Skyward (The Skyward Series Book 1)

That is one problem handled. thought Judy “Ironsides” Ivans as she walked away from the launchpad. Rikolfr, her aide-de-camp, hurried along beside her, holding his ever-present clipboard full of things Judy needed to do.

At the door to her command building, she looked over her shoulder. Chaser’s daughter—the defect—held her salute, then pressed her cadet’s pin against her chest.

Judy felt a small spike of guilt, then pushed her way into Flight Command. I’ve fought that fight. she thought, and bear the battle scars. The last time she’d ignored the defect, she’d been forced to watch a friend go crazy and kill his flightmates.

This was a good outcome. The girl would get some honor, as she was due for her passion. And Judy now had some data about the brains of people with the defect. She had to give credit to Cobb’s scheme for that—if he hadn’t forced her to let the child into the DDF, Judy would never have had that opportunity.

Now, fortunately, she had a solid, traditional reason for never putting Chaser’s daughter in a fighter again. And she could watch each new cadet for signs of the defect. This was actually an ideal outcome in every possible way.

If only other problems could be dealt with so easily. Judy approached a small conference room, then stopped, looking at Rikolfr. “Are they here?”

“NAL Weight is in attendance,” Rikolfr said. “As are NALs Mendez and Ukrit.”

That was three National Assembly Leaders. Normally, they sent underlings to these post-battle briefings, but Judy had been expecting a larger confrontation for some time. She would need something to give them. A plan. “Have the radio technicians confirmed the existence of that shipyard the scouts spotted tonight?”

Rikolfr handed her a sheet of paper. “It’s too far for traditional scanners, but we’ve been able to send up a science ship to investigate, from a safe distance. The shipyard is there, and the scientists are optimistic. If it’s like the other one—and if we can protect it from the Krell—we could recover hundreds of acclivity rings.”

She nodded, reading the statistics.

“The orbit is decaying rapidly, sir,” Rikolfr noted. “The old shipyard seems to be suffering a severe power failure. Scientists guess the proximity guns will stop firing in a couple of days, right about the time it drops into the atmosphere. The Krell will undoubtedly try to get in and destroy it.”

“Then we’ll have to prevent that,” Judy said. “Anything else I need to know?”

“This many assembly leaders? It smells of an ambush, sir. Be prepared.”

She nodded, put on her political face, and strode into the small room, Rikolfr following. A collection of the most powerful people in the lower caverns waited for her, each of them wearing a military dress uniform and pins indicating their merits.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “I’m pleased to see you taking a direct interest in—”

“Dispense with the platitudes, Ironsides,” said Algernon Weight—young Jorgen’s father. The stiff, greying man sat at the head of the conference table, opposite Judy. “You lost more ships tonight.”

“We have successfully scared away a lifebuster, scoring a great victory over—”

“You’re driving the DDF into the ground,” Weight said.

“During your tenure,” Ukrit added, “our reserve of ships has fallen to historic lows. I hear that broken fighters are just sitting in hangars, lacking parts for repair.”

“Your pilot casualty rates are terrible,” Valda Mendez said. She was a petite woman with tan skin. Ironsides had flown with her, once upon a time. “We want to know what your plan is for ending the DDF’s spiral of failure.”

It would help. Judy thought, if you would stop taking our best pilots away. Valda herself seemed completely unashamed of stealing her son from the DDF to keep him out of battle.

But Judy couldn’t say that. She couldn’t explain how desperate the DDF was, now that the better admirals and commanders were dead. She couldn’t explain how she’d foreseen this years ago, and no amount of scraping and scrambling had been able to prevent the descent. She couldn’t explain that her people were overworked, and that their morale was crumbling beneath so many losses and pilot casualties.

She couldn’t say any of that because, although it was true, it was no excuse. Her job was to offer a solution. A miracle.

She held up one of the sheets Rikolfr had given her. “Lanchester’s Law,” she said. “Do you know it?”

“Equal armies of soldiers with equal skill will impose equivalent casualties upon each other,” Weight said. “But the larger the imbalance in troops, the more disproportionate the casualties. Essentially, the more you outnumber your enemy, the less damage you can expect each of their soldiers to impose.”

“The bigger your numerical odds,” Valda said, “the fewer people you lose.”

Judy handed the page to the group. “This,” she said, “is a scout report—with initial scientific analysis—of a large piece of salvage that should crash down in two days. The Krell never field more than a hundred ships at once—but if we can salvage this shipyard, we can top that.”

“Hundreds of potential acclivity rings,” Valda said, reading the report. “You think you can do it? Salvage this?”

“I think we have no other choice,” Judy said. “Until we can field more ships than the Krell, we’ll be fighting a losing battle. If we can stop them from destroying that shipyard as it falls, it might be just what we need.”

“The report says it will crash down on graduation day,” Ukrit said with a grunt. “Looks like it will be a short ceremony.”

“Let’s be clear,” Weight said. “Ivans, what are you proposing?”

“We must capture this piece of salvage,” Judy said. “We have to be ready to throw everything we have at protecting it. As soon as its orbit starts to degrade, and its proximity guns run out of power, we have to destroy every Krell ship that tries to get close to it.”

“Bold,” Ukrit said.

“They won’t let that salvage go easily,” Rikolfr said, looking toward the others. “If they don’t retreat, we won’t be able to either. We could end up engaged in a battle where our every ship is committed. If we lose, it will leave us devastated.”

“It will be a second Battle of Alta,” Weight said softly. “All or nothing.”

“I fought in the Battle of Alta,” Ironsides said. “And I know the risks involved in such an engagement. But frankly, we’re out of options. Either we try this, or we waste away. Can I count on your support for this proposal?”

One at a time, the assembly leaders nodded. They knew as well as she did. The time to make a stand was when you were still strong enough to possibly win.

Just like that, they were committed.

Stars help us all. Judy thought.