It’s never happened this way before, but I know I need to get to my plane. That’s my only thought as I tear across the tarmac.
Filton and Kif are already scurrying around the wings, fueling and arming the guns with incredible speed. I pull on my kit in record time—parachute, gloves, life vest. The vest gets tangled and I throw it off me. Never mind that. I scramble into the cockpit, Filton hollering words at me: “Seven planes, coming northeast,” and that’s all I need to hear. It’s not until I’m buckled in, flaps tested and pump primed, sunglasses on to cut the morning sun, that I realize I have no leader.
I scour the tarmac, a commotion of pilots and crew as they try to get us in the air. Ollie’s plane is still being fueled. I don’t know where Garrick is. Merlant’s the only one already inside his cockpit with propeller spinning. I call to him over the radio, and he looks over, brows briefly raised as if shocked to find me ready to go.
“Follow me up,” he orders.
“Copy that.”
We’re the first two planes off the ground. Arcing north, we follow Control’s coordinates to face the oncoming rebel planes, out over the sea.
“All right, Charm,” he says. “Don’t fall asleep on me today.”
“Wouldn’t do that to you, Knight.”
“And stay on my wing.”
It could be a joke, if we weren’t the only two pilots facing seven enemy aircraft.
I spot the dark swarm quickly. “Two o’clock low.”
“Good eye. Let’s get some altitude.”
We swing up to 7,000 feet, towards the sun. My fighter hums beneath my hands, electric, on edge in a new way. This time, they’ve brought the challenge to us.
“On my turn,” Merlant says.
It’s his familiar strategy. We dive down, side by side, sun at our backs, and fire on the enemy formation. They must be surprised, certainly still eyeing the planes hurtling up from the coast. They scatter in all directions. I push down on the stick and lay into one hard. His wing smokes, the plane falling away, wounded.
“Nice,” Merlant says, and the quick affirmation feels better than an entire report of praise.
The enemy formation’s now broken, and others are arriving—Garrick, Greycap, Ollie. We charge onward, after the nearest target. Knight locks his sights on a rebel fighter tailing one of the Safire planes. Our machine guns light up the air. The rebel abandons his prey, diving lower, away from us. We stick to him. He’s trapped between our two planes. Nowhere to go but forward.
“One’s on our tail,” I say, instinctively aware of the shadow barreling in behind.
“I’ll take care of him.”
No time to affirm that one. Knight breaks away with fantastic speed, a tight spin that quickly puts him behind the rebel who’s after us. He fires and chases the rebel into a dive.
Now it’s only me and the colourless plane ahead. He tries a sudden roll, wings trembling with a rookie’s grace. I roll as well, still on his tail, and mimic every move he makes. Left, right. Back and forth. His strategy’s nonexistent. He tries to wiggle his wings, like it’s some kind of message, and I hesitate. Time to end this pointless game. I dive a bit lower than him, a feigned surrender, giving him a moment to look around in confusion, then open my throttle and surge upwards again, attacking from below. The rebel plane can’t outrun this. There’s not a chance. I fire at the undercarriage with my cannon. Bright flames shoot from the plating as I pass beneath and away, pieces of metal pelting me, and the little fighter goes into a spin much too steep. There’s a violent shudder through its body. Stalling. The right wing tears off, giving in to the pressure. Black smoke erupts from the burning engine, thick and ugly.
Get out of there, I tell him over my shoulder. Hurry the hell up.
A flash of orange, bright as noon, explodes five hundred feet below me. Flames streak through the air. I stare, hand still on the trigger, watching with some kind of terrible fascination as it plummets for the sea in a mesmerizing storm of colour and scattering metal.
No parachute.
“Two for you now, Headache,” Knight calls, somewhere nearby. “I’m at your nine o’clock.”
I fly straight.
“Charm, nine o’clock, understood?”
Silence. My breaths are heavy. Hands frozen.
3,500 feet, the altimeter says.
“Charm?”
“Yes.”
“Get back on my wing.”
“Yes.”
“Quit saying that and do it, would you?”
Without thinking, I steer my plane for the coordinates and follow Knight into the fray.
* * *
The battle lasts no more than ten minutes. Ten minutes of life and death before the remaining enemy fighters decide to hightail it home. We land on a runway lined with relieved faces, ground crew and operations officials rubbing sweat from wet brows. The other pilots jump out to greet their grateful crowd.
I sit in my cockpit and ignore Filton’s curious glances, pretending to write my flight report, taking my time, anything to avoid facing the questions and congratulations. I hide behind my sunglasses.
3,500 feet.
My grip tightens on the pen and nothing legible appears.
A knock on the cockpit startles me. Cyar peers through the glass, concerned, resting on the wing. I take a breath and open it, swiping off the glasses. Give him a grin. “Better catch up quick, Fox. I’ve got two on you now.”
“Just letting you get a head start. Damn, I never even made it into the air! Bell sounded right when I was in the shower, and by the time I got out here, the rest of you had…” He pauses, studying me again. “You all right?”
“Fine.”
“You’re pale.”
“Because I’m starving.”
I push out of the cockpit abruptly and Cyar jumps onto the tarmac, making room. There’s something dark constricting me from the inside out. It’s going to make me sick. I walk for the barracks and force myself to move at a regular pace, to appear normal, but there’s a flash of orange, bright as noon, in my vision.
“Impressive speed into that plane, Charm,” Merlant calls. “You’ve got a talented ground crew, readying it at the rate they did.”
“I do.” I muster a hollow smile.
He gestures at my disheveled flight suit. “But remember the life vest next time. Drowning isn’t the way any pilot should go.”
“No, sir,” I say.
There are other ways to go.
* * *
The day passes and I sit on my bunk, thinking, letting my brain go in circles. It’s a terrible habit. I should be outside, distracting myself, maybe playing cards or writing to Ali. If she were here right now, I’d kiss her and not think twice. I’d kiss her and maybe do even worse, because suddenly this moment feels very selfish to me. It’s mine. I’ve won it. There was me and there was him, and now there’s only me.
The loneliness of that startles me.
Evening comes and I sign out of base with one of the motorbikes, the ones we use to ride to the harbour on days off. Down the familiar curving road, through Havenspur. The long promenade appears ahead. No one’s out strolling tonight. The recent weeks, the awareness of our fights in the sky, Arrin’s speech … it’s enough to unnerve even this quiet corner of Thurn.
The wharf looms along the western edge of town. When I arrive, the Landorian soldiers at the checkpoint flip through my papers. They nod and motion me to leave the motorbike at the gates. Ahead, shadowy ships sleep along the docks. Will the Pursuit even be here? Perhaps she’s out on the Black, miles across the sea hunting for rebel vessels, for weapons being passed from hand to hand.
But no. There she is, anchored at the farthest dock. Relief floods me.
I haven’t visited Kalt in the six weeks we’ve been here, and the Safire soldiers on guard look surprised at the sight of me. They quickly escort me to his officer’s cabin. It’s lit from within in the warm dark, inviting.
He sits at a table scattered with reports. Folco Carr’s next to him. Folco quickly stands when I enter, his freckled face etched with surprise.
“Sorry,” I say. “Am I interrupting?”
Folco shakes his head.
Kalt spares me a cursory glance. “Glad I was finally worth a trip.”
“I’ve been busy.”