Chapter 34: “The Fracture Test”

  Scene 1: Ren Reads the Message Aloud

  —-: Ren

  The hangar was too bright.

  Afternoon sun bled through the skylights, casting gold across the Silver Dart’s frame. Crystal tools caught the light and threw it in patterns across the floor—moving, reflecting, like signals no one was answering.

  Ren stood with the message open on his slate. Hands shaking a little. Just enough to notice.

  “You won’t survive the next match.

  But your ship might.”

  The words hovered like engine static. He’d read them five times alone. This time, it was for the team.

  He cleared his throat. Read them again. Aloud.

  No one moved.

  Taiga was the first to speak. “Well, that’s not unsettling at all.”

  Jiro leaned back against a coil spool, arms crossed. “Probably just someone trying to rattle you. Trash talk. Pre-race drama.”

  Ren waited for the one reaction that mattered.

  Rin didn’t say anything.

  She paced once, slow, arms folded, then looked away toward the data board without ever meeting his eyes.

  “Empty threat,” she said finally. “They’re trying to get inside your head. Don’t let them.”

  “But it’s anonymous,” he said. “Encrypted. Someone got around the firewall.”

  “Still psychological warfare,” she snapped. “We win the moment we ignore it.”

  “Yeah,” Taiga chimed in. “Just block ‘em. That’s what I do with all my fanmail that starts with ‘dear beloved future husband.’”

  Jiro groaned. “That was one person, and it was your cousin.”

  “I said what I said.”

  Ren half-smiled—then noticed something.

  Hana hadn’t spoken.

  She hadn’t even moved.

  She was sitting cross-legged near the stabilizer crate, tool in hand, mid-repair—but frozen.

  Her fingers rested on the bracket she was adjusting. Her knuckles white.

  “Hana?” Ren said gently.

  She blinked. Once. But didn’t lift her head.

  “I heard it,” she said.

  And that was it.

  No joke. No analysis. Just a quiet pause between two bolts.

  Then she went back to tightening the frame, slow and deliberate.

  Ren stood there, slate still glowing in his hand, the warning pulsing across the screen like a heartbeat no one wanted to name.

  No one took it seriously.

  Except her.

  Scene 2: Hangar Blowup

  —-: Ren

  The last bolt fell with a sound sharper than it should’ve made.

  Hana didn’t pick it up.

  Rin’s voice broke the air next—sharp, slicing.

  “You need to stop shielding everyone, Ren.”

  He was still bent over the diagnostic panel, but the words hit him square in the spine.

  He turned. “Shielding?”

  “You let yourself take the hit for everything,” Rin said, crossing the floor with that taut, calculated precision that made even her steps sound like commands. “If there’s fallout, you absorb it. If someone’s angry, you smile until they’re not. But that’s not flying. That’s... bleeding out for appearances.”

  Ren blinked. “I’m trying to hold this team together.”

  “And in doing that,” she snapped, “you’re letting the cracks deepen. You don’t fix a broken gear by painting over it, Ren. You take it out and replace it.”

  Behind her, Hana stood. Slowly. Quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “is that what Ren is to you? A replaceable part?”

  Rin whipped around. “Don’t twist my words.”

  “I’m not twisting,” Hana said, voice low but trembling. “I’m just trying to figure out what part of Ren you actually care about. The pilot? Or the way he makes your name look better in the race sheets?”

  That one hit.

  Ren stepped back. Breath caught. “Guys—”

  Rin’s jaw locked. “You think I’m using him?”

  “I think you’ve never looked at him without seeing your mother’s shadow behind his shoulders.”

  Rin flinched.

  Ren felt it. Something cracked under his ribs.

  “I—” he tried.

  But Rin spoke over him. “At least I don’t pretend to be invisible just to stay safe.”

  “Oh,” Hana said. “So now I’m cowardly?”

  “Stop,” Ren said again.

  But neither did.

  “You don’t even believe you deserve a place in that cockpit, Hana. You just build. You hide behind bolts and brackets and then act surprised when no one hands you a spotlight.”

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  “I don’t want a spotlight—”

  “Then stop glaring at everyone who has one!”

  “STOP!”

  His voice echoed like a cannon in the hangar rafters.

  Both girls froze.

  Ren stood in the middle of them now—eyes wide, shoulders trembling.

  “I don’t know what I am to either of you.”

  Silence.

  No breathing. No jokes. Not even a falling tool to break the quiet.

  He looked at Rin.

  He looked at Hana.

  And then he turned and walked out the hangar doors.

  Didn’t slam them.

  Just… left.

