These pilots really expected us to be awed by maneuvers Cobb had taught during our first weeks in flight school?

“Two-fourteen?” I said to FM. “With a double flatline at the end, and a V sweep?”

“Gladly,” she said, and hit her overburn.

The two of us zipped out and then pivoted in opposite directions around a large chunk of debris. I swung myself around a second burning chunk—zipping down beneath it, then flinging myself upward so I launched into the sky, acclivity ring hinging backward. I spun between two larger debris chunks and tagged them both, before pivoting around the higher one to dive back downward.

FM was coming up straight at me. I hit her with a light-lance, then turned and overburned opposite her. The two of us expertly spun each other in the air, conserving momentum. My GravCaps flashed right as I let us out of the maneuver.

After the twist, she rocketed out heading east, and I launched out heading west. We each tagged a piece of debris, then swept around together, rejoining Bog and Tunestone.

Who didn’t say anything. I followed them in silence, grinning, until another light on my comm flashed. “You two looking for a flight when you graduate?” Nose asked. “We’ve got a couple of holes.”

“We’ll see,” FM said. “I might become a scout. Life in this flight seems kind of boring.”

“You two been showing off?” Jorgen’s voice cut in over a private channel as he flew back with his wingmate.

“Would we do that?” I asked him.

“Spin,” he said, “you could be tied to a table with eight broken ribs and a delirious fever, and you’d still find a way to make everyone else look bad.”

“Hey,” I said, grinning at the compliment. “Most people make themselves look bad. I just stand to the side and don’t get in the way.”

Jorgen chuckled. “On my last pass, I saw something flash up above. Might be Krell. Let me see if Nose will let us go check it out.”

“There you go again,” FM said, “always being a Jerkface and actually remembering our orders.”

“Such a terrible example,” I said.

He called in to Nose, and started gaining altitude. “Spin and FM, you’re with me. We’ve got clearance to climb to 700k to scope it out. But be careful; we haven’t practiced a lot of minimal-atmosphere maneuverability.”

Starships could, of course, fly just fine without atmosphere—but it was a different kind of flight. At the same time, I found myself nervous as we climbed higher and higher. This was even higher than I’d gone in M-Bot, and I kept thinking about what had happened when my father had climbed up near the debris field. I still didn’t know what had changed up there to make him fight his own team.

Scud. Maybe I should stay down low. It was too late now though, as the general haze of shapes that made up the debris field became increasingly distinct. Getting closer, I could see skylights looming at the lower levels of the debris—and my mind reeled at their scale. We were still a hundred klicks from them, and they looked enormous. How big were those?