Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,102

hand over the ridges that distinguish each knob. The bones of my fingers feel like they’re about to shatter. I find the button—I hope it’s the right one. Either it makes our situation better, or it makes it a whole lot worse.

Only one way to find out.

I jam down. If we had bolts enabled, I’d be depleting our entire arsenal, firing a whirling barrage of death into the void. I hear the guns behind, beneath, chugging their emptiness into the black. Each blank sends a shudder through the ship, and each shudder skims away some of our speed like a hand brushing against a spinning wheel. I choke out a breath as my lungs finally find the strength to expand, then lean forward against my harness until my fingers brush the gyro controls on Wen’s side of the ship. I spin them counter to our rotation with a twitch of my hand, breathing a long sigh of relief as the spots fade from my vision. With a few long burns of the attitude thrusters, I scale the Cygnet’s vector back to a point.

Wen’s slumped in the pilot’s seat, unmoving. Her arms drift in front of her in a dead man’s float. Panic snaps through me, and I jam my fingers under her chin, digging for a pulse in the soft flesh next to her trachea. Her head rolls, but a weak, slow beat rises through her skin.

I sag back in my own gel-seat, closing my eyes.

At the academy, our introduction to flight in a vacuum was gradual. We worked in simulators aboard a training station—nasty, finicky, slow-moving things, but they had safety measures imposed that kept us from centrifuging ourselves into cadet-sized puddles. Even when we graduated to an actual cockpit, we spent days watching a skilled pilot fly before we were allowed to touch the controls.

I neglected that, caught up in the thrill of seeing Wen fly, and it almost got both of us killed.

Gal and I have spent the past two weeks consumed by the fear that we’ll be caught and executed, and somehow an untested pilot in zero-g nearly took me out instead. I realize with a jolt that I never actually said anything to Gal this morning. Never said goodbye—I’m not even sure if he knew we were going on our flight today. He’s been waking up each morning already consumed by thoughts of war and treachery, and he collapses into bed—my bed, still—each night thoroughly worn out by them.

If Wen had killed us with her spinout, Gal would have been left all alone in the midst of his enemies. I would have abandoned him to face Maxo Iral, the man he’s feared since childhood, for a chance to blow off some steam in the cockpit of a fast ship. I’ve never vomited in zero-g before, but a tickle of nausea climbs up my throat at the thought of Gal alone on the base.

I think I owe him an apology. Maybe a thousand apologies.

I remember Wen’s question. Whose side are you on? I remember how the answer wasn’t him, and my nausea doubles fiercely. Gal told me on that rooftop back in Isla that he didn’t want to be the terms I lived my life on. Now I think that fear’s farthest from his mind—not just because he’s preoccupied with our gambit but because I’ve been letting him slip away so easily. My eyes burn, and heat flushes my cheeks. With no gravity to pull it, the water floats in my vision, blurring the controls in front of me.

I could have died without him knowing anything. Not what was going on in my head when I took off this morning. Not the past I’ve buried for so long. And not the realization I had that night we came up with the plan that’s supposed to restore and redeem him in the eyes of his vicious empire. I owe him more than an apology. I owe him the truth I keep running from, the one that drives me to fling myself into the sights of would-be rebels and mobsters and Maxo Iral himself.

The burn behind my eyes gets stronger.

Next to me, Wen stirs. She rolls her head for a moment,