Difference between revisions of "Summary:Skyward"

 

=== Chapter 40 ===

 

Spensa spends a day sleeping in M-Bot's cockpit, trying to process what her father did, while Rig continues to work on M-Bot. After a day of sleeping, her period of leave is over and she reports to the classroom at 0630. All of the mockpits have exposed wires and parts missing, as they have had work done on them while the pilots had their periods of leave, and Cobb informs them that because they only have five weeks of flight school left, they will be practicing exclusively in real starfighters. The cadets report to the launchpad, and take their normal Pocos, except for Arturo, whose ship is still awaiting a shield igniter replacement, so is forced to board Kimmalyn's old ship, Skyward Six. Spensa begins climbing the ladder to Skyward Ten, and turns around to ask something of the ground crew, only to see Cobb standing there. Cobb hands her her helmet and informs her that Flight Command is still monitoring her brain. He also hands her a memo from Dr. Thior, who was tipped off that Spensa was residing in a cave in the wilderness and living off rats. Cobb indirectly tells her that it was he who left the tip, to which she is extremely grateful, even to tears. She then asks Cobb if what happened in the holorecording is true, and Cobb grimly nods, telling her the look he saw in Chaser before he was forced to shoot him down haunts Cobb to this day. Spensa then asks him if the doctors can really determine if she'll do what her father did just by scanning her brain, and Cobb tells her it's utter nonsense, that a person can't inherit cowardice, and that they are responsible for forging their own path. He then, noticeably more quietly, asks Spensa if she's ever seen "the eyes" and if she could ever hear the stars. She is horrified that Cobb knows, but refuses to tell him for fear of him insisting that she exit the cockpit and quit flying.

 

=== Chapter 41 ===

 

Spensa, Arturo, and FM are on scout duty with a woman callsigned Blaze, and she explains to them that if they become scouts, they will be issued a Val-class ship with normal 138 Stewart destructor traded out for a single 131, with much better sensors for detecting Krell ships. Blaze explains that it can be hard sometimes to continue scouting with a battle going on below, with every instinct screaming for you to descend and help your colleagues. Eventually the flight lands, and Spensa tells Siv that the ship has a couple of problems, but she leaves to go help a Camdon-class fighter who participated in the battle, ship smoking, to get out of his ship. Spensa , Arturo, FM, and Jorgen grouped up to go debrief with Cobb, only for them to find him standing next to a woman, Arturo's mother. He has been honorably discharged with a full pilot's pin, in order for him to go to the lower caverns to supervise cargo flights from other caverns. Walking back to the classroom, Spensa vents her anger about the rich, privileged kids having a leg up, getting into the flight school for free, with many of them already having flight experience, and then they get yanked once things get dicey. She and Jorgen hug for a while, and she feels better.

 

=== Chapter 42 ===

A few days later, Spensa and FM have dinner with members of Inkwell and Firestorm flights. The cadets discuss whether they'll be put together into a single flight, and what name they'll take. Spensa stays quiet and eats quickly, listening to the others talk. One of the other cadets, Drama, comments on Spensa being quiet, which she is thrown off by. After dinner, Spensa heads back to her cavern to check on M-Bot and Doomslug. Spensa greets M-Bot with the name Massacrebot, which he is irritated by, and Doomslug mimics Rig cursing and the sound of hammer on metal. Spensa finds a note from Rig on the ship's fuselage, informing her that his repair work is done and thanking her for helping him find a successful career with the Engineering Corps, closing off with telling her to enjoy her ship. Spensa excitedly prepares to fly M-Bot.

 

=== Chapter 43 ===

 

Spensa and Rig are back in the cave, ready to take M-Bot on another test run. Many more of M-Bot's capabilities are online, such as his life support and booster. He still lacks destructors, self-repair features, and his cytonic hyperdrive. With the booster attached and M-Bot superior GravCaps, Spensa is able to fly at Mag-10 without feeling a thing, even on sharp turns and loops. M-Bot then informs Spensa that he can project a battle for her, the Battle of Alta, which he made a copy of. He arms himself with holographic destructors, and changes the simulation each time Spensa kills a Krell fighter. As Spensa is about to pick another one off, another Defiant beats her to it, her father. Him and Cobb make a phenomenal team, with Chaser possessing the ability to constantly dodge and confuse the Krell to get close enough to IMP their shields, which allows Cobb to easily pick them off. Spensa begins trailing her father, but even with M-Bot's superior turning and speed, Chaser is still faster. She asks M-Bot to evaluate Chaser's reaction speed to the Krell's movements, only for M-Bot to tell her that her father is anticipating the Krell's movements, and moving before they do. Spensa then reaches the point in the holorecording where her father flies off into the hole in the debris shield, and she hears her father say he can hear the stars. She reaches for her father, and then hears a sound like a thousand intertwining musical notes. She imagines herself, as her Gran-Gran says, reaching for the stars. The cockpit goes black, and then all around her, millions of pinpricks of light turn on, eyes, focusing on her. She screams for M-Bot to turn it off, and he does, and she struggles for a moment, grappling with her sanity. She and M-Bot begin the descent to the cave, and M-Bot informs Spensa that he does not believe that he is still capable of convincing Spensa that she cannot take him into battle, so he informs her that he will power down and await his long-dead pilot to return. Spensa screams for him to stop, telling him this is suicide, that his pilot is dead, to which he tells her that he knows, but he is incapable of disobeying the orders he was programmed to live by, to lie low and wait for his pilot to return. M-Bot powers down and Spensa is left in the pitch black of the powered-down cockpit.

