“Dragon is crashing.”
Kale stood up, and something in Chase’s chest sat down. “So I ran to the tower only to hear it was a stunt. You broke the speed of sound at absolute zero sink rate over civilian airspace.”
“But we saw—”
“Do I look finished?” Kale was livid with hints of disappointment. He hadn’t come down this hard on her in—well—a few weeks, but it still turned her over to feel like she’d blown his approval. Again. “You give new definition to ‘colorful actions.’ We don’t even have demerits for that kind of recklessness. Plus, my eggs got cold.” He motioned to a plate of now fossilized scrambled eggs and toast. “You can’t eat cold eggs, Harcourt. They taste like socks.”
There it was. An encouraging spark at the corner of his eye.
“You eat breakfast for dinner, General?”
“You’re not the only one who enjoys doing things your own way.” He sat down and motioned for her to do the same. “So here’s my real problem. You won’t follow rules. Sylph won’t break them. I don’t know which one of you is worse. We hoped that between the two of you we would be able to figure out exactly what the Streakers can do, but I swear you won’t be happy until you send Dragon back to the taxpayers in a box of parts.”
The two of you… Did Kale really not know about the third Streaker?
She ran her hands over the cracked leather of the armchair. Wispy stuffing stuck through like white hair. “General, we have a problem… I saw another jet up there today. I sort of chased him.”
Kale leaned halfway over his desk, his face unreadable. “Another jet?”
“Another Streaker. I know it sounds crazy. I checked the tower.” She drank in his reaction, but it was empty. No lifted eyebrow. No brightness in his gaze. “They didn’t see anything on the satellite,” she continued. “And Pippin didn’t pick it up on his controls.”
“So it was a ghost. You probably saw your own reflection in a cloud pool.” His tone was final, but it made her dive into the memory of the pearly blue flash. Chase picked up a rusty bayonet off the edge of his desk and rolled it between her palms.
“There are only two Streakers, Harcourt. Dragon and Pegasus.”
And Phoenix, she added to herself.
So Kale knew. If he wasn’t genuinely curious—if he pretended like he didn’t believe her—he knew. What then? Pippin was right; the military wasn’t exactly forthcoming with hard facts, but Chase had always trusted Kale—and he appeared to trust her.
She sat taller and put the bayonet down with a sharp thump. “Is it a secret bird? A backup? I just need to know if it’s American. If Ri Xiong Di stole the plans—”
“You didn’t see anything, Harcourt.” He shot her a look that snapped her back to attention. To being a cadet at the academy and not the star pilot kicking back in her favorite commander’s office. It stung.
“It’s the trials, isn’t it?” he added a little gruffly, a little late. “They’re getting to you.”
“I’m not cracking up!” She stood, her chest as tight as a fist.
“Of course not.” He waved for her to sit back down. “But we’re three months to January. It’d be natural if you were feeling the pinch.”
Chase glared at the worn tile. It was a low blow to bring up the pressure of the trials. Kale must have really wanted to distract her from the mystery Streaker.
It worked.
“Pinch,” she muttered. That was like calling a bullet wound a copper-coated splinter. In the air, she could face anything, but the upcoming government trials over whether the U.S. would fund a fleet of Streakers made her flinch outright. The question would come down to her flying—and Sylph’s. And if they failed? If they couldn’t prove the Streakers could beat a red drone? No more Dragon. No more reaching hope for the U.S.
Kale crossed the room and sat on the edge of the desk before her. “Harcourt, 2049 will be a revolutionary year for the U.S. For the world. I’m not worried.”
“That makes me feel so much more relaxed.” Chase’s sarcasm was as good as her helmet visor. She could flick it down when she didn’t want anyone to know where she was looking. But now her words turned flat, the mask of her confidence slipping. “Sylph will give the government board what they want to see. She can run all the standard maneuvers backward and forward.”
“But not half as fast as you.” Kale’s stare was polished brown stone. “And you know it’s not about having jets that can fly. It’s about jets that can outfly those drones.”
Chase couldn’t hold his gaze. She stared at the sound edge of his left shoulder, at the single shining star, and wondered if she really was cracking up.
“I keep thinking about those reds we saw over the d-line last month.” The memory flared. Chase had risked a maneuver only a few miles from the demarcation line and glimpsed a scarlet hive: red drones, all of them missile toting. She prickled like a wasp had set down on her nose. “Seems like the border is bulking up for something big.”
“The New Eastern Bloc is nervous because we’ve been quiet. And they should be, shouldn’t they? No doubt they’re dying to catch one of those speeding blips on their satellites. We’re close, Harcourt. I can taste the U.S. as a world protector again.” His chin was set at the best angle. “We’ll reset the balance. Put an end to human rights violations and help all those people in Ri Xiong Di’s stranglehold. We’ll resurrect the standard of American lives.”
He paused, and she thought he might be waiting. This was her chance to say something equally poetic and patriotic.