Elite Starfighter, Game 3 by Grace Goodwin

14

Lily

“What the hell are these things?”I kicked two more of the knee-high metallic creatures into deep space like footballs. Didn’t matter how many of them I fought off, more appeared as if by magic. And knee high to a Titan? Well, I figured every single one of the things was nearly the size of a show horse.

“Unknown. However, they appear to believe we are debris to be removed from the ship’s surface.”

“No kidding.” I picked one of the repair robot horses and tossed it into space. “Are you sure I can’t just smash them?”

“Of course. Destruction or attack would most likely trigger an alarm.”

“How do they know I’m not part of the ship?” I bunched the Titan’s legs and leaped toward the opposite tower to buy myself some time. Deploying my grappling claw, I pulled myself in until my magboots finished the job of attaching me to the surface of the ship.

I looked back to discover that the robots opposite my location began to disperse. However, when I looked toward the top of my current location, a new swarm had gathered in response to my landing and was headed my way.

“Tor? We need to make these things think we’re part of the ship.”

“Working on it.”

“Work faster.”

“I am currently working at maximum capacity. Your request is denied.”

“Of course it is.” I couldn’t help myself. I was beginning to think sarcasm was not limited to humans.

Seconds before this fresh swarm reached me, I leaped again. I couldn’t keep this up forever. I needed a plan. And I needed help. “Any sign of Dea?”

“No.”

“Of course not.”

“That is a very annoying phrase.”

“Is it?”

“Of course.”

I leaped again, this time down toward one of the main joints that connected three of the towers. Ships. Points of the demon star, planet destroying monster I had to kill. Perhaps if I could get below the surface the repair robots would ignore me. “Tor, I’m going to crawl down inside. Maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

“That is dangerous, Lily. Should the ships begin to detach, we will be crushed instantly.”

“Got a better idea?”

Tor’s silence was deafening.

“Didn’t think so.”

I ran for the edge of the ship and slid the Titan onto its stomach so I could crawl over the ledge and take a look around. God forbid I jumped into an even worse situation. Not sure how that was possible, but I was ever the eternal optimist.

As my Titan’s hips slipped over the rounded corner of the tower, I glanced up at a flicker of movement.

“Tor! See that!” Using the tracking protocols in my helmet, I created a target on the movement. “Enlarge.”

I wanted to shout with joy when I recognized the Titan’s frame moving toward me.

“That is not Intrepidus.”

“What? Then who is it?” I asked, but I already knew.

“Tycho.”

“Darius.”

Waiting until I was sure he was, indeed, heading for me and not randomly running in my direction, I waved an arm and slipped down below the upper surface of the Battlestar into the ship’s joint.

Seconds later, Tycho made the leap from above and jumped down next to me.

“Tor?”

“Your hypothesis was correct. The swarm appears to be confused.”

“Thank God.”

“Shall I establish direct laser comms with Titan Tycho?”

Was I ready to talk to Darius? Here? Now?

“Yes. Hurry.”

“Link established.”

Within a blink Darius’s face filled my comm screen. His dark hair, worried eyes. I wanted to kiss him. Hug him. Get him in bed and never let him leave.

“Darius?” I knew it was stupid, irrational and completely insane, especially hanging by one of Tor’s arms just a meter from the ledge, but I used Tor’s free arm to grab Tycho and hug his massive frame.

“Lily? Are you hurt?”

“I’m so sorry. I know you were only trying to protect me. I should have talked to you about it instead of storming off in a rage.”

“No. You were right. My behavior was inexcusable. You are powerful, Lily. A warrior. I fell in love with your fearlessness when we were training together. When you chose me, you saved me. And the first thing I tried to do was lock you in a cage.”

I was crying now. Damn it. I released my hold on Tycho but kept Tor close. “What are we going to do? This is not a Cruiser.”

On my screen, Darius appeared to be looking around, analyzing the ship. “No, it is not.”

“Do you think the other two teams are dealing with a demon star as well?”

“Demon star?” He grinned at me. “I like it.”

“I’m serious.”

“There’s nothing we can do for them. The only thing we can do is complete our mission.”

