Page 142 of Star Bringer
As does leaving it alone.
“I think she’s angry,” Kali volunteers.
“Spaceships don’t get angry!” Ian barks at her.
“Yeah, well, she’s hurt,” Kali points out. “She’s acting just like Beckett did when I punched her in the nose. Hurt equals angry equalsmake them pay.”
“But she’s just a—” He breaks off as theStarlightlets out what can only be described as a full-on, bloodcurdling war cry.
I’ve gone into battle dozens of times. Never have I heard anything that sent ice down my spine as quickly as this scream does.
“Oh, yeah.” Ian changes his tune pretty fast. “She is fucking pissed off.”
“Oh, really?” I drawl. “I never would have guessed.”
More torpedoes are firing at us now, and I brace myself for the one that blows us into a million different pieces. But before that happens, theStarlightthrows out some kind of pulsing green beam that makes every single torpedo veer off in different directions away from us.
“Wait! She could do that the whole time?” Merrick yells. “Why did she let us get hit at all?”
I don’t have an answer for him, about any of it. TheStarlighthas gone rogue, and there is nothing I can do to change that fact. So for now, I’m just going to sit back, watch the show, and hope we don’t all die.
We’re getting very close to the other ships now—uncomfortably close—and they must feel it, too, because they switch from torpedoes to laser blast after laser blast. One after another after another.
There’s no way theStarlight’s going to be able to evade them all unless she’s got another pulsing green beam up her sleeve. If she does, she doesn’t fire it, and as the first blasts approach our hull, I brace for impact.
Except we’re not there anymore. Out of nowhere, theStarlightpulls the coolest maneuver I’ve ever seen, doing a vertical somersault over the three spaceships before coming in behind them.
The second she does, the blaring alarm stops, and so do the random screams—because she’s not there anymore. I don’t mean like she’s gone into stealth mode and cloaked herself from the other ships.
I mean she fucking disappears from us, too.
We’re still strapped in—I can feel the pilot’s seat beneath me and the harness holding me in place—but I can’t see either of them. And I can’t see anything else on the ship, either. No console. No walls. No floor. It’s like I’m sitting in an invisible chair floating through space while six other people, one of whom is still passed out, are doing the exact same thing.
No, make that five other people, because Kali, too, has vanished.
“What the fuck is happening?” Ian demands, whirling around.
I can see the moment he realizes Kali is gone, because his jaw goes tense and his eyes practically pop out of his head. “Kali!” he yells. “Kali, where the fuck are you?”
“I’m right here?” she answers from the general vicinity of where she’d been sitting. “Why are you freaking out?”
“What. The. Fuck?” Max says, and his eyes are pretty wide, too. All of ours are.
Because this is the most bizarre thing I think any of us have ever experienced.
The ships in front of us must be panicking, too, because they decide to bug out. Is it because they think we’ve disappeared? Or because they see five people just floating in space like it’s the most natural thing in the world?
Which it isn’t. At all. Not even a little bit.
“Are we going to go after them?” Rain asks. “Or just let them go?”
“You say that like you think I’ve got any control over what’s happening here right now. And I absolutely don’t.” I’m trying not to let that fact freak me out to the millionth degree.
Before I can say anything else, theStarlightshimmies beneath us. And then shoots a giant solar flare straight at the three ships. It’s like the ones she used on Askkandia and Glacea, except it’s a lot longer, a lot wider, and I’m guessing a lot stronger, because it vaporizes all three of the catamarans.
One second, they’re there. The next, they’re gone. Just like that.
“Holy. Shit.” Max sounds almost reverent.
