Breaking Sky

by Cori McCarthy

  Chase raised her hand. “Permission to speak, General?”

  “If you have to, Harcourt.”

  “I do.” She glanced at Sylph. “Are you taking one of the Streakers out of the trials?”

  Kale narrowed his eyes. “Who said that?”

  Pippin was looking around like he wasn’t interested. Like he hadn’t been the person to tell her exactly that. It made Chase redden from the neck to the cheeks. “No one. It just felt like that’s the way things were headed.”

  “You’re all factored into the trials,” the brigadier general said. “All three teams.”

  Sylph’s relief showed in the way her shoulders released. Tristan was at the far end, his hair tied back tight and his eyebrows sunk into a v. He looked distinctly uneasy.

  Kale noticed Chase’s stare and snapped his fingers in her face. Romeo and Pippin laughed together, while Sylph looked pleased. Riot examined his bandaged hand.

  Tristan didn’t notice. He really was out of it.

  “What’s the hop today, General?” Sylph asked.

  “You three are going to…” Kale sighed. “The easiest way to explain this is that you’ll be racing. But it’s not a competition.”

  “Buuullshiiiit,” Pippin sang. Everyone laughed.

  Kale’s eyes couldn’t hide their delight. “It’s a bit of a competition, but we’re collecting speed records, not ranking you. Stay safe but also let loose.” A whoop came from several of them, including Chase. It was exactly what she needed: to get in the air and open up. “The three of you will be linked via shortwave radio. It won’t connect you past a few dozen miles, so stay close. It should be clear from hacking.”

  “Espérons que,” Romeo muttered. Pippin muttered something back in French. Apparently her RIO had found his nerd brother in Romeo. It stung a little. She wasn’t used to seeing him joke with anyone other than her.

  “One more thing,” Kale said over the chatter. “Stay out of the gray zone. If you begin to lose your colors, throttle back immediately.” He looked at Chase again. “The satellite restrictions needed to fend off Ri Xiong Di’s overrides also mean that we cannot control the jets remotely. Should a team lose consciousness…” He didn’t have to say it. They all knew the “crash and burn” gist. “Is that understood?”

  Chase nodded.

  “Trust each other up there. Work together. Help each other. That’s an order. Dismissed.”

  Everyone except Tristan and Chase climbed the ramp stairs into their cockpits. Tristan was stiff. He took a little too long getting his helmet on, and Chase secured the strap for him.

  “You ready?”

  He didn’t respond. His eyes were glassy and downcast.

  “Don’t make me kiss you again,” she muttered.

  He looked at her, his expression beyond serious. “Don’t play with me, Chase.”

  “I was trying to help you.” She avoided his apology by slamming her helmet over her ears. “Don’t care. Just fly.”

  Chase pushed past him, her chest strangely hot. Tristan headed to Phoenix, and Kale touched her shoulder. He had been watching them talk.

  “Did you notice Powers, Harcourt?”

  “Riot?” She couldn’t stop herself. “What? That he’s a child?”

  “He needed a few stitches. You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?”

  “Oh yeah. I hypnotized him and made him punch a mirror.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said too knowingly. Had he been talking to Ritz? Christ. Chase panicked, looking everywhere but at the brigadier general. “Harcourt, I do try to keep my head above the teenage gossip of the academy, but there are certain lines we should observe.” He cleared his throat. Chase rushed with embarrassment, feeling like she was about to get the Star’s version of a sex talk. “There are some concerns…”

  “Spit it out.” Chase pulled too hard on her leather gloves and gave herself finger wedgies.

  “I’d rather you not get friendly with Router.”

  If she’d thought she was red before, she was scarlet now, and Kale’s neck flushed to match. “Right.” She hurried to her cockpit.

  “What was that about?” Pippin asked as she swung into her seat.

  She fastened her harness. “A dose of mortification.”

  “What?”

  “Like you care,” she muttered. She switched the mic connect between their helmets and revved the engines. Dragon was warm and ready. It was exactly what she had been missing this past week. It would help her get past everything.

