Skyward (The Skyward Series Book 1)

Admiral Judy “Ironsides” Ivans always watched the battle replays. She used the main control room, which had a large holographic projector in the center of the circular floor. She preferred to stand in its center, light shining up across her, the rest of the room dark.

She watched them fight. She watched them die. She forced herself to listen to the audio, if there was any, of each pilot’s last words.

She tried to read the enemy’s goals in the pattern of red and blue ships—red for the DDF, blue for the Krell. It had been years since she’d been a pilot, yet as she stood with headphones on—ships swirling around her—the feel of it returned to her. The hum of the booster, the rush of a banking ship, the rattle of destructor fire. The pulse of the battlefield.

Some days, she entertained fancies of climbing into a ship and joining the fray again. Then she banished those idiot dreams. The DDF was too low on ships to waste one on an old woman with shriveled reaction times. Fragmented tales—and some old print history books—spoke of great generals who took up a weapon and joined their soldiers on the front lines. Judy, however, knew she was no Julius Caesar. She was barely a Nero.

Still, Judy Ivans was dangerous in other ways.

She watched the battle spin and fly beneath the shadow of the slowly dropping shipyard. The Krell had committed almost sixty ships to this fight—two-thirds of their maximum, a major investment for them. It was clear they knew that if that wreckage had fallen into DDF hands intact, it would have been a huge boon. There had been hundreds of acclivity rings on that massive ship/station.

Now, salvage reported that fewer than a dozen so far were recoverable—and Judy had lost fourteen ships in the engagement. She saw, in their deaths, her own faults. She hadn’t been willing to truly commit. If she’d raised all of their reserve ships and pilots, then thrown them at the battle, she might have earned hundreds of acclivity rings. Instead she’d wavered, worried about a trap, until it was too late.

That was what she lacked, compared to people like Caesar of old. She needed to be willing to commit everything.

Rikolfr, her aide, stepped up to her with a clipboard full of notes. Judy rewound the battlefield, highlighting a specific pilot. The cadet who had given her so much trouble.

Ships exploded and pilots died. Judy wouldn’t let herself feel for the deaths; she couldn’t let herself feel for them. As long as they had more pilots than acclivity rings—and they did, slightly—then personnel was the more disposable of the two resources.

Finally, Judy took off her headphones.

“She flies well,” Rikolfr said.

“Too well?” Judy asked.

Rikolfr flipped through papers on his clipboard. “Newest data is in from her helmet sensors. It hasn’t been encouraging during her training—almost no anomalies. But that fight you’re watching, the battle at the falling shipyard, well …”

He turned the clipboard toward her, showing a set of readings that were literally off the chart.

“The Writellum section of her brain,” Rikolfr said, “went crazy with activity when she was around the Krell. Dr. Halbeth is certain this is proof of the defect, though Iglom is less certain. He cites the lack of evidence except for this one engagement.”

Judy grunted, watching the coward’s ship loop around, then fly into the very bowels of the falling shipyard.

“Halbeth recommends immediately removing the girl from duty,” Rikolfr noted. “But Dr. Thior … well, she is going to be trouble, as you would guess.”

Thior, who was unfortunately head of Alta Base medical, didn’t believe that the defect was real. Even the history of the thing was controversial. Reports of it dated back to the Defiant itself—and the mutiny on board the flagship that had ended with the fleet crashing here on Detritus.

Few people knew about the mutiny, and fewer still the fact that a defect in some of the crew had been the cause. These things weren’t clear even to Judy. But some of the most important—and most merited—families in the lower caverns traced their lineage to the mutineers. Those families fought against acknowledging the defect, and wanted to keep rumors of it secret. But they hadn’t seen what it could do to someone.

Judy had. Firsthand.

“Who is supporting Thior this time?” Judy asked.

Rikolfr flipped a few pages, then displayed the latest round of letters from prominent party members. At their head was a letter from NAL Algernon Weight, whose son, Jorgen, was in the coward’s flight. Jorgen had spoken highly of the girl on repeated occasions, so now came the questions. Wouldn’t it be for the best to hold this girl up as a sign of true Defiant redemption? A symbol of how any person, regardless of heritage, could return to the fold and provide service to the state?

Damn it. Judy thought, pausing the hologram as the coward hit her overburn in a near-disastrous attempt to escape. How much proof is Algernon going to require?

“Orders, sir?” Rikolfr asked.

“Tell Dr. Halbeth to write a condemnation of Thior’s explanations, then see if Dr. Iglom can be persuaded to offer strong support of the defect’s existence, particularly in this girl. Tell her I’d consider it a personal favor if she could strengthen her stand.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Rikolfr retreated, and Judy watched the rest of the battle, remembering a similar fight long ago.

Thior and the others could call the defect superstition. They could say that what had happened with Chaser was coincidence. But they hadn’t been there.

And Judy was going to make damn sure nothing like that ever happened again. One way or another.