Breaking Sky (16 page)

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.

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 like 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.

Oh
hell
.

• • •

Chase finally fell asleep in the rec room and woke up late for the debriefing of the drone event. When she opened the door, many eyes met hers. Adrien, Sylph, Riot, Tristan, and Romeo were seated along with several higher-ups in their crisp-shouldered uniforms. Kale stood at the head of the table.

“What is this interruption?” Tourn's voice came through the speaker in the center of the table, but his image faced away. Chase breathed easier knowing he wasn't there in person. Her relief was short-lived. “Brigadier General?”

“The last cadet has arrived,” Kale said, motioning for Chase to come in.

“Who?”

“Cadet Harcourt.”

“Why wasn't she here with the others?” Tourn barked.

“She's been in the infirmary. It was quite an ordeal, General.” Kale was talking back to Tourn, and Chase's heart started to hammer at her chest.

“Brigadier General,” Tourn continued. “I am seriously beginning to doubt your ability to produce diligent airmen.” Chase knew the bleeding contempt in her father's voice. She saw the flush of Kale's neck. The tightening of his mouth. She felt sick for him. Tourn's insults continued like a storm. “You let your cadets have entirely too much freedom. They will continue to be ill-prepared when they get to the academy in Colorado Springs if you don't—”

“General Tourn, permission to speak?” Chase interrupted.

The pause was too long, and the whole room stared at her like she'd grown antlers. Even Kale.

“No, cadet,” Tourn said finally. “Take a seat and act like you belong.”

Her face went scarlet.

Chase dragged her chair across the floor, hoping the noise covered the painful pound in her chest.
Asshole
, she couldn't help but think.
Asshole.
The word helped a little. She glared at the wood surface, avoiding Tristan's gaze and Sylph's what-are-you-up-to gawk.

“As I was saying, we've had word from the intelligence office. Ri Xiong Di's forces have tripled their sky patrols along the demarcation line. It's our understanding that they are aware that they lost a drone but perhaps are not sure how. That is the best-case scenario.”

Tourn continued after an ugly pause. “Worst-case scenario is that Cadet Harcourt did not act fast enough, and the drone was able to scan the Streaker and wire the logistics back. We must assume the worst-case scenario.”

He gave one of his grunts that made Chase flash back to his tiny quarters that summer when she was twelve. She had sat opposite him on a hard kitchen chair for over an hour. Eye to eye with the man she had built up in her mind—only to find he knew less about being a father than she knew about having one.

“We need to act. The trials for the Streakers will take place in three days instead of two months from now. On Monday.”

The room rustled with objections.

“That is impossible,” Dr. Adrien said. “We need two months. Three days will not be enough time to test the tandem ejection module, let alone the enhanced inverted capabilities.”

“You'll have to make it work, Doctor,” Tourn said. “Also, the trials will not be public knowledge. There will be no fanfare or involvement from the academy. Let's not forget we are playing a game we are not likely to win, but if the cadets can convince the board to expand the Streaker project, we might have a chance to launch a fleet by spring. And for that, we need the government's money. Get it done. I will be there on Sunday to help Brigadier General Kale prepare.”

His image broke as he hung up, and Chase's chest swelled so fast that she thought her rib cage might split. Two days until Tourn.
Three
until the trials.

Adrien shook her head. “It will not be enough time. We have not even been able to test the double parachute. I feel very strongly that the pilot and RIO should not be separated in the event of a crash. At average Streaker speed, if they eject separately, they could collide and kill each other.”

“Let's not do that,” Pippin said. The teams exchanged desperate looks. Romeo started to rant in French to Pippin, who nodded fervently. No matter her fight with Pippin, her RIO talked with Streaker Team
Phoenix
easily. Chase tried not to burn as she looked at them, but with her father's damning words hanging in the air, everything was making her smoke.

Kale stared at the corner of the room. “We'll have to push up the parachute test. Make it happen tomorrow.”

Adrien argued back, but Chase lost track of the conversation when she saw Tristan's eyes on hers, along with a shot of pity. Nothing pissed her off faster than pity.

