Rig sucked in a breath and shook his head, going white, like a flag of truce. And… Rig was a cadet. When he’d gone in last night to talk to them about his test, I’d been worried, but it looked like he’d gotten in! I wanted to whoop for joy.

But there was no way Rig had been late without good reason. This was a kid who scheduled extra time in his day for sneezes when he had a cold. I opened my mouth, but held back at a glance from Cobb.

“Sir,” Rig finally said, catching his breath. “Elevator. Malfunction.”

Cobb walked to the side of the room and pushed an intercom button. “Jax,” he said, “will you check if there was an elevator malfunction today?”

“Don’t need to check, Captain,” a voice replied through a speaker above the button. “Elevator 103-D was down for two hours, with people trapped inside. It’s been giving us trouble for months.”

Cobb released the button, then eyed Rig. “They say you got the highest score on the test this year, cadet.”

“That’s what they told me, sir. They called me in, and the admiral gave me an award and everything. I’m so sorry I’m late. I didn’t meant to do this, particularly on my first day. I about died when—”

“Yeah, that’ll do,” Cobb said, waving toward one of the seats. “Don’t wear out my goodwill, son.”

Rig took the seat gladly, but then saw me on the side of the room and gave me a huge thumbs-up. We’d made it. Both of us somehow, with Rig at the top, which was awesome—so at least the test really was fair for him.

Cobb walked over to Jerkface’s seat, then flipped a switch on the side of the box in the front. A veil of light surrounded the mockpit—silent, shimmering, like a glowing bubble. From inside, Jerkface breathed out a soft—but audible—prayer to the North Star. I leaned forward in my chair.

“It can be disorienting,” Cobb said, walking over and turning on Arturo’s machine, then Nedd’s. “Though it’s no match for actually being in the air, it’s a reasonable substitute.”

I waited, tense, as he went around the circle, flipping on devices one after another. Each cadet made some audible signal of appreciation—a little gasp, or a “Wow.” My heart just about broke as Cobb turned away from the last empty seat and walked toward the front of the room.

Then, as if remembering something he’d left behind, he looked over his shoulder at me.

I nearly exploded with anticipation.

Finally he nodded toward the empty mockpit. I scrambled out of my seat and climbed in as he flipped the switch. Light flashed around me, and in the blink of an eye I seemed to be sitting in the cockpit of a Poco-class fighter on a launchpad outside the building. The illusion was so incredible that I gasped, then stuck my hand outside the “canopy” just to be sure. The hologram wavered and fell apart into little grains of light—like falling dust—when my hand broke through it.