Breaking Sky

by Cori McCarthy

  Down.

  Too low. She had to pull back up, but the drone seemed to be waiting for her move. It engaged, nose to nose.

  Chase fired, but the drone shot first.

  A missile came at them in a blur.

  At the cockpit.

  Chase jammed the stick sideways. The jet jinked, and Dragon’s left wing exploded.

  “Nyx!” Pippin cried out. They fell in a gut-twisting spin. Chase fought for control while the lake seemed to rise to meet the jet.

  They were too low to eject.

  She couldn’t save the landing.

  They skipped off the surface as though it were granite. Dragon’s right wing ripped off with a horrible screech. Chase’s head whipped against her seat back, and they slammed to a stop near the sandy shore.

  Smoke filled the cockpit. The canopy glass was somehow still holding shape, and yet it had been fractured like a net thrown over them. She hit the release and the canopy rose.

  Chase got out of her seat, choking on each breath. “Pippin!” she tried to yell.

  His head hung over his chest, and when she shook him, he didn’t move.

  Chase hauled Pippin onto her shoulder. They fell over the side of the jet, landing with a splash in the few inches of water. She dragged him away from Dragon. The wet sand swallowed each step, and she stumbled several times before they fell into a pile at the lapping edge of the lake.

  Her helmet was gone, and she didn’t know when she’d lost it. She pulled Pippin’s off, finding a huge crack across the back of it. Bad sign. She checked his pulse, but her fingers were too cold from the water. She pressed her ear to his chest and listened for a beat.

  He had one. Thank God.

  “Wake up.” She shook him. She knew she should be gentle, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Pippin?”

  His eyelids trembled before they opened. “My head,” he said.

  “You cracked it.”

  “You cracked it,” he argued.

  A bit of relief settled in. If he was joking, he was okay. She forced herself to breath, looking at the cloudless blue sky. “Where’s Phoenix? Where’d that drone go? Will it come back?”

  No one responded.

  “Pip?” Chase pulled his body over her lap, and his head tilted at a harsh angle like he couldn’t hold it up.

  “I’m gonna—gonna—” He threw up, and she held his shoulders while the water turned gross. He collapsed onto her lap, and Chase found blood all over her hands. All down Pippin’s flight suit.

  “Your head is bleeding,” she said. “I’ve got to get you out of the water.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Cerebral edema. Brain filling with blood.”

  “Don’t mess with me.” She swore. “Rescue helos are on their way. It’ll be any minute.”

  “They’re hours away. We’re in Nowhere, Canada. I’m the navigator, remember? You’re the one failing geography.” He sucked in breath. “I have a few minutes, maybe, before the pressure takes out my higher brain functions.”

  She ignored him. “We just have to stay chill to fight off shock. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  There was that word again. That god-awful word.

  “Chase, I’m not going to make any sense in a…really soon. Hurts.”

  “You’re not a doctor, and your head is fine.” But it wasn’t. His head felt heavier in her lap. It was swelling in her hands and—if Pippin was right—inside his skull.

  An eerie calm fell over them as the water bloomed red. Chase forced herself to focus on him, but her fear was the wind and it was pulling her apart. “You just need some stitches and you’ll be all right.” She squeezed his uniform, pulled him tighter.

  Pippin’s eyes were glassy, bulging almost, but they were fastened to hers. “I hate these movies. They always kill the gay kid.”

  “Shut up. You’re not dying.”

  “Why’re you so sure?” he asked.

  “Do you see me begging for forgiveness or spouting I love yous?”

  “Indeed.” He tried to smile, but his lips didn’t quite make it. Blood lined his teeth. The panic spread from the corner of her mind and fractured inward at an alarming rate. Chase couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t lose Pippin.

  Her breath rasped, and she glanced at the sky to hide her tears. “Where are they?”

  “Lost my left eye. Confused,” he said. “The bridge…cross it. The right one.” He started to gasp. His breath stalled out. “Respiratory center affected. Confused.”