Cadet
Harcourt
did
not
act
fast
enough.

Act
like
you
belong…

Chase dug her nails into her palms. She'd broken the manned airspeed record—killed the first red drone—and still she'd failed her father. She stood up so quickly that her chair smacked backward against the tile floor.

Everyone turned to her, and she was glad. The last time she had been in this room, Tourn had brought her to tears. Not this time. “Come on,” she barked at her fellow flyboys. “We have to prepare.”

The Streaker teams followed Chase to the room she shared with Pippin. Chase realized her mistake in bringing them there when she saw everyone try to squish into the small space. Romeo flung himself on Pippin's bunk. Riot sat on the desktop while Sylph took over the chair. Tristan was left standing in the center of the room, right in Chase's pacing path. She moved him bodily to the corner, ignoring the way that getting her hands on him made her concentration fog.

If Pippin had a crush on Tristan, that made the boy off-limits.

Didn't it?

She glanced at her RIO and found him scrambling to get his things out of the way. He stepped close and whispered, “Do they have to be in here?”

“The academy doesn't know about the trials,” she reminded him. “We can't talk in public.”

“Yeah, but still.” He shoved three journals into his sock drawer. “This is beyond claustrophobic.” Pippin perched next to Romeo on the edge of his bed, glancing at Tristan's back just a foot away. Chase couldn't stop herself from watching the two of them. What had happened that Pippin was so terrified of her finding out about?

“Nyx.” Sylph threw a rolled-up sock at Chase. “Start the meeting.”

Chase blinked and tried to refocus on what had just happened. Tourn. Trials…

Did
Tristan
tell
you
about
the
hangar?

Romeo tapped his wristwatch through the awkward pause. “I've set a countdown. Sixty-one hours and twelve minutes until the trials.”

“How incredibly helpful,” Sylph said flatly. “Now we won't forget.”

Chase popped her knuckles. “All right. So we have three days.
Three
. And we have to have a plan.”

“A plan for what?” Riot asked, picking at his bandaged hand. “We're pawns.”

She threw a pleading look at Sylph. Plans were the blonde's forte.

Sylph sat taller. “Nyx is right.”

“Never thought I'd hear that,” Riot said. Pippin snorted, and Chase threw a dark look at her RIO. He could mouth off at her when they were alone, but not in front of everyone else.

Sylph continued. “They're not giving the U.S. teams enough time to work on our offensive maneuvers and weapons training, so we need to discuss how we're not going to look like idiots up there.”

“Keep in mind I still don't know as much as you do about defense,” Tristan said. “We're all ill-prepared.”

A dead sort of silence filled the room, and Romeo reclined on Pippin's pillow, staring up at his family snapshots. Solid minutes ticked by, only broken by Romeo pointing to one of the pictures. “Is that your mother, Henry? She's kind of
hot
.”

Pippin's face flushed so darkly that Chase barely recognized him. In fact, Pippin seemed more uncomfortable than she'd ever seen, which made her own skin feel too tight. He looked like he was about to blow.

Sylph interrupted her thoughts. “I haven't been this on edge since my aptitude tests for my Star application.” She flung her braid behind her shoulder and faced Tristan, hard. “Do you have any ideas, Arrow?”

“Who,
me
?” Tristan asked coolly. “You're inviting the Canadians into the conversation now? Keep this up and we'll start feeling welcome, Sylph.”

“We're in this together. Chase is right to get us talking strategy as a team.”

Tristan's eyes darted toward Chase's briefly, almost flirtingly. Her cheeks warmed like traitors, and she buried a flash of their kiss as deep as humanly possible. It wasn't easy, but whatever had happened in the infirmary had no place in the oncoming storm.

And then there was Pippin.

“The trials will be as expected,” Romeo said. “What we need to worry about is being punched out of a cargo plane tomorrow. We're going to test the already sketchy ejection system, and let me remind you that Adrien is not exactly confident about it.”

“They won't send us up without some assurance that it'll work,” Chase said.

Tristan and Romeo exchanged glances. “Adrien won't risk our lives, but…”

“But?” Riot leaned in. “
But
is not the word I want to hear in that sentence.”