  Scene 3: Team Disbands for the Day

  —-: Rin

  The briefing room felt like a courtroom.

  Too clean. Too quiet. The only sound was the occasional tick of the secondhand on the old wall clock and the slow shifting of Mei’s chair every few minutes as she took breath after quiet breath and didn’t speak.

  Rin sat two seats from the end of the polished table, arms folded, gaze locked on the schematic pinned to the back wall. She wasn’t seeing it.

  Taiga sat opposite her. Fidgeting. His boots squeaked against the floor.

  Jiro stared at his tablet, screen off.

  Hana wasn’t there yet.

  Ren wasn’t either.

  Shiraishi entered last.

  She didn’t sit. Didn’t unpack the usual folders. She just stood at the end of the table, arms behind her back, hair pinned so precisely it could’ve been sharpened into a blade.

  Her gaze swept the room.

  “I heard,” she said simply.

  No one spoke.

  She let the silence sit. Stretch. Wrap around them like wire.

  Then:

  “You have twenty-four hours.”

  A pause.

  “To figure yourselves out.”

  Taiga raised a hand half-heartedly. “Figure what out?”

  “Yourselves,” Shiraishi said. “What you are to this team. What the team is to you. And whether any of you actually want to fly together, or just happen to share a ship.”

  The word ship felt like a slap.

  Shiraishi continued, voice precise.

  “Because if I don’t see cohesion—and I mean actual strategic and emotional alignment—by tomorrow night’s test sim, I will ground Silver Dart. And I will reassign you.”

  Taiga’s hand dropped.

  Rin swallowed.

  She didn’t argue. Because the truth? She didn’t even know if she would.

  Shiraishi stepped back toward the door.

  “You don’t have to like each other,” she said, “but the sky does not forgive hesitation. Either fly like a team…”

  Her eyes lingered on Rin for a heartbeat longer than anyone else.

  “Or don’t fly at all.”

  The door shut behind her with a hiss of compressed air.

  No one moved.

  Rin exhaled through her nose.

  She didn’t feel angry.

  She just felt… tired.

  Scene 4: Jiro Quits (Temporarily)

  —-: Jiro

  The engine bay still smelled like home—burnt copper and crystal flux, machine oil and boot scuffs on the floor mats he’d stitched himself.

  Jiro sat cross-legged inside the belly of the Silver Dart, back propped against the control relay, a spanner spinning slowly between his fingers.

  No one else was here.

  Just him.

  And Taiga.

  And the quiet between them.

  “You’re serious?” Taiga said, leaning back against the auxiliary coil mount. “Like… actually considering it?”

  Jiro nodded. Didn’t look up.

  “I mean, yeah. They’ve got tech that hasn’t hit production sheets yet. Rail boosters. Stabilizer stacking. And their coolant cores are double-filtered. Two layers.”

  Taiga raised a brow. “That’s why you’d leave?”

  Jiro shrugged. “No. That’s just why it’s tempting.”

  He set the spanner down, gently. Like it might crack if he wasn’t careful.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “I’m tired of being funny first and useful second.”

  Taiga didn’t answer.

  “I love the Dart,” Jiro said. “I love what we built. But when we win? It’s the pilots. When we crash? It’s the mechanics. And when things go quiet—like now—no one even asks if I’m okay. Just assumes I’ll patch it all back up.”

  He turned the spanner once more. Watched the light catch the grooves he’d carved in it: initials of the team, tiny and half-scratched away now.

  “They noticed me,” Jiro said.

  His voice cracked. Just a little.

  “You didn’t.”

  Taiga opened his mouth.

  Closed it.

  Then, softer: “You’re wrong.”

  Jiro smiled. “Maybe.”

  He stood up. Brushed off his vest.

  “But I still need to know what it feels like to be wanted for what I can build. Not just because I’m already here.”

  He reached into his toolbox and pulled out a folded note—his transfer request form.

  Didn’t hand it over.

  Just left it on the bench.

  “Just for a term,” he said. “Maybe less. Maybe more.”

  Then he left the bay.

  And the Dart groaned behind him like it didn’t know what to do without him.

  Scene 5: Mei Breaks Protocol

  —-: Mei

  The diagnostics chamber was lit only by the soft pulse of the crystal core, glowing amber-blue in its suspension cradle. Wires hung from the walls like spider silk. The hum of static made the air feel sharp against Mei’s skin.

  She stood alone.

  The floor beneath her boots was clean. Too clean. Like someone had scrubbed away all the mistakes that usually made a place real.

  She stepped to the console.