  Pegasus headed onto the runway, followed by Phoenix. Chase left the hangar last, watching Sylph shoot into the air, her whole being glittering with impending lightness.

  “Ready for the speed of heat, Pippin baby?” A little ire slipped in with her zeal.

  “Always, Nyxy muffin,” he deadpanned while messing with his controls. Someone chuckled over the radio, and Chase bristled.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

  “Nothing, honey badger,” Tristan said. Romeo laughed as Phoenix swept off the runway. Maybe Tristan was trying to tease her out from under his cold snap a few minutes earlier, but it wasn’t working. Especially after Kale’s awkward warning.

  “Nyx. Quit flirting,” Sylph cut in from roughly two thousand feet. “Time to fly.”

  Chase gritted her teeth. Dragon’s throttle hummed in a new, exciting way. She closed her eyes and tried to mold her thoughts around the vibrations. She needed to sink into a place where Crackers wasn’t after her wings. Where Riot hadn’t confirmed Tanner’s colorful title for her.

  She opened her eyes and set her sights on Phoenix.

  Her hands tightened on the stick and throttle until each knuckle strained. No worries, Kale. There was no way she was getting friendly with Tristan. Chase was going to knock him out of the sky. The poor boy—he had no idea.

  • • •

  A half hour later, Dragon and Pegasus flew wing to wing before a stretch of Canadian wilderness. The pines undulated as the land phased into low mountains. Silvery lakes spotted the woods.

  Phoenix was nowhere in sight, having lagged back not long after takeoff. Chase might have thought something was wrong, but before she could worry, Arrow met them at the coordinates, announcing his arrival over the radio.

  “My country,” he said.

  “Think they get Wi-Fi out here?” Pippin asked, and Chase snorted.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Sylph said. “They want to see which one of us is the slowest. As if we don’t already know.” Chase felt for Sylph. She was an amazing pilot, but speed was not her strong suit, and the Streakers were becoming increasingly about just that. “Who’s going to count off?”

  “Let Pippin do it,” Romeo said. “We’ve seen his file. You guys know his IQ is like eighty points higher than the rest of us put together?”

  “We know,” Sylph and Riot droned together.

  “If anyone’s qualified to count from ten, it’s him,” Romeo added.

  “In what language?” Pippin’s voice cracked, and the radio went full volume with laughter. Romeo added a few words in French, and Pippin quipped back.

  “All right already,” Chase said. “Pippin, call it.”

  Pippin counted down, and Chase glanced at Phoenix. Tristan’s face was lost behind his visor and mask, but he was looking her way, and she could almost feel the heat behind his eyes.

  She had to beat him.

  Chase centered her breath and locked her vision straight ahead. A thousand miles due northeast had been cleared of all military and commercial flights. Enough space for a serious drag race. And the new throttle was so sensitive…

  Pippin called three, two, one—and Chase shot forward. The press of gravity restrained her for the briefest of flashes before she broke forward, hitting Mach 1…2…3. Sylph fell behind. Her RIO’s
breath came loudly through his teeth. Tristan stayed too close, his nose under her left wing for a few hundred miles that passed like heartbeats.

  “Hey, you have to warn me before you hit the gas like that,” Pippin said. “I need to get ready.”

  “Then be ready,” she snapped. There were so many elements out of her control—Tourn, the trials, Ri Xiong Di, and her best friend’s increasing distance. But what she could do was fly, beat Tristan, and prove she was not only good enough to fly a Streaker, but also the best pilot among the three of them.

  She hit Mach 4, feeling like she was about to turn into a solid strip of silver light. The pressure made her tremble while the land below turned a green bleeding color. Fear trickled through her, and her body agreed. The monochrome crept in.

  “I’m feeling pretty gray, Nyx. Talk to me,” Pippin said.

  “Oh, now you want to talk.” She hit the throttle even harder.

  “Nyx!” Pippin shouted. “This is too much!”

  “So tighten up,” she yelled. Tristan could go faster than this—he’d proven it in the simulators. She set herself tighter. Pippin would just have to come back when it was all over.

