Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,25

a world shattering.

My eardrums ring, but distantly I hear Gal’s scream. The engines are still dead, and the ship is just shy of tumbling out of control. We’ve gone weightless, but Gal clings to me, keeping me anchored to the pilot’s seat. My hands find the controls again, my fingers shaking as I flip the engines back on. Feel the ship warm beneath me. Feel Gal press his forehead into my shoulder.

I open my eyes, jamming down the attitude thrusters to tear us out of our spin. The stars outside steady, and I twist the Beamer until we’re pointed at the vast dark of the open prairie below. The ship moves grudgingly, and I groan. These things weren’t designed to maneuver like a Viper, and I’m getting nowhere trying to fly it like one. My fingers itch for drag fins that aren’t there, and dimly it dawns on me that I might have humped our chances of walking away from this.

Gods of all systems, I’d better not have. If Gal and I die together and it’s my fault, the afterlife is not going to be a pleasant place. And there’s no way in any system’s hell I’m dying in a goddamn Beamer.

I let the engines spin up, then turn them loose. The Beamer creaks in protest, but slowly we pull out of our plummet. My shoulders go slack as we streak across the night, climbing once more for the stars.

I don’t release the tension completely until we’re pushing toward the outer limits of Rana’s atmosphere. Finally, as the planet’s gravity starts to loosen its hold on us, I flip on the autopilot and rise, shrugging out of Gal’s grip. In the micrograv, a little push takes me to the ceiling of the cockpit, but Rana’s still there to bring me drifting back down.

Back down to meet Gal’s bugged-out eyes.

“I told you…” I wheeze, “I had clearance codes. So we wouldn’t trigger the academy’s ruttin’ automated defense systems by taking off with an unauthorized ship and nearly flying it right into the main relay.”

Gal squirms guiltily underneath me, glancing sideways as if his excuse is somewhere in the copilot’s headrest. “Whoops?” he offers.

“Out of my chair.”

Gal obliges, scrambling out of his restraints and sinking into the other seat. He instinctively reaches for the harness, then thinks better of it. I slide into the pilot’s chair in his wake.

“That was…I don’t know how you do it, honestly.”

“If you had paid attention once in Dr. Ridan’s sim class—”

“Don’t even start.”

“Just…Just let me do the flying from now on, okay?”

“She’s all yours,” Gal says shakily, patting the dashboard. The whisper of rushing air fades around us. We’re past the realm of Rana’s breath. I flip another switch and wince as the grav generators spin up with a tug that feels like a hook snagging my bones. Gal groans as he’s pulled even deeper into his seat. “I didn’t think…I didn’t know…”

“Hey, it’s okay. We’re clear. We’re off Rana. We fly for a day, get to a superluminal zone, and then we’re going to be on a direct vector to the Imperial Seat.”

The words hit like a hand on the back of my neck, and an instant, unshakable fear roots in me. Maybe Gal thinks of the Imperial Seat as his natural home, of the Umber core’s abundance as his birthright. Maybe he looks at Iva and Yltrast and loves them unconditionally, even if they stuffed him under a rug for the first seventeen years of his life.

I think of it and see my homeworld in ruins.

Rana’s sun-facing horizon glows beneath us, the night side of the planet dotted with the lights of cities. But my eyes find something else in the darkness—the subtle shadow of a massive crater north of Trost’s glimmer.

We call it the Warning Shot. Seven years ago, the Archon imperials were on their last legs, unwilling to yield even as the war reached the core of their shattering empire. Trost was under bombardment so thorough it was like the enemy had raked fiery talons across the city. And when the first Umber dreadnought