“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” Sam screamed into her headset, her hands gripped hard around the plane’s yoke, her knuckles white with tension. “This is unregistered flight out of Apyar Kyun, requesting refugee status and immediate assistance. We have children on board.”

Lightning flashed outside the cockpit window, lighting up giant thunderclouds ahead and below them in this dark night.

Feng spoke from beside her, his one working hand tapping away at his controls. “Myanmar interceptors coming around for another pass.”

On the radar two blood red darts finished a turn, closing back in on them. The interceptors had buzzed them once already, close enough to set off collision alarms, ordering them to turn back to Burma.

A voice crackled over the radio in Burmese-accented English. “Attention aircraft. Reverse course due east for Myeik Air Base immediately.”

“Mayday, mayday!” Sam repeated. “Indian air base at Shibpur, do you copy? We are under attack. We have children on board.” Oh god, the children, back there, two to a seat, two to a life jacket. The dark waters of the Andaman Sea below them. “Indian base, we need immediate assistance.”

The children she couldn’t feel. The children whose absence from her mind was deafening, painful.

“Chameleonware, ready,” Feng said, strain in his voice. “Flares and decoys, ready.”

Shiva Prasad had equipped his private jet well. It wouldn’t be enough.

“Aircraft!” The Burmese voice across the radio was sharper now. “We will open fire! Change course immediately!”

Someone coughed behind her, the kind of cough that spoke of pain, of damage, of ribs broken, of lungs punished by trauma.

“Use my name,” Kade said. He must be standing in the open cockpit door. “On the radio,” he went on. “Tell the Indians… Tell them I’m on board.”

What? Sam thought. She’d told them they had children. Oh. Oh, Jesus.

“Mayday, mayday!” She yelled into the radio again. “Indian base, we have Kaden Lane on board, aka ‘Synapse’, co-developer of Nexus 5. We’re under attack from Burmese fighter jets, seeking asylum and…”

BEEEEEEEEEP

A loud tone cut through the cockpit as red text flashed on the display before her:

RADAR LOCK.

“…your last warning!” the Burmese voice was saying. “Turn immediately. We WILL fire. You have five seconds.”

“Now or never,” Feng said.

Sam turned to him. His finger hovered over the chameleonware activation control. They had only one chance. Go dark. Disappear. Power down and glide for as many klicks as they could. And hope to hell they’d lose the Burmese fighters. And that they could then recover.

She dropped her own hand to engine cutoffs.

“Do it,” she said, even as she cut the engines.

The stillness was instant, the vibration of the engines she’d hardly noticed suddenly gone. Sam’s breath caught in her chest.