Breaking Sky (3 page)

Kale's office smelled like coffee. A pot always burbled in the corner, and shelves lined every inch of wall space, sagging under the weight of old books, sad-armed plants, and military paraphernalia from centuries past. Chase knocked on the doorjamb, waiting for the brigadier general, the head of the Star, to invite them in.

He didn't.

His head was bowed over a book on his desk, his gray hair looking soft. His shoulders, on the other hand, were hard and straight—the kind you could balance a country on. Although Chase loved to fly and the academy was home, there were days when she wondered how she'd stay in the military as a career. Then she'd see Kale in his uniform and she'd scrape around in her imagination, wanting to picture herself weathered and proud and in charge.

“General?”

Kale waved her into silence. She waited a few moments while he licked his thumb and flicked through a few pages. “General, I…”

Kale snapped a look that made both cadets stand at attention and clip their hands to their foreheads. “I need a word with Harcourt,” he said. “Donnet, you're dismissed.”

Pippin backed into the hall and whispered, “Watch yourself. Don't say too much.”

Chase mocked a sneer at her RIO, but Pippin wasn't joking. He had that too-serious look on his face again. “
What
?” Chase mouthed.

“Harcourt,” Kale commanded. Chase stepped into his office, suddenly nervy without Pippin at her back. She couldn't fly without him, and that feeling often permeated her time on the ground.

Kale shut his book. “Let me tell you about my night, Harcourt. Here I was, peacefully trying to eat my dinner, only to get a call from the tower. Do you know what they said?”

“No, General.”

“
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.

“We'll do…that,” she managed. “No problem.” Good Lord.

Kale laughed, a lifting sound. His salt and ash hair shook. It was always a little longer than regulation and seemed to prove that he was the only person who could head a military academy full of teens who spent as much time battling each other as keeping their eyes on the horizon of a very real war. “Sylph is a fine, clinical pilot, but she doesn't have the spirit to outthink those drones. You're the one who's going to prove that a mind will always beat a machine.”

Chase touched the side of her head as though she needed to make sure her brains were really in there.

Kale's eyes held a renewed spark. “Just be yourself, Harcourt. Well, be a less impulsive version of yourself.”

She nodded.

“Go get out of that zoom bag. Get some rest.” He sat back in his desk chair and his voice went soft. “You gave me a serious scare with that stunt, but—and I'll deny it if you relay this to anyone else—it was a fine maneuver.” He bent his head over the book he had been reading when she entered. “Dismissed, cadet.”

She tried not to grin—and failed.

Chase loved the Green. The crisp scent of trees filled each breath while the clip of her boots on the brick path sounded a strong beat.

Banks Island rubbed elbows with the Arctic shelf, but the center of the Star was a glass-ceilinged greenhouse designed to feel like a campus in temperate zones. The trees were too straight, however, lining up every few steps for the length of two football fields. Pippin called them “planted soldiers poised for battle.” She wished he were wrong. But it seemed like the threat of war was everywhere, even in the landscaping patterns.

Chase's muscles were beyond tired, but she kicked into a jog and then a full-out run. Her dog tags
thwopped
against each other on her chest, the rubber silencers depriving them of their traditional metal clink.

Get
some
rest
, Kale had said. People always suggested it like it was easy. Just lie down. Relax. Take a load off.

No way.

If Chase stopped, the world rushed in. She'd long since learned how to escape the hardest truths. Before the Star, she'd outrun her father's shadow and her mother's neglect—literally. She could sprint nearly two miles by the time she was twelve. That stamina helped her get on the Star's radar, and now her endurance and evasive tactics made her an excellent pilot. And, if she were being honest, kind of a crappy person.

What people never understood—not even Pippin—was that Chase wasn't blind to her reputation. She just needed her tunnel vision more. Needed direction. Pippin didn't really get it. He was more concerned with literature and music than any one element of the real world. Maybe it was a perk to having a genius level IQ, but he got by swimmingly in the military with his nose stuck in a fantasy and some Mahler tune pounding through his headphones. Chase sometimes wondered if he was constantly trying to distract himself from where he was.

The overhead sunlamps flickered like runway lights as she ran, her footsteps hammering the brick. No one was around. It was a little late, and she had classes early the next morning. Still, she couldn't head back to her room. Not yet.

Something sat at the edge of her mind and waved a red helmet, and even though she felt like the bull eyeing the cape, she couldn't resist. First, Pippin had gotten weird about what they'd seen. Then, the tower had denied her. Practically called her crazy. Add to that that Kale had been an odd mixture of reproachful and distracting. Something was up.

There had been one other flight team in the sky. Maybe Sylph had seen something.

Of course, that meant going after Sylph.

Chase was delighted by the sudden challenge. It would be easier to ask Sylph's RIO, Riot—after all, they had a
thing
going on—but confronting Sylph was always like hitting the throttle hard. Yes, please.

