Breaking Sky

by Cori McCarthy

  Not him. Her mind cartwheeled over her father. His curse of a name. His too-large forearms and clipped gray hair. She held Tristan tighter, and he lifted her a little higher, closer.

  “But it’s the first drone anyone’s managed to knock out of the sky,” Tristan argued. “It has to mean something good.”

  “Does it?”

  The silence that followed Kale’s question held too many answers. If Ri Xiong Di knew that the U.S. had airpower capable of taking down a drone, they might attack in a hurry. Chase’s breath cut out. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe before this night was done with its darkness…

  “Will this affect the trials?” Tristan asked.

  “They won’t look kindly on her passing out like that.”

  “But her RIO hit the autopilot in time.”

  “What if she hadn’t brought down that drone before she needed the autopilot? Or there had been a second drone waiting? Dragon would have been a sitting duck. We can’t afford to lose multibillion-dollar jets that easily.”

  “She’s the only one of us who could have outmaneuvered that drone. You have to tell them that. That thing was fast.”

  “I know.” Kale took a very loud, deep breath. “But no one wants kamikaze pilots.”

  Chase lost her grip on Tristan as Kale’s words fell all over her like dead weight.

  Tristan only held her more firmly. “Nyx could have lost that drone, but she stayed in front of it. I know what she’s like in the air. She made sure it didn’t bring its intel back to Ri Xiong Di.” His hold on her tightened as his words grew tenser. “Come on, Brigadier General. If your military can’t—”

  “Cadet. Let me remind you that you are under my command while you train here.”

  Silence knifed its way in. Chase’s brain had woken fully from the heated exchange. Why was Kale dismissing Tristan’s concern? Why did Tristan seem like he wanted to deck the brigadier general? For once, Kale’s hardness felt overly stubborn—and Tristan…the way he kept defending Chase made her want to tangle up with him. Hands, arms, and lips.

  When Kale spoke again, his voice had softened, sounding more like himself. “We need to start thinking as allies, Router.”

  “Yes, Brigadier General.”

  Chase heard it all too slowly to respond. She locked her fingers around Tristan’s neck and peered at a few brown freckles on sand-hued skin.

  So she’d gotten her colors back.

  When they reached the infirmary, a commotion eclipsed the warmth of being close to Tristan. Voices shouted all over the place. She heard Pippin yelling at Sylph about the drone and Riot telling everyone to chill out. Chase tried to stir, but her mind still felt behind, and she felt too beat for flyboy drama. She groaned, and Tristan seemed to understand. He didn’t leave her in the midst of the arguing. He took her to one of the beds in the back, through the sea of curtains, where it was much quieter.

  “Let go, Chase,” he said, unwinding her arms from his neck. She settled into a mound of pillows. Now that she was inert, she felt more awake.

  Or maybe it was because she was alone with him.

  “What, no kiss?” she mumbled.

  Tristan leaned in and pinched her ear. “Maybe next time.”

  But then he did kiss her. A brush of lips so fast that by the time she’d woken up her mouth, he was pulling away. She grabbed the front of his flight suit and hauled him closer.

  He was more than ready. One hand took the back of her neck and the other braced his body over hers. His face tilted in, and she felt fire and wind and so much speed in every brush and push of his skin.

  A minute passed. Maybe an hour. Someone cleared his or her throat, and Tristan pulled away sharply. A twentysomething medic stood at the edge of the room, her eyebrows raised.

  Tristan turned to leave so fast that he headed straight into the curtain. He swung his arms to get free of the draped cloth, swearing in the strongest Canadian accent she’d yet heard from him. When he finally emerged, his sweat-battered hair was a complete mess, and he spun in a circle before heading for the door.

  “Feeling better?” the medic asked sarcastically as she watched Tristan’s hasty exit. She began to take Chase’s blood pressure. “I miss being a cadet,” the woman grumbled. “Haven’t gotten any in ages.”

  Chase ignored the medic and held a hand over the radiating blush on her face.

  So. Tristan kissed like he flew. Christ, the boy was amazing.

