Skyward

Spensa and Kimmalyn observe the mock cockpits in their classroom. Several classmates are from different caverns than Spensa. She recognizes one of the boys who gained automatic admission. He immediately tries to order everyone around, and Spensa dubs him “Jerkface” and starts arguing with him just as Mongrel arrives. Mongrel gets the students in order and instructs them to call him Captain Cobb. He warns that most of them will not make it through the four-month training because they will either drop out, be kicked out, or be killed.

Cobb assigns Jerkface, whose real name is Jorgen Weight to be the group’s flight leader. (Jorgen is the son of a First Citizen and a National Assembly leader.) Spensa objects, so Cobb takes her into the hallway and scolds her, saying that he has taken a risk to get her into flight school. He urges her not to give anyone a reason to kick her out of his classroom. He explains that although Jorgen did not have to complete his test, he has logged several hundred hours of flight time because of his family connections. For this reason, Jorgen is fairly well qualified to be the flight leader. He warns Spensa that if she pushes him too far, she won’t get to fly.

As Cobb gets the students settled into their holographic flight simulators, Rodge arrives, out of breath. He is late because he was called into a meeting congratulating him on having the highest scores of the year, then got held up in a malfunctioning elevator.

Most of the students have a rough first takeoff. Cobb has them practice takeoffs and landings until they all manage to do both cleanly. The flight leader, Jorgen, is ordered to call roll, just as they will do whenever they take to the skies. Spensa suggests the name Skyward Flight for their flight group, and everyone accepts it. As they practice new maneuvers, an alarm for a Krell attack suddenly sounds. Admiral Ironsides calls into their room over the speaker and orders Cobb to have the students take to the air in real ships to help during the attack. She claims that the DDF is short on pilots and the attack is a large one, but Cobb is concerned and requests confirmation of the order to send cadets out in real ships on their first day. Ironsides confirms the order, so Cobb orders the cadets out to the launchpad.

Skyward Flight arrives at the launchpad and takes off. Cobb learns that there is good reason for their deployment, after all; the elevator malfunctions have grounded some of their backup pilots, so the admiral needs pilots in the air to make it appear as though the DDF has more ships ready to jump into battle. The cadets are meant to look threatening and then fall back once the reserve pilots are ready to fly.

However, Spensa notices a Krell fighter breaking away from the rest and heading toward Alta base. It is moving fast, and Jorgen tells Cobb that the reserve pilots may not make it in time to stop the fighter, as Cobb thinks. Cobb allows only a few of the cadets to engage the Krell fighter defensively in order to distract it until the trained pilots arrive. As Jorgen, Spensa, Hurl, and Nedd approach the fighter, the Krell turns around and heads straight toward them.

Spensa almost collides with a cadet named Hurl, but Jorgen and Nedd engage the fighter, and when Jorgen makes skilled maneuvers, Spensa is grudgingly impressed. The remaining cadets in the flight scatter and some of them collide. Spensa tries to join Jorgen when Jorgen’s shields go down, but Kimmalyn, who has flown to a lower altitude, surprises everyone by shooting the Krell fighter down, revealing her shooting skills.

Spensa nearly compliments Jorgen on his flying, but because everyone in the flight has begun calling him “Jerkface,” he yells at her. Cobb arrives before Spensa can respond and compliments the cadets for their success on their first day, despite their bad flying. He sends them off to get their bunk assignments and some food, and although Admiral Ironsides compliments the cadets over the speakers, she also notes the existence of “exceptions” to their bravery and skill. Spensa is shocked to realize that the admiral can be so petty.

