Chapter 12 Kaz
KAZ
The hangar smells like ozone and old ambition—burnt circuit boards, grease, and the slow decay of metal under stress.
I’ve been elbow-deep in my bird’s guts for an hour, hands slick with coolant, sweat crawling down my spine.
The preflight diagnostic threw a tantrum and the systems readout lit up like a party invite I didn’t ask for.
No engineer in sight. All slammed with the sim pods being recalibrated after last week’s blackout. The younger techs avoid my gaze like I bite.
Screw it. I grew up flying ships twice as broken as this. If I can’t fix her, I shouldn’t be flying her.
I slide under the console, knees jammed against a tangle of coolant lines, my shoulders crammed against the internal wall. There’s a static discharge bite when I connect the manual relay, and I hiss through my teeth.
“Really?” I mutter. “That’s how it’s gonna be, sweetheart?”
The ship doesn’t answer. She’s got Nova’s attitude today. Stubborn. Precise. Gorgeous pain in the ass.
Which, of course, is exactly when Nova decides to show up.
I hear her boots before I see her. Clipped, efficient. She doesn’t walk like other people. She moves like she’s already figured out the whole damn room and is just indulging its existence for a while.
I don’t move. Maybe she’ll go away.
She doesn’t.
“You’re gonna fry your stabilizer coil if you cross those wires,” she says, voice flat, amused. “Unless you’re planning on turning this fighter into a low-orbit firework.”
I close my eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of not killing myself.”
“Debatable,” she says, crouching beside me.
She’s too close. Her shoulder brushes mine as she peers under the console. The static charge in my skin isn’t from the wires anymore.
“You’re not even grounded,” she murmurs, reaching in. “Slide over.”
“There’s no room.”
“Make some.”
I grunt, twisting just enough to let her in. Our knees knock together under the console. Her thigh presses against mine. My brain shorts out for a second.
Nova doesn’t seem to notice. Or she’s better at pretending it doesn’t affect her.
She probably is.
She passes me a tool without being asked—right size, right grip. It’s a quiet flex. I respect it.
We work in silence for a few minutes. The only sounds are the soft click of metal, the occasional spark, and the whir of a diagnostic fan trying not to implode.
Then she says, “You always fix your own ship?”
“When I don’t trust anyone else to get it right.”
She hums. “Control freak.”
I snort. “Says the woman who has three backup nav drives just in case.”
“Redundancy isn’t the same as control. It’s preparation.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
She shifts slightly, her hip brushing mine. I feel it everywhere. Gods, I hate how good she smells. Like leather and ozone and whatever perfume she pretends she doesn’t wear.
“This bird’s seen better days,” she mutters, tapping a frayed conduit. “You ride her hard.”
“Only way she knows how to fly.”
Nova glances at me then—sharp, sideways. “That an innuendo?”
“No. But it can be if you’re into that.”
She rolls her eyes, but the corner of her mouth twitches. Almost a smile.
We fall back into silence. Tension thickens, unspoken and undeniable. Every brush of her arm against mine, every shift of her body, feels like gravity trying to collapse the distance between us.
I focus on the wiring. Or pretend to. My thoughts are drifting somewhere between her lips and the way she looked at me last night before walking away like it didn’t mean something.
“Why’d you really come down here?” I ask, not looking up.
She pauses. Doesn’t answer right away.
“I was heading to the gym,” she says. “Saw the maintenance order on your ship. Figured you’d be too impatient to wait for the techs.”
“You figured right.”
Nova’s quiet for a second. Then, softly, “I like watching you fly.”
That shuts me up.
I look at her.
She’s not smiling. Not teasing. Just… honest.
“You fly like you’re trying to outrun gravity itself,” she adds. “Like if you go fast enough, you’ll slip free.”
I lean back against the bulkhead, heart thudding.
“That’s what it used to be,” I admit. “An escape. The only place I felt like I was worth a damn.”
“And now?”
I meet her gaze.
“Now it feels like a cage.”
Nova doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away. Her voice drops to almost a whisper. “Maybe you’re not running anymore.”
I tilt my head. “Then what am I doing?”
She doesn’t answer. Just holds my gaze like it’s the only thing anchoring her.
The air between us hums with something fragile and dangerous. I want to touch her. Want to lean in.
But she shifts first. Smooth and professional.
“The coil’s stable,” she says, tone clipped again. “Should be good for a test run.”
The moment snaps like brittle glass.
“Thanks,” I say, voice rough.
She nods, stands, brushes her hands off on her uniform like she hasn’t just rearranged my whole nervous system.
“I’ll see you in the gym,” she says over her shoulder.
And then she’s gone.
The gym’s a different kind of pressure.
Swan’s already sparring with one of the Alzhon cadets, both of them moving like coiled springs under the overhead lights. The air smells like sweat and rubber and recycled aggression. I stretch my shoulders, trying to ignore the knot in my chest.
Nova walks in five minutes later.
She doesn’t say anything. Just grabs a towel and settles against the far wall, arms crossed, watching.
I feel her eyes on me before I even hit the mat.
Swan grins. “Oh, you’ve got an audience now. Better not suck.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We circle. Throw jabs. Duck, weave, strike. It’s not a real fight—not yet—but it crackles with potential. Every blow is a word we don’t say.
I see Nova watching from the corner of my eye. Calm, unreadable. Except when I land a clean hit and Swan stumbles back—then her jaw tightens. Barely.
I wink at her.
She rolls her eyes.
But she doesn’t look away.