Page 124 of Sky Song
“Now!” Lyle barked, scaring her.
She didn’t just pull the yokel; she yanked it like she was trying to root the thing out of its fastenings. The rider responded by bucking once and catapulted into the sky with a mighty roar of its acceleration boosters revving all at once. The two hovering riders fell down in a blur as theirs ascended. The sounds of the chase on the ground disappeared.
Cricket was breathing fast and looking at nothing but the radar.
“You’re doing great. Hold steady, just a little higher.”
They were at the cloud level. Cricket broke out in a sweat. “I can’t… what now?”
Lyle leaned over and tapped some buttons she didn’t know the meaning of. Some pilot she was. With his help, they slowed their ascent and evened out, transitioning into a steady flight mode.
“Where are we going?” Ren’s voice from the back was strained.
“Serenity Park. We’ll ditch the rider there and hike to Atticus on foot.”
The clouds parted, and like a bad dream, the two black peacekeeper riders took form out of the fluffy haze.
Lyle grabbed Cricket’s hand and forced the rider to drop and change direction, accompanied by Ren’s vicious curses. “There are more of them!”
Lyle made an annoyed growl deep in his throat. “Did it have to come to this? I’m over this flying thunder routine.”
“I fervently hope you remember your shtick, old chap, before we all turn into one red-hot ball of explosion.” Ren didn’t even try to suppress the fear in his voice.
Something grazed their underbelly and the right side. “Are we… being shot at?” As she said it, Cricket had a hard time internalizing what was happening.
“A little.”
Another grazing along the rider’s casing caused it to lurch. Unperturbed, Lyle pulled out the familiar silver device and plugged it into one of the rider’s ports. The rest of the protective paneling fell open, revealing innumerable controls and two additional navigation screens.
Contorting his body, he slid into the pilot seat behind Cricket, pushing her forward as far as the space allowed. His thighs framed hers, and he was all over and around her, sharing with her his every muscle twitch, every heartbeat, every breath.
“Hold on tight.” It was all the warning he’d given her before they shot forward and then dropped. The rider went up and down, faster and slower. She banged her head on the side, twice. They spun and twirled until she could scream no more. Until the motion sickness caught up with her and she clamped her lips together to hold the nausea inside. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the endless kaleidoscope-like rotations of the sky, the sun Kle, the clouds - and the malevolent dark shapes that wouldn't leave them alone. And that awful zapping sound of shots.
“Aw, why are there so many of you?” Lyle murmured next to her ear.
“Why are you asking this?”
“Not asking, skies, just planning it out loud. You’re doing great. You’ll fly solo missions in no time.” She felt him smile, his cheek pressed to the side of her head.
“No, I won’t.”
But she pried one eye open. Her hand was still gripping the lever, as if she were piloting. Lyle’s palm was enveloped over hers, over the controls, really steering their rented rider and making it zip, bullet-fast, in the airspace above Meeus’ beautiful cityscape.
She felt Lyle’s hand flex, pressing her finger over the slight bump on the lever. There was a whistling zap. A muffled crackling boom rocked the air in the distance and quickly went away.
“Oh, God.” She was afraid to look. “Did we miss?”
“My hearts, wenevermiss.” He sounded offended.
The rider turned under Lyle’s command, and as it did, she got a visual of a ball of fire that rained down the burning debris in a grotesque slo-mo of an armageddon motion picture. And in a weird dual vision, Cricket’s mind overlaid what she was actually seeing with what she’d seen in Paloma’s video: the post-apocalyptic getup of a broken oxygen mask, the intimidating mohawk, and the dead, unfeeling eyes of a murderous alien raider.
Only this time, she was in that video with him.
Chapter 16
They made it to Ren’s apartment. How, Cricket hadn’t really tracked. Everything had been a blur after the first explosion, and she kept her eyes mostly closed for the duration of their ‘flight.’
An army of peacekeeper rider-jets had been following them, but they weren’t as fast or as crazy as Lyle. That alien was uncanny in his piloting skill, but knowing as she did where his practice had come from scared Cricket.