  “Stand down, Dragon,” Arrow said. “Your RIO is calling Mayday.”

  “Shove off, Arrow.” Chase flicked off the shortwave. “Don’t make me lose this, Pip.”

  “I’m losing it!” Pippin yelled. “Chase, please! Please!”

  Phoenix dropped away at that moment, falling back so swiftly that he vanished.

  She’d won.

  Chase backed off the throttle, realizing how hollow her vision had become. How swilled and tilted her mind felt. She sucked oxygen, hung her head, and swore in a long, slow string.

  “I gather you’re mad at me,” Pippin said.

  Chase turned them back toward the Star. “Mad? Try disillusioned,” she said. “That’s one of those fancy words you like.”

  “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

  “I do.” She hit the throttle without warning, making him grunt.

  22

  RED FLAG

  Mock Air War

  The flight home was ugly-silent. Kale met them in the hangar to download the footage from their onboard cameras, and Chase came down from her cockpit last. Maybe she should have been walking tall, but the victory didn’t feel right.

  She was still too riled to make eye contact or to even try to talk to Pippin, but then, he wasn’t hanging around. He took off toward the locker rooms in a hurry. Without Pippin to be angry with, embarrassment knifed its way in. Making her feel pinned down.

  “Nyx won,” Tristan said to Kale.

  “Like hell,” Romeo chimed in. “She messed up!” But Tristan put a hand on his shoulder. They left arguing.

  “What was that about?” Kale asked Chase.

  She shrugged and walked off after Sylph.

  “Bravo Zulu,” Sylph said to her, more command than compliment.

  Chase watched team Phoenix disappear around the side of a helo. “What was Romeo complaining about? I didn’t mess up.”

  “Arrow let you win.” Riot’s voice was sharp. “We know he can stand to go faster than Mach 4. The simulators proved that.”

  Chase got so angry so fast that it was a wonder she didn’t punch everyone. “Why in the world would he let me win?”

  “Don’t make me spell it out, Nyx.” Sylph scoffed. “Arrow let you win because he wants to…” She made wet kissing sounds. Chase sprinted at her, and Sylph laughed her way out of the hangar, outrunning everyone on her stork legs.

  • • •

  Chase couldn’t cool off. She headed to the rec room to play pool, but the only person who wasn’t watching the main event was Sylph. Ugh. The girl couldn’t keep from scratching if her wings depended on it.

  Sylph whacked at the cue ball, sending it spinning against the sides pointlessly before it sunk in the side pocket. “This isn’t my game.”

  “No shit.” Chase’s anger was barely in check. Her heartbeat had never really come down after her spin out in the sky, and she closed her hand on her stick over and over like she was trying to pump her pulse into a casual rhythm.

  All matters were made worse by the distraction of Romeo and Tristan facing off at the flight simulator game in the back, a sizable crowd surrounding them. Chase watched Tristan’s bird dip and double cross Romeo’s, flipping him out of the sky to an assault of cheers. Fistfuls of money were slapped around. Pippin had a scratchpad—organizing bets, no doubt.

  “Arrow didn’t let me win.” Chase leaned over the table and took a swift shot, knocking the red ball into the side pocket and sending the cue spinning off in the opposite direction. “He didn’t.”

  “All evidence to the contrary,” Sylph snorted.

  “If he let me win, then I hate him. And if I hate him, then I have to take him out.”

  Sylph smiled thinly. “I’ve never heard you go mobster before. It suits you.”

  One of the simulated jets crashed, and the crowd booed.

  Chase took a shot and missed everything she was aiming for. Pool wasn’t her game either. It was Pippin’s. “Well, I’m not going to seduce him on purpose, so you can let that one go.”

  Sylph jumped up on the edge of the green felt table and crossed her long legs. She glanced at the crowd, as distracted by them as Chase was. “Just ask him if he let you win,” she said. “Here’s your chance.”