“But she's being pressured by General Dickhead Tourn,” Romeo said. “He's the one that'll get us killed. Not like he's concerned with human life.”

Chase stared down. She didn't want to know if Tristan or Pippin was looking at her. They should be; it was her fault. She'd long since suspected that her involvement in the Streaker project kept Tourn invested. Kale had even told her that her dad kept tabs on her flying. For the first time, she wondered if that was proof he really did give a damn.

“General Dickhead is his official title,” she said because the group was too quiet.

Sylph crossed her legs, and Romeo stared at them. “So how are we going to dazzle the government board?”

Pippin made a dismissive sound, and Chase glared his way before talking over his objection. “Sylph's right.”

Riot's eyes got a little big. “Now they both agree with each other. Anyone else feel like we're entering dangerous territory?”

“I do,” Pippin said. “I don't trust them working together.”

“
Pippin
.” Chase's eyes were on his fast and hard. “We have to trust each other.”

“Even if some of us are harboring secrets?” His words jabbed.

The room went extra quiet.

“Don't,” Chase managed. Pippin looked away, his face blotching red.

“Okay. That was awkward.” Sylph cleared her throat. “Listen. I say we set up drills that show off all our strengths. We
make
each other look good. What do the Canadians think?”

Tristan took the edge of the bunk in one tight fist. “I think I'm still not over the fact that we're
friends
, especially after your stunt yesterday that almost cost Chase and Henry their lives.” Tristan left the room so fast. Romeo followed his pilot.

“What is wrong with them?” Sylph asked. “Nyx pulls a thousand stunts, and I do
one
and look at everyone freak out at me.”

Pippin's expression was still too dark. “Nyx gets special allowances because of her daddy.”

Chase's heart flew into action. “Pippin!”

He wouldn't look at her. “Papa Kale lets her get away with everything,” he added as a lame cover-up.

Sylph looked pleased. “This is true.”

But Pippin had meant Tourn. He'd lashed out at Chase in her most vulnerable spot.

“Fuck you,
Henry
,” she said, her voice low and mean.

“Whoa. Guys.” Riot whistled. “Let's chill.”

Sylph stood between them. “I've never seen you two go at it before. Now's not the time. Make up.” She grabbed Pippin by the back of his shirt and hauled him to his feet like she was going to force them to hug. He yanked away from her, threw a crumpled piece of paper on his bed, and left.

The door slammed, and the moment ticked between them like a countdown.

Sylph's eyes were huge. “Nyx. You can't fly if you can't talk to each other.”

“I realize that.”

“So go make up with him.”

Chase rubbed her face. “I'm trying. He doesn't want to make up.”

“But aren't you two like mirrored souls or something?” Riot asked.

“Don't you have trouble with mirrors, Riot?” Chase snapped back.

“
Hey
.” Sylph smacked Chase on the cheek and not lightly.

“Leave,” Chase said, rubbing her smarting face. “I have to think.”

Sylph and Riot left, and Chase sat on Pippin's bed. Sylph was right. There was no way they could survive the trials if they couldn't be in the same room, let alone the same cockpit. She picked up the piece of paper and smoothed it out. It was the picture of Pippin's mother.

“Mirrored souls,” she muttered. She remembered the spiderweb smash across the glass in the boys' locker room after Riot took his fist to it. The shards crunching on the tile underfoot, glittery and knifelike…

Chase collapsed on the bed. If they were mirrored souls, one of them was broken. But which one? Or were they a complementing pair of cracks?

Maybe they always had been.

• • •

Chase didn't last long on her own. Her thoughts ran heavy and sluggish, and she soon found herself racing for the rec room, hoping to run into Tristan. Pippin's crush be damned; she needed to talk with the one person at the Star who wasn't currently driving her mad.

A Ping-Pong tournament was the main event. Cadets surrounded the game, hollering at the two fairly advanced players. Chase envied their laid-back enjoyment. They had no idea that over the next few days the whole Star was going to be secretly overrun with officers and government officials.

She found Tristan on the far side of the room, flying the jet simulator game. Wonder of all, he was alone.

