Jonah hadn't expected the moon to have a bad smell Somehow, in all his imaginings of what this final battle would look like, he had never considered that Sterling's corruption would have a scent. But it did.
It made him want to throw up. Or maybe that was just the aftereffects of using his brain as a psychic radio tower.
"How many?" Ariana asked, scanning the gathered survivors
Vanessa was doing a headcount, checking faces against the roster they had started with. Her face got more serious with each name she crossed off.
"Twenty pilots," she said finally. "Fifteen ships still working fine, though I use the term loosely. Most of them can barely limp, let alone fly."
Twenty. Out of the forty-three they had started with back at Haven. Out of the thousands who had once filled the Academy's halls with hope and stupid jokes and dreams of what came after the war.
The math was always getting worse.