True. Very true. But I was very worried for Bantia and Ulixes and the other team. I didn’t know them, other than a brief introduction at the mission briefing, but I felt like we were all in this together. Like somehow, we were cosmically linked. Which was silly and whimsical, but I couldn’t make the feeling go away.

“How are we going to destroy this thing? I had Tor run the calculations. We don’t have enough explosive firepower to take it out. And the second something goes wrong, this thing will break into pieces and there’ll be nothing we can do to stop them.”

“I know.” Darius closed his eyes. “I’m thinking.”

“Apology accepted Darius.”

“Yours as well.”

“I love you.”

His eyes flew open. “Lily.”

“Don’t say anything. I just needed to tell you, in case…” I looked around the deep crevasse lined with beams and massive panels that could crush us in seconds.

“Do not speak of death. I will not allow it.”

“Then we’d better figure something out or we’ll be the first of many.”

“If I may?” Tor’s calm tone interrupted. I had completely forgotten he was here. Which was insane because I was literally riding around inside his Titan body like a baby joey inside a kangaroo’s pouch.

“Go ahead, Tor. What do you have for us?” I adored Athena, but I had come to greatly respect Tor’s intelligence and experience over the last few hours. Athena was brilliant and new, but Tor had survived things my Titan had not yet imagined.

“I have been inspecting the mechanism by which the twelve satellite ships detach from the core.”

“Wait, can Darius hear you?”

“Of course.”

“Continue.”

If an AI could clear his throat, the odd sound Tor made was the equivalent. “I believe if we can lock four strategically located nodes to lock the ships together for a short time, deploy an initial strike to initiate detachment, and detonate our entire cache of weapons while the joints are under maximum stress, it may be enough to tear their ships to pieces.”

“Only four? There are twelve of these spikes.” Twelve giant, building sized ships all attached to the center like points on an arrow.

Tycho’s voice joined the conversation for the first time and the familiar sound made me tear up again. “Four joints will suffice.”

“Hi Tycho.”

“Our Lily. Greetings.”

Our Lily?He’d never called me that before. I liked it.

“I have analyzed Tor’s plan. I believe he is correct. If we could force the joints to experience extreme torsion prior to detonation, the additional force should be enough to cause hull breaches in each of the twelve attack vessels as well as the core command ship.”

Darius’s entire demeanor had changed from worried to fierce. Determined. “And this ship is a dodecahedron. Each joint attaches three sections. So, if we make sure we choose one joint for each of the twelve, we will be able to affect all of the attack ships from four centralized locations.”

“That is correct.”

They’d lost me at dodeca-what? I hated math and geometry. But I was really good at blowing stuff up from inside a Titan. I was even better at mangling metal with my Titan’s bare hands. And I wanted to go home. I wanted to survive.

I wanted Darius.

“Let’s do this. Tycho. Where do we start.”

“This location is as good as any other.”

Darius and I turned as one to face the tangled mess of beams and unions that made up the ship’s attachment and launch system. “Lead the way.”

Tycho placed markers on my nav grid and we made our way to the first location, a confluence of three massive beams at the central base of three separate attack towers. Each beam came from one side of the giant triangular structure above us.

“Number one?” Darius confirmed.

“Yes. I have marked the towers on your nav grids. This cluster is alpha cluster and this joint is node one.”

I looked at my nav grid and studied the display. Tycho had color coded the towers into four sections and marked the one joint the three shared with a pulsing red light on my screen. Four flashing lights. Four places to somehow prevent the ships detaching. And four places to plant bombs.

Now that we had a plan, I was ready to move quickly and get the hell out of here.

I attached my grappling claw to a nearby beam so I wouldn’t float away and studied the mess of connections, panels and joints in front of me. “Tell me what to do, Tor. How do we keep this thing from leaving home?”

Selected beams were highlighted on my monitors, as well as arrows indicating areas requiring attention.

“So what do we do? Break them?” I wasn’t sure how we were going to do that without alerting the ship to our presence, but we were out of options.

“No. Bend them. Just enough to prevent smooth operation of the rail system.” Darius had already moved into position to cover the first mark, Tycho’s huge body wrapped around the beam. He braced his legs on the panel below and pulled.

At first, nothing happened. Slowly, I saw movement, a bowing in the center of the beam where Darius had his arms wrapped around it.