  Laid her hand on the crystal reader.

  Access denied. Secondary interface locked.

  She didn’t flinch.

  She reached into her coat pocket. Pulled out a narrow brass key, barely longer than her finger. The teeth were mismatched—handfiled. Illegal, if anyone asked. But she’d built it three months ago. Just in case.

  She slotted it into the console’s override port.

  Turned.

  The screen flickered.

  Override accepted.

  Ghost Mode: Unlocked.

  WARNING: Tactical Ghost Protocol may result in system instability.

  Mei exhaled.

  Not relief.

  Not fear.

  Just… pressure leaving the valve.

  She watched the new interface load. Flight paths. Collision overlays. Heat signatures invisible to the human eye. AI-predicted maneuvers based on enemy data models.

  It was all theoretical.

  But theory was the language she trusted most.

  She reached up, tapped a line of code, and watched as the Dart’s neural routing tree shifted—spooling data through untested gates.

  The ship wouldn’t notice.

  Not yet.

  But in the next race?

  If everything fell apart again—if they fractured mid-sky like glass under pressure—this would be her parachute.

  For them.

  Not for her.

  She didn’t log the change. Didn’t tell Ren. Didn’t tell Hana. Didn’t even leave a trace in the system's record.

  She just stood there a moment longer, hand still resting on the glowing frame.

  And whispered to the AI core beneath her breath:

  “Don’t fail him.”

  Then she pulled the key out.

  And left like she’d never been there.

  Scene 6: Hana Alone in the Bathhouse

  —-: Hana

  The bathhouse door hissed closed behind her with a whisper of old pressure seals and worn-out dignity.

  Hana stepped inside and locked it with a clink that sounded way too final.

  Steam curled from the vents in slow ribbons, drifting past the cracked tilework and fogging the bronze-framed mirrors that lined the far wall. The lanterns overhead buzzed gently—one of them flickering like it couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to keep glowing.

  She sat on the wooden bench, still fully clothed. Her boots left damp half-moons on the stone.

  Didn’t light the main tub.

  Didn’t turn on the pumps.

  Just sat.

  Alone.

  The silence here was different than the hangar. There, everything buzzed and hissed and clicked. Machines breathing. Tools whining.

  Here, the only sound was the slow drip-drip of condensation hitting the drain.

  She looked at her hands.

  Calloused. Stained faintly with copper from coolant.

  She flexed her fingers. Watched the muscles tighten. Release.

  Then she looked up—into the mirror.

  Her reflection looked tired. Not in a sleepy way. In a years-worn way.

  She didn’t recognize the expression on her own face. Somewhere between hurt and too afraid to say so.

  The kind of look you only give yourself when no one else is around.

  She stared.

  And then she whispered it.

  “Maybe I really am just the wrench girl.”

  No one told her to stop.

  No one said she wasn’t.

  Just her. And the fog. And that flickering lantern finally sputtering out.

  The bench creaked slightly beneath her.

  She leaned forward. Pressed her forehead to her knees.

  Didn’t cry.

  Didn’t move.

  Just… sat.

  And let the steam fill the room around her like it might erase her shape entirely.

  Scene 7: Final Scene – Letter Under the Stars

  —-: Ren

  Ren sat on the academy’s north terrace, knees pulled up, jacket slung over his shoulders like armor he’d forgotten how to wear properly.

  The air up here was thinner.

  Not in the altitude way. In the quiet way. Like the sky was holding its breath.

  The stars stretched overhead, too vast to count, and the moon looked like it wanted to speak but didn’t know how.

  In his hands, the letter shook slightly.

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  Everything’s going fine. We won our last match. Everyone says I looked strong in the final loop—

  He stopped writing after that. Hadn’t touched the slate in two days.

  It just sat in his lap now, faintly glowing in the dark.

  He leaned his head back. Let the wind tug gently at his bangs.

  “You’d laugh if you saw me now,” he said aloud. “Or maybe you wouldn’t.”

  The wind didn’t answer.

  He glanced down at the letter again.

  At the blank space that said nothing about the shouting. Nothing about the silence. Nothing about how Rin’s words still echoed in his skull. Or how Hana’s eyes had looked like glass that didn’t want to break—but was so close.

  And how when he looked in the mirror that morning, he didn’t even know if he was the pilot, the friend, the glue—

  —or just the thing everyone needed him to be until he cracked.

  He swallowed hard.

  Flicked the slate off.

  And whispered to no one:

  “I thought I could fly through anything.

  But no one taught me how to land.”

  The words didn’t echo.

  They just disappeared into the night.