Defiant (The Skyward Series Book 4)

Brade had no intention of dueling Spensa, of course. Fortunately, Spensa didn’t know that. She’d always been about the contest, the fight. While Brade had always seen the big picture, the larger scope.

Like right now. With those inhibitors going down, she had an opening. She merely had to reach that open spot ahead, far enough from the delvers that she’d be able to jump away.

She made sure to make a good showing of dueling. Any less would get her killed. Spensa got on her tail—and if Brade was being honest, she couldn’t have prevented that. So Brade legitimately gave it her best, diving along the outside of one of the vastworms, then firing a spray of shots along it to make it light up. That should slow…

Scrud. She could barely concentrate on her flying because Spensa was back there, weaving between the worm’s tines with the energy of a child on a playground, fleet and precise. How? How did she fly like that?

Brade burst away from the vastworm on overburn, cutting close to some junk—and Spensa followed, making it seem easy as she light-lanced to change trajectory on a whim.

At each turn, Spensa got closer to Brade. So Brade went into her best evasives, but Spensa matched them turn for turn. And kept getting closer.

How? Scrud.

It was all right. A general didn’t have to be able to fight every soldier on the battlefield. Big picture, she told herself. You just need to be able to hyperjump. Brade had managed to maneuver them closer and closer to that open spot with no inhibitor. Reach there, and she could escape.

Hell, from there she could hyperjump right to Evensong and fry the slugs. Then she’d jump to the intelligence stronghold on Varvaxin Three, which not even Cuna knew about.

She was almost free. Spensa didn’t realize what—

A shot hit Brade’s shield. Not from behind. But from in front. From her escape route. There, to her shock, a group of starfighters had just appeared. An entire flight.

“Cheating!” she said into the comm. “Spensa, you coward. This was supposed to be a duel! Just the two of us.”

“That’s the thing,” Spensa said back. “It’s not just the two of us, Brade. I’m not alone. I will never be alone. I’m part of something bigger. And when you pick a fight with one of us…”