“Is that enough?” His strained voice reminded me of the only other time I’d heard him that focused and out of breath. That time, he’d been bending and breaking me into a mess of shattered, orgasmic pieces.

I would never get enough.

“Step back please.” Tor waited for Darius to abandon the structure and scanned it again. “Yes. I believe that will create sufficient stress on the joints to increase the impact of our explosives.”

“Great. Where’s the next one?”

Darius moved to the second beam connected to the central node Tor had chosen as our target. I moved to the third position and pulled. Twisted. Put everything I had into it until my muscles burned.

Tor was a Titan. I didn’t know that my extra effort had any effect, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.

A few minutes later, Tor gave us the go ahead to attach the bombs we carried. Each placement marked for maximum effect.

“Next?”

A new set of targets appeared on my nav grid. “That’s on the other side of the ship.”

“Each target is equidistant.”

More geometry. “Fine. How are we going to get over there this century without using our boosters?” I glanced down at my grappling claw and the line that ran between the claw to my Titan. “I have an idea.”

“Yes, love?”

“Ever play leapfrog when you were a kid?”

“I have never leaped a frog.”

I handed the business end of my grappling claw to Tycho and extended the attached line to its maximum length. “Don’t let go.”

“Never.”

With that, I used Tor’s mighty strength to propel me through space until the line caught, yanking me to a halt. The force stop caused me to move backward, toward Darius, but I caught a beam and wrapped my arms around it. Legs, too. “Your turn.”

“Don’t let go.”

“Never, Darius. You’re mine.”

With a running start, Darius leaped forward, his Titan moving toward me at a mind boggling speed. “I shall hold you to that, pair-bond.”

He shot past me and I braced for the sharp tug I would feel when he hit the end of the line.

Moments later, it was my turn again, but we’d already covered a significant distance.

“This is going to work.”

“Of course it is.”

We spent the next few hours leapfrogging past one another all over the enemy ship. I didn’t know how close we were to Xenon, or Velerion or the war. But we were moving as quickly as we could and praying Tor’s plan would work.

When the last beam was sabotaged and the final charges placed, I heard Darius take a deep breath. “Come on. Hold onto me.”

“What the plan?” I asked, moving Tor into Tycho’s reach. Darius and I wrapped the Titans’ arms around one another. I was not letting go.

“We get the fuck off this ship and pray your friend Mia is as good at her job as everyone says she is.”

“She is. I know her. She’ll find us.”

“You trust her?”

“With my life.” I wanted to hold him, skin to skin. Feel his heat. Taste his air. All I could do was stare at his face on a screen. “And yours, Darius. She’ll find us.”

“All right. Your call. I trust you.”

And there they were, the words I’d been waiting to hear my entire life. Even as I smiled with pleasure I realized I didn’t need them. Not anymore. I knew who I was and what I was capable of. I didn’t need anyone else to tell me what I could or could not do, who I was. What I was worth. I made that decision. No one else.

“I love you.”

“You said that before.”

“Are you tired of hearing it?”

“No. Never. But I would prefer to have you naked and gasping for air when you say it.”

“Of course.” I began to see the nearly infinite appeal of Tor’s favorite response. So many layers of meaning.

“If you two are finished, I have set the detonation systems to active. The moment the beams experience increased tension from a detachment event, it will set off a chain reaction. Failing that, I have set a timer on the initial explosive for ten minutes to initiate the event. We need to go,” Tor said.

“Copy that.” Darius looked at me, or rather, directly into his screen. “Ready?”

“Always.”

“Magboots off and maximum jump in three...two...one...jump!”

Tycho and Tor took care of deactivating our magboots as we used every ounce of power our Titans’ possessed to leap away from the ship and into space.

Clinging to one another, we floated away as the Battlestar continued on its journey. “Do you think the others made it?”

“Yes.”

“I think so, too.” I had a good feeling about this. If we had figured out a solution, I had to have faith that the other Elite Starfighters had a well.

“Lily?”

“Yes?”

“I read your books last night.”

Oh. My. God. “I threw those away.”

“I knew they were important to you. I retrieved them.”

“And you read them? Why?”

