Breaking Sky (2 page)

Pippin wanted that jet to be Sylph. He wouldn't let it go. “The Star could be trying out some new music or a block. Maybe they fuzzed my radar to see how close Sylph could get.”

“Sylph doesn't have the lady balls to fly that fast,” Chase said.
Dragon
was far west now, above Seattle, and headed due north. The clouds evaporated, revealing a jagged coastline. “Pip, I saw
red
.”

“No, surely not.” He checked his sarcasm with a growling sigh. “You went feral flyboy. You would have followed that contrail straight across the d-line if it had headed that way.”

“
Red
helmet
.” She touched her black standard-issue helmet. Chase wasn't technically in the Air Force yet, but as a top-ranked cadet, she had fought for the opportunity to pilot one of two Streaker prototypes.

One of
three
…

“Are you scanning for drones?” Chase's voice pitched, betraying her standard cool. Pippin grunted a confirmation. They were only a few hundred miles from the demarcation line, the invisible boundary that split the Pacific Ocean and kept the Second Cold War so chilly.

She pulled her mask from her face only to reattach it. Bingo fuel meant autopilot, and autopilot meant that
Dragon
was flying at tricycle pace. In the meantime, Chase drilled her emotions, set up each worry like a toy soldier. Where did that bird come from? Who knew about it? And more importantly, who
didn't
know about it?

“Did you see its name, Pip? That bird had
Phoenix
stenciled on its side.”

“
Phoenix
looks a lot like Sylph's
Pegasus
. Seven letters. Begins with
P
.”

“Except for the fact that they're different words.”

“Different mythological beasts, in fact.”

“That wasn't Sylph,
Henry
.” She hoped using his real name might emphasize her point. “Why do I feel like you're trying to convince me to drop it?”

“Because I'm smarter than you.
Chase
.”

“You're smarter than everybody.”

“My cross to bear.”

Chase's impatience held down her smirk. She drummed her fingers on the cockpit. Most canopies were made of thick plastic, but
Dragon
's was crafted from tempered glass, the strongest in the world. “That
Phoenix
had the same crystal canopy. The same blue-silver skin.”

In Chase's mind, the Streakers stood apart in the sky and in aviation history. Light, sleek, and fueled by rip-roaring twin engines. They were hybrids of the older manned jets with HOTAS controls—hands-on throttle and stick—and the popular aerodynamic drones of the early twenty-first century.

“You saw it,” she said a little harder.

“Maybe it's a backup,” Pippin tried. “The Air Force's dirty little secret. Or hey, maybe the Navy academy has a Streaker we don't know about.”

“Bite your tongue,” Chase grumbled. “The Streakers are the Air Force's babies. Kale promised me that much.”

“I forgot. You think the brigadier general is all
hand
to
God
.”

“Hey, now,” she said. “You're supposed to warn me before you snark that hard.”

He chuckled, and that alone was worth the bickering. Pippin needed a laugh these days like most two-year-olds needed a nap. Not that Pippin was the only one struggling. Chase, the other cadets, the airmen at the Star—everyone needed a break from the strangling tension of the Second Cold War. Chase's thoughts plunged as she watched the beach below run a white scar toward the horizon. She couldn't stop herself from imagining World War III. Battleships crowding the West Coast. The black rain of missiles falling.

America on fire.

The blaze she imagined was a collage of crimson. Red drones. Ri Xiong Di's bleeding flag. And that maroon-helmeted pilot. Could
Phoenix
have come from the New Eastern Bloc? Did the Asians steal the design? Build their own Streaker?

No. That would be impossible.
Catastrophic
.

“You think Kale is fuming in the tower right now?” Chase asked. “No doubt they caught that near collision on the satellite feed.”

“By design,
Dragon
comes up as little more than a speeding blip on their radar. If we didn't, the bad guys would have crossed the line and taken us down two years ago.”

“Don't say ‘bad guys,'” Chase said. “That makes them feel like a joke.”

“I prefer when they feel like a joke.” He added under his breath, “So do you.” Pippin sprinkled everything with cynicism.

“We could radio in,” she tried. “Let Kale know about the phantom Streaker.”

“Nyx, that bird wasn't armed. It's not an immediate threat. Kale wouldn't want you to risk opening up our signal to anyone waiting to shake us down.” Pippin said
anyone
, but he meant Ri Xiong Di. Spying jerks, they were always listening, always sending out code viruses that could cripple navigation, misfire missiles, or worst of all, crash jets kamikaze-style into civilian areas.
Bam
.

