mirror.
I settle into the gel-seat, hands gliding over the dashboard as I spin up the ship’s preflight checks. The set of the controls is familiar, but this ship—Corinthian-made, with a little more emphasis on form than function—still feels a little alien to the touch. Outside, the hangar bustles with activity. I track a group of soldiers as they wheel crates of artillery toward one of the larger cargo ships for transport to orbit. Slowly but surely, the assault is coming together. With every passing second, my heart creeps higher and higher up my throat.
And it’s not helping that ever since the mission was green-lit, Gal’s been pulling away from me. With the constant threat of discovery hanging over his head, he’s been getting more and more withdrawn, and even the tiniest of irregularities causes him to lock up in panic. It’s been days since the last conversation I had with him that didn’t involve our subterfuge, and even longer since the last time we managed to speak without fighting.
The deeper we get into this scheme, the less I see of the real Gal—or the Gal I want to be real. All I see is the way he squares his shoulders and marches into meetings that I can’t even stomach attending, his unflinching willingness to pave our path to the Archon interior with bloodshed. When we’re in sight of the resistance, he acts like a model cadet. When we’re alone, it feels like there’s barely anything left of him. All he wants is to be on the other side of this, and I worry about how hungry that makes him for our plan’s brutal end.
I don’t know what to do. All I can do is quietly ache.
But today I have a distraction. Gal wants me to prove that Wen can be useful, and Iral needs to see that she’s as committed to his cause as we are. So today I’ll get her in a pilot’s seat and see what she can do. But that’s not all we’re trying to accomplish—Wen’s implication is also dead-on.
I really, really need to blow off some steam.
The Cygnet hums under my hands, its engines hot and eager. As I spur it out of the hangar and onto the open tarmac, my heartbeat syncs to the vibrations of the ship beneath me and I feel myself lock more firmly into the controls’ layout. The Cygnet is a two-man fighter, built lean and athletic, twice the size of a Viper and twice as armed. And unlike a Viper, this bird doesn’t need a running start to get into the air.
I pull the safety harness down over my shoulders, snap my helmet’s strap beneath my chin, and stare pointedly at Wen until she does the same. “Henrietta Base, this is Green Twelve,” I announce. “Preflight checks are clear, awaiting confirmation of launch permissions, over.”
A moment later, the base tower chimes back. “Green Twelve, this is Base. Sky’s clear, you have permission to launch, over.”
Wen bares her teeth. I don’t miss the way her fingers itch toward the weapons panel. The ship’s been unloaded, but the temptation is all too real. I double-check that the firing mechanisms are disabled. She sticks her tongue out at me.
In reply, I throw the engines hot and blast the forward thrusters, rearing our nose back as the Cygnet leaps into the sky. The force crushes us into our gel-seats, my vision fringing with black, and I cut back our burn before the acceleration wrings the consciousness out of me. Wen tries to howl, but it comes out as a scream through gritted teeth, and belatedly I remember that she’s probably never been in a ship this fast.
So I pop on one of the attitude thrusters and throw us into a corkscrew for the hell of it.
When we level off, her smile is savage. I laugh as I set our vector, pulling our trajectory southward. Isla’s spires glitter in the distance beneath us, and Wen leans forward, pressing her helmeted head against the cockpit window. A slight burst of wind buffets us, but the Cygnet’s sleek aerodynamics slice through it like a well-honed blade. “Had enough?” I ask Wen.
She braces herself in her gel-seat, her