twenty Vipers still on our tail spread out, burning their engines as hot as they’ll go.
Casting the net. Waiting to cinch it closed.
Wen’s fingers creak in my headrest as she hauls herself forward to look at the instruments. “Not good,” she seethes. “Not good—they’re going to fire on us.”
“They won’t,” I tell her firmly, spinning the Beamer around once more with an athletic twist of the thrusters that wouldn’t have been possible a month ago.
“They’re in attack formation—”
“They’re herding us.”
“There are twenty Vipers on our rear! Why are neither of you acting like it? Why are we turning the ship around? Why are we playing chicken with a cityship?” Gone is the calm, cool, collected Wen, the one who walked casually away from the remains of the bombed-out skipship, who didn’t hesitate before jumping off the wiretram, the one who flew the Cygnet like a dog chasing its tail.
She must have finally realized that she stands at the center of a web of lies. Finally realized that something is off in a way she can’t pin down. Trapped in deception and uncertainty, all that’s left for her to do is panic.
Well, that and switch her grip from my headrest to my neck. Her uneven fingernails bite hard into my skin, and I swear vehemently as the ship’s vector wavers under my hands.
“Wen!” Gal yelps, twisting in his seat and lunging. Her nails bury deeper as he tries to pry her off me. From a distance, belted to his chair, he’s less effective than I’d like.
Even with my jugular twitching under her grip, I can’t blame her. The trouble we’re giving the Torrent doesn’t match their neglect to fire anything at us. And as the Vipers circle closer and closer, trying to steer us onto the vector they want, their guns are as cold as ever.
“Get—c’mon, get off him, Wen,” Gal grunts, twisting one of her wrists. “For the love of…We’re in the ship with him. He’s not going to fly us into something that gets us killed.”
Her grip loosens, and I choke down an unsteady breath. Us. We. Words that mean worlds to Wen. Gal knows exactly how to win her.
“You know Ettian would never throw our lives away. So let’s let him do his thing, okay? Wen?”
The negotiator’s worked his magic. Her hold goes slack, and he yanks her hands back before she has a chance to rethink. I feel a slight wetness and a chill in the indents left by her nails. Pushing the stinging pain aside, I throw the Ruttin’ Hell into a spiraling dive, feinting one way, then the other, teasing the Vipers’ herding formation wide open.
I spare an odd, grateful thought for Tatsun Seely—thanks to his assassination attempt, I’ve had practice with this kind of flying. With an extra burst of speed from the main engines, I thread the ship clean through the hole I’ve opened and streak for the Torrent’s flanks, where the second half of the scrambled fighters tangle with the Archon forces.
“Ettian,” Wen warns.
“What did I just say?” Gal grinds out between gritted teeth, still twisted around in his seat. “Trust him, you little asshole. We’ve put our lives in your hands, like, eight times before. Try it the other way ’round.”
The void around us starts to flicker with stray boltfire as we close in on the fight. The drumming in the cargo hold grows louder, like the soldiers can sense it through the silence. The Archon artillery outmatches the Vipers, but their agility can’t be beat, and they keep the resistance forces pinned against the Torrent’s hull like a firing squad. There’s no outmaneuvering them—not without risking the wrath of the dreadnought’s main batteries.
That is, until the Ruttin’ Hell comes screaming between them. The Vipers’ guns flicker out like snuffed candles. They swing their noses away from us, trying to get clear for a shot at the Archon ships, but we run right through their formation, dragging the other half of their force behind us to add insult to injury. The two Viper groups tangle together, veering wildly to keep distance between themselves and the unruly