Skyward (The Skyward Series Book 1)

“My designation is MB-1021, robotic ship integration,” the ship said.

It didn’t just talk—it seemed to have trouble stopping.

“But humans prefer ‘names’ to designations, so I am commonly referred to as M-Bot. I am a long-distance reconnaissance and recovery ship, designed for stealth operations and unsupported solo missions in deep-space locations. And …”

The machine trailed off.

“And?” I asked, lounging in the cockpit, trying to figure out what in the stars this thing was.

“And my data banks are corrupted,” M-Bot said. “I cannot recover further information—I can’t even retrieve my mission parameters. The only record I have is the most recent order from my master: ‘Lie low, M-Bot. Take stock, don’t get into any fights, and wait for me here.’ ”

“Your master was your pilot, right?” I asked.

“Correct. Commander Spears.” He summoned a fuzzy image for me, which briefly replaced the scanner display on his dash. This Commander Spears was a clean-cut, youngish man with tan skin and a crisp, unfamiliar uniform.

“I’ve never heard of him,” I said. “And I know all the famous pilots, even from Gran-Gran’s days in the fleet. What was up with the Krell when you came here? Had they attacked the galaxy yet?”

“I have no recollection of this group, and the word Krell doesn’t appear in my memory banks.” He paused. “Reading the decay rate of isotopes in my memory core indicates that it has been … one hundred seventy-two years since I was deactivated.”

“Huh,” I said. “The Defiant and its fleet crashed on Detritus about eighty years ago, and the Krell War started some distant time before that.” Gran-Gran said the war had been going on a long time when she’d been born.

“Considering human life spans,” M-Bot said, “I must conclude that my pilot has perished. How sad.”

“Sad?” I asked, trying to wrap my mind around this. “You have emotions?”

“I am allowed self-improving and independently reinforcing memory pathways, for the simulation of organic emotions. That allows me to have better interaction with humans, but I am not actually alive. My subroutines for emotional distress indicate I should feel for the loss of my master, but the memory banks recording his appearance—and our history together—are damaged. I remember nothing more than his name and his final command.”

“Lie low,” I repeated. “Take stock, and don’t get into any fights.”

“The only portion of my memory banks that seems to have survived intact—other than basic personality routines and things like general language usage—is an open database for recording fungoid life forms on this planet. I should very much like to fill the rest of it in.”

“Fungoid?”

“Mushrooms. Would you happen to have any I can categorize?”

“You’re a hyperadvanced stealth fighter that—somehow—has a machine personality built into it … and you want me to bring you mushrooms?”

“Yes, please,” M-Bot said. “Take stock. As in categorize local life forms. I’m certain that’s what he meant.”

“I’m not so sure,” I said. “It sounded like you were supposed to hide from something.” I leaned out the side, looking at his wings. “You have large twin destructor emitters on each wing, along with a light-lance turret underneath. That’s as much firepower as our larger ships. You’re a warship.”

“Clearly not,” M-Bot said. “I’m here to categorize fungi. Didn’t you listen to my last orders? I am not supposed to get into fights.”

“Then why do you have guns?”

“For shooting large and dangerous beasts who might be threatening my fungus specimens,” M-Bot said. “Obviously.”

“That’s stupid.”

“I am a machine, and my conclusions are therefore logical—while yours are biased by organic irrationality.” He made a few lights on his dash blink. “That is a clever way of saying you are the stupid one, in case you—”

“I understood,” I said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome!”

He sounded utterly sincere. But he was … what, a “robotic integration”? Whatever that was. I wasn’t sure how far I could trust his honesty.

Still, he was a machine with a memory—albeit damaged—that stretched back hundreds of years. This could be a solution, maybe, to the questions we’d always asked. Why did the Krell keep attacking us? What were they, really? Our only depictions of them were reconstructions based on the armor they wore, as we’d never been able to take one of them captive.

We’d probably once known the answers to these questions, but if so, we’d lost them eighty years ago. Soon after crashing here—and presuming themselves safe—the majority of the officers, scientists, and elders from our old fleet had gathered in an underground cavern. They’d recovered the old electronic archive from the Defiant. and had been holding an emergency meeting. That was when the first lifebuster had been dropped, destroying our archives—and with them, most anyone with seniority in the fleet.