  “Stop diagnosing yourself!” She shook him and then pressed her face to his hair. It was wet and gritty with sand. “Tell me about ‘Ode to Joy.’ What’s it really about?”

  “About joy. I was being…a…difficult.” He cried out suddenly, his breath breaking apart. “Terrified,” he said. “No legs.”

  “Your legs are fine,” she said, choking on the words. The world was leaning in, shaking her, pushing her. She held Pippin even tighter. “Tell me something. Come on, Pip.”

  “Up, down, the notes. Up…and down.” He closed his eyes. “Fools fly. No. Listen, Chase.”

  He gave her name his last tearing breath.

  DELTA

  35

  SMOKING HOLE

  What’s Left

  Chase tripped down the shore, desperate to escape the waft of smoke.

  She left Pippin’s body. Her voice was broken from saying his name, and her flight suit was stained red from her stomach to her knees. When she could barely see Dragon, she sat hard and folded her legs into her chest.

  Pippin was dead. The truth was too much, so she lost it. She let it go. It fled upward with the smoke, leaving her alone. And then she waited. She hoped Pippin wasn’t right, that the rescue helos wouldn’t be hours away.

  But Pippin was always right. Even about his own failing body.

  Chase checked the sky for the red drone. For Phoenix. All she found were a few large birds belatedly heading south for winter in a sluggish formation. It was too normal. Too picturesque for what had just happened. Her breath became erratic, cutting in her lungs with each seizing inhale.

  The crystal canopy Chase kept over her for so long had fractured. Fallen away. Now she was laid bare to a cruel wind. To feeling everything. The gust chapped the dried blood on her hands as she drew Ritz’s heart circle in the rough sand.

  She wrote Henry in its center.

  And cried.

  The helicopters came with a blast of furious sound. Two of them landed beside Dragon while a third hung in the air, making the surface of the lake turn white with chop. She saw the rescuers looking for her. Saw them sprinting down the beach. They were adults, not cadets. Real airmen, like everyone at the academy pretended to be.

  Chase stood up, and one of the medics wrapped a reflective blanket around her. He led her to one of the helicopters, strapped her to a stretcher, her legs elevated. He swung a flashlight over her eyes and asked her questions. Many, many questions. She didn’t bother to listen, let alone answer.

  Through the open door, Chase watched Dragon being doused with white foam from the helicopter hovering over the crash site.

  “You’re going to be all right,” the medic said. She started to laugh, a sick sound even in her own ears. “She’s in shock,” he yelled to the pilot. “Let’s go!”

  They took off just as an alarm pierced the helo. Chase thrashed, certain that the red drone had returned to finish her. “It’s back! It’s back!”

  The medic held her down. “That’s the military beacon,” he said. “There are no bogies inbound.” He pinned her arms and was leaning too close as he shouted to the pilot. His voice hit her like a smack. “What’s happening?”

  “Terror alert has been raised to ‘severe.’ President Grainor is addressing the nation. He’s declared a state of emergency.”

  Chase’s mind grasp
ed at questions without understanding them. How could the president know? How long had she been on that beach? What was happening?

  “What’s coming from General Tourn?” the medic yelled to the pilot. “War?”

  “Grainor says Congress is in session now,” the pilot yelled back. “They’ll declare soon.”

  Chase squeezed her eyes, confused and suddenly shivering. She felt war—such a small word—try to eclipse the crash, but it couldn’t. It couldn’t touch Pippin. She wouldn’t let it.

  “Where’s my RIO?” she asked.

  “In the other helo,” the medic replied. He stuck a syringe in her arm without warning. Unconsciousness glided over her, and the rest of his words reached her unevenly.

  “That’s what…we get for…letting kids fly.”

  ECHO

  36

  HARD DECK

  The Lowest You Can Go

  The tree line was too close. Riot yelled over and over, but his warnings were obvious. And wrong. Everything he said felt wrong.

  “Shut up!” she screamed over him. Her outburst fed into her muscles, her nerves; she was jerky. Flailing.

