Elite Starfighter: Starfighter Training Academy - Game 3

by Grace Goodwin

  “Athena was completely destroyed? Wreckage?” Lily looked heartbroken.

  “She saved your life, and she is being rebuilt,” Mia assured her. “She just won’t be ready for this mission.”

  Lily sat back, her arms crossed over her chest. As Mia adjusted the images again, Lily turned to me. “Sisters? I didn’t know we could be siblings.”

  I shrugged. “Off-world pairings have always been pair-bonded, but not all partnerships are. Some are siblings. Best friends. Anyone you fight well with and are willing to die to protect.”

  “Except your brother died and you didn’t.”

  The cutting voice came from nearby. I closed my eyes as the familiar guilt and pain swelled in my throat, burning its way in two directions to make both my chest and my head ache.

  “What?” Lily turned around. “Who said that?”

  “Lily.” Mia cleared her throat and Lily faced forward to listen, but her gaze repeatedly darted to me, the accusation I saw there one I could not deny. I had not told her everything, that was true. But I’d done it to protect her.

  Mia and Kass detailed the mission. Queen Raya’s fleet was set up for multiple waves of attack. First would be drones to take out Velerion’s satellite defense grid. Thousands of them. Followed by waves of Scythe fighters clearing a pathway for ground troop deployment via shuttle drops. The cruisers were going to triangulate multiphase and multifrequency jammers so we would have direct line of sight, laser communication only.

  It was going to be a complete fucking nightmare.

  And then General Romulus spoke directly to the Titan teams.

  “According to intel, Queen Raya will be orbiting near Velerion’s equator on this cruiser.” He pointed to a large ship. “Our plan is to take one Titan team to each cruiser before they arrive in Velerion space. The Titan teams will deploy from a stealth shuttle that will use Xenon’s magnetic field to hide their presence and remain just outside their scanner range. When the cruisers pass Xenon on their way here, those Titan teams will rely on ejection velocity and their own boosters to navigate and attach to the cruisers’ hulls.”

  “Holy fuck.”

  Ryzix again, and I completely agreed. The Titans would be hurtling through space with no support team, no backup, no way out if they didn’t make it, and not enough air or reserve fuel to return to Velerion any way but on one of those cruisers’ hulls.

  Titans could fly, but the external shielding couldn’t handle the heat and stress of planetary re-entry. Nor did the Titans have enough energy reserve to make that kind of landing or wait for another ride home.

  “We have analyzed their attack strategy. If they succeed in placing the cruisers in orbit, Velerion will fall.” General Aryk, our highest-ranking officer in the fleet and leader of the Galactic Alliance, paused for a long minute to let that sink in.

  “So, how do we stop them?” Lily asked. “The shuttle shoots one of us out like a cannonball, we adjust on the fly using our boosters, grab onto the cruiser hull, and then what? Won’t they know the second we land?”

  Mia shook her head. “No. The Titans are too small. As far as their ship is concerned, you’ll be space debris, a pebble bouncing off the hull. Even their defense system will ignore you until you start tearing things apart.”

  “But we do get to tear them to pieces?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Lily made an odd gesture with her hand in a rolling motion that caused Mia to smile as she continued. “Once the Titan team attaches to the cruiser hull, you will target one of the two grav generators that power their thrusters.” She adjusted the nav grid screen so that a schematic drawing of the cruiser filled the entire wall. Mia pointed to two distinct areas on the cruiser’s exterior. “Here’s where things get dicey.”

  “Dicey?” I asked Lily.

  “Dangerous.”

  I grunted. As if the rest of the mission up to this point was not.

  “The Titans will be carrying modified IPBM triggers recovered from the production facility on Xenon. The triggers are not as powerful as full IPBMs, but will be more than enough to start a chain reaction that will cripple the ship, perhaps even destroy it.”

  “And how does the Titan team evacuate?” I asked.