That was when the remnants of our people had broken into clans based on their duties in the fleet. Engine maintenance workers like Gran-Gran and her family. Hydroponics crew—glorified farmers—like Bim’s ancestors. Foot soldiers like Morningtide’s. They’d learned, through difficult trial and error, that if they kept to small groups of under a hundred people, the Krell sensors couldn’t find them hiding in the caves.

Now, three generations later, here we were. Slowly fighting our way back onto the surface—but with enormous holes in our memories and history. What if I could bring the ultimate secret to the DDF: the solution for defeating the Krell once and for all?

Though … it was unlikely M-Bot had that answer. After all, if the old human fleets had known how to defeat the Krell, they wouldn’t have been driven to near extinction. But surely there were some secrets hidden inside this machine’s mind.

“Can you fire your weapons?” I asked.

“I’m commanded to avoid fights.”

“Just answer,” I said. “Can you fire?”

“No,” M-Bot said. “The weapons systems are locked out of my control.”

“Then why would your pilot order you not to get into any fights? You aren’t capable of fighting anyone.”

“Logically, one isn’t required to be able to finish a fight in order to start one. I am allowed minimal basic autonomous movement, and could theoretically stumble into a battle or a conflict. This would be disastrous for me on my own, as I require a pilot for most important functions. I can assist and diagnose, but as I am not alive, I cannot be trusted with destructive systems.”

“So I could fire them,” I said.

“Unfortunately, weapons systems are offline from damage.”

“Great. What else is offline?”

“Other than my memories? Boosters, acclivity ring, cytonic hyperdrive, self-repair functions, the light-lance, and all mobility functions. Also, my wing appears to be bent.”

“Great. So, everything.”

“My communications features and radar are functional,” he noted. “As are cockpit life support and short-range sensors.”

“And that’s it?”

“That … appears to be it.” He was silent for a moment. “I can’t help noticing—through the aforementioned short-range sensors—that you are in possession of a few mushrooms. Might you be willing to place those in my cockpit analyzer for cataloguing?”

I sighed, resting back in my seat.

“At your leisure, of course. I, being robotic, have no concept of fragile things like human impatience.”

So what do I do?

“But soon would be nice.”

I doubt I can fix this thing on my own. I thought. Should I just go to the DDF and tell them what I’d found? I’d have to reveal that I’d stolen that power matrix. And, of course, they’d never let me keep this ship for myself. Going to the DDF with it would essentially mean wrapping this vessel up with a bow, then presenting it to the very admiral who was trying her best to ruin my life.

“They do look like nice mushrooms.”

No. I was not going to give this discovery to Ironsides, at least not without more thought. But if I was going to try to repair this ship, I’d at least need help.

“Not that I require affirmation of any sort, as my emotions are mere simulations … but you are listening to me, right?”

“I’m listening,” I said. “I’m just thinking.”

“That is good. I should not like to be maintained by one who lacks brain functions.”

It was at that moment that I had my third terrible idea in not so many days. I grinned.

Maybe there was a way to get some help on the repairs. Someone who had way more “brain functions” than I had.

Approximately an hour and a half later—well after curfew—I was hanging upside down by my light-line outside Rig’s window on the third floor of his apartment complex in Igneous. He was snug inside, sleeping in his bunk. He had his own little closet of a room, which I’d always found luxurious. His parents had been deemed exemplary in all six parental metrics, and had been granted housing for multiple children, but—ironically—Rig was the only one they’d ever ended up having.

I knocked on his window, hair dangling below my head as I hung there. Then I knocked again. Then a little louder. Come on; it hadn’t been that long since I’d last done this.

Finally, the sleepyhead sat up, light through the window—from my light-line—outlining his pale face and bleary eyes. He blinked at me, but didn’t seem the least bit surprised as he walked over and slid the window open to the side.

“Hey,” he said. “Took you long enough.”

“Long enough?”

“To come try to talk me into coming back. Which I’m not going to do. I don’t have everything figured out, but I’m still sure that my decision to—”

“Oh, shut up about that,” I whispered. “Grab your jumpsuit. I need to show you something.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“This is serious.” I said. “You’re going to flip your boots when you see it.”

Infuriatingly, he just leaned on the windowsill, looking out at me as I was hanging there upside down—which was not easy, mind you. “It’s almost midnight, Spin.”

“This will be worth it.”

“You’re going to drag me off to some cavern, aren’t you? I won’t be back until like two or three.”

“If you’re lucky.”

He took a deep breath, then grabbed his jumpsuit. “You do realize that you’re the weirdest friend I’ve ever had.”

