Page 45 of Aviatrix

I flip the ignition. Or… think about it.

Engines roar.

“Engaged.”

She surges forward like she’s alive. No lag. No delay. Just instinct and thrust. We shoot out of the hangar, wheels lifting within seconds.

Sky wraps around us like a lover.

I climb hard, slicing through clouds that haven’t even finished forming. The jet handles like nothing I’ve ever flown. Like she knows me. Like we’re dancing.

“Flight pattern stabilized. Altitude 36,000 feet. Awaiting command.”

For days, I’ve watched the world burn. Been pushed. Pulled. Lied to. But not anymore.

This isn’t about waiting for someone else to act. It’s about flying straight into the storm and owning it.

I exhale, grinning into my helmet. “Let’s go find some answers, VAL.”

“Affirmative.”

ELEVEN

THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS PROMISE

The sky is mine again. It’s the only place that still feels honest.

VAL responds like a second skin, every tilt of my fingers and shift of weight mirrored in the controls. We bank hard right, San Diego's coast hiding beneath patchy clouds, sunlight bouncing off the nose cone like a signal flare.

“Altitude decreasing,” VAL’s voice chimes in my ear, calm and crisp. “Final approach in thirty seconds, Captain Kinley Quay.”

“Copy that, VAL. Smooth and steady.”

The HUD flickers as we dip below cloud cover, the coastal city unrolling beneath us.

Flying with VAL doesn’t feel like flying. It feels like remembering who I was before the world shattered. Before Langdon burned, before Lark lied, before I questioned everything I ever believed in.

Up here, it’s just me, the sky, and the purr of something new in my ear.

A flash of memory hits. The last time Dad took me up in a retired F-14 Tomcat. It was a few weeks before his disappearance. “There’s nothing like flying, Jetlet,” he had said with so much pride in his voice.

Jetlet. My throat burns as I remember.

I tighten my grip on the stick.

I won’t let this war take that from me, too.

VAL touches down effortlessly on the runway in San Diego.

Despite the looming alien threat, the palm trees are a welcome distraction from the thread of anxiety knotted in my stomach since Langdon was attacked.

That was only six days ago. Six days that feel like a lifetime.

I try not to think about how much has happened in that short time. A secret base obliterated. The White House destroyed. So many lives gone.

My entire life has been the Force. I grew up just outside Langdon. I went to the Academy dreaming of coming back, hoping to find answers about why Dad disappeared. Instead, I fell in love with my CO. Blindly. Naively. Stupidly.

I took one look at Colonel Lark Jones and knew instantly. It took him a little longer to catch up, but he did.