  “Booster reserves will be used to launch the Titan toward a previously designated set of coordinates where you will await retrieval by a shuttle.” General Romulus’s tone did not invite comment. “The Titans have a critical role to play in ending this war. The Starfighter pilots will be needed to engage with the Scythe fighters. Our MCS team and their support crews will be working to hack into the attack drones’ communication systems as well as fight to keep our satellites and comms operations. Shuttle pilots will be evacuating civilian targets as well as moving ground forces and supplies. Our entire fleet has been recalled and ordered into defensive positions around Velerion, the moon, and Xenon to protect our people and repel the attack. We cannot lose this fight. Do you understand?”

  Dea, the Titan whose sister was recovering from burns, spoke softly. “What about our families on the surface? Does the public know? Can we call them? Warn them?”

  “Not yet. Queen Raya is being very careful to keep her ships in the dark zones, outside of our normal scan or patrol areas. If we alert the public too soon, her spies will report back that we are aware of the attack. As of right now, the only people who know are in this room, and it needs to stay that way until we have Titans in place on those cruisers.”

  Dea nodded. “When do we leave?”

  General Romulus inclined his head to Dea in respect and thanks. “I have already spoken to several Titans who have volunteered for the mission. We need six Titans. With your addition, we have five.”

  “I’ll go,” Lily offered before I could stop her. “I volunteer, assuming I can take your sister’s Titan?” She looked at Dea, who nodded.

  “Of course. She would be honored.”

  “No.”

  Lily turned to me. “You don’t control me, Darius.”

  “You are not going on that mission.” I looked up at General Romulus. “I’ll go instead.”

  The general shook his head. “Negative. The mission positions are assigned and filled. You will report with the rest of the Titans tomorrow at twelve forty to go over ground support on Velerion.”

  “No.”

  “Are you refusing a direct order?”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “No, General, but respectfully, it doesn’t make sense to split up a pair-bonded team. They work better together, more instinctively. I should go.”

  “I’ve already spoken to Dea’s family. Provided she volunteered, I told them she would be mission approved. I understand you were just pair-bonded, but you’ll have to sit this one out.”

  I stared into General Romulus’s eyes. Fuck, I hated politics. There would be no mission beside his pair bond. The General had made the decision before entering the room. I straightened. “Very well.”

  “Excellent. Titans heading for the cruisers, be back here at zero eight twenty tomorrow. We’ll go over the ordinance and booster fuel options. Mission details will be available to each of you on your personal devices. Study them. Memorize everything. You launch at ten, sharp.” He looked around the room. “This is the end, Starfighters. We live or we die. But we fight to the end.”

  A collective shout went around the room. I raised my voice with the rest, but I could not accept what had just happened. And Lily? She stood, turned on her heel, and walked away from me without a backward glance.

  What the fuck was happening here? How was I supposed to protect her if she fought me at every turn? This was unacceptable.

  Lily was going on the most dangerous mission I could ever imagine. Alone. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop her.

  I glanced over my shoulder to watch the Starfighter Titan, Dea, speaking to one of the pilots.

  Maybe there was something I could do after all.

  11

  Lily

  * * *

&
nbsp; “Liar. Liar. Bloody Liar!” I took my favorite romance novel off the shelf, the book with my all-time favorite, sexy, honorable, respectful alien warrior hero, my Atlan beast, and threw the damn thing across the room.

  Reached for another. I’d brought two with me on this mission, thinking that maybe I would share them with Darius and try out some of the more interesting sexual antics. Hadn’t needed them. Still.

  I glanced down at the graphic, the title, the dream.

  This cover was so sexy. It would be a shame…

  No. Nope. Goddamn it. When I got back to the moon base on Arturri, I was going to toss the rest of them.

  “Grace Goodwin, you bitch. I am going to have words with you when I get home.” This author was a liar. There was no sexy alien hunk out here in space waiting to make all my dreams come true.

  They weren’t big dreams, either. At least I didn’t think so. I wanted someone to love me, respect me, and believe in me. Believe in my capabilities. My courage. My brain. All I wanted was someone to have faith that I was capable of winning. Creating. Being more than what I appeared to be on my average, mousy, introverted exterior.

