Chase peeled her headphones off as Adrien opened the door. Tristan was slumped in his seat, his head hanging forward and his hair a mess. He was so deflated from his usual confident self that Chase felt an urge to help him. She didn’t.
Romeo took Tristan’s arm over his shoulder. Pippin got Tristan’s other side, and the two RIOs lead Tristan to a seat on the floor against the wall.
Adrien was pleased. “If you have been in the air, you would have broken the manned airspeed record.”
“Pippin,” Sylph commanded. “Don’t help him.”
“Don’t bark at my RIO, Sylph,” Chase warned. Although it did feel slightly strange to watch Pippin pull Tristan’s hair back from his neck and check his pulse. Pippin glanced at Tristan’s pupils, and Tristan gave him a dazed grin.
“He’s all right,” Pippin said.
“Just tired,” Tristan added.
Adrien hauled Sylph into the centrifuge next. Riot talked down about her the minute she was sealed inside, pointing out that she’d never broken Mach 3, let alone 5. He wasn’t wrong; the centrifuge was barely revved up completely when she stopped flying and screamed to be released.
When Sylph got out, swearing and pushing the sweat into her hairline, she took Chase’s arm. “Beat him.” Her dark brown eyes were like staring down a missile. Chase suspected that something deeper was going on behind Sylph’s rampant rivalry, but now wasn’t the time to ask.
Chase nodded, but she didn’t need Sylph’s anger to propel her. She was already fueled by her own competitive streak. She strapped herself into the pilot’s chair. The machine smelled like grease and metal.
Adrien leaned her head inside. “The best for last? You are the one who loves speed?” Chase liked the way Adrien said speed. Her accent hurried the word, made it taut and urgent.
She nodded ready.
Adrien shut the door with a rolling lock sound. Chase took in the metal circular coffin. It wasn’t like piloting Dragon. The centrifuge was not slim and fitting like her cockpit, and the throttle and stick jabbed up through the floor beside her feet. But the view screen before her held a stretch of blue with a treed horizon…she could fly through that any day.
Chase dipped into it, taking off faster than the others. Her muscles went tight against the mounting pressure, and she leaned into it, breathing through her teeth. Her path was so fast that the woods blurred into an emerald scream.
Tristan had broken Mach 5. Chase was going to make it to six. He had to know she was just as tough and capable. That she would push herself until she passed out if she had to—flying was everything.
The pressure shrink-wrapped her skin to her bones, squeezed all the blood out of her fingers, her legs. The digital sky paled, a baby blue and then a hardly blue, while the trees lost all their green.
Chase heard Adrien’s voice from far away. “Time to step down.”
“More,” Chase murmured. She pressed harder, and her thoughts about beating Tristan melted into her true motivation. Dragon would only be as fast as she could be, and she wouldn’t let her bird down. She wouldn’t let down Kale. Or the trials. Or her impossible-to-please father.
She’d prove she deserved to be here. To fly a Streaker.
The gray of her vision fuzzed at the edges, right before it washed completely white.
? ? ?
The Arctic wind blew, but Chase wasn’t cold. She stood outside the Star on the runway, the ice world bright despite the dark. The dry air sunk into her skin and made her feel more awake than she’d ever been.
Tristan appeared beside her, eyes on the horizon. He pointed. In the near distance, a snowstorm stirred up a deep purple before the whole sky yawned with fluorescent light. Tourn appeared where Tristan had been standing and shook his head.
“She’s coming to,” Romeo said, his accent stronger than usual. “Move back.”
“You move back,” Riot snapped. “She’s my girlfriend.”
“Of course she is, Riot,” Pippin said, “just like she moonlights as a Ri Xiong Di spy.”
“Not. Funny,” Chase said. “Pippin?”
Her RIO’s face appeared through the whitewash of her vision. “Did you G-LOC dream?” he asked. “Adrien said it could be vivid and bizarre, like tripping. You were laughing when you started to wake up. Kind of maniacally.”
“It was creepy,” Sylph said, looking down at Chase from what felt like a great height.
“I didn’t dream,” Chase lied. She tried to sit up, but hands held her shoulders. She realized her head was resting on folded legs, and she tilted back to see Tristan, upside down.
“You broke Mach 6.” Tristan was steady, tuned in—and very close. His hair dangled over her face, and she resisted a catlike urge to bat at it.
“Let me up,” she said.
“Not until you can see colors again.” Adrien’s voice floated down from a little ways away. She held out her hand. “What color is my ring?”
“Silver.”
Tristan shook his head, his hair waving. “It’s gold, Chase.”
“Gold then. Let go.” She tried to sit up, and his hands pushed back on her shoulders.
“Take ten good breaths,” Adrien said.
Chase felt the way her stomach sank with each long exhale. She retreated to a deep place, remembering her dream. The storm opened like its violet sky full of crystal stars. And Tristan was there, standing next to her, his gaze sketched with sparks.
“Are you ready, Ms. Harcourt?” Adrien asked through her haze. “What color are Mr. Router’s eyes?”
“Sapphire.”
“With your eyes open please,” Adrien said amid an explosion of snickers. Chase looked up fast enough to see Tristan’s lips twist with amusement.
“Blue.” She sat up, pushing everyone back. “They’re goddamn blue.” The world tipped this way and that as she fought to stay on her feet.
The view screen on the wall was blindingly orange, depicting fire. The smoking hole from her crashed jet. Chase went tight. Tighter than she’d been in the centrifuge. The digitalized wreckage mocked her—pointed out her huge error. She’d been willing to fly until she passed out, but she wasn’t the only one who would take the brunt of stubbornness if this happened in the sky.