  • • •

  Chase snuck out of the infirmary at what Kale would call an ungodly hour, sick of being treated like she had been hurt. Her loss of consciousness had been more significant than Pippin’s because her mask had unsnapped during her mad dash to engage autopilot.

  Thank God her RIO had managed it. If he hadn’t…

  She couldn’t even think about it.

  Chase’s body had been starved of oxygen for several minutes—or so her sex-deprived medic had informed her. No permanent damage, just a crushing headache. The throbbing pain couldn’t hold Chase down, though. She needed to find Sylph.

  They had unfinished business concerning the demarcation line.

  Chase went to the room Riot and Sylph shared. She knocked for a solid minute before a sleep-washed Riot answered the door. “I need Sylph,” she said.

  “She’s not here,” Riot said through a yawn.

  “Why were you guys over the d-line? You shouldn’t have been closer than a hundred miles from it.”

  He ignored her question. “Try the hangar. She goes to Pegasus when she can’t sleep.” He shut the door on Chase, almost snipping her face. His bandaged hand was the last thing she saw.

  Chase headed to the hangar. The chilled air of the concrete building took hold faster than usual, along with a flash of red through Chase’s thoughts. That drone had been so terrible, and yet beautiful—a sleek death machine.

  It should have killed them.

  Dragon sat where she always did, but her landing gear had been disassembled. Again. Sylph’s bird was parked next to hers, pristine and girly like always. Even after its run-in with the drone, the jet appeared unscathed. Chase heard a strange shuffling as she took in Pegasus. She stepped around the wings and braked hard. Boards out.

  Sylph was pressed against the jet’s side, her arms and lips locked on a young airman with a familiar hawkish face. He had his hands up the back of her shirt, and Sylph’s too-long legs were wrapped around his waist.

  “Whoa.” Chase’s heartbeat shot off the charts. The way they devoured each other made Chase’s make-out sessions seem like kids at play. “Whoa,” she said even louder. They stopped kissing and scrambled to detangle themselves. The airman buckled his belt while Sylph smoothed her hair, calmly eyeing Chase.

  The guy’s face, however, was turning reddish purple. Embarrassment smeared with fear.

  “You!” Chase heard herself saying. “You work up in the tower.” She checked the front of his uniform: MASTERS. He had been the staff sergeant who lipped her after she’d first spotted Phoenix. “Am I hallucinating?” Chase blinked hard. “I must be.”

  Masters looked like he was going to bark a command, but Sylph whispered in his ear. He nodded, gave her another scorching kiss, and left. Sylph approached, casually braiding her hair back.

  “What was that?” Chase asked.

  “Get over it,” Sylph said. “This has nothing to do with you, and you’re not going to say anything to anyone.”

  “I’m not sure I’d know what to say,” Chase said honestly.

  Sylph hooked arms with Chase and led her through the hangar, more purposeful than friendly. “Liam and I are in love, Nyx, and I’m eighteen, so it’s legal.”

  “Legal nothing. Kale will crap a mongoose when—”

  “He can’t know.” Chase thought Sylph was going to get fiery with her, but Sylph’s mood went the other way. She seemed…scared. The e
ffect took years off Sylph’s ordinarily hardened persona. “The trials and that drone—if Kale finds out, he’ll put me on the Down List. Liam’s the most important thing to me.” Sylph looked at Pegasus. “But I don’t want to lose my wings.”

  Liam? It was weird to think the hawk-eyed staff sergeant had a first name. Then again, Chase had just seen his tongue in action. She eyed Sylph. The girl was much less daunting at this angle, not to mention she almost glowed when she said Liam. “I won’t say anything, Sylph. But you have to tell me what in hell happened yesterday.”

  “Blackmail. That’s how you want to play this.”

  “No. I want you to tell me what happened. I think I deserve that much.”

