Spensa begins to bond with her classmates. In the meantime, Spensa and her cadet flight crew continue to learn and practice new techniques under the guidance of Cobb. Spensa, with the help of a cautious Rodge, begins to work on repairing the ship.

Spensa is barred from using academy facilities and quarters, so she occupies a nearby cave, where she discovers an advanced crashed ship with an artificial intelligence computer. Rodge is left scared, and quits the flight academy to instead become an engineer. After training in a virtual reality simulator, they are suddenly called to the battlefield to aid against a Krell incursion. Their members are Spensa, Rodge, Kimmalyn (nicknamed Quirk), Hurl, FM, Nedd, Arturo, Morningtide, Bim, and Jorgen (nicknamed Jerkface by Spensa). Cobb, her father's former wingmate and an instructor at the academy, spies on her and sees her near-perfect score, so he offers her the opportunity to come train under him.Īt the academy, Spensa is introduced to her fellow cadet crew who, at Spensa's recommendation, name themselves the Skyward Flight. Angry at her defeat, she surreptitiously retakes the exam after everyone has left. However, on the day of the testing, DDF Admiral Ironsides rigs the exam so that Spensa fails. Spensa, who has been preparing for the exam her entire life, has high hopes to pass, as does her longtime friend Rodge. In order to get accepted into the flight academy, she and her peers must take an exam to prove their worth. However she is barred from any chance at becoming one because her father abandoned his flight in the infamous Battle of Alta, which ended in his own wingmates shooting him down. Spensa dreams of following in the footsteps of her deceased father, a fighter pilot of the Defiant Defense Force (DDF). Spensa is a 17-year-old girl who is part of a group of shipwrecked humans living on a ruined world called Detritus, under constant attack from mysterious aliens called the Krell. Defending Elysium is available on Sanderson's website and contains spoilers for Skyward. Skyward is set in the same universe as Sanderson's short story Defending Elysium, which details events hundreds of years before the events of Skyward. It was published by Delacorte Press on November 6, 2018. It is the first in a series of four books. Skyward is a 2018 young adult science fiction novel written by American author Brandon Sanderson.

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