“What’d I say, Starling?” Chase took the clothes and set them on the lower bunk. “Less enthusiasm for Sylph. Always less enthusiasm. That girl’s head is big enough.”
Chase’s new RIO was every bit as daring as Pippin but not nearly as confident. The fact that Lin had been chosen to fill Chase’s team had launched the sophomore as a celebrity at the Star. Lin treated her newfound fame like everything else: overwhelmed and blindingly sweet—until she got into the air and turned hard and sharp as a blade.
Chase watched Lin fold, her dark-skinned hands working fast and rhythmic. “You really shouldn’t be doing that,” Chase said. “Sylph’s just trying to see what she can get away with. It’s hazing.”
“So what do I do?” Starling’s nose scrunched up, and Chase pinched it.
“I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d throw all her clothes into the trees on the Green.”
“That’s wicked,” Starling said. “You think I could?”
“Just be prepared for retaliation,” Tristan said. He leaned in the open doorway, his arms hanging on the doorjamb in a way that flattered every piece of him. “You ready to head out, Chase?”
“Hi, Arrow!” Starling yelled.
“Seriously, Lin?” Chase rubbed the ringing out of her ear.
Tristan gave Lin a purposefully smoldery look. “Hey there, Starling Darling.”
“All right already.” Chase hooked her arm around Tristan’s, leading him down the hall. “Be back for dinner, I think,” she called to Lin. “Remember, don’t do anything else for Sylph!”
Chase and Tristan walked fast together, shoulder to shoulder. It felt a little like flying. “You always have to tease the breath out of my RIO? You act like Romeo in front of her sometimes.”
“It’s funny. She seems to think we’re movie stars.”
“Don’t encourage her.”
He pressed a kiss on the side of her neck. “She knows I’m taken.”
“You are.”
Chase was somehow still comforted and thrilled that Tristan was dedicated to her, and she to him. Sometimes she worried she’d wake up and they’d be over each other, and every day that didn’t happen, she felt more and more.
“Did you hear the chatter?” he asked, switching to his serious tone, the one Chase had assigned to his more political thoughts. “Ri Xiong Di representatives agreed to a summit meeting. The first one in twenty-two years. Three European countries have agreed to come, including Britain. I bet several more are going to say yes.”
“What will they talk about?”
“The Nuclear Response Act most likely. No one wants to worry about that kind of escalation. They’re also going to insist on lifting the Atlantic trade restrictions.”
“That sounds too good to be true. Ri Xiong Di isn’t going to stand for the U.S. back in a fighting position.”
“They don’t have a choice. Allied strength.” Tristan held her hand a little tighter. “Things are changing.”
“Yeah, but for the better?”
“I don’t know how long they’ll be afraid of the Streakers. Adrien worries they’ll figure out how to make one soon enough, and then…”
Chase squeezed his fingers and let him worry. After all, there was so much left uncertain. For one, her nightmares wouldn’t leave her alone. Too often, she relived the way she had thrown herself down, down, down at the ocean.
And somehow missed.
She ached for Pippin in a soul-twisting kind of way, but she was learning how to air out her hurt when it came, to share it with people like Kale and Tristan. Even Sylph when she needed a more clinical ear. Venting made his loss feel like a real part of her, and she found that that was the only way she could live with it.
They double-timed it across the Green and toward the hangar. Cadets were everywhere, and Chase was still getting used to the other shade of blue uniforms that now spotted the Star, denoting the Canadian cadets.
“Any idea what Kale’s surprise could be?” Tristan asked when they joined Sylph in the glass tunnel between buildings. Outside, the intense blue of the sky promised puffy clouds.
“No clue,” Chase said.
“Morons.” Sylph led the charge. “It’s obvious.”
The trio of Streaker pilots found the brigadier general outside of the hangar doors by one of the helicopters. “Get in,” he ordered. Chase climbed in after Sylph and grabbed hold of Tristan’s flight suit to bring him in behind her.
“Got to love a pushy woman,” he muttered into Chase’s ear as he took his seat beside her.
Sylph cocked a judging look at the way they sat close, hands entwined, but Chase didn’t care. All of it, even the Sylph-mocking, felt kind of great.
The helo took them to the lower half of Banks Island, to a large camouflaged-white hangar. They set down outside and jumped out. Kale used a variety of security codes to open the door, and they ducked out of the chilled wind. When Chase lifted her head, she wasn’t ready.
The hangar was full of Streakers.
Blue silver seemed to wink at her from every angle. “Holy hell.”
“Language, Harcourt,” Kale said.
“How many?” Tristan asked, his eyes huge.
“Sixty. The first batch. Fifty named for the states and ten for Canada’s provinces.” He waved his hand at the one stenciled with the name Texas, beside one bearing the incredibly long title Saskatchewan. “We’re halfway to finding young pilots to start training. This is where you three come in.”
Tristan and Chase exchanged looks.
Kale continued. “I know you won’t graduate for a few semesters, but we need to get these jets in the air immediately. We need you to help with their instruction.”
“Serious?” Chase almost fell over. “You want us to train Streaker pilots?”
“Help train them. You don’t get to mold them into your demerit-riddled image, Harcourt.” Kale squeezed her shoulder.
Tristan wore a cool sort of victory in his expression. “Sixty Streakers.”
“Sixty-three, including your birds.”