Breaking Sky(2)

A Streaker. A twin to the prototype she sat in.

It was like walking by a mirror she didn’t know existed. It made her jump, defensively jinking her wings. The other pilot looked her way right before jet-washing Dragon. Chase and Pippin spun through the fiery engine wake. Long seconds passed before she won the stick back and blinked the red out of her vision. By the time Dragon had stabilized, nothing but the other Streaker’s contrail remained. A white highway.

Chase exploded after it.

“Time for a conference call, Nyx.” Pippin’s tight voice belied his mocking. “What in the blazes was that?”

“A bogey.”

“That looked like Sylph.”

“Sylph’s almost home. You said it yourself. That was someone else.”

Pippin didn’t bother to agree. He was into his controls in a desperate way. After all, he was her RIO, her radar intercept officer. The sky was his ingrained map, and it was his job to make sure the air was clear around them, like a human satellite. “That bird has no signal,” he finally said, a hint of wonder in his voice. “How could it have no signal?”

“No signal and it’s headed for U.S. soil.” Chase’s pulse picked up. Her muscles went tight as she leaned into the pursuit. This wasn’t like the stunt she’d just pulled. This was what she was trained for, and she left safe speeds way behind.

“What are you going to do if we catch it? We’re not armed, Nyx.”

“Track it. See where it lands.” Make sure it isn’t a sneaking spy from China, she added to herself.

They passed Mach 3.

Chase grinned so fiercely from the pressure that she felt crazed. “There. You see him?”

Far below, metal winked over the serpentine glisten of the Mississippi. She pulled lower, closer to the blue-ferocity of the engines—dual engines that reached under each narrow wing and married together at the back like the infinity symbol. Just like Dragon’s engines.

Chase dove under the jet. God, it was blinding fast. The pilot tilted into her space, their wings nearly kissing. She’d never gotten remotely this close to Sylph’s bird in the air…it made her laugh out loud and test how much closer she could get. The other pilot’s bloodred helmet shot a look her way, and she had the funniest feeling he was laughing too.

“Pip, look at that helmet—”

Dragon’s emergency low fuel alarm pierced the cockpit. She slapped at the control board to turn it off, but her speed died as the engines defaulted to reserve levels. The other jet broke east toward the indigo muscles of the Great Lakes.

Chase had just enough time to read the sharp military stenciling along its side:

PHOENIX





2


    DRONE


   An Enemy without a Face


Pippin wanted that jet to be Sylph. He wouldn’t let it go. “The Star could be trying out some new music or a block. Maybe they fuzzed my radar to see how close Sylph could get.”

“Sylph doesn’t have the lady balls to fly that fast,” Chase said. Dragon was far west now, above Seattle, and headed due north. The clouds evaporated, revealing a jagged coastline. “Pip, I saw red.”

“No, surely not.” He checked his sarcasm with a growling sigh. “You went feral flyboy. You would have followed that contrail straight across the d-line if it had headed that way.”

“Red helmet.” She touched her black standard-issue helmet. Chase wasn’t technically in the Air Force yet, but as a top-ranked cadet, she had fought for the opportunity to pilot one of two Streaker prototypes.

One of three…

“Are you scanning for drones?” Chase’s voice pitched, betraying her standard cool. Pippin grunted a confirmation. They were only a few hundred miles from the demarcation line, the invisible boundary that split the Pacific Ocean and kept the Second Cold War so chilly.

She pulled her mask from her face only to reattach it. Bingo fuel meant autopilot, and autopilot meant that Dragon was flying at tricycle pace. In the meantime, Chase drilled her emotions, set up each worry like a toy soldier. Where did that bird come from? Who knew about it? And more importantly, who didn’t know about it?

“Did you see its name, Pip? That bird had Phoenix stenciled on its side.”

“Phoenix looks a lot like Sylph’s Pegasus. Seven letters. Begins with P.”

“Except for the fact that they’re different words.”

“Different mythological beasts, in fact.”

“That wasn’t Sylph, Henry.” She hoped using his real name might emphasize her point. “Why do I feel like you’re trying to convince me to drop it?”

“Because I’m smarter than you. Chase.”

“You’re smarter than everybody.”

“My cross to bear.”


Chase’s impatience held down her smirk. She drummed her fingers on the cockpit. Most canopies were made of thick plastic, but Dragon’s was crafted from tempered glass, the strongest in the world. “That Phoenix had the same crystal canopy. The same blue-silver skin.”

In Chase’s mind, the Streakers stood apart in the sky and in aviation history. Light, sleek, and fueled by rip-roaring twin engines. They were hybrids of the older manned jets with HOTAS controls—hands-on throttle and stick—and the popular aerodynamic drones of the early twenty-first century.