“Anyone but me?” Judy asked.

“Basically.”

“I’m not sure I’d wish this command on them,” she said. “Not even the ones I hated.”

Cobb grunted, then disappeared into the hallway.

20

The day after Morningtide and Bim died, I arrived late for Cobb’s class. It was only by about five minutes, but it was still my first time being late.

Everything just felt so wrong.

I vaguely remembered tromping back to my cave the day before, ignoring M-Bot—Rig had already gone home—and curling up in my cockpit bed. Then I’d just lain there. Not sleeping, but wishing that I would. Thinking, but wishing that I would stop. Not crying… but somehow wishing that I could.

Today, nobody called me on my tardiness. Cobb wasn’t there yet, though almost all of the remaining cadets had assembled. Everyone but Kimmalyn, which worried me. Was she okay?

My boots squeaked on the floor as I walked over and sat. I didn’t want to look at the conspicuously empty seats, but that made me feel like a coward, so I forced myself to stare at Morningtide’s spot. Just two days ago I’d been standing there, helping her understand…

She’d almost never said anything, but somehow the room felt so much quieter without her.

“Hey, Spin,” Nedd finally said. “You’re always talking about ‘honor’ and the ‘glory of dying like warriors’ and crap like that.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So…,” Nedd said. “Maybe we could use a little of that crap right now.”

Nedd slumped in place, barely fitting into his mockpit. He was the tallest one in the room—and burly too. I’d always thought of him simply as the larger of Jerkface’s two cronies, but there was more to him. A thoughtfulness.

“Well?” he asked.

“I…,” I said, struggling to find words. “That all feels stupid now.”

I couldn’t rattle off some line about vengeance. Not today. Doing so would feel like playing a part in one of Gran-Gran’s stories—while the loss felt so very real. But… did that make my conviction all just bravado? Was I a coward hiding behind aggressive platitudes?

A real warrior would shrug it off. Did I really think these were the last friends I’d lose?

FM climbed out of her seat and walked over to me. She squeezed me on the shoulder, a strikingly familiar gesture from a girl I knew only passingly well, despite our time in the same flight. What was her story? I’d never found a way to ask.

I glanced toward Bim’s place, thinking of the incredibly awkward—yet wonderful—way he’d tried to flirt with me.

“Do you know where Kimmalyn is?” I asked FM.

“She got up and ate with us,” the tall girl whispered, “but she stopped at the restroom on the way to class. Maybe someone should go check on her.”

Before I could get up, Jerkface was on his feet, clearing his throat. He looked around at the other five of us. Me and FM. Hurl, slumped in her seat. She didn’t seem to be treating this like a game any longer. Arturo, who sat with hands clasped, tapping his index fingers together at a rapid pace, like some kind of nervous tic. Nedd sitting with his feet up and resting on the incalculably valuable hologram projector at the front of his mockpit. Remarkably, his bootlaces were untied.