single cockpit. One hand, then ten, then twenty as the defectors’ formation cracks in half. Variations slip into the rhythm, and my vision goes fuzzy as I watch the nine cadets still under my command bolt for Rana’s gravity.
I know this beat too. It’s been seven years since I heard it last, but the rhythm of an Archon war cadence is etched into my heart. It’s the rallying cry of our fallen empire, and for a terrifying moment, I forget every word I told Seely this morning.
The defectors cast their net wide, herding Gal, playing off the way fear is driving him. But fear’s not driving me—not in the same way. As Gal swerves again, burning off his speed, I nose up along his wing.
“Gal,” I say, and his vector steadies. Even over the rumble of the drumming, he hears me.
“Ettian, I’m so sorry—”
“No apologies.” I try not to flinch as another scattering of bolts slices past us. Gal’s Viper jerks, and I’m forced to swerve, tipping my gyros enough to dodge him. Even in all this confusion, my reflexes are as sharp as they were in the years after the empire fell. That time taught me a lot of things, but above all else, it taught me to improvise.
“Hold steady. I’m going to try something,” I grunt.
“Easier said.”
“I know.” I twist my gyros, flipping my craft belly-up, and punch the attitude thrusters. My Viper slots neatly underneath his.
Gal’s voice is on the edge of panicked laughter. “Don’t you dare hump my ship.”
“Thank me later.” I yank my landing gear’s release and jam the button that spins up my electromagnets. These things are meant to hold a Viper to the skin of a dreadnought, but they work just as well on the metal of another light craft. My ship snaps against his with a dull thud, and Gal yelps.
“You’re going to get us both killed,” he mutters, but he’s already cutting his engine and stilling his gyros.
If he can’t fly his way out of this, I’m going to do it for him.
With a heavy burst from my thrusters, I pull us into an arc, taking stock of the defector formation closing in on us. Two lines of ships spread out in a V, meaning to herd and crosscut us with their fire. Already they’re adjusting course to follow where we lead. The drumming fades—the pilots need both hands now.
My vision goes dark at the edges as I tighten our vector. Vipers were designed to move around the pilot, keeping inertial forces on the body as minor as possible. Flying in curved lines is bad for biology, doubly so when the ship’s center of mass is no longer focused on your head.
“Gal, you with me?” I choke, leveling us off. “You gotta talk, elsewise I’m going to think you blacked out.”
“Or one of these bastards got me.”
“That too.” I glance up through my windshield, trying to pinpoint the academy on Rana’s vast surface. I don’t know if they’re responding to my distress call. It’ll take time for missiles to claw their way out of the planet’s gravity. I don’t know if I can keep us clear of the boltfire for that long. “Gal,” I warn as another violent twist of the gyros steals my sight.
“Remember that time we got leave and went to Ikar?”
I grin. “Not particularly.”
“You got so hammered, you started singing the Umber Anthem at the top of your lungs in an open market. In a former Archon territory,” Gal chokes out as we level off onto a new vector.
“I remember the bruises. I won the fight, right?”
“If you call being left facedown in a garbage can ‘winning,’ I’ll eject now.”
My flying’s working. With twenty of them and one of us, it’s child’s play to tease their formation into chaos—especially with our chatter covering up the orders Seely’s screaming into the comm. “At least I actually fight my battles,” I snap. It’s harsh, given our current situation, but Gal knows what’s in my head better than anyone, and he gives me exactly