Prodigy

Let’s fix that. Suck in your breath, guys.” Kaede turns violently, and I almost black out from the pressure change.
    “All you all right?” I call out to June. She says something back, but I can’t hear her over the roar of the engines.
    Suddenly Kaede yanks a knob back and pushes a lever all the way forward. My head slams into the side of the cockpit. We spin a full hundred-eighty degrees in less than a second. I see a jet flying straight for us at a terrifying speed. Instinctively I throw my hands up.
    Even June yells out, “Kaede, that—”
    Kaede opens fire. A shower of bright light streaks from our jet to the one in front of us. The engines yank us forward and up. An explosion sounds behind us—the other jet must’ve gotten hit in the fuel tank or taken a shot straight through its cockpit.
    “They’ll be hard-pressed to tail us now,” she shouts. “We’re too far ahead and they won’t want to cross the warfront. I’m gonna push this baby to its max—we’ll be in the Republic in a couple of minutes.” I don’t ask how she’s planning to pass through the warfront without getting shot down.
    When I look through the cockpit at the Colonies’ towering buildings, I let out a breath and slump in my seat. Glittering lights, shining skyscrapers, everything my father had described to me on the few nights a year that we were able to see him. It’s so lovely from a distance.
    “So,” Kaede says, “I’m not just burning up fuel for nothing, am I? Day—we’re still heading for Denver?”
    “Yes,” I reply.
    “What’s the plan?” June still sounds weak, but there’s a burning purpose behind it, the sense that we’re about to do something pivotal. She can tell that something has changed inside me.
    I feel strangely calm. “We’re headed for the Capitol Tower,” I reply. “I’m going to announce my support of Anden to the Republic.”

A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO GET INTO THE R EPUBLIC’S border. That means, at the speed we’re going (easily more than eight hundred miles per hour; we all felt a sudden pressure change as we broke the sound barrier, like being dragged out of deep mud), we’re only two dozen or so miles from the warfront and several hundred from Denver. Day tells me everything that Kaede shared with him, about the Patriots and the true colors of Razor, about Eden, then Congress’s determination to oust the Elector. Everything I’d discovered and then some. My head was in a fog when we’d bolted from the room and made our way up to the hospital roof. Now, after the cold outside air and the speed of Kaede’s air maneuver, I can calculate details a little more clearly.
    “We’re closing in on the warfront,” Kaede says. The instant those words come out of her mouth, I hear the distant sound of explosions. They’re muffled, but we must be thousands of feet in the air and I can still feel the shock each time they go off. There’s a sudden lift and I press into my seat. She’s trying to push the jet as high as it can go so we don’t get shot out of the sky by ground missiles. I force myself to take deep, calming breaths as we continue to climb. My ears pop endlessly. I watch as Kaede falls into formation with a squadron of Colonies jets. “We’re gonna need to break from them soon,” she mutters. There’s pain in her voice, probably from her gunshot wound. “Hang tight.”
    “Day?” I manage to call out.
    I don’t hear anything, and for a second I think he blacked out. Then he replies, “Still here.” He sounds detached, like he’s fighting to stay conscious.
    “Denver’s a few minutes away,” Kaede says.
    We stabilize again. When I peer out of the cockpit down at the pockets of clouds far below us, I catch my breath. Airships (easily more than a hundred and fifty, as far as the eye can see) dot the sky like miniature daggers soaring through the air, stretching in lines off into the horizon. The Colonies’ ships all have a distinct gold stripe down the middle of their runways that we can see even from way up here. Not far in front of them is a wide strip of empty airspace where sparks of light and smoke fly back and forth, and on the other side are rows of airships I can recognize: Republic ships, marked with a bloodred star on the side of each hull. Jets are raging in dogfights all over the place. We must be a good five hundred feet above them—but I’m not sure if that’s a safe enough distance.
    An alarm on Kaede’s control board beeps. A voice