Starsight (The Skyward Series Book 2)

We split apart as we drew close, the three of us trying to swing around and coordinate an attack from all sides. I swooped down closer to the shell around the planet, anticipating—correctly—that Brade would dodge that way first.

Her screaming grew softer as we forced her to concentrate on her flying. I could feel that I was right about her—she didn’t know how to do this, not fully. She could project a scream into the nowhere, and I could see delver eyes watching from the reflection in my canopy, but whatever crucial step remained in bringing one here, Brade hadn’t figured it out yet.

Likely she’d assumed it would be easy. Each time I went into the nowhere, I worried one of these things would pounce on me—or worse, follow me out. Fortunately, it didn’t seem quite so easy to pull one through.

At my mark, the three of us cut in, trying to hit Brade from every angle. I anticipated that she’d accelerate and get out of the way. Instead, she spun around and didn’t dodge at all—letting our destructor blasts hit her. What?

The maneuver put us too close to her. By instinct, I spun my ship and tried to boost away—but wasn’t able to do so before Brade hit her IMP, breaking down everyone’s shields.

Scud! That was what I would have done, and I’d fallen right into it. Always before, I had been the single pilot fighting against superior numbers. I didn’t know how to think from the other direction—as someone trying to gang up on a single ship.

Warnings blared on my dash as I belatedly boosted away. The kitsen—who had dedicated gunners—got off some shots at Brade as she zipped off, but none landed.

I looped around, picking up Vapor as a wingmate. In the near distance, the enormous space battle continued—and I could sense a more frantic feel to it. Perhaps that was my own interpretation, but it seemed as if the fighters were more desperate. I tried not to think about how Kimmalyn and the others must feel to suddenly fight blindly, without communications.

Brade tried to bolt away, flying in closer to the defensive platforms. Enormous sheets of metal curved into the distance as we swooped down—but I refused to be caught in a trap like I had once used against drones. Vapor and I stayed out of range of the defensive guns until Brade was forced by their shots to pull up.

She couldn’t let us fall too far behind, or we’d have a chance to reignite our shields. Indeed, as I tried, she came right at me, forcing me to go into a defensive pattern. I had to abandon reignition, since I would need time flying straight—without much maneuverability, and all power diverted to the igniter—to get my shield back up.

“Hesho,” I said over the private line, “on me. Vapor, take a sniping position and be ready to shoot her while we distract her.”

“Affirmative,” both of them said, Vapor falling back and Hesho coming in beside me.

Brade swooped around, and we intercepted her with destructors blaring. We couldn’t aim very well, sweeping in as we were—we just needed to distract her from Vapor. Again she anticipated our tactics. Instead of engaging me and Hesho, she spun backward in a reversal that must have seen her pulling ten or fifteen Gs. I swooped around, but by the time I got on her tail she was already firing at Vapor.

Vapor tried to dodge, but one of the shots caught her. The wing blasted off her ship—which wouldn’t have been deadly in space, but the next shot ripped apart her hull, venting the cockpit. Including her.

She can survive that, I thought at myself forcibly, firing at Brade. I came so close to hitting her, the shots narrowly missing her canopy as she dodged around, weaving between my destructor blasts.

Brade got off a shot as she turned, and it nailed the Swims Upstream.

“We’re hit!” a kitsen voice shouted. “Lord Hesho!”

A dozen other kitsen voices cried out reports, and the Swims Upstream floundered, venting air. I couldn’t focus on that, unfortunately. I gritted my teeth and got in behind Brade.

The scream in my mind slacked off even further as the dogfight narrowed to just the two of us. Woman against woman. Pilot against pilot. We swooped past some ancient rubble, spinning and tumbling, trapped in orbit, and Brade pivoted around it with her light-lance.

I followed, staying on her—but just barely. We spun through the darkness, neither of us firing, focused only on the chase. I had the upper hand from the rear position, but . . .

But Saints she was good. All else faded. World beneath me, stars above, set against the backdrop of a terrible battle. None of it mattered. The two of us were a pair of sharks chasing one another through a sea of minnows. She managed to draw me in close to the defensive platforms, then loop around me as I was forced to dodge a shot.

I stayed ahead of her in turn, then threw us both into a spiral where I barely managed to cut out and swing around her, taking position on her tail again.

It was thrilling, invigorating. I felt as I rarely had before, challenged to the absolute limits of my ability. And Brade was better. She stayed just ahead of me and dodged each shot I took.

I found that exhilarating.

I’d often been the best pilot in the sky. Seeing someone who was better was perhaps the most inspiring thing I’d ever experienced. I wanted to fly with her, chase her, pit myself against her until I covered that distance and matched her.

But as I was grinning, I again heard her screaming into the nowhere. It was faint, but in its wake my illusion of enjoyment came crashing down. Brade was trying to destroy everything I loved. If I couldn’t stop her, if I wasn’t good enough, that spelled the end of the DDF, Detritus, and humankind itself.

In that light, my inability was terrifying.

I don’t have to beat her alone, I thought. I just have to get her to go where I want . . .

I broke off and darted away. I could feel Brade’s annoyance. She’d been enjoying this too, and suddenly she felt angry at me for my cowardice. I was running?

She gave immediate chase, firing at me. I had to stay ahead for only a short while longer. I dodged around a specific collection of space debris, and Brade followed. I held my breath . . .

“Got her!” Vapor said over Brade’s own channel.

I spun my ship around and boosted back toward Brade’s ship—which had followed me through the rubble of Vapor’s destroyed drone—as it slowed. I could see right into the cockpit, where she pounded on her console in frustration.

Her ship powered off anyway, Vapor locking down the systems. We had her. I slowed my own ship, then pointed the nose right at Brade. My own words seemed to echo back at me.

We can’t simply shoot to disable. She’ll keep on trying to bring that delver as long as she’s alive . . .

As if in direct proof of that, she met my gaze, then projected a scream into the nowhere. The eyes—which had been fading—snapped their attention back on us, particularly one pair that seemed larger than all the rest.

I squeezed the trigger. In that moment, Brade’s scream went shriller than it ever had before. In the panic of knowing she would die, Brade finally accomplished her goal.

And something emerged from the nowhere.