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 rotation, 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.
? ? ?
Chase found the Star eerily deserted. Cadets were shut up in their barracks, and classes had been canceled. She shot through the Green, glancing into the rec room. It was empty and shockingly smelled of old laundry.
A bold, red alert light pulsed overhead. Despite the pall it threw on the scene, the alarm hue was relieving. If red drones were inbound, if the whole Star were about to be blown to smithereens, the lights would go out completely. The dark of the Arctic could only protect them if they didn’t cast a single beam—and if the missile defense software worked.
Chase’s mouth went dry as she remembered JAFA’s blaze, realizing for the tenth time that day how little of a chance they all stood against Ri Xiong Di. Tourn had been an idiot to wish for war. What could possibly stop the New Eastern Bloc from absorbing them into their empire? The only reason the Second Cold War had started in the first place was because of Tourn’s bold nuclear strike on the Philippines. Ri Xiong Di did not think America would escalate so swiftly, and we’d scared them back a bit. But now? What could warn off the red drones before this turned into a last-man-standing kind of war?
Chase swallowed her doubt and misgivings and headed into the hangar. First things first, she had to get into the sky and clear her head…and her heart. But MPs stopped her inside the door.
“Cadets don’t have permission to be in the hangar,” they said together.
“I’m going to see Kale,” she lied. They exchanged looks. “He’s in the tower,” she invented. “He sent for me.”
“Let me see your pass,” the smaller MP said.
“I might have forgotten it.” She grabbed around in her pockets just to kill time, and that’s when she caught sight of Sylph’s boyfriend a few yards off. “Staff Sergeant Masters!” she called out. He stopped and eyed her cautiously, his arms stacked with paperwork. “Tell them Kale sent for me.”
She could see the calculation in his expression. Masters knew Chase wanted this and that she knew about his big secret. “Kale wants her,” he finally said. He turned briskly and took off through the cold concrete building.
“See?” Chase said. The MPs let her through, although one of them followed her until she ducked out of sight behind one of the older jets. She slid under the tarp and leaned against the cool metal of an F-14 Tomcat.
What was she doing? Was she really going to jump in Pegasus without permission?
“It was easier to break the rules when you were here, Pip,” she admitted aloud. “Not so much fun without you pointing out all the ways in which things could go wrong.”
Her hands spread over the Tomcat as her thoughts spun out of control. In truth, everything was wrong without Pippin. Wrong in the simulators. Wrong when Tristan tried to talk to her. Wrong when Kale looked at her like she was a shattered figurine. Wrong when she’d asked to meet with her father after the crash.