So the Streakers flew off the grid, which necessitated a two-man team and radio silence. But Ri Xiong Di's cyber superiority affected more than just airpower. Any time they wanted to take over a TV station or satellite, they did. Even the U.S. military's network had been hacked in the past.

Nothing was safe.

Chase leaned into the canopy glass. They crossed the Canadian border, skirting a never-ending white-on-woods landscape. Canada was rumored to be as depressed as America these days. No one could say for sure—the borders had been closed since 2022—and communication wasn't permitted between America and other countries.

The U.S. had been on its own for twenty-six years, which meant constant vigilance and a raw state of survival. Chase felt that responsibility through her hands, her gloves, her throttle and stick. Straight to the titanium bones of the beautiful bird she called
Dragon
.

“Kale needs to know about that Streaker, Pip. ASAP. I'm going to break autopilot.”

“We only have enough fuel to keep this speed. Besides, we're almost there.” His subtext was
wait
. After all, the cold war was purely that: endless waiting.

In poli-sci, Chase had learned that Ri Xiong Di had spread through Asia during the 2010s like a quiet cancer. The continent solidified under the anti-democratic political faction, and the new superpower took a stand by toppling the old one. They limited America's global trade and scared away natural allies like Canada with fleets of red drones.

Chase had to be proud of what happened next. It was the reason she was only a junior and yet flying a multibillion-dollar jet. Congress enacted the Youth Services Charter, establishing junior military academies to rescue the nation's brightest teens from the country's bleak poverty. At the same time, the Air Force began to experiment with manned fighter jets that might someday best the red drones. The latest secret hope was the Streakers—jets so fast they required teen pilots in top physical form with impulse-swift reflexes.

Banks Island came into view as the sky darkened. From the air, the ice-covered archipelago was shaped like a tousled T-shirt, complete with river wrinkles and a star structure where the chest pocket would be.

The United Star Academy.

The place glittered with life, serving as both a full-functioning Air Force base
and
the junior military academy. Chase traced the six triangular buildings fanned around a hexagonal center as the blue blink of the runway greeted her like a string of Christmas lights. The Star always welcomed, which never felt small after her smoking hole of a childhood.

Chase stole the jet from autopilot and sped into the landing, letting down with a shriek of tires and engines. The fuel gauge hung like a broken arm, and she kept off the brakes as she headed across the landing apron toward the hangar.

“Care to slow down?” Pippin asked. “We're going to get pulled over, and I think you've been drinking.”

“Be serious for a sec, Pippin.”

“Okay. Seriously slow down.”

“Can't. Might stall out.”

Pippin did that annoying thing where he knew what she was thinking. “Kale's not going to react when you tell him about Mr. Red Helmet. Not the way you want him to.”

Her RIO's continued dismissal of the phantom Streaker finally hit her too hard. She unhooked her harness and turned around in her seat to face him.
Dragon
jerked off course, and they headed for the side of the hangar, still taxiing fast.

“How can you think we should drop this?”

Pippin unstrapped his mask and flipped up his visor. “Remember when Crowley said he saw drones over Florida? They put him on the Down List before he'd finished filing the report. Also”—he pointed forward—“there's a wall there.”

“You're really not curious?”

“I'm really not worried. There could be three Streakers instead of two. Wall. The military is a labyrinth of lies. Wall.”

“Interesting career choice you've made.”

“Wall, Chase! WALL!”

“All right!” She swung around and turned too fast.
Dragon
careened through the hangar doors and scattered ground crew like pigeons before sliding into a neat stop beside the other Streaker,
Pegasus
, with a light bump of wing against wing.

Chase popped off her helmet. “I need you on my team, Pippin.”

“Do I get a Team Nyx T-shirt?”

“I'm serious.”

“As a bullfight.” Pippin unstrapped his harness and flipped up his visor. Their eyes met the way they always did after a long hop. With relief and exhaustion and whatever was on the shadow side of trust. Chase thought it scanned like regret, but whatever it was had been rooted throughout their friendship. What they did, they did together. Hands down.

“I know you're serious,” Pippin said, giving the word its full meaning for once. “I'll back you up.”

She swatted his helmet affectionately and opened the canopy. Densely cold air sunk into the cockpit, but she took a deep, leveling breath. She was home.

