We reached Alicia’s transformed Kite on the way to Rachel’s. Even in their mecha modes, all of them were slightly different, even if they were roughly the same general size. In Alicia’s case, her Kite’s starship mode was shaped like… well, like a utensil that had a fork at one end and a spoon at the other. The fork end was where the engines were. Three rocket thruster things made up the three ‘tines.’ They were slightly rounded at the point where they attached to the main body, before narrowing into sharp points at the other end. That’s what they looked like when the ship was inert, like it was now. When it was active, the tines lit up with glowing purple-white energy that gave the ship its thrust. The faster the ship was going, the brighter they glowed. At high enough speeds, lightning-like energy seemed to crackle between them. Each of the three tine thrusters was six feet long, and about three feet across at the wide end.

  Ahead of that trio of thrusters was the main body of the ship, like the handle of the utensil. It was eight feet wide and nine feet tall, not counting the two eight-foot high landing struts extending down from it, one near the front and one near the back. From the spot where the thrusters split out from it to where the cockpit started was twenty-five feet long. The main thing that broke up the ‘utensil’ appearance were two round, double-barreled turrets attached to the left and right side of that main body. They could rotate around to face forward, backward, even up or down.

  Finally, there was the spoon part of the ship’s utensil-like form. The… bowl part (was that the right term?) of the spoon shape was faced downward, and extended just under ten feet forward. It was completely made out of what looked like glass (but was obviously a hell of a lot stronger), so you could look inside and see the cockpit there. So it was like a dome. There were two seats, one in front of the other, near the back of the glass part, right up against the main body. The main controls, instrument panel, and a spot where the holographic map and other images could appear took up the rest of the room there.

  The whole vessel had started out plain white, but now there were painted scenes of wild horses running through an open field with mountains in the background taking up most of the main body. This was Ranahan, the name Alicia had given her Kite. Which was apparently some sort of Old West word meaning a veteran cowboy that was really skilled and experienced.

  Alicia and Slater split off there, and ascended a ladder that appeared as that glass cockpit opened up for them. Meanwhile, Rachel and I continued on to where Derecho had parked himself. And for about the ten millionth time, I had to take a second to stare in utter awe at my big sister’s Kite in starfighter mode.

  Someone had once said that Derecho in that form looked sort of like an old Vietnam war-era fighter known as the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly. Having looked it up after that, I had to agree. It was sleeker and somewhat larger than one of those old planes, but the general shape was pretty similar. There was the main body with the bubble cockpit near the front, two quite prominent wings extending off to either side (unlike Alicia’s Kite, which didn’t have visible wings), with large cannon emplacements at the ends of both, and the raised tail fin at the back with the two horizontal stabilizers sticking out to either side. While Ranahan had those three fork-like tines that glowed as its thrusters, this ship had four thrusters, two under each wing. They were usually pointed backward, but could rotate around to face any direction. They helped make the Kite really fast and super maneuverable. Seriously, Rachel could get the thing up to something like three thousand miles per hour in the atmosphere. And out in space? Nothing could outrun it.

  The pictures I’d seen of the A-37 Dragonfly were all army camo, but this ship matched Rachel’s color scheme. Namely, black with pink accent lines running along the body and down the wings, and the name Derecho inscribed in pink right in front of the transparent cockpit in neat cursive letters. I was pretty sure that was some sort of Spanish word, but what it was referring to was basically a huge windstorm that would push along a collection of strong thunderstorms with hurricane winds and a lot of rain and do a lot of damage. Powerful winds pushing multiple thunderstorms through a wide area. Or something to that effect. That was Derecho.

  Yeah, it looked like an old fighter jet, but Derecho was the best Kite in the squadron, bar none. And Rachel was the best Freestyler. That’s why she was the squadron leader. She’d earned it.

  The cockpit was already opening as we approached. A ladder descended, and my sister gestured for me to go ahead. So, I clambered up quickly, trying not to embarrass myself by slipping off the thing and forcing Rachel to catch me (it wouldn’t be the first time). Thankfully, I managed to clamber all the way up and into the rear seat, before my sister simply gave a quick hop, easily jumping all the way from the deck to the edge of the cockpit. Her hand caught the side of it and she tossed herself smoothly into the front seat.