  “You saved my life.” Only Sylph could say that without gratitude. “So I will tell you. But after all the crap you’ve pulled over the years, you better not judge.” Her eyebrows scrunched. “You and Arrow blasted off together faster than I’ve ever been willing to go, and I didn’t want to be third best anymore. I was…it was just supposed to be a hop across the d-line and back again. That quick. I wanted to be the first to cross it.” Her smile was downright heartbreaking. “And I was. I’ll always have that over you. Even if they take my wings for it.”

  Maybe it was because Sylph was being so un-Sylph-like, but the truth rose up from Chase’s chest and burned its way out of her. “They’re going to take my wings, not yours. I heard Kale telling Tristan. I’m unsafe.”

  Sylph’s expression prickled back to normal, full cactus. “Of course you’re unsafe. You’re unpredictable. The drones are on a grid flight plan—software—and when I head up there, I fly by their rules. I don’t know how not to. Don’t think I haven’t tried. But then you streak in and attack like a wild animal. Those computer-brained machines will never outfly you.”

  Chase shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what I can do. Kale…Kale said the government board won’t like how I handled that drone.”

  “Nyx. Are you opening up to me?”

  “Could you just be a human for once? They might take my wings. Before the trials even. Tomorrow.”

  Kamikaze pilot.

  “That’s what you’re worried about, Nyx? I swear you’re never aware of what’s at stake. After the trials, if the board approves the Streakers, you and me and that Cutesy-Pants-Canadian are going up against Ri Xiong Di. Think about it. They’re never going to back down without a demonstration of what the birds can do against the drones.”

  Sylph stepped a little closer. “Yesterday was my awakening. I won’t mess up again. From the first time I got up in the air in Pegasus, I’ve imagined flying against the drones. I’m ready.”

  Chase stared blankly. “I’ve never imagined flying against drones.”

  “That might be your real problem. This isn’t a game. Never has been. Once you get your head around that”—Sylph sighed—“you might be a good pilot after all.”

  Chase felt frozen to the concrete. Everything was linked to her flying. Her attitude, her relationships. Her fear of her dad and desperation to prove she belonged. Her mounting curiosity in Tristan and her ache to be closer to her RIO. All connected. Inexorably.

  And suddenly the trials were simply a speed bump. The real test would be facing a drone fleet. Would it happen in ten weeks? Six months?

  The only sure answer was soon.

  “Nyx.” Sylph put her hand awkwardly on Chase’s shoulder. “Don’t look so destroyed. We have two months before the trials. I’ll help you face your fear before then.”

  “Help or drill me into submission?”

  “The difference being?” She risked a rare smirk. “You really won’t say anything about me and Liam? He’s my future.” The tall blonde looked around the hangar before letting her deep brown eyes settle on Chase. “Everything else could fall apart so easily.”

  “I won’t say anything.”

  Sylph left.

  The word future hung in the densely cold air. Dragon had felt like her life for years, but Sylph was right. Chase’s world was so much larger than one jet—and yet it was still only one bombing from turning to screams and ash.

  26

  BEHIND THE POWER CURVE

  Letdown

  Chase headed to her room. Even though she sat on the edge of Pippin’s bunk softly and touched his shoulder gently, he jerked and pulled away when he woke.

  “We need to be okay.” She rolled her eyes at her word choice considering Pippin’s dismissive definition of okay. “We need to be better. I need you. To fly.”

  “To fly?” Pippin sat up. She half expected him to launch into one of his defensive maneuvers, but he didn’t. “How do you propose we achieve this ‘better’ state?”

  “I don’t know. I only know that Tourn could show up tomorrow and take my wings.” She felt tears, but she held them in lockdown. “Things are heating up with Ri Xiong Di. That drone was…” Pippin nodded, and she could see in his eyes that that drone had scared him as much as it had terrified her. “There’s more. Kale called me a kamikaze pilot.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.” She pushed forward. “I know you don’t think I care about anyone, but I do. And I know you’re going through something. I am too.” She took a deep breath, wanting to tell Pippin about the talks she’d shared with Tristan. And that mad heat of a kiss. “Tristan…”

  “Wait.” Pippin looked like he might be sick. “Did Tristan tell you about the hangar?”

  “What?”