The recreation room buzzed, filled with the academy's after-hours mayhem. It was as dim as a bar and smelled just as grimy. Cadets mingled around pool tables, gaming machines, and flight simulators. Arguments cracked in every direction, but tonight's main attraction was in the back corner where two pilots sparred with thick foam gloves on the roped-off gym mat.

Chase pushed forward, fielding enthusiastic greetings from freshmen and seniors, flyboys and ground crew alike. The rec room really was the great leveler at the Star. Everyone, every specialty and class, mingled here. Chase had heard that before Kale was in charge, only a year before she had started, the room was reserved for flyboys. It was a smart move on the brigadier general's part; Chase wouldn't know a single cadet outside of her circle if she didn't frequent the rec room as often as she did.

“Nyx!” someone yelled, followed by a volley of several more cadets chanting her call sign. She waved and pounded some fists without taking in faces. Her attention was glued to the central fight.

The boxers were really going at it. The taller of the two was a girl who Chase knew all too well. Leah Grenadine.

Better known by her call sign, Sylph.

Sylph's thick blond braid whipped like a stinging tail with each punch she threw. Her toned arms were scaled with sweat, but she showed no sign of tiring, which sucked because she was simply destroying the other fighter. He was also all too familiar.

Asian American. Adorable. Tanner Won.

Chase found herself swearing on a loop.
Not
again
.

One of Tanner's eyes was swollen, and his shoulders folded in to protect his chest. Sylph slammed him over and over until he fell to his knees, coughing for breath. She adjusted her gloves like she had a few more rounds left in her, and Chase ducked under the rope and stood between them.

“If it isn't Nyx.” Sylph wiped her forehead with her arm. “You here to fight?”

The crowd went ballistic. Chase could already hear the chatter at breakfast tomorrow:
The
Streaker
pilots
beat
the
snot
out
of
each
other. They're cracking under the pressure!

“No more fighting.” Chase nudged Tanner with her knee. “Your work is done here.”

“It's
done
when he stops running his mouth about my RIO,” Sylph said.

Chase felt like she'd stepped in a bucket of ice water. Of course. This was about Riot. And Chase.

Chase and Riot.

“
Tanner
,” she said like a curse.

“So you know my name again. Convenient.” Tanner glared past her, aiming his murder eyes at the ceiling. Blood trickled from a cut on his eyebrow. He'd been so sweet when they were doing…whatever they had been doing…but since then, Tanner's attitude had woken like a pissed-off dragon.

He spat. “I don't need your pity assistance, Nyx. If you really want to help me, tell everyone you're screwing Sylph's RIO.”
Oh
hell.
“So she can stop calling me a liar.”

Chase heard Tanner's voice, but she leaped over his words like a broken step. It was harder than usual. She waved over a couple of freshman cadets, some of her ground crew fan club. They dragged Tanner beneath the rope. Chase turned back to Sylph. “I mean it. This is done. You have a problem with him again, you take it up with me.”

“Gladly,” Sylph said. Man, the girl could grin daggers, but the look was only a stunning preamble to the left hook she aimed at Chase's face.

Sunburst
of pain, and the crowd sung a cheer.

Chase fell to one knee. Her lower lip pulsed, but she forced a smile. Somehow her adrenaline found a hidden reserve and zapped it through her veins. “Sylph, how are we ever going to fall in love if you keep hitting me?”

Sylph's glare sharpened. “You better strap in, Nyx. We have business.”

Chase hopped up. “Look, there are bigger things going on than Riot and me.”

“You know that's not what I mean. I'm talking about that ridiculous stunt you pulled today.
How
could
you
?” Sylph's anger made her seem more human than her chilled-marrow demeanor usually allowed. Chase shrugged and her shoulders felt like concrete.

Sylph stood back and called out to quiet the room. “Nyx here decided to do a suicidal maneuver over land today. Where people live. She could have crashed into someone's house. Killed their kids.”

Chase wasn't that surprised by Sylph's deliberate cruelty. She was always this hard. A competitor. Merciless. It made Sylph a precise pilot and the furthest thing from a friend that Chase could imagine, although Kale seemed to think they were buds.

She could see where he misread the situation. Sylph and Nyx had been on each other's tails since the brigadier general announced the Streaker project freshman year. They'd battled in tandem through rigorous competition in order to gain top cadet rank and win the chance to pilot
Dragon
and
Pegasus
. Now every hop, every class…wherever Chase was, Sylph wasn't far behind. And vice versa. But the bottom line was that it had nothing to do with Sylph. Chase didn't have auxiliary friends. She had Pippin, and he was enough.

“If the move was so suicidal, how come she's still alive?” Tanner yelled over the ugly quiet. He stood against a pool table with an ice pack over one side of his face. Chase couldn't decide if it mattered that Tanner must hate Sylph more than he hated her.