“Oh, come on. Let’s not pretend you have other friends.”

“Strange,” he said, “that my parents never managed to give me a sibling—but I still somehow ended up with a sister who gets me into trouble all the time.”

I grinned. “Meet you down below,” I said, then I paused. “Flip. Your. Boots. Rig. Trust me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a minute to sneak past my parents.” He pulled the drapes closed, and I let myself down to the street below, where I waited impatiently.

Igneous was a strange place at night. The apparatus worked all hours, of course. Day and night were just words here, though we still used the terms. There was a mandatory quiet cycle—during which the cavern loudspeakers didn’t play any announcements or speeches—and a curfew for those who weren’t on last shift. But nobody paid attention to you as you walked the streets if you kept to your own business. The default assumption in Igneous was that everyone was going about something useful.

Rig met me down at street level as promised, and we walked through the cavern—passing the mural of a thousand birds in flight, each one divided in half by a line, the two halves slightly offset from each other. The birds soared from a red-orange sun, which you couldn’t even see up above.

Our cadet’s pins got us past the guards and into the tunnels. As we walked one of the easier paths, Rig filled me in on what he’d been doing the last few weeks. His parents were happy he’d washed out; everyone knew how dangerous being a pilot was.

“They’re proud, of course,” Rig said, grunting as he climbed some rubble with me. “Everyone treats me really strangely once they see the pin. Like, they listen to what I say, and tell me my ideas are good—even if they aren’t. And people make way for me, like I’m someone important.”

“You are.”

“No, I’m the exact same amount of important I was before.” He shook his head. “But I’ve got a dozen different job offers waiting for me, and I’ve got two months to decide.”

“Two months?” I repeated. “Without a job or school? Just free time?”

“Yeah. Mrs. Vmeer keeps trying to push me toward politics.”

“Politics,” I said, almost stopping in the tunnel. “You.”

“Tell me about it.” He sighed and sat down on a nearby rock. “But what if she’s right? Shouldn’t I listen to her? Everyone else thinks politics is the best thing you can do with your life. Maybe I should do what they say.”

“What do you want, though?”

“Now you care about that?” he asked.

I winced, and Rig looked away, blushing deeply. “I’m sorry, Spin. That wasn’t fair—I haven’t been fair. To you, I mean. I chose to study for the pilot’s test; you didn’t make me. And yes, your dreams kind of consumed my own—but that’s mostly because I didn’t have any dreams. Not really.”

He slumped on his rock, back to the wall, looking up at the tunnel ceiling. “I keep thinking, what if it happens again? What if I let myself get excited about a job, then discover I’m completely unsuited to it? I’ve failed at flying, right? So maybe I’ll just keep failing?”

“Rig,” I said, taking him by the arm. “The problem isn’t that you’re going to be unsuited to what you pick. The problem is what it’s always been. That you’re simply too scudding great at too many different things.”

He looked up at me. “Do you really believe that, Spin?”

“Sure do. I mean yeah, you decided flying wasn’t for you—but I think if you have a flaw, it’s not that you fail too often. It’s that you refuse to admit what everyone sees. The fact that you’re incredible.”

He smiled. And seeing Rig smile felt good. It reminded me of our days as kids, when an outcast and a kid who was bullied had made friends against the odds.

“You’re going to drag me into something again, aren’t you?” he asked. “Something ridiculous?”

I hesitated. “Yeah … Probably.”

“All right,” he said, standing up. “I guess I’m in. Let’s go see this surprise of yours.”

We continued on, climbing until I led him, finally, out a gap onto the surface. I pulled him over to the entrance to my improvised home, then made him hold on to me as I lowered us down inside, as—well—the chances that he’d slip and fall were pretty good. He really was amazing at a ton of things … but I’d seen him drop no fewer than eight books on his toes while studying this past year.

“This had better not be something to do with rats, Spin,” he said as we landed. “I know you go crazy for them, but …”

I turned up the light on my light-line, illuminating the ship. As if in coordination with my reveal, M-Bot turned on his dash and running lights. I’d cleared away much of the rubble, and with the lights, the ship didn’t look half bad. Broken, yes, with a bent wing. But distinctly different from anything we had in the DDF.

Rig gaped at it, his jaw dropping practically to the floor.

“Well?” I said. “What do you think?”

In response he sat down on a nearby boulder and—still staring at the ship—pulled off his right boot, then flipped it over his shoulder.

“Well,” I noted, “I said boots. plural. But I’ll take it.”