There was no way its next shot would miss him.

No!

At that moment, a single beam of pure light shot upward from below and pierced the Krell ship right through the center. It blasted apart in a flash of fire and debris.

Jorgen let out a long sigh. “Thank the reinforcements for me, Cobb.”

“That wasn’t them, son,” Cobb said.

“Oh!” Kimmalyn said. “Did I get it? I got it! Oh, are you okay, Jerkface?”

I frowned, looking down. That had been a shot from Kimmalyn. She’d positioned herself lower and over to the side, not to escape, but to get a good shot at the enemy without having to fire through the rest of us.

I was, quite frankly, stunned. Jorgen sounded like he shared the emotion. “Scud!” he said. “Quirk, did you just snipe a Krell fighter from long range?”

Cobb chuckled over the radio. “Guess the file is right on you, Quirk.”

“It’s…,” she began, but then sighed. “Never mind. Quirk it is. Anyway, yes, sir.”

“What is this?” Jorgen asked.

“She’s the daughter of AA gunners from Bountiful Cavern,” Cobb said. “Historically, people with good accuracy on the smaller AA guns tend to make good pilots. The rotating seats in the small AA guns accustom one to moving and firing, and young Quirk here has some very impressive accuracy numbers.”

“I wasn’t even going to take the pilot’s test, to be honest,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “But the DDF recruiters showed up and asked me for a demonstration, so I had no choice but to give it to them straight. ‘The best modesty is shown while bragging,’ as the Saint said. And after they told me I might be able to do it… well, I’ll admit I did get a tad excited by the idea.”

Suddenly her place among us made sense.

“Vocal sound off,” Jorgen said, sounding shaken. “Status report, starting with anyone wounded.”

“I…,” Rig said. “I got hit.”

“How hurt are you?”

“Just shaken,” Rig said. “Though I… I threw up in my ship.”

Hurl laughed hard at that.

“Rigmarole, return to base,” Jorgen said immediately. “Morningtide, provide him with an escort. Everyone else into line.”

We obeyed, now far more reserved. The banter died off as we watched the firefight in the distance, but soon our replacements came up around us and spelled us off. Cobb ordered us back to base, and we accompanied the other cadet flight that had been used as fake reinforcements.

We landed near Rig’s and Morningtide’s ships; the two of them had already left, perhaps to take Rig somewhere to sit and calm down. He could get rattled easily; I’d have to find him and see if he needed someone to talk to.

As we climbed out of the ships, Hurl let out a whoop of excitement and ran for Kimmalyn. “Your first kill! If you hit ace before you’re done with flight school, I’ll hurl!”

Kimmalyn obviously didn’t know what to do with the praise as the rest of us gathered around, holding helmets and congratulating her. Even Jerkface gave her a nod and a raised fist of acclaim.