PART 2
I pressed the transmit button.
For one second, only static answered.
Rain hammered the windshield in silver sheets. Lightning flashed somewhere inside the storm, illuminating the cockpit in sharp white bursts. Warning lights blinked across the panels like angry eyes.
Behind me, the businessman was still breathing hard.
The first officer stared at my hand on the radio as if I had just reached into a locked grave.
Then I spoke.
“Raptor Guard, this is Valkyrie Seven.”
The words left my mouth quietly.
But they changed everything.
The veteran in row 37 went completely still.
I could feel him behind me, standing somewhere beyond the open cockpit door, hearing the name I had promised myself I would never use again.
For ten years, Emma Parker had been my name.
Before that, in another life, above deserts, oceans, and burning horizons, I had been Valkyrie Seven.
Static cracked.
Then a voice came through.