  The simulator game ended with a roar of cheers and groans. Romeo jogged over, a grin splayed across his caveman cuteness. He had Pippin in a headlock, and Chase’s RIO was practically twisted upside down. “I won,” Romeo said. “Let Arrow have the credit for the jet, but I can beat anyone at a computer game.”

  “Your RIO beat you?” Chase asked Tristan, but he ignored her. He was talking with an ebony-skinned sophomore, the girl who, according to Riot, had legs that “didn’t quit.” Chase felt her anger rise up as he turned his back.

  The rec room was hotter than it had ever been. People were everywhere, calling out to Arrow and Romeo, and endlessly laughing. Chase chucked her cue stick across the green felt table, whacking Sylph in the butt.

  “Arrow,” she yelled. Tristan held up a finger at her, telling her to wait until he was done talking.

  A finger.

  She grabbed his hand and twisted it, tucking his arm behind his back. Then she leaned into his sweaty hair and asked, “Did you let me win?”

  “Yes.”

  Chase was numbed by his answer. When he swung around and broke her hold, she collided with the edge of the pool table. He stepped way back, revealing a new quiet that proved the whole room had tuned in to their conversation.

  “Why?” Chase wanted her question to sound hard, but it wavered. It felt fragile and damning, and an anger spasm filled her chest. She glanced at Pippin and found him looking distinctly mortified. Good.

  Sylph stepped in between them, catching Tristan by the shoulder of his uniform. “Hey,” she commanded. “Take it to the mat.”

  “I don’t want to spar with her,” Tristan said.

  “At the Star, we don’t let fights turn into feuds. You and Nyx have to work this out. Now.”

  A few minutes later, a serious crowd—what felt like the whole academy—surrounded the boxing ring. Sylph ducked under the rope, tightening Chase’s gloves. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two,” the blonde said, “but I love it.”

  Chase squeezed her fists, feeling the worn-through spots on the padding. “Advice?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “He’s going to cream you. Don’t let him.”

  “That’s your advice?”

  “When we spar, you let me hit you like you’ll be able to shake anything off. A good slug from Mr. Chivalry will knock you out. Stay light. Dodge.”

  Pippin stepped close. “Chase. I’m going on th
e record as saying this is suicide.”

  “Noted.” Chase stared into his boyishly cute face. “You’re next.”

  His laugh was short and dismissive. “Like I’d get in the ring.”

  “I forgot. You would never fight with me.” Tears burned at the edge of her eyes, and he could see them.

  Pippin chewed his bottom lip and shrugged. “It’s not worth it.” She tried to turn her back, but he grabbed her arm. “Tell me why this is worth it. Why prove he can beat the bones out of you?”

  “Because I can take it,” she snapped. “And he should know that.” Tristan should know she wasn’t some weakling who would pout if she lost. She could take whatever he could dish out, including being beaten by him—if that had to be the case.

  Pippin tried to catch her arm again, but she pulled away. He ducked out of the ring.

  Chase watched Tristan from across the mat while Sylph worked her shoulders like a trainer. Tristan’s beautiful sophomore stood behind him on the other side of the rope, and Chase just about threw up when the girl finger-combed his hair and spoke into his neck. Tristan nodded, rolling up his sleeves to show off notable arms.

  Chase hoisted a sigh. She’d spent too much energy trying to ignore his body, his blue-eyed stare. The way his sharp cheekbones juxtaposed an entrancing mouth. His elements added up into one striking truth: the boy was magnetic.

  “Wake up, Nyx.” Sylph gave her a quick slap. “You’re staring Arrow down, and not in the ‘I’m going to kill you’ way.”

  “He’s hot. I’m not imagining that, am I?”

  Sylph grimaced. “He is. It’s an unfortunate reality. Long hair on a boy has about a ninety-eight point two percent chance of being ugly. But he’s somehow weaseled himself into the remainder.”

  “Great. At least I’m not crazy.”

  “We’re not ugly either. Keep that in mind.” Only Sylph could pull off blatant immodesty. “I don’t like to admit that you rock this sort of badass girl look. But. You do.”