Chapter 6
KAZ
The tarmac’s colder than a cryo coffin tonight, the kind of cold that bites even through the armored soles of my boots.
I don’t talk. Don’t grin. Don’t perform.
For once, I’ve got nothing to say. Nothing clever, nothing cocky.
Just silence—and the words Nova threw at me last night looping through my head like a faulty thruster.
“It has to be nothing.”
Damn.
It wasn’t nothing. It isn’t nothing. But she said it like a command. Final. So I nodded like a good little cadet and walked out her door, out of her space, like it didn’t tear something open in me.
Then her name pings on my flight roster.
Midnight. Solo sim. Instructor: Starling.
Yeah, okay. I know what this is.
I gear up in record time. The hangar’s a cathedral of steel and shadow, all hiss and hum and red hazard lights pulsing like warning hearts. The silence is so thick it feels holy. My fighter waits, hatch open like a mouth ready to swallow me whole.
She’s already in the tower, of course. Silhouetted against the control panel lights, arms folded like armor across her chest.
I flick on comms. “Midnight rendezvous in the sky? You sure know how to make a guy feel special.”
“Fly the sim, Kaz,” she replies, voice clipped, no frills. But not cold. Not quite.
I slide into the cockpit and pull the canopy down with a hiss. “You got it, ma’am.”
Engines rumble alive under me, a sound that settles in my spine like a war drum. I launch hard, cutting through the hangar exit like a blade. Nova’s fighter slips in beside me a second later, and just like that, we’re airborne.
Low orbit over Barakkus at night is a symphony of black and silver.
Crater lakes shimmer like mercury under twin moons, mountain ridges slicing the sky into jagged patterns.
We’re running tight formations, single-file then parallel, dipping through canyons of atmosphere and ice.
She doesn’t say much. Just little corrections.
“Adjust yaw.”
“Too wide on your arc.”
“Throttle down three percent.”
I obey. For once, I don’t backtalk. Don’t try to showboat. Just fly.
And gods, it feels good.
There’s something about flying with her. The way she commands without barking. Guides without dragging. She trusts me to follow. And that trust? It’s worth more than any medal I’ve ever chased.
Thirty minutes in, we hit zero-G. A pocket of perfect drift above the equator where even gravity lets go. I let the controls float. My ship responds like an extension of my body—fluid, alive. Her fighter matches speed, nose to nose.
We just… hover. In silence.
I tap my comm. “You ever think about turning off your mic just to enjoy the quiet?”
Her chuckle is soft static. “That would assume I enjoy your company.”
“Ouch.” I tap my heart. “I’m bleeding out over here.”
Nova’s voice is gentler now. “You flew well tonight.”
“You expected me to crash and burn?”
“I expected you to turn it into a performance.”
“Would’ve, if you were watching from the bleachers.”
A long pause. Then she says, “Why did you really come to my quarters?”
I take a breath. The kind that feels heavier than it should. “Because I couldn’t sleep. Because I was thinking about that kiss. And you. And wondering why a girl who’s all alloy and command code got under my scales so damn fast.”
“That’s not a good reason,” she says, but her voice wavers. Just a bit.
“It’s the only one I’ve got,” I admit.
She doesn’t answer right away. Outside the canopy, stars drift like glitter in molasses. Beautiful. Indifferent.
“I get scared to fall,” I say.
“Everyone does.” Her voice is quiet. “You just have to do it anyway.”
I want to reach across the void between our ships, rip the canopy off, and kiss her again. Properly. Not because I’m trying to win. Not because she’s a challenge.
Because I’m already halfway gone.
Instead, I power up thrusters. “Goodnight, Nova.”
She doesn’t answer.
I peel away from her ship, carving a clean arc across the sky, afterburners trailing fire in my wake. The stars don’t look quite the same anymore. Like they’ve rearranged just to mock me.
I’m not flying to prove anything.
I’m flying because I need to remind myself who the hell I am.
But even as I push harder, faster, until G-force grips my ribs and the hull whines in protest… I know.
I’m already falling.