Page 33 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
He read the Cerleze marking the different buttons and knobs. Never had he ever been more thankful for his expensive schooling. The previous pilot had prepped the craft well enough, seeing as the machine hummed with power.
Kase had to get it in the air. Three seconds ago.
He swayed in the seat with each bullet ricocheting off the side of the ship. Another clanged on the underbelly.
“One of ‘em has a cannon!” Stowe shouted over the commotion.
Kase glanced up to see a Cerl with the weapon slung on his shoulder, blue smoke leaking out the end, the barrel squared up with Kase’s face.
“Hope you’re strapped, Stowe!” he yelled over his shoulder.
“What?”
He smashed the ‘Lift’ button, blood splattering the console. Forget trying to figure anything out. They were dead if they sat there any longer. He’d have to learn in the air.
The engine roared, and Kase fell forward with the power suddenly surging through the craft. He caught himself on the steering control and fumbling around with his right foot, whooping when he found some sort of pedal. He pressed it to the floor.
The hover shot forward like a bolt, and Kase’s lungs protested. He clenched his jaw and as many muscles as he could. He yanked the steering control up, and the craft followed. The skin on his face strained against his skull, chafing against the bone like it was about to slide off. Kase tensed further as blackness crowded at the edge of his vision. He didn’t know how Hallie’s father would fare with the gravitational pull. Kase felt as if he’d taken on five times his weight as he swung the craft around, but he forced himself to focus and pressed the button on the steering control for what he assumed were the front guns.
Fiery blue bullets sprayed the ground and people below, including the soldier holding the deadly cannon. He fell, but not before his own weapon went off. What was left of Kase’s stomach flew into his throat as he slammed the accelerator and executed a standing barrel roll, avoiding the blast.
Other hovers made it into the air as Kase blinked away the blurriness from the blood rushing to his head. He’d wasted too much time. He pressed the pedal again and shot forward, rocketing toward the sky before leveling out.
Only one of the Cerls was able to follow. Kase didn’t have enough brain space or time to be impressed.
“Stowe! Fire on them now!”
No answer.
Blast it. The man must have lost consciousness.Lose your tail, and then you can panic.
He raced toward the road to Kyvena. He didn’t think he could outrun them. They knew what all the controls did; he was guessing at everything. But maybe he could out-maneuver them.
Kase’s body pressed into the seat as the speed ramped up. Blue fire shot past him. One rocked the ship. Kase nearly bit through his tongue.
He yanked the steering control toward his chest and didn’t let go. In the blink of an eye, he back-flipped his hover over, theother ship was beneath him, above his head. It’d worked with Ike the last time he was in Nar, but this time he didn’t have Hallie to impress with his loops—only her father to save.
He leveled out, clenching everything to stop himself from blacking out. He pressed the weapon trigger once more and sprayed the hover directly in front of him.
The ship exploded.
Kase yanked the steering control up and to the right, but the fiery cloud still engulfed him. The echoes of screams blared in his ears. The flames were no longer surrounding him in the hover cockpit. For a split second, he held his dying sister in his arms, and—
No. That day is over. It isn’t happening now. Ana is dead. She made her own choice, and I choose not to die today.
With the heat sensors blaring in his ears, the hover smashed through the last of the inferno. In the next half second, the wide-open road cleared before him.
“Ha ha!” Kase whooped and looked back toward the destruction.
Nothing but the flames sat on the rapidly shrinking horizon. No other hovers were coming.
He glanced over at Stowe to find him frozen, but alive. Awake, too. “You all right?”
The man’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly, but he finally nodded. Kase pushed a button on the dash to allow more oxygen to the cockpit. “Sorry about that.”
Stowe shook his head. “It’s okay. Just need to—”
He turned green.
