Elite Starfighter, Game 3 by Grace Goodwin

4

Lily, Titan Tech Bay

Six meters tall.Stealth black metal. The giant robot-looking Titan was armed with small missiles, loaded guns, and a host of other weapons buried beneath the Titan’s outer shell. The word Athena and the Elite Starfighter emblem had been engraved over the chest plate.

“She’s mine?”

Darius reached above his head and rested his bent arm on the giant Titan’s leg. “Custom-made for you based on biometric scans acquired during training simulations.” He patted the massive machine leg and looked up, way up, to the top of the Titan’s body. “After we run this mission, you can request any necessary changes. We have our own tech team that will maintain and repair our Titans.”

“We do?” This was all so much. Everything was larger than life. I felt like I was walking around on a psychedelic trip of some kind. “Where is yours?”

Darius grinned and pointed to a docking bay next to the one we were currently standing in. “Right next to you, where I belong.”

I blushed. The heat crept up my cheeks, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it. I’d seen him naked. He’d seen me naked. I’d ridden his cock like a wild thing. So why was I blushing now? Damn it.

A loud voice filled the chamber. “Loading to commence. Titan One, clear your bay.”

Bright green light flickered a warning, and a massive set of metal arms lowered from the ceiling to lift the Titan onto a track. I watched, fascinated, as it slid forward, then turned, heading for a loading area aboard a large shuttle of some kind.

The process looked exactly like I’d seen hundreds of times in the training simulation. Back on Earth, I’d admired the cut scenes and graphics, thought the artist’s rendering of the inside of the base was pure sci-fi sweetness, the Titans fun to look at but not at all frightening.

Now?

The Titans were massive. Built for destruction. War. They were death machines. Chaos on the ground. The claw like fingers could puncture metal structures as thick as my arm was long. The targeting system inside could shoot down Scythe fighters or take out armed bunkers.

I stared at Darius’s Titan as he walked to a tech display station and looked over the status report for his machine. “Looks good. Let’s take a look at Athena, shall we?”

“Yes.” Of course. In the training simulation, this had all happened automatically. But that had been a video game. This time I was going into battle firing real weapons.

Darius took my hand and led me to the display panel connected to my Titan as the overly loud announcements continued. They were loading Titan Eight.

“What numbers are we?” I asked.

“Thirteen and fourteen. We’re team seven. We have a few minutes.”

“Titan Team Seven. Right.” I’d heard that fact during the briefing. Team Seven. Which meant there were six other teams, twelve other Titans that would be loaded before we would. But… “In the game—I mean training—it was first on, last off.”

“Correct.”

“And we’re last on? First off?”

“Yes.” Darius squeezed my hand even as he used his free hand to move over the control panel, his gaze glued to the Titan’s status reports, not me. “Athena looks great. We’re ready.”

Ready? I’d been here less than a day, hadn’t even been inside my Titan, and we were going to be first out the door on Xenon, running straight into enemy fire?

Brilliant.

No, I was not okay. But I didn’t really have a choice, did I? This was what I’d agreed to and, apparently, trained for. My heart pounded, and only half from fear.

In my real life, I was a wallflower. Introvert. Spent more time with books than humans. I was at the library so much I didn’t dare have a pet, not even a cat. But in the game?

In the game I was brilliant. Fearless. Aggressive. I kicked everyone’s ass, screamed at my enemies, and tore down walls with my bare hands. In the game, I was a monster.

And I had come to realize I enjoyed being that monster. I was tired of hiding all my emotions and acting as if everything was right with the world.

Sometimes a lady needed to scream out loud. And here was my chance.

Terrified? Yes. I was also excited. Adrenaline was flowing. I felt…alive.

Darius stepped back from the control panel as the announcer moved on to Titan Nine. “We’d better clear the bays.” Still holding my hand, he tugged me along behind him. “Come. They’ll have food and drink on the shuttle for us.”