 

=== Chapter 44 ===

 

With graduation looming, Cobb arranges for Spin, FM, and Jorgen to practice in different types of ships, such as Largo and Slatra-class starships. Spensa continues to find herself distracted, thinking about the eyes and her father's betrayal. When the flight lands, Spensa doesn't talk to anyone and goes straight to the orchard. She doesn't find solace there, and sees Jorgen preparing to leave via hovercar, so goes over and talks to him. She tells him about her learning the truth about her father, a fact Jorgen already knew, and then he tells her she's worried she might to the same thing because she exhibits some of the same symptoms her father had, such as the eyes and claiming to hear the stars. Jorgen asks her if she knows about the mutiny aboard the ''Defiant''. She says no, so Jorgen tells her that in the final days of the ship's voyage, there was a disagreement about what the fleet should do, so half of the ship rebelled against the command staff, including Spensa's ancestors, the engineers, and Jorgen's ancestors, the scientists. Some people thought the engineers had colluded with the Krell to put the last humans of Detritus, which is where the talk of the defect comes from. Jorgen then tells Spensa that she is amazing and that she inspires him, and Spensa's true feelings about Jorgen begin to boil over. He leaves, and she decides that with her half-day off, she needs to visit her family in Igneous Cavern.

 

=== Chapter 45 ===

 

Spensa heads down the elevator to Igneous, and when she exits, the people there part, letting her through, some soldiers even saluting her. Spensa goes to where her mother sells algae wraps to off-shift workers, her mother sees her, and runs over to embrace her. They go back to selling wraps, and Spensa realizes her mother thinks she's been kicked out of Flight School. Spensa shows her the jumpsuit and cadet pin and tells her that she'll graduate in two weeks. Spensa tells her mother that once she graduates, they can move into a bigger apartment and me rich, to which her mother tells her that the DDF made the same promise if she would simply publicly accept that her father was a coward. She opted not to, so remains poor and selling algae wraps as a show of public defiance. Spensa tells her mother of her fear of the defect, and her mother tells her it's made up, but that her Gran-Gran has a different opinion. Spensa goes to her old apartment and sees her Gran-Gran, near blind, sorting beads by color. She starts to help her, and her Gran-Gran asks her if she wants to hear a story about Alexander the Great, or Hervor, or Beowulf. Spensa tells her she is scared and confused and doesn't want to hear any more stories, and she asks her Gran-Gran if any of the people in the stories she tells Spensa are real. Gran-Gran tells Spensa it doesn't matter, as stories bring normal people hope. Spensa then tells Gran-Gran that she saw the holorecording of the Battle of Alta, and that it's true that her father turned coward. Gran-Gran considers this for a moment, then tells Spensa she's going to tell her a story. Spensa protests, but Gran-Gran tells her it is her own story, and Spensa stops, intrigued, as she's never heard a story about Gran-Gran before. Gran-Gran tells her a story about back when she was a little girl aboard the ''Defiant'' and her father, a historian, would tell her stories about great heroes from their days on Earth. It was Gran-Gran's mother who could hear the stars and power the ship to far away places. She then tells Spensa that the ''Defiant'' and its small fleet became involved in an intergalactic war, and the Krell began fighting them. They fought back, and the Captain of the ''Defiant'' ordered Gran-Gran's mother to take the ship somewhere, but she refused, and used all of her strength to send the ''Defiant'' to Detritus. Gran-Gran believes this is why the others hate Spensa and her , because they control where humanity can ultimately travel to, and now that they have no communal starship capable of traveling great distances, the others have no need of Spensa and her family's ability. As Spensa begins to climb down the ladder, Gran-Gran forcefully tells her to stop, and tells her that if the humans are to ever truly win and escape the Krell, they need someone like Spensa who can hear the stars.

 

=== Chapter 46 ===

 

The remaining members of Skyward Flight are scouting out salvageable debris with Nightmare Flight. Their flightleader, Nose, tells Bog and Tunestone to take Spensa and FM one way, while he tells Sushi and Nord to take Jerkface. Bog and Tunestone start making fun of Jorgen, but Spensa and FM rush to his defense, telling the full DDF pilots that he's a good flightleader and keeps them focused on their ultimate goal. Bog and Tunestone then shift their mockery to Spensa and FM, and Spensa tells them to watch out for the cadets going after the full members' kills and ace. Bog and Tunestone try to show off their lightlancing, Tunestone overshooting slightly, thinking that all the cadet flights have focused on destructor play and dogfighting. Spensa and FM perform a two-fourteen with a double flatline at the end and a V-sweep, expertly playing off the rocks and even each other, leaving the two full pilots and Nose stunned. After a period of awed silence, Nose asks them if they're looking for a flight when they graduate. FM declares she wants to be a scout, and Sushi, Nord, and Jorgen rejoin the radio channel. Spensa, FM, and Jorgen climb to 700,000 feet and Spensa begins to worry the defect will overtake her, this close to the stars. The cadets see something gargantuan falling through the debris field, and Spensa recognizes it as the other half of the C-137-KJM orbital shipyard that took Nightstorm Six and Seven's lives. They see the shipyard's turrets firing at something they can't quite see, and Jorgen reports the shipyard to Cobb and Nose, who relay it to Flight Command, as the shipyard likely contains hundreds of acclivity rings, just as its other half had. Suddenly, a group of Krell fighters break through the debris and turn towards the flight.

 

=== Chapter 47 ===

 

 

== Part Five ==