Cobb informs Spensa that although he allowed her entry into his classroom, he has no power over the facilities. He explains that the admiral has ordered that no resources be devoted to Spensa at all; she is refused a bed and food, and as a result, she will have to make an hours-long commute to and from her mother’s home in Igneous every day. Cobb shares Spensa’s anger but encourages her to accept the situation and keep fighting. As she leaves, she overhears Jorgen complaining to Cobb about the disrespect from the other cadets, who are still calling him “Jerkface,” and Cobb bluntly tells him to earn respect rather than expecting it. The boy stomps off to join his parents for a political dinner, and Spensa realizes just how rich he is when she sees his vehicle. Spensa leaves Alta base, but instead of going to Igneous, she turns toward the caverns and hikes 30 minutes to the cavern where she found the abandoned ship. She reclines the seat and sleeps there for the night.

Spensa wakes to find a bright yellow and blue slug-like creature watching her. It chirps at her, but nothing more, so she ignores it and plans her day. It is early enough that she can get food in Igneous before returning to Alta for classes, but she feels as if doing this would be a form of defeat. Instead, she uses rope from the abandoned ship’s toolbox and sets a snare for rats. While she waits, she inspects the ship and finds that it uses power connectors like those that the Defiants still use now, which are taken from the fleet that first landed on Detritus. She also uses the minimal power from her lightline device to discover that the ship still functions despite its broken wing and other damage. She reasons that she can power the ship on completely if she can access a stronger power source. She decides to live in the cavern and subsist on mushrooms and rats while she attends flight school. This will be a way for her to control her life even as the admiral and others try to force her out; she decides that this is a good way to be Defiant under her society’s values.

As class is about to begin, Rodge appears in the doorway with his pack, and Cobb nods, wordlessly accepting Rodge’s withdrawal from flight school. Spensa runs after Rodge, trying to convince him to stay and pursue “their” dream, but he admits that it is more her dream than his.

The class practices turning their ships, and Spensa is determined to endure the boring practice until she masters this skill. At lunch, while her classmates go to the canteen, she wanders the fields outside the base, in awe at the plant life. Later, back in the classroom, she confronts a cadet named Morningtide when she assumes that the taciturn girl dislikes her. However, when Cobb conducts a required survey of how the students feel about training so far, Spensa realizes that Morningtide simply does not speak much English, and she regrets mistreating the girl.

A week into training, Cobb introduces the cadets to their ships’ weapons. He lets them try out their destructors (laser guns), but he explains that the destructors are actually the least effective weapon against Krell. The Krell have stronger shields and weapons, so the Defiants must use their stronger maneuverability to win battles. He explains the ships’ capability to shut down the shields of ships around them, including themselves, and he also explains lightlances, which are similar technology to lightlines. Cobb has already discovered that Spensa has an unauthorized lightline, but he has not reported her. Now, he asks her to demonstrate how to use a lightlance. He explains that it is the most useful of the weapons but should be utilized in creative ways, such as throwing debris at Krell or pulling a wingmate out of danger. Spensa is entranced by the power and creativity of using a lightlance as a weapon.

Spensa hooks up a scavenged power matrix to the crashed ship, but the matrix doesn’t hold enough power to turn on the ship completely; she will need to find a larger power source. The slug-like creature, which she has named Doomslug the Destroyer, still watches her, making trilling noises that closely imitate words and sounds.

In class, Spensa explains some of Cobb’s words to Morningtide, helping her to feel less self-conscious. In between flights, Spensa realizes that Bim, one of her flightmates, is flirting with her, and she awkwardly tries to flirt back. As time goes on, Spensa and her flightmates are limited to practicing maneuvering even though other cadets have already progressed to practicing dogfighting. Cobb insists that his slower approach way will keep them alive. When they complain, he offers them a game of hitting rings in a course, during which Spensa sabotages Jorgen’s last run to prevent him from beating her. In retaliation, Jorgen publicly reveals her identity as the daughter of Chaser, the man accused of cowardice and betrayal. Spensa is horrified to realize that she has lost her opportunity to be seen for who she is rather than for who her father is, but she stands her ground, nonetheless. As she leaves the base, she moves toward the canteen and sees Jorgen eating with the rest of the cadets for once instead of going back to his privileged life every night and throwing away the camaraderie that she is denied. She goes to the hangar where Jorgen keeps his vehicle and steals its power matrix for her abandoned ship, enjoying the thought that Jorgen will have to walk home that night.

