“I thought only imprinted pilots could sit in the dragon’s cockpit,” said Anabel, turning to Cat. “But, I mean . . . Pru’s right here, on the ground, with us, and Alex is the one out there, playing fighter pilot, which shouldn’t be physically or mechanically possible.”
“It appears that your friend has managed well enough.”
“For the last time, Cat, her name’s Pru. Did you know this kind of piloting could be done?”
“If I had,” drawled Cat, “I would have been less worried about someone other than Alexandre having that imprint.”
Pru didn’t bother interrupting their conversation. Anabel was right, sort of. Some piece of Pru, tied up inside her human body, stood at the cabin door with Cat and Anabel. But Anabel didn’t account for the bigger piece of Pru, which could see the beach like the battlefield the wyverns had made it. The bigger piece of Pru was up there in the sky, one with the dragon, and the boy inside. The bigger piece of Pru wove and dove and dodged, her reptilian eyes narrowed on points of black in the sky. Enemies.
Alex’s voice, twining with the dragon’s imprint, rippled through Pru’s mind again.
I—we have the shot, he said.
Pru hesitated. Do we take it?
His weariness, linked up to her like this, felt palpable. If we don’t shoot them down, they’re going to kill more people, if that’s what you’re asking.
How close are the Coalition?
Not close enough. We’re lucky Rebelwing’s stabled as close to the walls as she is, otherwise . . .
Pru, who remembered the dance of plasma glow across Alex’s bare skin, didn’t want to think about otherwise. She thought of Masterson, a bloody pile of parts crumpled at Anabel’s feet, not quite man, not quite machine. She thought of the pallor of Anabel’s cold, grim-set face over navy silk, and the way she’d screamed Alex’s name when that blaze of plasma fire nearly swallowed him whole. She thought of Cat, pressing the holo-drive-shaped amplifier between Pru’s palms and saying, “Prove me wrong.”
Pru closed her eyes, and opened the dragon’s. Black points in the sky, sighted just as Alex had promised. Take the shot.
He took the shot.
Several things happened in rapid succession. Pru, watching them unfold through dragon’s eyes, found herself breaking them down for catalogue. One, the roar of her own plasma fire streaking out across the sky in six quick arcs, taking out the six closest wyverns. Screaming, they hurtled toward the black sea below, light winking out into the swelling dark. Two, the collective focus of the remaining flock, as they zeroed in on their greatest source of danger. Three, the air cutting sharp around them, as Alex and the dragon spun toward the ocean to avoid a volley of return fire. Four, the flock diving after them, faster and faster, tailing the dragon like birds after prey.
There are too many, Pru’s mind pressed against the imprint, like her spine curling into the corner of the fateful, falling lift that had first birthed this bond. There are too many, Alex, you won’t be able to take them all.
We won’t have to.
Are you insane?
My sanity’s irrelevant to this fight. Look up.
Pru looked. The twist of her neck jarred her back into her human self on the beach. Her knees scraped wood when she hit the cabin floor.
“Pru!” Anabel’s hands and, amusingly enough, Cat’s—oh look, Anabel’s right, her girlfriend really does care—braced along Pru’s arms. Together, her friends pulled her back to her feet. “Shit, Pru-Wu. Are you okay? Hey!”
But Pru wasn’t looking at Anabel, or at Cat. She was looking up, toward the night sky, above the wyverns, above the dragon, above Alex.
“Look,” she whispered. “Anabel. Cat. Look.”
Their sharp, synced-up inhales told Pru they had.
Flashing across the sky was a fleet of combat mechs painted over with the crest of the Barricade Coalition.
“Guess the cavalry’s finally here,” Pru croaked. “Took them long enough.”
* * *
New Columbia Preparatory Academy Student Message Boards
Saturday, 12:30 A.M.
SOUR16: have you guys seen all these breaking news alerts??
VIKTORIAN: dude, why are you even still awake.
SANSMERCI: f that, why are y’all still on our SCHOOL MESSAGE BOARDS. it’s freaking midnight on a saturday.
SOUR16: kettle, black.
SANSMERCI: ha, touché.
SOUR16: seriously, did those alerts wake no one up? I thought it was a fire alarm, & it wound up being my effing phone.
VIKTORIAN: yeah, but I think most sane ppl turned it off & went back to sleep.
SANSMERCI: well, we’re Barricader prep schoolers. we’re overachievers. continent’s best damn hope for the future.
SOUR16: are you drunk?
SANSMERCI: on sleep deprivation, maybe. I’ve been watching the news on the shit going down at No Man’s Land. some of the gossip blogs say New Columbia Prep students were at the scene.
VIKTORIAN: they’re just gossip blogs.
SANSMERCI: still. do you think it’s true? do you think they’re ok?
SOUR16: well, not all the ppl the Barricader’s Daily alerts just confirmed dead or wounded.
VIKTORIAN: fucking terrorism, man.
SANSMERCI: you don’t know it’s terrorism. maybe something went haywire with that product demo that all the tech gossip rags were teasing.
VIKTORIAN: haywire enough to drop plasma fire on a fucking beach party?
SANSMERCI: I don’t know. I dunno what to think. you guys seeing these reports? this shit is horrifying.
SOUR16: who do you think is dead?
SANSMERCI: hopefully no one we know.
* * *
THE REST OF THE FIGHTING was brutish and short. Pru remembered her history lessons: during the Partition Wars, the Barricade Coalition military had needed three mechs to take on a single Incorporated war wyvern. This Coalition fleet had spared no chances, outnumbering the wyverns six to one. Even scattered and damaged by Rebelwing, the straggling wyverns put up a nasty defense, a flurry of vicious, close-quarters attacks, quicker and meaner than anything Pru had ever seen on a war reel. For several heart-hammering moments, Pru wondered if these strange new monsters might still win the day on cruel ingenuity alone.
Still, in the end, the Coalition’s sheer numbers prevailed. Their hover mechs, all sharp-nosed precision, cut through the remaining flock with grim, brute force. Plasma fire bloomed bright over the sea. And then there was only the dead to see to.