  Pippin’s shoulders let down a little. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “You’re really hard to talk to, you know that?” She shook her head and forced herself to cool down. “When I’m with Tristan I have to do my damnedest not to tell him my life story, but you? You’re a wall, Pippin.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “Fine. I’m terrible at this! So answer me one thing. What would you do if you were me and you were trying to patch things up? And don’t say space.”

  He leaned back on his pillow. “I’d fly Dragon. That’s what I’d do if I were you. All of a sudden you’re picking fights, messing up hops… Your head’s not in the game right now.”

  “This isn’t a game,” she muttered.

  “I know that. I’ve always known that. Do you?” His temper rose with each word. “I’ve seen the way you and Tristan look at each other. The way you’re scheming with Sylph all of a sudden.” He checked himself, and she could tell how much energy it took by the strain on his face. “You’ve always been the best at acting like no one else matters because the Second Cold War, the military, the Star, et cetera, and so forth—they’re all more important. I’ve hated you for that in the past, but right now I wish you’d quit needling me and just fly.”

  “Hated me?” Her voice was small.

  All of his anger was gone. That fast. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  She didn’t. She didn’t know what he meant at all these days. “So now we’ve gone from me not understanding you, to you avoiding me, to you being a stranger, to you hating me. Man, I’m glad Phoenix came to town.” She got up and left.

  “Nyx!” he yelled after her. It was the wrong thing to say, and he knew it.

  It wasn’t her name.

  Chase fled to the Green. Dawn was being simulated by the gradual increase of the sunlamps over the grass, while high above, the black sky was as bleak and dark as the Arctic in November. She sat beneath her favorite tree and remembered climbing it with Pippin freshman year. The day she first became Nyx.

  Chase had lugged up Kale’s book on Greek mythology, certain her call sign was hiding in its pages. Pippin had come with her, balancing on a thick branch while reading the Orpheus poems, his headphones snuggled around his neck.

  “Here’s one about the goddess Nyx, Daughter of Chaos. She’s a shadowy figure who only shows up when things are going real bad,” he had said. “Sounds l
ike your brand of mischief. Listen: ‘Dissolving anxious care, the friend of Mirth, with darkling coursers riding round the earth. Goddess of phantoms and of shadowy play, whose drowsy pow’r divides the nat’ral day.’”

  “Perfect,” Chase had said, reaching so high on the top branch that she could feel the radiating heat of the sunlamps. “I’ll be ‘Darkling Courser.’”

  “Or you could be ‘Nyx.’ Which is shorter and not so highfalutin pretentious.”

  “Nyx.” She had tried it out a few times. “It’s better than Chase. I hope people call me that instead.”

  “In addition to,” Pippin had corrected. “Instead implies you’re being replaced by this new persona.”

  Chase had laughed. “Can you replace yourself? That sounds awesome.”

  “But then how will I know who I’m dealing with?” Pippin had asked. “Will the two Chases wear different hats?”

  She had climbed even higher until she had heard the whining crack of a branch about to break. “I’ll tell you what they both love. They both love to fly.” Chase had let go and held her arms out. When Pippin had grabbed for her, the book fell, breaking its spine on an upraised root.

  Its pages had scattered.

  Chase came back from the memory. Her chest was heavier than ever as she remembered how pale Pippin had turned when he thought she was going to fall. She still sharply recalled how strange it felt to have someone scared for her.

  She wanted to say that he no longer cared, but that wasn’t true. Something deeper was happening with Pippin. She thought over the last conversation until she snagged on the way he’d acted when she brought up Tristan.

  She stood up fast, realization knocking into her like a headwind.

  Did her RIO have a crush on Arrow?

  It made so much sense. Pippin was always with Romeo and Arrow these days, and he’d already been busted trying to hide that fact from Chase—telling her to leave him alone.

  She pressed her fingers to her lips and remembered the kiss only hours earlier that had sent her soaring. Was she developing feelings for the same person her RIO was crushing on? Chase might not have been the girliest of girls, but she knew that that spelled crisis.