Breaking Sky (15 page)

Chase woke on stone or ice. It felt like both. She recognized the dense cold air of the hangar with so much relief that she almost cried out.

“She's all right,” Kale proclaimed. He put an arm around her shoulders and sat her up. “You're all right,” he murmured just for her, and the strain in his voice made her hold on to him.

“Pippin?” she asked.

“He's fine. You both went full G-LOC, but your RIO was lucky enough to engage the autopilot before he lost consciousness. He came out of it a few minutes ago. They're walking him down to the infirmary.”

She vaguely remembered trying to punch the controls—to do what Pippin had managed—but it felt like her brain wasn't plugged in to her body. She blinked at the hangar, and the scene blinked back like a black-and-white film. “I'm still seeing gray.”

“Oxygen starved. You may faint again if you stand.” Kale threw commands to the ground crew staring down at her, finishing with, “And someone get a stretcher!”

“No stretcher.” She tried to stand, and Kale pressed her to his chest. He smelled like coffee, and he felt different this close. Safe—and yet a firm reminder of what had almost happened. Chase squeezed her eyes and saw the drone's missile breeze by. She twitched with the remains of her much-depleted adrenaline. Where was her jet?

“
Dragon
?”

“She's going to need some fixing. Skidded out on the landing—autopilot was never designed to set down. I'll get Adrien on it.” He swore. “It could have been so much worse, but we'll worry about that later. You're a hero for the moment, Harcourt.” Kale's words fell on her like a blanket, and she ached to close her eyes and tuck into it. “Get a stretcher,” he called again. “I can't carry her, not with my back.”

“No stretcher.” Chase tried to stand, but her vision popped with black spots. She loathed the idea of being wheeled through the academy like an invalid. “I'll make it,” she said, wavering on her feet.

“I'll take her.”

Before Chase could sort out the voice, someone swooped her up. Her head tipped against a neck. She smelled salty sweat and stared into a tangle of black hair. “Tristan,” she murmured. His name sunk through her and warmed everything.

Tristan shifted her weight, walking so fast that the motion rocked her into a half-conscious daze. They were on the Green when she came to again. She would have known the stillness of the leaves and the rhythmic knock of the brick path underfoot anywhere.

“What was Sylph doing over the line?” Tristan asked Kale.

Good
freakin' question
, Chase thought.

“Even if I knew, you know we can't discuss it,” Kale said.

“Of course.” Tristan's tone edged. “Any guess how Chase destroyed that drone?”

Kale spoke in a hurry. “General Tourn already requested her flight footage. He'll call a meeting after he reviews it, but I think it's certain this will have serious repercussions.”

Not
him.
Her mind cartwheeled over her father. His curse of a name. His too-large forearms and clipped gray hair. She held Tristan tighter, and he lifted her a little higher, closer.

“But it's the first drone anyone's managed to knock out of the sky,” Tristan argued. “It has to mean something good.”

“Does it?”

The silence that followed Kale's question held too many answers. If Ri Xiong Di knew that the U.S. had airpower capable of taking down a drone, they might attack in a hurry. Chase's breath cut out. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe before this night was done with its darkness…

“Will this affect the trials?” Tristan asked.

“They won't look kindly on her passing out like that.”

“But her RIO hit the autopilot in time.”

“What if she hadn't brought down that drone before she needed the autopilot? Or there had been a second drone waiting?
Dragon
would have been a sitting duck. We can't afford to lose multibillion-dollar jets that easily.”

“She's the only one of us who could have outmaneuvered that drone. You have to tell them that. That thing was
fast
.”

“I know.” Kale took a very loud, deep breath. “But no one wants kamikaze pilots.”

Chase lost her grip on Tristan as Kale's words fell all over her like dead weight.

Tristan only held her more firmly. “Nyx could have lost that drone, but she stayed in front of it. I know what she's like in the air. She made sure it didn't bring its intel back to Ri Xiong Di.” His hold on her tightened as his words grew tenser. “Come on, Brigadier General. If your military can't—”

“Cadet. Let me remind you that you are under my command while you train here.”

