“I…want to. But I don’t know if I can fly without him. I’m going to try.” Chase turned such a simple idea over in her hands and remembered something. “Pippin always asked, ‘Where are we going, Nyx?’ And I’d say, ‘Anywhere.’ It made flying feel like escaping, but I think it’s not supposed to feel that way.”
Adrien gave her a reassuring pat, but before they could exchange another word, the hangar door blasted open, and Pegasus roared in. Sylph pulled to a quick stop, and Chase rushed up the ramp stairs to help her out of the cockpit. Riot was unconscious in the back.
“Look at him!” Sylph yelled, although her voice was hoarse and quiet. “Knocked out on the way back and I couldn’t wake him.”
“Did he gray out?”
“No! He’s asleep.” Sylph got out of her chair on soft legs and hit her RIO in the helmet. “Idiot.”
Riot jerked awake and looked around the hangar. “Shit.”
“No kidding.”
The deck officer rushed over for Sylph’s report, and Chase helped Riot down the stairs.
“I’m all right,” he said. “Man, I shouldn’t have slept, but I feel so much better. It was nuts up there.”
Chase shhhed him so she could listen to Sylph’s report to the deck officer.
“They missile locked on me. Over and over again. Tell Kale I’m not going back up there without a dozen wingmen.”
The deck officer ignored her. “Did any of the drones cross the d-line or attempt to hack your controls?”
“They stayed in their zone, and I never opened a channel to them.”
“But you said they missile locked on you,” Chase couldn’t help but interrupt. “They’re escalating.”
Sylph thrust her helmet at Chase, and Chase saw how bad off Sylph was. The blonde looked like she’d been drained of life force. She wavered, and a staff sergeant caught her by the arm. Chase recognized Liam—but other than holding her up, he and Sylph acted like they didn’t know each other. “They kept locking on me because they wanted to tire me out. They wanted to make me run evasive tactics until I didn’t have any speed left.”
“They want a Streaker,” Chase said. “They were going to wear you down and then collect you.”
Sylph nodded once, and then Liam half-walked, half-carried her out of the hangar.
Chase turned toward the deck officer. “Arrow is not going to last half as long as Sylph. He’s exhausted.” He had been up all night. “I have to relieve him.”
The man turned and left. No word. Nothing. Chase wasn’t surprised. After all, she was on the Down List. And he clearly didn’t know he shouldn’t turn his back on Nyx.
Chase hooked her arm in Riot’s and dragged him back up the stairs. She popped on Sylph’s helmet. “Hope you had a nice catnap because we’re going back out.”
“What are you doing?” Riot asked.
“Skipping the hard work.” She pushed him back in the cockpit and slid into the pilot’s chair. The deck officer had come back yelling at her to get down, but she ignored him.
“How in the world do you expect to get Kale’s permission?” Riot asked.
“Easy. I’ll go higher.” She flipped on the shortwave. Tourn might not want her as a daughter—that she’d learn to accept somehow—but he wanted her as a cadet. A pilot. “Tower, this is Nyx in Pegasus requesting to speak with General Tourn.”
A long pause. Too long. Followed by a grunt.
“Cadet, what are you doing in that bird?”
“Trying to fly, General, but I need gas.”
“What makes you think you can get off the ground?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know, but I have to try.”
Another silence, but then she heard an order in the background for Pegasus to be refueled.
Tourn came back commanding. “Things are getting hot along the d-line. I want you to give it everything you got, but if the sky starts to break apart, you use that Streaker speed to get the hell out. Get back here. That’s an order. Understood?”
“Understood, General Tourn.” She was holding on to the throttle and stick as if they were her lifelines. “You’re…you’re really going to let me try?”
“No one so determined fails.” It was one of his mottos, which she might have dismissed if it didn’t feel like he was trying to tell her he had faith in her.
There were other words she wanted to say, but she chose the simplest ones. “Thank you.”
When he spoke again, his voice was closer, as though he’d leaned into the mic. “Cadet, there are few people who can say what I’m about to say and know exactly what it means, but I am one of those people.”
She waited.
“I’m sorry about your RIO.”
40
DOWNTOWN
Enemy Territory
Chase shot Pegasus onto the runway. Her heart hammered at her chest and her doubts slid in. Could she do it?
She had to.
But how? Her mind slipped to Pippin’s swelling, bleeding head, and their speed died out.
Riot began to ask questions. “You okay? What’s happening?”
“I need a second,” she snapped. “I’m getting my focus together.”
The silence came with snow settling on the cockpit glass. She couldn’t do it. Oh God, she couldn’t…
“What do you think you’re doing, Harcourt?” Kale’s voice came over the shortwave. Despite the panic in his tone, his voice brought calm.
“I’m more stubborn than you are,” Chase responded. “And I’m going to fly.”
“This is almost over,” he said, defeated. Resigned. “Harcourt, Donnet’s death affected us all, but right now we don’t need you to be suicidal.”
“This isn’t about Pippin. At least, it’s not about his death. I have to get up there. For the other Streaker teams. For the Star.” She was trying to convince herself as well as Kale. “I might not be able to do anything other than relieve Phoenix, but that in itself is important.”
Kale sighed like he might relent, but an alarm went off in the tower, bleeding through the radio. Chase heard chaos erupt. “Everyone to the bunkers. That’s an order!” Kale yelled at someone in the tower.
“Brigadier General? What’s happening?” Chase’s panic crested. “Kale?!”
“The drones have crossed the line. Phoenix is under attack!”