is damaged!” I said. “You’re losing altitude. Eject!”

“Not. A. Coward,” she said. “Brave to the—”

A flash of light.

A small explosion on the ground, insignificant in the storm of destruction that was the battlefield.

“Pull out!” Jorgen said. “Everyone, pull out now! Leave this fight to the full pilots. We have orders to retreat!”

Hurl…

I couldn’t move at first. I just stared at where she’d hit the ground.

“Spin,” Jorgen said. When had he flown in beside me? “We have to go. We’re too exhausted for this fight. Can you hear me?”

Blinking back tears, I whispered, “Yes.” I fell into position behind him as we dove and skimmed the surface to escape the battlefield.

We pulled up next to FM and Arturo, and I gasped. Arturo’s ship was blackened all along its left wing and side, its canopy cracked. His acclivity ring was still on, so he could stay in the air, but… scud. He’d survived a destructor hit after his shield had been knocked out.

When he called in, his voice was subdued, rattled. He seemed to know how lucky he was to have survived.