  Crashing.

  Again.

  Her wing caught the top of an emerald-green pine and spun out, clearing the woods with fire blazing as orange as a construction zone. Chase didn’t have her visor on. Or her helmet. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes, shocked to find herself drenched, her hands shaking. “Get it together,” she muttered. The U.S. was on the cusp of war with the New Eastern Bloc, and where was she? Stuck in the goddamn centrifuge simulator.

  She shielded her vision from the neon blaze and threw the door open.

  Riot got in her face. “How many times are you going to drop too low? I warned you. I even gave you a countdown to the hard deck, which Sylph never needs by the way. HOW CAN I HELP YOU IF YOU WON’T LISTEN?”

  Chase’s head hung low but not in defeat. Or sadness. It was fury.

  Poor Riot.

  She reached back and slammed his face so hard that he crumbled to his knees, howling. Adrien tried to step in, but Chase flung the woman’s kind arm away. “I can’t fly in that stupid machine.” Chase motioned to the Star City Centrifuge. “I have to get in a jet.”

  I need Dragon…and Pippin.

  The words didn’t come out, but they didn’t stay deep either. They spotted her surface, tears coming on fast. Hands useless. Legs weak. She sat hard and covered her face, feeling the raw skin beneath her eyes and the weariness that now wrapped around her like a nightmare. It was exhausting to feel this much. If she could have unplugged every single emotion, she would have.

  She was trying to do just that.

  Riot got back on his feet, his nose bleeding. “I don’t think you broke it.”

  “What is happening here?” Dr. Ritz stormed in, immediately inspecting Riot’s face. “Did you do this?”

  “He tripped into my fist,” Chase said.

  “Well, you’ve just set yourself back a week, Chase Harcourt.”

  Chase stood fast. “A week?! This is going to be over in a matter of days!”

  Ritz spoke to Riot, ignoring Chase. “To the infirmary and then get some rest. How long until you’re back in the air?”

  Riot checked his watch. “Five hours.”

  “Go.” Ritz turned to speak with Adrien, and Chase watched Riot leave.

  He stumbled into two chairs on his way out, and it had nothing to do with his nose. He was leveled with exhaustion too. They all were, especially Sylph and Tristan. Tourn had ordered a permanent Streaker watch along the d-line. One jet wouldn’t do much against an invading fleet, but with the radio humming nonsense and the satellite on the fritz, the Streaker’s responsibility was to get back to the Star with a warning—a warning to send everyone to the bunkers…

  Pegasus and Phoenix had been trading twelve-hour shifts over the last five days—since Pippin’s death had turned the Second Cold War into an out and out conflict. And this time, there were no confidential statements. Everyone knew. About Ri Xiong Di, the drone, the crash.

  About Pippin.

  Chase glanced at Adrien’s desk. The elderly engineer kept her handheld screen on mute, but Chase could still see the psychotic news coverage. The public’s panic. Raids and hysteria, not to mention President Grainor’s grim speeches and knuckle-white grip on the podium.

  But this time, the screen showed a new terror.

  Pippin’s three brothers and mother had been squeezed onto a ratty couch. His mother kept her hand over her face.

  “What is that?” Chase blurted, interrupting Ritz and Adrien’s dispute. They followed Chase’s glare, and Adrien touched the corner of the screen to turn on the sound.

  The reporter leaned in like a predator. “Can you tell us about your son? What were his passions? His hobbies?”

  “Nerd stuff,” Pippin’s oldest brother said.

  Andrew, the youngest, squirrelliest, and inarguably dirtiest of the boys, sent an elbow into his eldest brother’s side. “Henry loved flying. He was the best RIO in the Air Force. And the smartest. He had the best pilot too: Nyx.”

  Chase’s heart bottomed out. She stopped breathing.

  The reporter slid even closer, proving he wasn’t a predator after all. He was a damn scavenger, and he was about to pick the family clean. “Mrs. Donnet, how do you feel about Henry’s pilot? Are you angry that your son died while she lived? Do you blame her?”

