Page 99 of Aviatrix

Sasha crosses her arms. “Are you finished?”

“That depends.” I tilt my head. “Are you going to let Colonel Jones finish, or are you going to interrupt every time he tries to speak?”

She exhales heavily.

“I see your point,” she concedes, finally sitting. “Please continue, Colonel.”

“Thanks for the permission,” Lark replies dryly. “As I was saying, we’ve got four ships hovering over U.S. soil. If we take them down, they’ll wipe out entire cities. So far, we’ve evacuated major metro areas and neighboring communities within a 200-mile radius. We’ve moved them to shelters, bunkers, anything secure in case the ships open fire.”

A tense beat passes. Then, Lark’s blue eyes land squarely on me. There’s a hollowness to him. Dark circles under his eyes, stubble on his chin, and his shoulders slightly hunched. He looks like a man in pain. Self-inflicted by Gina. Maybe even by his father’s death.

“Our job,” he finishes, “is to figure out how to destroy those ships without putting human lives at risk.”

That might be Lark’s job, but mine is to find the Legion. Until I do, the looming threat of alien contact, of being targeted again, will consume every breath I take. I can sit in on Alien Warfare meetings. I can listen. But what I can’t do is waste time while Sasha and Lark go head-to-head for control.

“We need to move the ships off U.S. soil,” I offer. “Take the fight to the oceans.”

“Or we make contact,” Eli counters. “Find out what they want, give it to them—or negotiate—and move the hell on. The sooner, the better.”

“Has there already been contact?” Thea asks.

Contact with someone besides me.

“Yes,” Sasha answers smoothly. “They were communicating with the president before his untimely demise.”

Lark flinches, just slightly. I don’t think Sasha’s connected the dots yet. That Wingard was his father. Someone should probably tell her.

“What were they saying?” I ask.

Sasha shrugs. “No idea. We never found out.”

“They must have a new point of contact,” a man with bug eyes and graying hair suggests. “Do we know who it is?”

“No, we do not,” Sasha confirms.

I shift in my seat. Uneasy. I know it’s me. They found me in a barn in Oklahoma. Used a powered-down electronic after we spoke to the General to reach out. They threatened me.

Yeah. I’m definitely the new contact.

“Captain Quay is on the right track. We could take the fight to the oceans,” Lark jumps in. “Lure them out there.”

“How?” Sasha snaps.

Eli and I lock eyes. He nods. I exhale.

“VAL,” I say.

Lark’s face drains of color. “No, Kin.”

“Look,” I begin, throat tight, “we don’t have time to play it safe. I have an aircraft. Advanced tech. She’s smart—really smart—and she might help us see something Space Command can’t. Or won’t.”

“The answer is no,” Lark speaks over me.

“Who is VAL?” Sasha’s face contorts, suspicious.

“An aircraft,” Eli says evenly. “A special one.”

“Why doesn’t Space Command know about this?” Sasha narrows her eyes at me. “What else have you been hiding at Langdon?”