Fire and Ice

Chapter 18 [] Ender

She kissed me.

She kissed me.

I don't think. I can't think. Words pour out of my mouth and people move, tapping on screens, giving orders. It's like I'm looking in on my body without actually being in control of it. I fight to regain control of my thoughts and actions, but something off still lingers in the back of my mind.

"Get ready to slingshot away using the gravity of the planet," Kayleigh orders into her headset. I stand up and pull my screens into a better position. The blue phaser explosion Kayleigh caused wreaked havoc on the formic ranks. But it stopped expanding, it's destructive destiny fulfilled.

The formics start reforming battle lines.

The last manned ship docks except for Kayleigh's fighter and her two unmanned drones.

Dr. Device is charging on all three ships.

Kayleigh walks over to her station and sits back down. She places her hands on the controls and the fighters whiz off in three different directions, all cloaking and raising full shields. She looks over at me and nods.

"Ready when you are," she states calmly. I nod and turn more towards the front screen.

"Launch cruisers into slingshot tragectory," I command, the cruisers falling into place as they begin to build speed. Kayleigh taps buttons, and her three ships begin firing. Randomly. She weaves them in and out of the formics ranks undetected, quietly zapping this ship or that with her phasers, disabling them. I watch as she ducks her fighter under the formation, then pulls a drone away from her invisible destruction. She uncloaks it, and the formics fleet goes insane chasing after it. They follow it through a loop, swooping and spinning slowly away from our fleet.

"Forty-five seconds until necessary gravity boost is reached!" Petra calls. Kayleigh grins rougishly and uncloaks her other drone, now located behind the formics fleet. She opens fire with her phasers, each shot deadly and accurately placed to destroy the ship with minimal shots. She cloaks her bait drone, and then uncloaks her fighter, ripping through the ranks alongside her other drone. The bait drone flies quietly to a position outside the formic fleet, turning and angling itself to keep something pointed at the ever changing mass of ships. Dr. Device.

"Thirty seconds!" Tom yells. Kayleigh flings her fighter around, launching perpendicular to the direction she was firing in, pulling underneath the fleet, then shooting up into it and cloaking the fighter.

The fighter disappears. It's not on the scanners, which still show our ships even if they cloak.

What's she doing?

The drone continues flying and fighting the formics fleet, taking out fighters one by one. Slow. The process is so slow, and yet they still don't realize what we're doing. Up. Flip. Flip. Turn. Roll. Fire. She weaves it around and around, but two formics fighters peel off from the main group.

They're headed straight towards us.

"Kayleigh," I mutter nervously.

"Ten second countdown!" Bean yells enthusiastically.

"I know, I know!" She whispers. She taps all over her screens, multiple languages, numbers, symbols flashing in lines across them.

"Nine... Eight..." Several pilots take up counting along with the computer.

She yanks a chip out of her console and tucks it in her sleeve.

"Seven... Six..."

Her fighter reappears on the scanners and launches from wherever she stationed it, engaging the formics coming after us.

"Five..."

She distracts them, and starts leading them towards their main fleet.

"Four..."

The entire crew of pilots has joined in the countdown. She engages the formics rapidly, firing anywhere and everywhere, hitting engines, cockpits, phasers, anything.

"Three..."

Her fighter launches up, and I realize that she strayed out of Dr. Device's range. Her drone gets destroyed as the formics chase her as quickly as they can.

"Two..."

Dr. Device is prepared to discharge. Kayleigh throws everything she can into the throttle of her fighter, not caring to fire at the formics anymore.

"One."

Our ships launch.

As our cruisers speed off, I see the faint blue light of Dr. Device being fired.

Kayleigh taps on her screens a few more times before relaxing into her seat. She mouths in range at me and I collapse. My legs refuse to hold me and my seat hits the chair as the rest of the room jumps up in cheers and applause.

Kayleigh taps her screen once more, causing mine to light up as well. A message? She walks over to my chair and pats me on the back. I quickly stand up to talk to her, to at least say something, but she wraps me in a hug before my mouth and brain connect to form coherent sentences. As quick as it started, it's over, and I stand opening and closing my mouth like a fish as I watch Kayleigh saunter off to wherever, completely ignoring our existence.

I turn back to my screens and pull up the message. It reads:

CHAT OVER LUNCH? MEET IN LIBRARY TOMORROW @ 1245 HOURS WITH JEESH.

♥♥
A9

Cryptic. As usual. But I'll comply. I need to know why she kissed me. And what she's planning.

Whatever it is, it's going to be brilliant.