Starsight (Skyward) by Brandon Sanderson

Author:Brandon Sanderson [Sanderson, Brandon]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2019-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Vapor led us on a careful approach of the maze. From up closer, I could see the lines where different segments had been fabricated, then fitted together. It didn’t have all the dust around it, like the kind that shrouded a real delver maze. That left this experience feeling even more mundane. It just didn’t evoke the same sense of dread and worry that the videos had.

“Command says to watch for interceptors,” Vapor told us. “The delvers have fighters that attack those who get close?”

“Not fighters,” Brade said in her stern voice. “The delver controls hunks of rock, called embers, which try to intercept and collide with ships that get near.”

“All right,” Vapor said. “I asked, and Command assured me that this won’t be as dangerous as our initial test was. Apparently, some people in the department made the brilliant connection that if you kill all your recruits before you have time to train them, you’ll soon run out of recruits.”

I smiled. The more Vapor spoke, the more conversational her tone became—and the less creepy she seemed. “That’s a relief,” I said.

“Well, I still would be careful,” she answered. “The Superiority hasn’t done much training like this since the human wars. For now, let’s get back into formation.”

I boosted forward at the order, settling into my position at the front of our team. Unfortunately, the others didn’t have nearly as much experience with battle formations as I did. Morriumur hung back too far, and Hesho tried to keep up with me until Vapor reminded him that his ship was to remain near the center. And Brade…

Well, Brade flew forward, far out of our pattern. Scud. They were all competent pilots, but we weren’t a true flight. We didn’t have experience fighting together. Cobb had spent weeks pounding flight maneuvers into Skyward Flight’s thick heads. He hadn’t let us fight, or even use our guns, until we’d practiced flight drills so much that we instinctively knew how to maneuver as a team.

That had saved our lives a dozen times over when the fighting had gotten bad. Here, as soon as the enemy came at us—in the form of drones that had been outfitted with rock casings to imitate flying asteroids—the team broke apart. Brade darted in to attack them without a word from Vapor. Morriumur started shooting, but…well, their shots were way off, and I had to boost farther out of formation to be sure they didn’t accidentally hit me. And to be honest, I undercompensated, as this new ship wasn’t as responsive as M-Bot, and I wasn’t used to how it maneuvered.

Vapor was so busy talking to us that she forgot that her job as sniper was to start blasting the enemy ships while they were distracted. The only one of us who didn’t embarrass himself was Hesho, whose ship performed its ordered maneuvers with precision. The diminutive fox poet might have been a little dramatic, but his crew was obviously well trained. He managed to bring down four of the drones.

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