Chase spent the next five minutes getting chewed out by the deck officer. Irresponsible. Show-off. Reckless. Maverick. He spent all the standard criticisms so fast that she couldn't help being impressed. All that for a slightly rushed parking job—he didn't even know about the stunt she'd pulled in the air.

A couple of freshman ground crew waited by the fuel tanks, chatting up Pippin. They gave her thumbs-ups from behind the officer's back. Chase knew her fan club by sight, but she hadn't bothered to learn their names. That might have seemed flyboy elitist like everything else at the Star, but she really just wasn't the kind of girl to focus on anyone or anything outside of
Dragon
.

When the officer finally stomped away, Chase strode over with her helmet under her arm. She couldn't keep back a smile. She loved riling up an officer—putting on a show. It was better than being overlooked, and it also kept people at a manageable distance.

“You flew
Dragon
to her vapors, Nyx,” one of the freshmen said. He had a zit the size of Mount Vesuvius on his forehead, but his eyes were headlight bright. “What happened? Red drones?”

“You know I can't answer that.” Chase dropped her helmet into his outstretched hands. She rubbed the now cold sweat through her short hair and respiked her fauxhawk.

“So what happened?” a girl asked. She had acne too. Working in the grease mist of the hangar wreaked havoc on skin. “Did you
almost
die?”

“Would you say twice?” Chase asked Pippin.

“Counting the wall? Three.” Her RIO was sweatier than normal after their garden-variety flights, and when she tried to catch his eye, he rubbed the back of his neck and looked elsewhere.

“Sweet.” The freshman cradled Chase's helmet. He started to talk a little too fast about a secret party that he was throwing in his barracks that weekend. Chase wasn't really listening until the girl broke in.

“Don't ask her. She's just going to say no.” The last name on the girl's jumpsuit was
HELENA
. “Flyboys never hang out with the ground crew.”

Her comment was aimed at Chase, but Helena was sending missiles at the wrong bogey. Chase wasn't the one who set the rules. Flyboys kept their own company. Ground crew kept theirs. Add to that the divisions of the grades… These guys were not only ground crew but freshmen to boot. They were circles away.

“Thanks for the invite, Jameson, but I'm busy with train—”

“See?” Helena broke in. “Told you,
Stephens
. She doesn't even know your name.”

Stephens didn't seem to care. He was giving Chase I-want-to-hug-on-you eyes. She redirected. “I need Kale. Is he in the tower?”

Helena said yes while Stephens said no. Chase left them to debate, taking off at a tired jog and weaving a path through the cavernous hangar with Pippin at her heels. They both knew that when they finally stopped moving, really stopped, they'd knock out. Flight was exhausting; non-flyboys never quite got that. A few hours in the air and she was beat—and that was at lower speeds. The faster she flew, the harder the strain on her body to fight the extra gravity. Kale said it was the equivalent of running a half marathon every time she broke mach speed for more than five minutes.

It didn't help that the hangar was a lesson in cold, sinking ice fingers into her muscles. The building was cement-floored with four-story-high ceilings. Chase jogged around planes, jets, and helicopters in a range of working order. There were even a few older, now obsolete drones. Some birds stood under huge tarps like veiled dinosaur bones while others were shiny and fueled, ready to fly far and fast in case someone turned up the burner on the Second Cold War. The pilots stationed here lived at the ready.

“You could have said you'd try to make it.” Pippin jogged faster to catch up. “Let them dream a little.”

“Hope is sugar. Truth is protein,” she said, unwittingly quoting her father.

“Cheers, Gandhi.”

“Come on. A freshman ground crew party in the barracks? It'll be broken up in fifteen minutes, and I don't know about you, but I don't need any more demerits.”

“It couldn't hurt to have a few more friends, Chase. Even out your reputation a little.”

“Not my concern,” she said, ignoring his jibe. There were a little more than a thousand cadets at the Star, and while everyone seemed to know Chase because of her status as a Streaker pilot, she only knew the flyboys she interacted with daily—and the ones she singled out for a little fun.

Chase flung open the door to the tower and took the steps two at a time. “You're one to talk, Pip. I don't see you socializing with anyone outside of Baggins or Skywalker during free hour.”

At the top of the stairs, she entered a circular room bustling with airmen and lined with windows. Outside, the sky lapsed into navy twilight while the green mist of the northern lights shone down.