  But noooo. In fact, Darius was so dead set against me going on this mission, he’d defied General Romulus and humiliated me in front of every Starfighter on the battleship, three generals, and my best friends.

  Oh no! Delicate little flower Lily can’t go on that super dangerous mission. She’ll die! We’ll all die! Oh me, oh my, General Romulus, you need to send me instead. I’m a big, tough warrior. I can do it for her. Poor little Lily. She needs protection. She just doesn’t know how fragile she is.

  Asshole.

  And he’d been lying to me since I met him. I’d been so trusting, so blinded by orgasms and the promise of someone who actually cared about me, believed in me, chose me, that I didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know.

  Well, a few quick questions after the mission briefing and a computer search later and I'd learned the truth on my own.

  I wasn’t Darius’s first choice. Tycho, his brother, had been his fighting partner for three years. Three. Years. He’d died on a mission not long before I started playing Starfighter Training Academy. Perhaps a few weeks before I’d selected Darius, from all the game’s options, to be my partner on missions in game.

  I’d been playing a game. Darius had been looking for a way to redeem himself and get back into a Starfighter uniform.

  He and his brother had disobeyed a direct order. Jeopardized multiple team members. Most of the mission details were redacted, but I knew enough. Tycho had been killed, and Darius had been kicked out of the Titan program.

  Until me. Until I beat the game—training simulation, whatever the fuck these aliens wanted to call it—and earned each of us a place inside a Titan.

  I wasn’t important to him. I was a means to an end with a dose of on-demand sex on the side.

  No wonder he hadn’t told me the truth about his past, his brother. Any of it.

  I fought back tears and stared at the book in my hand. “I should have gone to Atlan, yeah?”

  After this mission, I was going home. I had no reason to stay. Once Velerion was safe and the evil super villain, Queen Raya, was dead or captured or whatever was going to happen to her, I was leaving this shithole life behind. I didn’t care about this war. As long as children weren’t dying and some evil bitch wasn’t ruining the lives of innocent people on this planet, I was out. Conscience clear.

  Done.

  Finished.

  The sex with Darius was great, no doubt. Better than I’d ever imagined it could be. But I’d been treated like a failure my entire life. Made to feel like I didn’t quite measure up. If I lost ten pounds, my mother encouraged me to lose five more. A master’s degree? Wonderful, but Connie Winthrop had a PhD. Ooh-la-la. And her sister? Penelope? Well, darling, she married into a barony and already had her third child on the way. Wasn’t that wonderful?

  Totally, completely fucking wonderful, mum.

  Too bad I couldn’t change my name to Penelope and manage, for once in my life, to please my mother. In preparing to come here, to leave Earth behind, I’d written them a cryptic letter and left my bills on autopay. Guess deep down I’d known this wasn’t going to work out.

  I wasn’t going to fight this battle with Darius. I deserved better. More.

  He didn’t have to love me. I could deal with that. But I would not tolerate being mollycoddled and disrespected. Treated like a child who didn’t know better.

  I was not going to cry.

  The door to our temporary quarters slid open, and Darius appeared seconds later at the entrance to the small bedroom. Soon to be his bedroom. Solo. I’d already made arrangements to sleep elsewhere tonight. My own room. This ship had hundreds.

  “I need to speak to you.”

  “Really? Now you want to talk?” I looked down at the fantasy man on the cover of the novel I held and shook my head. “No. I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “You aren’t going on that mission, Lily. I forbid it.”

  What. The. Fuck?

  “You forbid it?” I heard the high, lilting quality of my voice and made no attempt to adjust. I was pretty sure Darius had no idea what that tone meant. He was about to find out.

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Is it?” I pulled the sleeve that had been partially covering the comm unit on my wrist and looked at the message I’d received from General Romulus not five minutes ago, verifying that the meeting details for tomorrow’s mission launch were still there. That I hadn’t imagined it.