“I was trying to understand where I’d gone wrong. What you needed.”

Oh shit. “I don’t need an Atlan beast, Darius. Not when I have you.”

“I’ll make sure of that.”

“So? Why are you telling me this now?”

“There was one part of the story in particular that I feel I must ask about.”

“What part?”

“Do you like chocolate cake and cherry cheesecake?”

Holy shit. He really did read them. “Do you even have chocolate on Velerion? Or cherries?”

“I will find a way to acquire some. I would very much like to do as this Rezzer did and taste your favorite sweets directly from your skin. And your pussy.”

Was it hot in here? What was I supposed to say?

Say yes, stupid.

“Okay. Yes. I’d like that.”

“Excellent.”

I’d like him to tell me he loved me as well, but I could wait. I didn’t need external validation. Not anymore. I could love him and not worry about anything else.

The feeling was damn liberating.

We floated silently for what felt like hours but was only a few minutes before Tor’s voice interrupted my imaginings of Darius licking chocolate frosting off my nipples and cherry syrup from my…

“Detonation in five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.”

The blast was small. Disappointing. More like a tiny flicker of light than an explosion.

“That was anticlimactic,” I said.

“Wait for it,” Darius said and I bit the inside of my cheek as Tor enlarged our view of the enemy ship.

At first nothing happened. There was no sound in space, but I imagined I could hear the bent beams of the ship’s rail systems squeaking and groaning with strain as the massive ship attempted to break apart in response to the explosion. They would believe they were under attack.

Nothing.

“Are you sure they will separate, Tor? That wasn’t a small bomb and a really big ship.”

“Tower separation is standard operating procedure for Battlestars under attack.”

I really, really hoped he was right.

The first sign of trouble was a small flash near the core. Then another. Another.

I squealed with glee as the ship lit up like a string of flashing christmas tree lights and the pieces, the towers, detached, spewing fire and atmosphere that propelled them in random, uncontrollable directions.

Two collided. The burst of light made me close my eyes.

The shockwave rolled over us, shooting us deeper into space faster even than the rail launcher inside the Velerion shuttles.

Darius and I clung to one another, all smiles.

“It worked,” I said.

“Of course,” Tor replied.

No doubt about it, this time he was absolutely being smug.

Now, for that rescue Mia had promised. We were moving fast, in the wrong direction in the middle of a massive field of debris from that Battlestar.

“How much air do you have left?” I asked.

“Enough.”

“Damn it, Darius. Stop trying to protect me.” I was down to less than twenty minutes.

“Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”

“Tor, link your air supply to Tycho’s.”

“Lily, no!”

“Don’t argue! If you die, we both die. Got it? We are either in this thing together or we’re not. You can’t treat me like a child. I am a Starfighter, Darius. Just like you.”

“No. You are not like me, my Lily. You are far superior and always will be.”

“Good. Then stop arguing. Tor?”

“Already done, Lily.”

“Thank you.” I tried to remain calm, preserve the air supply. Panicking wouldn’t help. I’d taken SCUBA training and knew the worst thing I could do was panic. “Come on, Mia. Come. On!”

“I love you, Lily.”

“Shut up. Just shut up. We are not going to die out here.”

Darius laughed and the sound had me smiling back at him. “I love you, too. And you are not dying on me. I want that chocolate and cheesecake.”

“There was another. A male named Dare. Very similar to my name, although he and his mate wore a strange collar. He restrained his mate so he could enjoy tasting her core for an extended period of time without interference.”

If I didn’t suffocate from lack of oxygen, I might burn alive from Darius’s new knowledge from the contents of my romance novels.

Perhaps I wouldn't hunt down the author if I ever returned to Earth. Maybe, I’d thank her instead. Hot, sexy aliens really did exist. And this one was mine.

“Mia! Where are you?”

Tor’s calm tone made me jump. I’d forgotten about him. Again.

“I have reactivated our communications and scanners. A Velerion shuttle is closing in on our location now. Estimated arrival in fifteen minutes.”

“That’s not fast enough.”

Darius was right. We wouldn’t last that long.

“Tor, we still have some juice in the boosters?”

“Yes. Very little. Less than five percent.”

“Get us five percent closer to that shuttle.”

“Of course.”