I keep my face blank. Impassive. She can’t see through me now.
“They should have shot us down. They should have let us fly into their fire. Why—”
“Wen,” I say, my voice low and deathly serious. “Has it occurred to you that if we could explain, we would have already?”
She slumps back against the bench, her hands tightening into fists. “I’d take Korsa any day over this shit,” she growls, and my heart seizes, knowing I’m already losing her.
“We’ve got a second dreadnought inbound,” Gal says, tapping my side of the dashboard. “Due to hit in seven minutes. Time to do this all over again.”
I turn to face the stars outside, and instinctively my nose points straight at the distant speck of Rana.
But the fight isn’t over. The drums are switching over from triumph to a call to arms, that familiar rhythm Seely tapped into my shoulder on the morning this whole mess started. And though my blood is pounding for home, I pull the Ruttin’ Hell back into the fray.
CHAPTER 25
RANA LOOMS IN our windshield. From a distance, the planet looks peaceful, but my heart rate is escalating with every mile that collapses between the Ruttin’ Hell and its goal. When we reach the planet, one way or another, this all goes to hell.
My hands itch for the Beamer’s controls, but I’ve been replaced at the helm by Wen Iffan. She wears a deathly serious look, her lip stubbornly set as she holds the ship steady on its vector. In the copilot’s seat, Gal flicks away incoming hails. He still hasn’t allowed any communications between us and the Umber defenses, leaving them uncertain about whether he’s aboard and unable to shoot the Ruttin’ Hell down. The closer we get to the planet, the more frequently the hails come.
“Only a matter of time before we get an escort,” Gal mutters, glancing back at me. “You should get to the cargo bay.”
I shake my head. I’ll leave his side when I have to, and not a moment sooner. “Gotta make sure Wen knows how to treat the lady,” I joke, knocking my knuckles against the bulkhead above me.
Gal blows an exasperated sigh out of his nostrils, but he doesn’t argue the point. I reach forward and set my hand carefully on his shoulder as he turns back to the instrumentation. He relaxes a little.
We left the dreadnoughts far behind. At our last point of contact, Maxo Iral had managed to bring three of the monstrous ships under his command, and a fourth was on the way. Soon they’ll be turning tail and going superluminal to meet up with the remainder of the assault fleet in the deep black between star systems and escort them into Umber territory. The rest of the assault ships stuck to their skirts, waiting for the next commandeering.
And the Ruttin’ Hell streaks for Rana completely alone.
“Inbound,” Gal says, dragging up the sensors as he homes in on two ships. “Skipships. Weapons cold, but they’re moving fast.”
“Want me to tease ’em?” Wen asks, nudging the stick. Our path veers away from the approaching escort, and a boost of the engines sinks us all back in our seats.
“Fly casual,” Gal replies.
“I can tease casually,” Wen shoots back, and it gets a little grin from him. I should have flown these two through a battlefield ages ago.
“Fine,” Gal says, and sighs. “Put some heat on their tails.”
I have about a half a second to find something to hold on to before she obliges him with a hard burn of the rotary thrusters. The Beamer plunges, breaking for Rana’s atmosphere, and Wen lets out a wild whoop, leaning to check the pursuit on Gal’s side of the dash. “Watch it,” I warn as the first gasps of air start to rush over us, flickering with a hint of fire. “Don’t hit atmo with our heat shield belly-up.”
“Unclench, Ettian. We’ve got time,” she says, then cackles, tilting the ship into another vicious course adjustment. Somewhere behind us, I hear a heavy thump, followed by a groan from one of the soldiers in the cargo bay. We should have warned them before turning Wen loose, but Arso hasn’t started yelling at us, so I think they caught on fast enough.
“Wen,” I choke as she swerves again.
“Twenty seconds till we hit the hard part,” Gal agrees.
“Fine,” she seethes, hauling on the Ruttin’ Hell’s throttle. She cuts the main engines and throws the rotary thrusters into a lazy spin that curves the planet through our windshield before bringing it to rest squarely beneath us. “Happy?” Wen asks, holding her hands up.
“Don’t—” I start.
Gal lunges across the controls, firing the thrusters as the atmosphere blazes around us. The Ruttin’ Hell lists before aerodynamics take hold, and Gal fights to keep the Beamer level as the deceleration bends him over the dash.
I release my handholds and crumple, trying to save myself from the uncompromising force. The armor around my chest and the helmet on my head keep my vital bits from cracking, but my legs and arms are about to melt into the bench. The straps over my shoulders feel like forty-pound weights.
Gods of all systems, I think, and it’s halfway to a genuine prayer.
The first thing I hear when the roaring dies down is Wen cackling. She throws her head back and howls, leveling the ship off, and Gal glances back over his shoulder with a look that says, You’re leaving me alone with this?
I give him a slow, tight-lipped nod.
“They’re catching up,” Wen notes, bringing our attention back to the Beamer’s instruments. “Looks like they’re trying to get on either side of us.”
“And they’re hailing. Again.” Gal dismisses the communication with a well-practiced swipe. “Five minutes until we’re in academy airspace. Best to look complacent until then. Let them think they wore us down. Do whatever they bully you into.”
“Yes, sir,” Wen says with a roll of her eyes and a jab that engages the autopilot. She can’t commit fully to the sarcasm—not when she knows that it’s almost her time to shine.
Gal glances back at me. “You should be in the hold.”
“Should,” I agree, but don’t move. Terror is creeping up my throat as the distance to our goal closes. Not because I’ve got a helmet on, gear strapped to my back, and a wingsuit webbing my arms and legs, begging to catch the prairie air over the academy.
No, I’m terrified because all of a sudden I’m not so sure about what we’re doing. No matter how hard I’ve tried to flush it, I can’t rid myself of the giddy joy that swept over me when I saw Archon take its first victory in years. I tried to tell myself it was an illusion. It’s all going to come crashing down.