The academy and the Air Force base, known jointly as the Star, lay within view of Canada's glacial rolls and epic forests. Banks Island was formerly a Canadian National Park, a forgotten little piece of ice that the U.S. had purchased decades back, right before Ri Xiong Di took over. It was an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of location. A pain in the butt to get to for those people who didn't have military aircraft at their disposal. It was also strategically located just east of Alaska—a likely invasion point if Ri Xiong Di stormed through Siberia.

A set of older fighter jets took off on the runway below. They roared and sent vibrations through the tower and straight into Chase's chest. Those birds were probably impressive in their day, but now they wouldn't last half a minute against a red drone. Too many things felt that way. Great, but dated. Chase had been born in a country stuck in survival mode, and when she read about America's recent history of prosperity, she had to squint. What did that look like?

Chase elbowed toward the busy center of the tower. Pippin was with her, although he hung back. She knew her RIO better than he liked to admit, and something about that phantom Streaker had spooked him. Well, Chase was spooked too.

She cleared her throat twice before a staff sergeant swung around in his chair. The name above the chest pocket on the digital tiger stripe pattern of his Airman Battle Uniform was
MASTERS
.

“Pippin and Nyx. My lucky day.” Masters was young and hawkish in nature with narrow-close eyes and a nose that skewed beak-like. “Cadets can't be in the tower. Out.”

“But, sir—”

“Out!”

“Do you mean ‘shouldn't be in the tower?'” Pippin asked. “Because we are clearly able to be in the tower, thus disproving the use of
can
, its verb root being ‘to be able to.'”

“Pippin, I suspect that semantics are not the staff sergeant's strong suit.”

“Truth.” Pippin's smirk was all in his eyes, mischief in a brainy-gone-cute way.

Masters practiced a cold scowl. Clearly, he imagined himself to be a general. Too bad he looked like he was about to squawk. “You two think you're so untouchable. You might be Kale's pet, Harcourt, but your RIO is just a RIO. How would he like some demerits?”

Chase turned to Pippin. “Is it 138?”

“142 last time I tested.”

Chase smiled at Masters. “His IQ is 142, sir. Just how badly do you think the military wants him here and happy?”

Masters leaned back in his chair, making it groan. “I don't have time to pal around with you two. And I can't help you do whatever it is you're up to.”

“Now that use of
can
I do believe to be accurate,” Pippin said.

“Where's Kale? We have business that concerns the whole goddamn military.” Chase pointed to the blipping radar screen. “You saw that I had company up there.”

“I saw nothing.” Masters folded his arms. “Are you imagining things? Should I let the academy psychiatrist know that
Dragon
's team is cracking up? Is Nyx finally washing out?”

Chase leaned in. Her body tensed like gravity was about to triple. “You—”

Her RIO took her arm and led her out of the tower just as her fist readied to plant itself into the staff sergeant's face. The door clamped shut behind them, giving way to the dense cool of the stairway and its concrete-encased quiet.

“I'm all for lipping pompous officers, but violence is only going to get you on the Down List.” Pippin took hold of her shoulders and peered in close. She looked away. He knew how to haul her out of her red zone like no one else, and she wasn't always pleased about it. Anger was like speed—it gave her direction.

She shook out her fists. “I know. This all feels really weird. Don't you sense it?”

“Yes. Very weird. That staff sergeant was told not to talk to us, Chase.”

“How could you tell?”

“Because he looked way too happy to say he didn't see anything. Either that or…” Pippin ran out of words. It wasn't like him. His calm was something Chase piled her recklessness on. That way, no matter how wrong she was—and she was wrong quite a bit—she always had the bedrock of his self-assurance.

“What?” she asked.

“Or…maybe they really didn't see anything.” Pippin looked older than seventeen when he was this tired, and yet his face had a forever-young quality. Chase called it “boyishly boyish good looks” when she was trying to get him riled. But right now, with his hair sweat-sticky and his eyes red, he looked older than the staff sergeant she'd almost hammered.

Chase buzzed with the last of her energy. “So you didn't see that jet on your radar, and the tower might not have seen it on the satellite. Is that even possible?”

“I don't know.” Pippin was stumped as often as he was grave.

And he was suddenly both.

Chase took off toward the administration offices and Kale with a corkscrew feeling deep in her stomach. A secret jet without a signal didn't smell like a backup Air Force bird. It reeked of Ri Xiong Di
.
Of sabotage.