Silence knifed its way in. Chase's brain had woken fully from the heated exchange. Why was Kale dismissing Tristan's concern? Why did Tristan seem like he wanted to deck the brigadier general? For once, Kale's hardness felt overly stubborn—and Tristan…the way he kept defending Chase made her want to tangle up with him. Hands, arms, and lips.

When Kale spoke again, his voice had softened, sounding more like himself. “We need to start thinking as allies, Router.”

“Yes, Brigadier General.”

Chase heard it all too slowly to respond. She locked her fingers around Tristan's neck and peered at a few brown freckles on sand-hued skin.

So she'd gotten her colors back.

When they reached the infirmary, a commotion eclipsed the warmth of being close to Tristan. Voices shouted all over the place. She heard Pippin yelling at Sylph about the drone and Riot telling everyone to chill out. Chase tried to stir, but her mind still felt behind, and she felt too beat for flyboy drama. She groaned, and Tristan seemed to understand. He didn't leave her in the midst of the arguing. He took her to one of the beds in the back, through the sea of curtains, where it was much quieter.

“Let go, Chase,” he said, unwinding her arms from his neck. She settled into a mound of pillows. Now that she was inert, she felt more awake.

Or maybe it was because she was alone with him.

“What, no kiss?” she mumbled.

Tristan leaned in and pinched her ear. “Maybe next time.”

But then he did kiss her. A brush of lips so fast that by the time she'd woken up her mouth, he was pulling away. She grabbed the front of his flight suit and hauled him closer.

He was more than ready. One hand took the back of her neck and the other braced his body over hers. His face tilted in, and she felt fire and wind and
so
much
speed
in every brush and push of his skin.

A minute passed. Maybe an hour. Someone cleared his or her throat, and Tristan pulled away sharply. A twentysomething medic stood at the edge of the room, her eyebrows raised.

Tristan turned to leave so fast that he headed straight into the curtain. He swung his arms to get free of the draped cloth, swearing in the strongest Canadian accent she'd yet heard from him. When he finally emerged, his sweat-battered hair was a complete mess, and he spun in a circle before heading for the door.

“Feeling better?” the medic asked sarcastically as she watched Tristan's hasty exit. She began to take Chase's blood pressure. “I miss being a cadet,” the woman grumbled. “Haven't gotten any in ages.”

Chase ignored the medic and held a hand over the radiating blush on her face.

So. Tristan kissed like he flew. Christ, the boy was amazing.

• • •

Chase snuck out of the infirmary at what Kale would call an ungodly hour, sick of being treated like she had been hurt. Her loss of consciousness had been more significant than Pippin's because her mask had unsnapped during her mad dash to engage autopilot.

Thank God her RIO had managed it. If he hadn't…

She couldn't even think about it.

Chase's body had been starved of oxygen for several minutes—or so her sex-deprived medic had informed her. No permanent damage, just a crushing headache. The throbbing pain couldn't hold Chase down, though. She needed to find Sylph.

They had unfinished business concerning the demarcation line.

Chase went to the room Riot and Sylph shared. She knocked for a solid minute before a sleep-washed Riot answered the door. “I need Sylph,” she said.

“She's not here,” Riot said through a yawn.

“Why were you guys over the d-line? You shouldn't have been closer than a hundred miles from it.”

He ignored her question. “Try the hangar. She goes to
Pegasus
when she can't sleep.” He shut the door on Chase, almost snipping her face. His bandaged hand was the last thing she saw.

Chase headed to the hangar. The chilled air of the concrete building took hold faster than usual, along with a flash of red through Chase's thoughts. That drone had been so terrible, and yet beautiful—a sleek death machine.

It should have killed them.

Dragon
sat where she always did, but her landing gear had been disassembled. Again. Sylph's bird was parked next to hers, pristine and girly like always. Even after its run-in with the drone, the jet appeared unscathed. Chase heard a strange shuffling as she took in
Pegasus
. She stepped around the wings and braked hard. Boards out.

