I will end you if it’s the last thing I do.
The gun kicks, punching out a horrid blast as I drive the zembi into my uncle. The light makes me close my eyes. My ears and my skull ring from the percussion wave as I tumble onto my dying uncle in the cockpit.
“No!” I scream, looking back as the massive ball of green fire races toward Armor, who’s pulling his wings in front of himself and his brothers.
The blast crashes into him and throws Armor into his brothers.
A vehemence I’ve never known boils up in me. I scramble up from my uncle, yank the blade out of him, and slash at the Solcrue, who throws himself back and whips his gun toward me. I clamber over the copilot’s body and thrust my hot blade into him. It slips into his shoulder with surprising ease. The soldier cries out and drops the gun.
Anger makes me twist the handle.
He winces, convulses, and blacks out.
When I turn around, I see Menace look up from a body on the main deck. Olive blood drips from his mouth. Another Solcrue in a CSP uniform lies at his feet. Karambit isn’t far away. He lowers the body of a human CSP soldier. It slides off of his knife-shaped fingers to the floor.
“Armor?”
Diesel’s connected to Armor’s coal-dusted chest. “Hang on.”
Fury lugs the bodies out of the cockpit and takes the pilot’s seat. “Redline, take out the trash?”
“Yes,Mom.” A red-hot unit collects the bodies of my uncle and the two pilots and throws them out of the open doors in a flash.
Once my uncle and the other bodies have fallen to the dunes, Fury slaps a button and closes the side hatches. Storm whirs to a stop and returns to a humanoid shape.
Armor gasps in the arms of Redline and Diesel and gets to his feet. “Esthi?”
As I approach him, he snatches me up.
“I thought we’d lost you forever,” he says.
“You got balls, Esthi,” Menace remarks. “Sefina is going to like having you around. She is a Sentinel. I hear you are a Gray.”
I nod and savor the feeling of Armor’s arms around me. Armor and his Titans are my family now. Myria isn’t herself. My uncle is dead like the rest of my family. They are all I have left.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Armor kisses my forehead. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I was not thinking straight.”
“You were emotional.”
“Yes. We came to get you. Commander Savage’s orders.” Metal hits the roof. Then again and again.
“I joined for the fun of it.” Redline punches sideways and knocks out a Solcrue as they exit a nearby door. “Menace senthis payload toMarstandVessnaon returning Skysprinters. So a few of us were in the area.”
Savage drops to the deck from an overhead ladder. Behind him, Turbo, Shifter, and Rebel drop inside.
“Esthi, Scythe is an impressive claim. We are honored to have you with us,” Commander Savage says.
“BlazeStar is about to break free,” Shifter reports. “Rock falling now.”
Fury banks us toward the mountain. “Arius?”
“Ready,” my old friend shouts from the munitions bay.
Guns come online, lighting up in the port and starboard rails, which Titans eagerly rush to.
Fury whoops. “Let’s take out Venom squadron and see how they like EMPs!”