  My own seat fit perfectly. Of course it did, the ship was a shapeshifter, after all. Derecho made sure the navigator’s seat was just my size. It was almost comfortable enough to fall asleep in. Not that there was any danger of that happening any time soon, considering what we were about to go into, but still. As the harness came down to lock me in place, I was already sticking both hands into the waiting slime holes on either side of me. Yeah, that sounded gross, but what else could I call it? There were two holes, just big enough, and at the proper position, for me to stick my hands into down to about my elbows, and they were filled with thick, yet yielding slime. Like jello, sort of.

  And just like that, I was connected to the ship. The slime stuff was sort of like a link to Derecho’s brain, in a way. I could do stuff with it just by thinking, like bring up various maps and diagnostics screens, answer or send communications, or run through the start-up and launch sequence. That last one was what I was doing right then. While Rachel strapped herself in and took a second to prepare herself for the action that would be coming up, I ran through the checklist. The information appeared in a small hologram right in front of me, in the space behind my sister’s seat, and also as a larger hologram in front of her so she could see what was going on as well.

  After giving the display the barest glance, Rachel was already flicking her hand at it to send the large hologram off to the side and down a bit, where it shrank down as a minor display. She trusted me to handle the preflight check, a fact that sent a thrill through me. She trusted me. My sister trusted me. She didn’t even really look at what the check showed, because she knew I’d bring up any problems. It was real responsibility, and there was no way in hell I’d let her down.

  While I was busy running through all that, making sure the ship was at full power, there weren’t any hiccups we needed to worry about, and that the communication link with the Arbalest was intact, Rachel was already setting up a call to Alicia. The other girl, or at least her green helmet and white visor, appeared in the larger hologram space. “Y’all ready to get out there? Cuz Ranahan is raring to go.” She made a point of revving the fighter’s engines, probably annoying Rinweld.

  “Right behind you, Shepard,” Rachel assured her. Shepard, that was Alicia’s callsign, or codename, whatever. It was the name they used in public to avoid giving away her identity. Rachel’s was Casper, apparently because she popped up out of nowhere and kept scaring people all over the station, like a ghost. But she was friendly. So, a friendly ghost, Casper.

  As for me? They called me Rhythm. Mainly because I didn’t have any. Like, none, at all. I couldn’t dance to save my life, as everyone up here had found out soon after my very first introduction six months ago. There was a party to celebrate the first time Rachel and I went out together, and I uhh, tried to dance. It didn’t work out well. My coordination was just bad. Embarrassingly bad. So, they called me Rhythm. It was kind of teasing, but the fun kind. I liked it. I liked being a part of all this.

  I was still running through the last of the startup sequence when Slater (or Bellboy, a reference to his name being like some character from a positively ancient show called Saved By The Bell) spoke up. “I’m showing sixteen minutes to the primary target, Derecho, how’s it look for you?”

  Of course he was finished with the sequence first. Slater was incredible at this stuff. He was the one who had helped walk me through it over and over again back when I started, until I could do it without screwing it all up. I was pretty sure the guy could just run the whole startup test blindfolded.

  Quickly scanning through the light blue holographic words as they scrolled past, I made sure nothing stood out. The ship was, as usual, perfect. Then I brought up the mission parameters with a thought, flicking the fingers of my right hand through the goo in a symbolic gesture that dismissed the testing screen and switched to that. “I, uhh, oh, we’re going to Alaska?” No sooner did those words slip out than a deep blush crossed my face, making me thankful for the helmet. “I mean, yeah, I’m showing sixteen minutes travel time at three-quarters speed. Eleven minutes if we push to maximum.” I just had to slip that in there. Derecho was a really fast ship.

  I could hear the grin in Rachel’s voice as she assured the others, “Don’t worry, we won’t leave you in our dust. Better to stay together.” She adopted a more official tone then, switching the comm over to the station’s communication frequency. “This is Derecho, launching in five.”

  “Ranahan, launching in eight,” Alicia put in, giving us three seconds to clear the deck before she’d take off right behind us. Honestly, we could do it in two. The one second cushion was just in case.

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  Hands dancing over the controls, Rachel brought the fighter off its landing struts and retracted them. That took two seconds. Another second was spent adjusting the thrusters and making sure nothing was in the way. Then they kicked in, and we rocketed out of there, right past the other ships and waving mechanics, just as Alicia lifted off. As promised, we made it through the shield and into open space in two more seconds, with the other fighter right behind us. The pressure pushed me roughly back in my seat for just a second or two before the compensator kicked in enough to help. Just like that, we oriented toward North America and were on our way.