Sylph was pressed against the jet's side, her arms and lips locked on a young airman with a familiar hawkish face. He had his hands up the back of her shirt, and Sylph's too-long legs were wrapped around his waist.

“Whoa.” Chase's heartbeat shot off the charts. The way they devoured each other made Chase's make-out sessions seem like kids at play. “
Whoa
,” she said even louder. They stopped kissing and scrambled to detangle themselves. The airman buckled his belt while Sylph smoothed her hair, calmly eyeing Chase.

The guy's face, however, was turning reddish purple. Embarrassment smeared with fear.

“You!” Chase heard herself saying. “You work up in the tower.” She checked the front of his uniform: MASTERS. He had been the staff sergeant who lipped her after she'd first spotted
Phoenix
. “Am I hallucinating?” Chase blinked hard. “I must be.”

Masters looked like he was going to bark a command, but Sylph whispered in his ear. He nodded, gave her another scorching kiss, and left. Sylph approached, casually braiding her hair back.

“What was
that
?” Chase asked.

“Get over it,” Sylph said. “This has nothing to do with you, and you're not going to say anything to anyone.”

“I'm not sure I'd know what to say,” Chase said honestly.

Sylph hooked arms with Chase and led her through the hangar, more purposeful than friendly. “Liam and I are in love, Nyx, and I'm eighteen, so it's legal.”

“Legal nothing. Kale will crap a mongoose when—”

“He
can't
know.” Chase thought Sylph was going to get fiery with her, but Sylph's mood went the other way. She seemed…scared. The effect took years off Sylph's ordinarily hardened persona. “The trials and that drone—if Kale finds out, he'll put me on the Down List. Liam's the most important thing to me.” Sylph looked at
Pegasus
. “But I don't want to lose my wings.”

Liam? It was weird to think the hawk-eyed staff sergeant had a first name. Then again, Chase had just seen his tongue in action. She eyed Sylph. The girl was much less daunting at this angle, not to mention she almost glowed when she said
Liam
. “I won't say anything, Sylph. But you have to tell me what in hell happened yesterday.”

“Blackmail. That's how you want to play this.”

“No. I want you to tell me what happened. I think I deserve that much.”

“You saved my life.” Only Sylph could say that without gratitude. “So I
will
tell you. But after all the crap you've pulled over the years, you better not judge.” Her eyebrows scrunched. “You and Arrow blasted off together faster than I've ever been willing to go, and I didn't want to be third best anymore. I was…it was just supposed to be a hop across the d-line and back again. That quick. I wanted to be the first to cross it.” Her smile was downright heartbreaking. “And I was. I'll always have that over you. Even if they take my wings for it.”

Maybe it was because Sylph was being so un-Sylph-like, but the truth rose up from Chase's chest and burned its way out of her. “They're going to take my wings, not yours. I heard Kale telling Tristan. I'm unsafe.”

Sylph's expression prickled back to normal, full cactus. “Of course you're unsafe. You're unpredictable. The drones are on a grid flight plan—software—and when I head up there, I fly by their rules. I don't know how not to. Don't think I haven't tried. But then you streak in and attack like a wild animal. Those computer-brained machines will never outfly you.”

Chase shook her head. “It doesn't matter what I can do. Kale…Kale said the government board won't like how I handled that drone.”

“Nyx. Are you opening up to me?”

“Could you just be a human for once? They might take my wings. Before the trials even.
Tomorrow
.”

Kamikaze
pilot.

“
That's
what you're worried about, Nyx? I swear you're never aware of what's at stake. After the trials, if the board approves the Streakers, you and me and that Cutesy-Pants-Canadian are going up against Ri Xiong Di. Think about it. They're never going to back down without a demonstration of what the birds can do against the drones.”

Sylph stepped a little closer. “Yesterday was my awakening. I won't mess up again. From the first time I got up in the air in
Pegasus
, I've imagined flying against the drones. I'm ready.”