“But Alta, sir?” the boy asked.

“Already dead,” she said. “I am dead. Drop that bomb. You have three fighters against sixteen.” She checked the reports. “In two minutes, Riptide Flight will join you. They have six more fighters, three of which are scouts. The rest of our forces are too far away to matter.”

“Understood, Flight Command,” the boy said, sounding nervous. “Stars guide you.”

“And you, flightleader.”

She stepped back to watch the battle.

“Admiral!” a radio tech shouted. “Sir! We have an unidentified fighter approaching! Adding it to the hologram now!”

A green blip appeared, distant from the impending clash of ships, but approaching at a shocking speed.

Rikolfr gasped. Judy frowned.

“Sir,” the tech said. “That ship is flying at Mag-20. Any of our ships would have broken apart at those speeds.”

“What have the Krell found to throw at us now?” Judy murmured to herself.

“Flight Command,” a familiar girl’s voice said over the line, “this is Skyward Eleven, reporting for battle. Callsign: Spin.”

• • •

M-Bot was going so fast, the heat of air resistance lit up his shield in a fiery glow. We tore through the air as a streaking ball of fire, but I barely felt a faint tremble.

After the broken-down Poco, it was a dramatic contrast.

“I’m afraid I am still not fully operational,” M-Bot said. “Booster and thrusters: online. Acclivity ring and altitude controls: online. Communications and stealth systems: online. Light-lance: online. Cytonic hyperdrive: offline. Self-repair: offline. Destructors: offline.”

“No weapons,” I said. “Stars forbid I actually get a functioning ship for once.”

“I would be offended at that,” M-Bot said, “if I could get offended. Also, don’t be so dour. At least my vocal aggression subroutine is online.”

“Your… what?”

“Vocal aggression subroutine. I figured if I was going to go into battle, I should enjoy the experience! So I wrote a new program to appropriately express myself.”

Oh great.

“Tremble and fear, all enemies!” he shouted. “For we shall shake the air with thunder and blood! Your doom is imminent!”

“Um…,” Kimmalyn’s voice said over the line. “Bless your stars, whoever you are.”

Wonderful. He’d called that in on the general channel? I guess now that his orders to “lie low” were no longer in effect, he didn’t care who heard him.

“That’s my ship talking, Quirk,” I said.

“Spin!” she said. “You found another ship?”

“One found me,” I said. “I’m bearing down on your seven, and should meet you at the battle in a few seconds.” M-Bot’s projections placed that right at the same time the others would arrive.

“Wait,” Nedd said. “Am I an idiot, or did Spin just say her ship spoke?”

“Hi, Nedd!” M-Bot said. “I can confirm you are an idiot, but all humans are. Your mental abilities appear to be within a standard deviation from their average.”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “Actually, no it’s not. My ship can talk, and you should ignore him.”

“Quake and tremble at my majestic destructive power!” M-Bot added.