  Behind us, the main hangar doors closed once more, leaving the station invisible. Still, they were gonna have to move to a new spot after that launch. There was too much of a chance that the Eighty-Sevens might notice and send a scout squadron, or even an attack fleet. There were other stations like the Arbalest, other groups like ours. But they were all kept secret from each other. We didn’t know anything about where the other stations were, who worked there, or any other details. That way, if the worst happened to one station, it wouldn’t completely doom the planet.

  Doom the planet. The thought echoed through my mind as I settled back in my seat and stared at the Earth. Half of it was gone already. Half of it had been turned to that strange red ice. Six years. All of this had started six years ago. Well, ten years if you counted Salvador Self showing up and starting his genetics company. A genetics company that had eventually led to things like me being able to walk into a Self Center and leave eight hours later a completely changed body.

  They did a lot of things like that, letting people live the way they wanted. It wasn’t exactly free, but they charged what someone could afford, after a pretty damn extensive interview process.

  Anyway, Salvador Self seemed to have come out of nowhere with that technology. And it turned out, he really did. Because Self was an alien. Not one of the Eighty-Sevens. He was from another alien race that those monsters had already conquered. His whole reason for being here, on Earth, was because he knew the Intruders (or Eighty-Sevens, the names were used interchangeably) were coming here next, and wanted to give us a fighting chance. He, and the people he’d brought with him to this world, helped create the Freestylers. Without their help, the planet wouldn’t have been half covered with red ice. It would’ve been entirely covered.

  It was 2019 when Self had set up his company and started running tests on humans to find out if any of us were capable of bonding with the Kites. Four years later, in 2023, was when the Intruders arrived. They took all of us civilians by surprise. I was only ten years old at the time, but I remembered the people on the news stations getting more and more terrified as every attempt to communicate with or fight the aliens turned out to be useless.

  Yeah, the civilians were taken by surprise, but it turned out the government weren't. Salvador Self had warned them, and they took his words to heart. Probably after he’d proved just what he could provide them with. They built weapons, tanks, more fighters, they even used some of the technology he was able to give them to make rudimentary starships. But it didn't help. They were barely a speed bump for the Eighty-Sevens. Before anyone here really understood just how horrible the situation was, the Intruders had already established their primary base in Australia, and spread out from there.

  Earth probably would've been done for good after that, but Salvator Self had revealed that giving the Earth military’s that technology had only been Plan B. His main plan for helping humanity survive were these stations, like Arbalest, and the Freestylers. Human beings who were bonded to this strange alien technology. It made them stronger, faster, and let them heal very quickly, amongst other things. Most importantly, it gave them the ability to go on Jaunts, which was basically the only way of making themselves or the Kites stronger. And getting stronger was the only way to keep beating the Intruders.

  Anyway, for the past six years, Earth had been under that sort of stalemate. The Freestylers, with help from what was left of the militaries, were able to stop the Eighty-Sevens from taking any more territory. But they couldn't push them off what they already had. Eventually, people just got used to the idea that half the planet was basically gone. Just like they got used to the idea that there were aliens constantly trying to attack and barely being repelled by people like Rachel. Freestylers, the ones with the power to bond with Kites and go on Jaunts.

  I didn’t understand the specifics about all that. All I knew was that Self and his people didn’t create these Kites. Not exactly. They basically found them at the same time that they’d invented the Jaunt technology. The Kites had been amorphous blobs drifting in the space between universes, or something to that effect. Very powerful, very strange sapient energy that Self was able to coax over to our side of reality. It took years to find, coax, and train each energy blob until it was ready to be a full Kite.

  Once a Kite was prepared, there was the whole bonding process. Again, it was something I didn’t understand that well. From what I did get, it was like a Kite could only bond with very specific individuals. Part of it was a DNA thing, and part of it was like… an attitude thing. The Kite needed certain genetics and a certain type of personality in order to bond properly. And no, I didn’t understand how that worked.

  What I did know was that a fully-trained and ready Kite would seek out the person they could bond with, often searching all over the world for months before finding the right one. The Eighty-Sevens could detect that energy, and tried to stop them. After all, they didn’t want any more Freestylers.

  When Derecho, before he had his name and was just a little blob of liquid metal stuff, had found Rachel, the Eighty-Sevens had been right behind. I was only alive today because she had bonded with him so quickly. She became exactly what she was meant to be, a superhero. She beat those Intruders that day, just like she’d been beating them every day since.