Chase touched her bottom lip, still aching from Sylph's rather impressive left hook. She stepped closer to Sylph's model-class beauty. The hum of eyeing her down felt like Chase was back in the air. Engines burning and wind locked around her wings. She gripped Sylph's gloves in case the blonde was thinking about throwing another punch. “Forget the stunt and listen to me. Did you see anything today…anything up there?”

Sylph's velvet brown eyes narrowed. “You're really a piece of work, you know that? To fake out the whole base. To make everyone think you were crashing.”

Chase gave up. “Where's Riot? Maybe he'll listen.”

“I
hope
he's getting checked for STDs.” Sylph's look was full-out exasperation. “You really are hooking up with him. Couldn't leave my RIO alone, could you?”

Chase didn't have to answer.

“Nyx!” Riot bounded through the rec room. He leaped over the rope and wrapped Chase in a crush of a hug. “I went to your room to catch you. Pippin said you were in Kale's office.” His face pressed to hers in a way that made her want to pull away, but she gave him a quick squeeze instead. “We thought you guys were going to die,” he said. “Didn't we, Sylph?”

Chase let go. “Not even close,” she lied.

Riot was the tallest in their class but on the thin side for flight crew. He had an annoying habit of putting his chin on the top of her head, and yet he was quirky cute with kissable, full lips. “We tried to fly back out to you, but—”

Sylph elbowed him out of the way. “Keep it in your pants, Riot.” She used her teeth to peel off the Velcro that fastened the boxing gloves over her wrists. “Let's go.”

“I need him for a few minutes,” Chase said.

Riot glanced between them with a small smile. “Now, ladies, not another knife fight.”

“Remember who won last time,” Sylph said. Chase flashed to a few days ago—their Streakers in an elbow-rubbing dogfight. Chase had been in the lead until Sylph wore her down into making a stupid turn and claimed missile lock on
Dragon
. That flight had been thrilling, but compared to her latest hop with
Phoenix
, it was nothing.

“Yeah. Right.” Chase searched for the fastest way to wrap this up, wanting to shake Riot for answers and maybe a little something extra. She got an arm around his waist, and he stared down with make-out eyes. Sometimes the boy was too easy. Okay, he was always too easy.

Even Sylph's scornful expression had a polished air. “Wash him up before you send him back.”

The crowd of cadets was still waiting, watching.

Chase leaned forward and planted a smack of a kiss on Sylph's mouth.

“Eh!” The blonde wiped her face with the back of her hand and ducked under the ropes, cursing all the while. The crowd howled, and Riot raised Chase's fist and proclaimed her the winner.

Beyond the faces, Chase caught sight of Tanner's back as he trudged out of the room. This time her heart lurched like she'd missed a step and nearly fallen down a flight of stairs.

• • •

The boys' locker room was deserted. Chase followed Riot to the back by the sinks and showers. She'd been here before. With Riot. With other guys. It didn't feel too good to remember, so she didn't.

“That look on Sylph's face when you kissed her was…” Riot sighed. “Kick-ass.”

“Great.” Chase dismissed that one fast. “Today in the air…what happened on your end?”

Riot ripped off a paper towel, wet it, and held it to her bottom lip. The cool water felt good against the slight swelling. “We got the speed records at one hundred thousand feet and headed back. Boring as ever.”

Chase's whole body frowned. “Have you heard anything about a secret bird?”

“Nope. Don't know anything about any Streaker jets,” he mocked and tickled her neck with a kiss. She slid out of his hold and wondered, not for the first time, exactly what she was doing with him. Was this about angering Sylph? No. Maybe.

“We saw something up there today.”

“A drone?” Riot's face turned too serious too fast.

“It was a jet. A manned jet.”

“There are lots of those.” He wrapped his arms around her hips. Chase thought about asking if Sylph had ever said anything about a third Streaker, but before she could, Riot yanked her into the shower and pinned her under the nozzle. Her thoughts took off like a flock of dark birds.

Oh yes.
That's
what she was doing with him.

“Kiss me?” His face was close. She stared at his lips but pressed her own together, shaking her head while trying not to smile. If she grinned, he'd kiss her, and although it was fun to tongue wrestle with Riot, the pregame was always better than the match.

He gripped the showerhead. “Kiss me or you're getting doused.”

“You wouldn't,” she dared.

He spun the handle. Icy water covered them. She screamed and he roared, but then the water began to flow warmer and everything started to heat up. He kissed her, and Chase's mind hummed like she was revving
Dragon
's engines. It had little to do with Riot though. She liked him, but what she liked best was the distraction. When she was tangled up with him, there were no trials to fret about. No demarcation line or Second Cold War.

The water seeped through her clothes, bringing a full body rush, and yet the image of
Phoenix
flew through her mind. Where did it come from? Why did it appear? Why didn't Kale want her to know about it?