The flight simulator consoles were wedged into the darkest corner of the rec room, complete with oversized pilot chairs and a massive view screen. Chase stood behind him, enjoying the zip of his flying. It made little sense, but just being near him made this whole crazed situation a little straighter in her thoughts.

“I can feel you watching me,” he said after a minute.

She sat in the adjacent chair and picked up a controller. She talked fast and messy. “So. Giving Sylph a taste of what she deals out? That's gutsy. She won't put up with it for long. This is her academy.”

Chase logged on to the simulator to avoid the sudden awkwardness, and her fake jet dipped through a ruined city. She steered toward the coastline, firing a missile at a large dock. It plopped into the ocean, and she swore. “Would you please show me why I can't figure this out?”

“You're flying too fast to aim straight on,” Tristan said. She dropped a second line of missiles, all of them creating rings along the computer-generated ocean. “Unless of course you're aiming for submarines.” He reached for her controller, and she could feel his attention like heat coming off an engine.

“I'm figuring it out,” she said coolly, pulling her hands farther away.

“Let me help you.”

“Are you supposed to?” She locked her eyes on the screen and flew her fake jet even farther over the ocean. “Aren't we supposed to be opponents?”

“A little bird told me that we'll have new offenses to face during the trials.”

“Is that bird white-haired and lab-coated?”

“She is.” He touched Chase's arm and she crashed. “You're all right, aren't you?” The tenseness of his voice directed her toward his meaning.

“The drone?” she asked. He nodded. “I'm fine. We're all
fine
.” She ground her teeth on the word, trying not to remember Pippin's cruel snap.

A glimmer of his anger from earlier returned. “Sylph should have lost her wings.”

“If that were true, then you should have lost your wings for leading me back to JAFA all those weeks ago. And I should have lost my wings about sixty times.” She stared at the spot where his hand held her elbow and remembered the way their jets had glided across each other when they passed too close. Her skin tingled, and she wanted his palm against hers, fingers laced, in a uniquely brilliant way.

It made her heart rev like an engine…and then wonder what she was doing. Was she getting back at Pippin by getting close to his crush? No. In fact, however much she wanted to give her RIO a taste of her fist right now, she did not want to sweep in and steal his crush.

Tristan returned to his controller, firing a string of missiles to take out a structure similar to the Golden Gate Bridge.

“See, that! How did you do that?” she asked.

“Here.” He moved to the edge of his seat. She slid next to him, her hip and leg against his while the light from the simulator danced over his eyes. He handed Chase his controller and pointed to a trio of battleships. “Swing back around and try to hit the middle one.”

Chase did, and he folded his hand over hers on the controls. “You have to aim before you get there. The missile has a trajectory like a jet.” Tristan's finger twitched over hers, and she fired, hitting the middle ship. It tipped and burned, sinking fast. “There you go.”

She swung the jet back around and shot at the first battleship. It hit straight on, and Chase couldn't help letting out a whoop. The fake boat split and sank like the
Titanic
, butt up. When she turned, she found Tristan too close.

He bumped her leg with his. “We work well together.” His smile held a fair amount of swagger, like he loved how much tension bounced between them. She eyed his lips.
All
she could think about was that kiss, and she couldn't help wondering if he was thinking about it too.

“Should we talk about what happened in the infirmary?” Apparently, he was.

“Do you want to?”

Now
he
was looking at
her
lips. His smile started to lean in and she looked away.

“Pippin,” she said. Her emotions corkscrewed through her chest from his name. “He…pointed out that I've been distracted. I need to focus on flying.”

“All right, I have to ask. What's up with your RIO? Is he always this bipolar?” Tristan said. “Romeo is worried about him. We can never tell if he's going to hang with us or act like we don't exist.”

“I have to admit that I'm glad I'm not the only one he does that to.” She paused and chewed her thumbnail. “Have you and Pippin had a moment or something? In the hangar?”

Tristan blushed through the cheekbones, and she wasn't imagining it. “What? You can tell me,” she said. “I'm cool about whatever.” Her voice cracked ironically.