Page 29 of Into the Still Blue (Under the Never Sky 3)

“Keep going, Soren,” Aria said quietly. “You’re doing fine. ”

Soren seemed to collect himself. “I know I am,” he said, though his voice lacked its usual bravado.

Hess’s avatar came to life. His shoulders lifted—the same small shiver Soren had done moments ago. Soren controlled it now. He would use the avatar like a puppet, directing it through the Smarteye.

“Always wanted to be just like you, Dad,” he said under his breath. “I’m linking into the Komodo’s system. ”

His fingers glided over the Belswan’s controls, effortlessly controlling the avatar and the Hover’s instrumentation. This was his language, Aria thought, as surely as singing was hers.

In front of the windshield, a transparent screen flickered up, divided into three segments. Hess occupied the center. The screen on the right contained a combination of maps, coordinates, and scrolling flight plans, all lit in neon blue. The left-hand screen showed a cockpit like the Belswan’s, but smaller. It was the inside of the patrolling Dragonwing—the ship they intended to commandeer.

Four Guardians in flight suits and helmets sat in two rows.

Hess—or rather, Soren as Hess—spoke right away, the avatar suddenly brimming with an authoritativeness Aria knew well. “Patrol Alpha One Nine, this is Commander One, over. ”

He paused, waiting for the information to make an impact.

And it did.

The Dragonwing crew exchanged worried looks. Commander One was Consul Hess. They were receiving a direct message from the very top.

The Guardian at the comm responded. “Alpha One Nine, copy. Over. ”

They’d bought it. Aria let out her breath and sensed Perry relax beside her.

“Alpha One Nine,” said the Hess avatar, “we picked up a distress message from a downed Hover, three—no, make that four—minutes ago on your incoming. Does anyone want to tell me why you’re not responding?”

Soren played his father perfectly, uttering the words with simmering condescension and barely contained hostility.

“Negative on the message, sir. We didn’t receive it. Over. ”

“Stand by, One Nine,” Hess said. Soren kept the transmission running, letting the Guardians observe Hess as he turned, bellowing to a control room that wasn’t there, that would be nothing more than a figment of everyone’s imagination. “Somebody get him the coordinates. Now, people. My son is on that ship!”

“Your son, sir?” said the Dragonwing pilot. Surely he knew that Soren had stayed behind in Reverie as it crumbled, but that didn’t mean Soren hadn’t survived—or that Hess wouldn’t welcome him back.

Hess turned to an imaginary underling and said, “Have his hearing checked when he gets back. And if those coordinates aren’t up in—”

The screen with the flight plans blinked. New information trickled down—maps, diagrams of the Belswan, coordinates—all running like fluorescent raindrops from top to bottom.

Hess leaned forward, looking into the camera eye. “Listen closely. I want everyone on that ship here in one hour. If you fail me, don’t bother coming back. Acknowledge, Alpha One Nine. Over. ”

Aria barely heard “Affirm, sir” before the image of Hess disappeared.

Soren had cut off the comm. He rocked back against the pilot seat, breathing fast, his chest rising and falling. “My father is an orangutan’s ass,” he said after a moment.

No one disagreed. That seemed to deflate him, though the words had been his own. He pressed his eyes closed, wincing, before he returned to the controls, powering the Belswan down completely.

The darkness in the cockpit startled Aria, even though she had expected it. Small rivers of rainwater flowed down the windshield.

Aria clicked on a flashlight, the beam illuminating Soren’s face.

“See?” he said, through clenched teeth. “Easy. ”

So far, Aria thought. It would only get more dangerous.

They left the cockpit and hurried to the bay doors. As she jogged outside, the rain slapped her shoulders and face and pounded against the ramp, raising a riotous clatter.

Beneath the back end of the Belswan, Brooke and Roar fed green branches to a fire partially covered by a field tent and hidden beneath the tail end of the Hover. The effect was convincing: billows of smoke curled around the tail of the Hover, obscuring it and giving the appearance of wreckage.

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