Gal steps in front of me.
Something transforms in him. He lifts his chin, his shoulders squaring. The mask he’s worn for two and a half years falls away. He’s no longer hiding behind terrible grades, a foul mouth, or his horrible posture. Now I see it. Iva’s blood. Yltrast’s too. The brow meant to wear a crown of obsidian and brass. The confidence that could bring entire systems to their knees. This isn’t Gal Veres, the easygoing cadet, a good shot and a terrible pilot. Here he stands, Gal emp-Umber. The Umber heir.
Stepping without hesitation between me and seven gun barrels.
“Lower your weapons,” he says.
I’ve heard this voice before. Smooth, cultured, and difficult to disobey. It’s the voice that makes him a nightmare around the drunken, the weak-willed, and basically anyone with ears. I always wondered where it came from and why he didn’t use it all the time. But this voice is a weapon, and you don’t point it lightly. And as to where it came from…
Well, it’s not exactly a mystery anymore.
The patrol hesitates. With a jolt, I realize Rhodes is among them—I forgot he was on duty tonight. His gun dips a hair lower than his fellows’.
“I’m sure your orders are to bring me in unharmed,” Gal says. “And most likely to eliminate anyone who’s with me.”
Rhodes nods helplessly before his superiors can stop him.
“But, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m not being forced. Not being coerced. No one’s bundling me off in the night. I am simply…leaving.”
Someone turns off the alarm. The hangar plunges into a deathly quiet, filled only with an empty ringing and the panting breaths of nine people who don’t want to be there. I press down the urge to reach out for Gal. What happens next is entirely up to him.
“Lower your guns,” he urges. “Let us leave.”
I hold my breath as all seven barrels dip lower. Gal’s magic voice is doing its best work.
But then the woman at the center of the squad cocks her head to the side and snaps her rifle back up. Whatever’s coming into her earpiece is changing her mind, and her motion leads the rest of the patrol. “Sorry, Umber. Head’s orders,” she says.
Gal’s jaw goes taut, but he keeps his head high. “Who are you going to listen to? The academy head, or the blood that rules you?”
“The academy head is the academy head. But you’re not an emperor yet.”
Gal might be a great negotiator, but here’s where he fails. When all it takes to twist a situation are your words, you’re never good at telling when you’re beaten. This is the part where I come in.
I lunge forward and grab Gal’s collar, yanking him back and turning as the first stunner rounds let fly. He spins into my grip, slapping down a button on my chest, and the deflector armor under my jacket goes live as a bolt skips off my back. The kinetics of it knock me forward, but Gal’s there to catch me. His gaze flicks to the skipships, but I’m already pulling us both into a sprint for the nearest Beamer.
Another bolt drives into me, knocking me to my knees. Gal hesitates, but I wave him on. “Pop the hatch,” I shout. He ducks under the Beamer’s wing, and I roll, yanking my blaster off my belt. The patrol’s taken cover to reload, and as I stagger to my feet, I spot Rhodes with his head too high, fumbling with an ammunition pack. I raise my gun.
I’ve shot at classmates a thousand times, dropped a hundred of them with stunner rounds, but somehow it’s different when it’s real. Am I shooting at him as an Umber soldier in defense of an imperial? As a deserter in defiance of the Umber Empire? As an Archon—
I hesitate, and the hesitation throws everything off. My fingers stutter on the trigger. The shot goes wide, and Rhodes ducks lower beneath his cover. Before I have a chance to regret it, a bolt slams into my chest, knocking me flat on my back. My head cracks against concrete, and the armor on my chest beeps a warning that slices through my disorientation. The charge it carries can only deflect so much kinetic energy, and the hits I’ve taken have drained it almost completely.
“Ettian!”
Hands find my shoulders. The floor drags against my back. I try my best to pull my legs under me, but Gal’s not letting that happen. He yanks me up the Beamer’s ramp and into the cargo hold before I can yell at him for abandoning the ship’s safety. The door hisses shut with a dull thud behind us. “Get it running,” I choke.
Gal doesn’t need to be told twice. He takes off for the ship’s cockpit. I push myself upright, groaning as my head throbs, and rip my bag off my back. With the ship’s walls around us, we’re safe for the time being, but we need to get off the ground before the patrol finds a way to cut through the hull. I snap off the armor, slumping in relief as its electric rattle leaves my teeth. I’d rather Gal wore it, but we both knew I’d be the one they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.
The ship lurches, lights snapping on as Gal fires up the engines. I stand, steadying myself with a hand on the wall. We’re off the ground and listing to one side already. Typical Gal. Why couldn’t the “bad pilot” thing be part of his act too?
I get three steps up the ladder out of the hold before a massive boom knocks the ship sideways, throwing me off the rungs. I tuck and roll, my skin shrieking against the metal of the floor. “Gal?” I shout, scrambling to my feet the second I’m able.
“Yeah?”
“What—heavens and hells, what’s—” I can’t even get the words out. I think this is my brain careening past its breaking point. It’s been deprived, drugged, and tossed around too much for one night, and now my rationality is running on fumes. I scramble up the ladder and tear down the hall into the Beamer’s cockpit.
The first thing I notice is that it’s dark. The second is that we’re outside. The ship’s lifters thrum cheerfully as we rocket low over the prairie. I flop into the copilot’s seat, struggling to wrap my aching head around what I’m seeing.
“Gal?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re outside.”
“Yeah.”
“We were in the hangar. The hangar doors were down.”
“I blew through them.”
“You—” I sit upright, fighting against the ship’s acceleration as we lift higher and higher. “You did what?”
“Used the Beamer’s guns to take out the doors. Punched a big enough hole in them that we could fly right through.”
I slump back down. “I had clearance codes. You didn’t have to—shit, Gal!” I lunge across the cockpit and yank the controls, throwing the Beamer into a vicious swerve to avoid clipping the massive communications tower that’s suddenly loomed out of the darkness.