Breaking Sky(68)

“Love is…” She searched for her own answer to this never-ending problem. “Love doesn’t really work. Not for me.”

“I understand why you’re holding back. A week ago, I was ready to glue my hands in my pockets just so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch you.”

“And now you think it’s a good idea?”

“Feels like the only idea.” He put his forehead against hers. “I was wasting a serious amount of energy keeping my distance. You don’t feel that way?”

She did—or had. It was confusing. Somehow things had gone too far.

“I’m sorry.” She leaned in without meaning to, her face so close to his that she jerked when she pulled back. “This is too complicated.”

He opened the door for her. “You’re going to have a hard time convincing me to give up, Chase. Especially when you look at me like you just did.”

They left together. Chase kept waiting for them to part ways, but Tristan followed her to the rec room. He really wasn’t going to give up, and he’d even snared her into another minor conversation—this one about how much weight she could bench—when everything changed.

All of the screens in the rec room were blaring red. A few dozen cadets were standing there, silent. Gaping.

Horrified.

The brilliant red of the New Eastern Bloc’s flag took up the whole screen, the parade of stars standing almost three-dimensional against the vivid color. A voice blared. The language felt fast and angry. A threat. Chase thought it might be Chinese, but then it switched, turning to Russian before it lapsed into Hindi.

Ri Xiong Di was making a move.

? ? ?

The brigadier general rounded up the Streaker teams in his office. “Get comfortable,” he said, but there weren’t enough seats. They lined up along the wall while Sylph dominated Chase’s leather chair.

The television showed the red flag while the threat looped at them. Chase’s heart banged while she waited for someone to speak. Translate. Make sense of the endless words. She looked to Pippin; he could understand at least one of those languages—but he was paler than he had been when they were falling through the clouds.

She scratched at her shoulder nervously, needing to hold on to something. Tristan’s hand was there within a beat and locked fingers with hers. It grounded her even as she lost herself to imagined flashes of atomic bombs. Mushroom clouds spotting the western seaboard. She stepped back against Tristan’s chest, and his free arm wrapped around her waist.

Kale muted the television. “Ri Xiong Di is showing off,” he said. “They’ve hacked every station, every secure link. Even the Internet is locked red. They’ve been playing this nonstop for half an hour.”

“What does it mean?” Sylph asked. “It’s clearly a warning.”

“A threat,” Pippin said, his voice cracking.

“It’s a reiteration of everything we’ve been warned of in the past. Not to band together with other countries. Not to make a show of military advancements. General Tourn was more than likely correct that they’re now aware that the Streakers are impervious to their advanced hacking abilities and that we were finally able to bring down one of their drones.

“Our older jets are at Alert 15, but they’re too likely to be wirelessly overridden. Ri Xiong Di would delight in turning our own birds against us for the show alone.”

Riot stood forward. “Screw the trials. Let’s launch the Streakers at them now.”

Kale held up a hand. “It’s never that simple. The trials will be two days from now, and they’re more important than ever. I know it doesn’t seem this way, but we’re lucky. They’ve sent us a warning, but they haven’t acted. We have to hope they don’t act before we’re ready.”

Pippin stood up from where he’d sat on the floor. “Of course they’ll act before we’re ready. That’s what they do. Intercept. Prevent. Thwart. They’ve been knocking our knees out every step of the way for decades. That’s how they stay on top.”


Kale nodded as though he was only half-listening. The muted threat continued behind him, the red flag almost vibrating with brightness. “Things are coming to a head. I…there are things the government would like to keep from you, but I don’t agree. Maybe it’ll cost me my job, but we know Ri Xiong Di wants a Streaker more than anything. The spy network is abuzz about it. Every time you go up, you need to worry about that. We’re going to keep you as far from their territory as possible, but still, be aware that you’re—for lack of a better phrase—being hunted.”

The room crashed into silence.

“Those dummy missiles you’ve been flying with…they’re being swapped out for active ones as we speak. You’re flying hot from now on.”

Chase pushed against Tristan a little more. She had imagined flying hot, but now that it was happening, she couldn’t believe it. Active missiles under her wings? Active?

The only sound was Riot breathing too hard while Sylph rubbed his back in tight circles. Kale flipped off the television. The room dimmed without the blaring red.

“Inconsiderate a-holes,” Sylph muttered. “The least they could do is subtitle that shit for us.”

Romeo forced a snicker, but Chase couldn’t feel the humor. Terror was on the horizon, and it was more than losing Dragon or facing Tourn. It was the pursuit of world war. She could feel it like a trailing missile, already fired.