  Their identities had to be kept secret, because the Intruders had spies everywhere. Some of them could shapeshift. Others could possess people. The only way the Freestylers could live without being assassinated or abducted was by making sure as few people as possible knew who they were.

  I’d asked why they didn't just have them live on the stations all the time. Not because I wanted my sister to leave, and not because I wanted to live on the station like that, but because it was an obvious question. I didn't really understand the full answer, but the gist was that part of what gave Freestyler their power was their connection to other people. Kites, and the Freestylers they were attached to, got stronger by being in the world. Basically, they needed to be a part of humanity in order to protect it. Living secluded away from everyone on a space station would actually make them weaker.

  So, Freestylers lived on Earth, in their own lives, at least as much as possible. Even those in the same squadron often lived in completely different cities or states. I was pretty sure Alicia lived somewhere in Washington state, for example. Whatever school they went to had a couple teachers or staff who were in on things and helped set up the transport to go from the school to the station they were assigned to. Mrs. Ammers back in the art room was Rachel's primary contact on Earth. She helped watch over us. She was actually the closest thing to a living parental figure I had outside of my dad. And he didn't exactly count. The last time he was sober enough to be a parent was probably before the aliens invaded.

  That was where we stood now. It was 2029, and the Earth was barely hanging on against this invasion. But things were going to be different now. My sister had become one of the Freestylers this year, and the Eighty-Sevens already didn't know what hit them. In only a few months, she had become one of the top ten Kite pilots in the world. She killed the Whistling, a name people had given one of the most dangerous and monstrous Eighty-Sevens. He was a beast who had been there from the start, a giant demon over fourteen feet tall, with red grey skin and blades all over his leathery body. He had personally killed a dozen Freestylers over the years. But Rachel took him out. She beat him. And she had been on several Jaunts since then, so she was even stronger now.

  We were going to change things. We were going to save the world. Rachel was gonna beat these fucks, and I was going to be right behind her. I was her navigator. I was her Squire. Whatever it took, whatever I had to do, I would help my sister kick these Intruder asses off our planet.

  “Yo,” Rachel called over her shoulder, cutting into my thoughts. “You wanna know what we're doing today?”

  Blushing under my helmet, I squirmed in the seat and nodded. “Uh, yeah?”

  So, she and Alicia, over the radio, told me what we were up to. Apparently, one of the other Freestyler groups had noticed Intruder activity around some old logging camp in Alaska. They didn't think there were many there, just a small scouting force. But we couldn't let them get away with having a camp right here on our soil. So, Alicia and Rachel were being sent to smash up the base and make sure they never came back there.

  By the time that was all explained, we were practically on top of the place. We'd cut down through the atmosphere and slowed dramatically. Most of that flight time had been after that. But now the logging camp was just ahead, and Derecho’s sensors were already lighting up with evidence of Intruder forces.

  “So,” Alicia asked, “we doing this the quiet way or the loud way?”

  In front of me, Rachel snorted. “I'm pretty sure they know we're here. So let's make this a day they never forget. Boots on the ground.”

  Just like that, with a touch of a holographic control, and that command phrase, both Kites began to change. I wasn't outside, but I'd seen it enough to know exactly what it looked like. Parts shifted around and extended, as the ships literally transformed. They weren't starfighters anymore. They were humanoid mecha, about forty feet tall. Before, they were in what everyone called Streamer mode. That was when they looked like starfighters. This, on the other hand, was called Stomper mode.

  It only took a few seconds to shift, and then we landed heavily on the snow covered ground. My own position was slightly underneath Rachel's, down in the robot's chest area. She was in the head, right there in plain sight so these bastards would know just who was kicking their asses.

  The three-pronged fork that had been at the back of Alicia's kite became an actual pitchfork weapon her mech held in one hand. Flipping it around expertly, she made her mecha turn to look our way. “You guys ready to go kick Eighty-Seven tons of ass?”

  “Absolutely," Rachel replied, and I could hear just how eager she was to teach those guys to stay the hell off our hemisphere. Almost as eager as I was to watch her do it.

  I braced myself, making sure I was fully strapped in once more. Then the sensor array lit up to warn me about incoming enemies. A lot of incoming enemies, actually. And boy were they about to regret every decision they ever made that brought them to this point.

  Cuz they were about to meet my sister.

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