The First Starfighter by Grace Goodwin (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📕

“Great.” Jamie looked up at me. “How long was I out?”

“You have been in here well over an hour.” General Aryk stepped into the room and walked so that he was directly in Jamie’s line of sight.

Medic Suzen shrugged without apology. “First time in the chair takes a bit longer. New species and all that.”

The general waved his hand at the medic to quiet her as if he had expected just such an outcome, but he spoke to Jamie and me. “You two missed the meeting. Go back to your personal quarters and rest. I will see both of you in my office first thing in the morning with the other Starfighter teams. We’ll go over the mission plans with you then.”

“Counterstrike?” I asked, my fingers curling with eagerness.

“Yes. We can no longer count on any break in the attacks due to orbital location. They have broken their offensive pattern twice now. We can’t afford a third strike. If you two hadn’t been so close, we would have lost Gamma 4.”

General Aryk offered a small salute to both of us and nodded to Medic Suzen. “Good work, Suzen. As for you two, I’ll see you in my office at Vega one.”

“Vega one is one hour after sunrise. Got it.” Jamie looked up at me after the general left. “Can we go now?”

“Yes, bonded one.”

Tomorrow, once I learned of the general’s attack plan, I would check in with my friends who were still working undercover as smugglers on Queen Raya’s base on Asteroid Syrax and find out how close they were to discovering the identity of the Velerion traitor.

10

Jamie

The day had gone from grasping that everything was real, that I was on Velerion with Alex, to being too real. I’d woken up considering the Starfighter Training Academy a game.

I’d resolved myself to the fact that it wasn’t a game at all.

Yet even after I’d accepted that Alex was telling me the truth, I’d still just been playing. The way Alex looked at me. Kissed me. Touched me. Meeting the others on the moon base. Seeing my beautiful ship, the Valor? That had all been real. But the Dark Fleet? Still hadn’t registered as a threat, as a real, living, flesh-and-blood enemy.

Not any longer. I’d seen them. Fought them. Killed them.

I understood their evil now. The way they taunted like a cat would a trapped mouse.

It was real. My desire to end Queen Raya and see peace come to Velerion and other threatened planets was now at the top of my to-do list. I didn’t have to deliver packages any longer. My job was to protect billions of people on Velerion and Earth and a few other planets I’d never even heard of. And to do that, I was going to have to kill over and over and over…

“Hey,” Alex said, his voice a gentle murmur. He set his hand on my shoulder. I glanced his way. “Are you all right? I admit, today wasn’t how I expected a transition to life as a Starfighter to go.”

I gave him a small smile. Was I all right? I’d never had an enemy before. Sure, I had cranky customers who were pissed at me because their package was three days late. As if that had been my fault. But that wasn’t someone out to kill me and everyone on Earth.

It wasn’t just a mind shift to knowing Velerion and Alex existed. It was a shift to knowing that our lives were constantly in danger here on the moon base. That Alex and I were two of just a few who could help save multiple worlds.

Literally.

“I am. That was a lot. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Didn’t really understand.” My voice was soft and I was a little ashamed. I’d turned their tragedy into a game.

“Some things must be experienced to be understood.”

“You are too patient with me.” I now realized exactly how deeply invested General Aryk, Alex, and the other Starfighters really were. They needed help so badly that they’d created a training tool in disguise and sent it to far-off worlds in the hope they would find worthy recruits.

Talk about insane marketing. Maybe their leaders needed to rethink their risk-reward analysis. What if I’d said no? What if I’d panicked and blown the mission and Alex and I had both been killed? What if no one, anywhere, on any planet managed to beat the game?

Alex came to stand in front of me, tipped my chin up with his fingers. “It is a vast step from playing what everyone on Earth considers mere entertainment to life or death. You traveled across the galaxy, bondmate. You left your home. You have sacrificed much for Velerion.”

His gaze darted over my shoulder as he sighed. “I see now what it is costing you. What has been overlooked in the training program.”

“I wasn’t ready to be a killer, Alex.” I offered him a small smile. “But I can’t allow that bitch queen and her minions to murder innocent people either.”

“So, bonded one, what do you want to do now?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Now we fight the Dark Fleet.”

He shook his head, tucked my hair back from my face. “Now we rest, just as General Aryk said. Later we fight.”

“Rest? I’m too keyed up to sleep.”

His eyes flashed with mischief and heat as they dropped to my mouth. “Then I shall have to rectify that.”

Tipping my head to the side, I bit my lip, which made him huff out a funny little growl. A possessive, I-want-to-bite-that-lip sound.

“You know this is happening fast,” I said as he cupped my jaw with his big hand. His thumb stroked over my cheek.

He leaned closer so all I had to do was push up on my toes and our lips would touch. “It’s been months, bondmate. We have known each other since June thirteen.”

Heat flared through my body. He was right. I’d wanted him