  “Tell General Romulus you changed your mind. I will take your place.”

  I stood slowly, holding the Grace Goodwin book, the total goddamn lie, and walked to a disposal unit that would send the paper to recycling. Dropped the story inside. Closed it. “I’m going. My flight simulation scores were higher than yours. I have a better chance of reaching that cruiser alive, and you know it. Besides, Queen Raya tried to kill me with a rockslide. Not you.”

  “I can’t let you do this, Lily.”

  “No?” I picked up the book I’d thrown on the floor and walked to the disposal unit. Threw the second book inside. Bye-bye, beast. “Can’t? Really? Like you can’t tell me the truth. Like you didn’t tell me you had a brother die? Your second-tier bonded fighting partner? Tycho?”

  “There was never a good time.” He had the good sense to look ashamed of himself.

  “Uh-huh.” I walked to the small seating area outside the bedroom and marveled that even here, on a battleship, in outer space, the Starfighter quarters were much nicer than anything I’d ever seen in a movie, at least on a naval ship of any kind.

  “Lily, are you listening to me?”

  “Totally. Please, keep talking.” I took a seat on the small sofa-style bench, lifted the water I’d been drinking earlier from a small table, and finished it off.

  “Lily…” He paused, ran his fingers through his hair, that gorgeous, soft hair I’d been tugging on just hours ago, as if he suddenly didn’t know what to say.

  “No, Darius. Go ahead. Tell me why you humiliated me in front of three generals, every Starfighter on this ship, and my friends. Tell me how dangerous this mission is. How worried you are about me. How weak and unskilled and incapable I am. Go ahead. I’ve heard it all before.”

  “Stop. I didn’t say any of those things.”

  “Didn’t you?” I set the now-empty water jug down slowly. Deliberately. My tone was detached. Calm. My mother had trained me well. “I’m going on this mission, and then I’m going home. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a new partner in no time, now that you’re back in an Elite Starfighter uniform.”

  My eyes were burning. Tears. No. No. No. I blinked them away and took a deep breath to clear my head. “I’ve already made arrangements to stay elsewhere tonight. We’re finished. Done. You don’t owe me anything.”

  I stood and walked the three steps to the door.

  Don’t look back.

&n
bsp; Don’t look back.

  I did, to see Darius’s pale face. Round eyes. He looked shocked. Unsure. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  “I’m sorry about your brother.”

  Darius still hadn’t moved when I exited the small room, the door sliding closed on a past that was too painful to dwell on. I had a mission to complete, a planet to save.

  I was a goddamn Elite Starfighter Titan, not a sappy schoolgirl.

  To hell with external validation. With needing approval from other people. I had completed the training program. I’d been chosen. Mia and Jamie were friends I’d chosen, friends who respected me and treated me well. Supported me and my decisions.

  I was done giving others so much power over me, my emotions, my confidence.

  “I’m a badass bitch.”

  I rounded the corner to find Bantia there, smiling. “Indeed you are.” She held a hand to her chest and gave me a little bow. “So, you are taking on one of the cruisers with Dea tomorrow.”

  “I am.”

  “Last one to blow up their cruiser has to buy the victory drinks.”

  “Deal.”

  I held out my hand, and she took it, grinned when I squeezed her hand and moved our clasped palms up and down to seal the agreement.

  “I have to warn you, I’m not cheap. I like the good stuff from the Andromeda system.”

  “I’m not worried. You’ll be buying.”

  We both smiled and released our hold. I walked past her and continued on so I could explore the rest of the ship. If this was my last night in outer space, I wanted to see more of it than a bedroom.

  Darius

  * * *

  General Romulus was waiting for me when I knocked on the door to his private quarters.

  “I wondered when you’d show up.”

  “You have to send me on that mission. I’ll take Dea’s place. I can’t do this again. If you won’t stop Lily, I have to go with her.”

  The general looked me over, head to toe, but did not invite me in. “And why would I allow that? Dea is an exceptionally skilled Titan.”