The next morning, Spensa regrets stealing Jorgen’s power matrix, worrying that she will be caught and kicked out of flight school. Jorgen does not report her, but when their eyes meet, she senses that he knows something. She reasons that he might be waiting to exact his own revenge rather than reporting her to the authorities. After the revelation of her father’s identity, all her classmates except for Kimmalyn behave awkwardly around her, but they are not unkind. Kimmalyn commends Spensa’s courage in standing tall despite her father’s legacy, and Spensa ends the day feeling better. She returns to the cave that evening and hooks up the matrix to the ship as Doomslug watches. As it powers up, she hears a voice that addresses her directly and asks her to identify herself and her ancestors.

The ship speaks to Spensa it claims that humans named it M-Bot. It is a long-range scouting and stealth vessel, and its last memories are of its previous master (its pilot) telling him to lie low and take stock. It was programmed with the ability to think and understand humans. It believes its mission is to gather information about mushrooms, but Spensa notes that it is clearly a warship. The ship determines that it was last activated and subsequently abandoned by its pilot over 170 years ago, long before current humans’ living memory. Spensa wonders if the ship could help give humans the answers they lost when their scientists, commanding officers, and elders were bombed by the Krell after landing on Detritus. M-Bot doesn’t remember anything of this nature, but Spensa decides to ask Rodge to help her see if they can recover anything from the mostly broken ship. Spensa sneaks down to Igneous and gets Rodge to follow her back to the caverns. Along the way, he worries about choosing a new career now that he has dropped out of flight school. Spensa reassures him that he has a wide variety of skills. At the cavern, the ship’s lights turn on in greeting and Rodge goes silent in shock.

Rodge spends the night investigating the ship while Spensa sleeps. In the morning, Spensa shares that she doesn’t want to tell Cobb or the rest of the fleet about the ship just yet; she wants to keep the ship as her backup plan in case the admiral keeps her out of the fleet after flight school. Rodge says that might be able to help fix the ship up, especially if he joins the elite Engineering Corps that repairs the fighter ships. He suggests that he could try asking veiled questions about specific parts of ships in order to learn how to fix M-Bot. After he completes his daily shift as an intern for the Engineering Corps, he will go to the caverns to work on M-Bot. The ship requests a private conversation with Spensa and asks her not to share its presence with anyone besides Rodge, insisting that it follow its last orders to lay low. It also reveals how powerful its sensors are by telling her that over 40 Krell ships are attacking during a debris fall. Because the admiral is now sending cadet flights out as support during Krell attacks, Spensa rushes to return to the base.

Spensa is late to the launchpad; her flightmates took off 20 minutes ago, so she rushes to join them. Jorgen explains that they have been ordered to engage in a smaller dogfight, acting as distractions rather than as backup. As she finally meets up with her flightmates, Spensa sees Morningtide, and Jorgen orders her to the girl, but Spensa is too late, and the Krell destroy Morningtide and her ship before Spensa arrives. Jorgen orders Spensa to join Bim while he provides support for Kimmalyn, who is struggling to cope with the loss of Morningtide.

Bim and Spensa spot a Krell bomber carrying a lifebuster, a deadly bomb designed to decimate gatherings of humans. Bim starts to engage despite Cobb’s desire to request confirmation from higher-ups. Bim and Spensa soon learn that the bomb is larger than expected because the Krell have hidden fighters up against it. Now, those fighters disengage and attack Spensa and Bim. Cobb tells the trigger-happy Bim to pull back, but Bim continues his attempt to destroy the bomb. Spensa cannot save Bim, who is killed when several Krell overwhelm his shield and destroy his ship. Other, more thoroughly trained fighters finally pursue the bomb, forcing the Krell to pull back to protect their rare lifebusters. Skyward flight returns to the launchpad with only seven of their nine pilots.