Kimmalyn grinned.

“Don’t get cocky,” Cobb said, walking on. “A destructor is practically useless against a shielded foe—though you’ll still fire them at every opportunity, as it’s human nature to hope for a lucky hit. I’ll attempt to beat this out of you, but honestly, even full pilots cling to their destructors like they’re scudding letters from their childhood sweetheart.”

Bim chuckled.

“That wasn’t a joke,” Cobb snapped. “Holograms on.”

We powered up the devices, and suddenly we were on the launchpad. Once we were up in the air and had done verbal confirmations, Cobb’s voice crackled in my helmet’s speaker. “All right. Stars help us, it’s time for you to start shooting. The destructor trigger is the button next to your index finger on the control sphere. Go ahead.”

I hesitantly pressed the button. A burst of three white-hot blasts shot in rapid succession from the pencil nose of my ship. I grinned and pressed it again and again, firing bursts one after another. Just like that, I was granted the very power over life and death! And for more than rats!

“Don’t wear it out, Spin,” Cobb said. “See the dial on your throttle? The one you can rotate with the thumb of your left hand? That’s the destructor rate control. Top position is steady fire. It’s loved by every drooling, meathead, idiot pilot who didn’t train with me.”

“What about those of us who are still drooling, meathead idiots?” Nedd asked. “But did train with you?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Nedder,” Cobb said. “I’ve never seen you drool. Second position on the dial is burst. Third position is a charged long-range shot. Indulge yourselves. Get it out of your system.”

He made a bunch of Krell ships appear in the air in front of us. They didn’t fly or move; they simply hung there. Target practice? I’d always wanted to do target practice—ever since I’d been a little girl, throwing rocks at other, more nefarious-looking rocks.

Together, we launched a hailstorm of death and devastation through the air.

We missed.

We missed by what seemed like miles. Even though the ships weren’t that far away. I gritted my teeth and tried again, switching between different destructor modes, angling my ship with my control sphere, firing with everything I had. But scud… for how close everything looked. there sure was a lot of empty space to shoot.

Jerkface finally got a hit, knocking one of the ships down in a spray of fire. I grunted, focusing on a single vessel. Come ON.

“Go ahead, Quirk,” Cobb said.

“Oh, I thought I’d give them a chance, sir!” Kimmalyn said. “ ‘Winning isn’t always about being the best,’ you know.”

“Humor me,” Cobb said.

“Well, okay.” Her ship charged for a couple of seconds, then released a focused line of light—which blasted a Krell ship from the sky. She repeated the feat again, and again, and then did it a fourth time.

“Kind of like trying to hit the floor with a rock, sir,” she said. “They aren’t even moving.”