  Pippin’s mom stared down.

  Adrien made a move to shut off the screen.

  “Leave it on,” Ritz and Chase said in sync.

  Chase needed to know. She certainly blamed herself. She should never have dropped so low with that drone on her tail. She should have let that missile take out their wing and ejected…

  After a few long moments, Pippin’s mother said, “They were attacked by Ri Xiong Di. We’re lucky one of them survived.”

  The reporter didn’t seem to hear her, launching into questions the family couldn’t possibly know, including: “What can you tell me about the jet your son was flying in? Sources have led us to believe they’re a new type of jet that has yet to be disclosed to the public.”

  Adrien put the screen on mute just as the image showed Chase’s and Pippin’s junior year cadet pictures side by side. Chase wavered and sat down. All the blood had left her brain.

  “Hope they made a fortune from that interview,” she murmured. “Enough to buy a real house.” But that’s not what she really hoped. She hoped it hadn’t happened at all. No interview, because Pippin hadn’t died, because there had been no accident. Her mind kept doing this sort of…rewind. She went backward, pulled the move differently, didn’t head too low, bested the drone. Won the trials.

  Then she celebrated with Pippin back in the chow hall. They ate cake. Well, he scooped up the icing and she ate the fluffy stuff beneath it. Like always.

  Chase’s mouth tasted bitter all of a sudden, and she came back to reality with more fury than she’d had after crashing in the simulator for the fortieth time. She locked eyes on the floor and made herself breathe, just like Kale had told her in the days following her accident. His words were loud through her thoughts, and she held on to them.

  Focus, Harcourt. Breathe.

  It might have worked if her eyes didn’t catch on Ritz’s low-heeled shoes and beside them, where a few drops of Riot’s blood had smeared into a brilliant half rainbow on the tile.

  Chase remembered Pippin’s blood blooming and fading as it spread into the lake.

  She gagged, and spit flew out in a long string. Ritz jumped back while Adrien came closer, holding on to Chase’s shoulders.

  Chase wiped her mouth and pushed herself toward clarity. Toward the pain. “Riot’s going to get killed,” she said to Ritz. “They all are. Sylph, Arrow, and Romeo. They’re too tired! We need another pilot in the rot
ation, which means you need to give me my wings back!” Chase was in Ritz’s face. She wasn’t exactly sure when she’d charged forward, but she was there now, vomit breath and all. “Please.”

  The woman’s narrowed expression, wire-rimmed glasses, and huge hair bun were different up close. Chase suddenly realized that Ritz wasn’t forty-something but possibly early thirties.

  “It’s only been five days since the crash,” the psychiatrist said carefully.

  “Yeah. It’s been five days!” Chase said right back. “Five days of ‘any minute now’ hostilities. They need me.” Chase held back from adding that she needed the air. The speed. Flying was the only thing that could keep her from slipping backward. “You’ve seen the news. People are freaking out. They’re afraid Ri Xiong Di is going to drop a thousand bombs on us at any moment. We have to do something.” She shook her head. “I have to do something!”

  “What is it you can do?” Adrien asked kindly.

  Chase glanced away. “I’ll figure it out when I get up there. That’s what I always do.”

  Ritz exchanged a look with Adrien. “You have not yet proven you will work well with another RIO. It would be dangerous to send you up there.”

  “Let me try with Romeo. Or better yet, let me go alone. If I get in Pegasus for ten minutes, I know I can get in the air. This stupid machine is messing up my concentration.”

  “Out of the question,” Ritz said. “You’ve had too much trauma.”

  Adrien reached out a soft hand to Chase’s elbow. “The Streakers weren’t meant to be flown alone. You would only be able to take off and land. Even then, it’s precarious to fly without a RIO to guide you.”

  Chase’s chest turned to lead. Adrien was trying to help, but Chase heard it like a dare. Either way, she spun and left, making for the hangar so fast that the hallway blurred.