I walked beside him, and we fell in line with the other Elite Starfighter Titan teams boarding the passenger door of the large shuttle. The seats inside were comfortable but not fancy, and I buckled in next to Darius with my back to the shuttle wall. The space reminded me of the inside of military airplanes I’d seen in the movies where the soldiers sat in lines along the outside and the center was kept clear for ease of movement. The Titans were visible through a large window that separated the Starfighters from the back end of the transport shuttle, hung from long rails on the roof of the shuttle so they could roll out and launch more easily than if they were standing. And if the shuttle had to roll? Or was hit? They weren’t going anywhere.

“Why Athena?” Darius’s question made me blink.

“What?

“Why did you name your Titan Athena?”

“She’s the Greek goddess of war.”

Darius nodded as if that made perfect sense.

“And Tycho?” I asked. “Where did that name come from?”

He turned away from me. “It’s a family name.”

Okay. Apparently he didn’t want to talk about it. Which was fine. For now. I had my own issues when it came to family, and I had no intention of discussing them in a shuttle full of Velerion Starfighters on their way to battle.

Two assistants came to each of us with food and drink offerings. I chose a bit of everything so I could taste it. There were both sweet and sour fruits. I preferred sweet. The meats reminded me of pepperoni and salami, and I assumed they were space food and were probably so processed and preserved they would outlive all of us. Didn’t know if that was true or not, but I ate them on thick, dense bread that could have passed for naan back on Earth. The water was cold and crisp with a hint of something that reminded me of mineral water.

I was too nervous to eat much, but Darius helped himself to heaping loads of food, as did most of the others.

If I ate that much, it was coming back up. No question.

Hours may have passed—I wasn’t sure—but as far as I was concerned, the trip was over too quickly. The sirens alerting us to move to the back and climb into our Titans made the hair on my arms stand at attention.

“You ready?”

“Ready.” I unbuckled and followed Darius and the others through the sliding door that had opened into the Titan holding area. Ladders had dropped down from the railing system. I knew what to do. I’d seen this in the cut scenes of the video game as well.

Climbing onto the lowest rung, I held on as the railing system lifted me to the heart of the Titan. I stepped inside and took my place, my backside pressed to a cushioned support while my arms and legs slid within a suit that covered me from neck to toes like a second skin. The suit would read the nerve impulses as they traveled through my body. A twitch of my finger could fire a missile or shoot flames. Once activated, the heads-up display inside my Starfighter helmet would give me all the data I needed about my Titan. Location. System status. Weapons. Temperature. I could change direction with a flicker of my gaze on the map. Operating the Titan was as easy as breathing, the massive body felt like an extension of myself.

The canopy lowered to seal me inside, and I fought to keep my breathing slow and even. Next would be the chest plates and external shielding closing over the canopy. I would be blind to the outside world except for what I could see through my helmet display. The air I was breathing would be purified and recirculated, pressurized so I could fight in any environment, on any planet or in outer space. I was a walking spaceship; the jet packs attached to the Titan would allow me to fly short distances, if necessary. I couldn’t go far, but I could go far enough to get away from an enemy…or follow one.

The comm system activated in my ear, and a now-familiar voice filled what I thought of as my vampire coffin. Like Dracula, I was alive in here. Sealed inside. Deadly. But still alive.

“Titan teams, this is General Romulus on Battleship Resolution. Mission details and coordinates have been programmed into your Titans, as well as known locations of ground defense systems. Deployment in ten minutes. You will have limited support from the air until you eliminate the ground defense systems. Good hunting.”

The comm went dead, and my Titan fired up, every system going through the automatic launch sequence.

“Lily, can you hear me?” Darius’s voice was calm, and I allowed the sound of his voice to sink into my bones.

“Yes. This is Lily. Go ahead.”

“You’re fourteen, Lily.”

Fourteen? Right, Titan Fourteen. Last on. First off. Shit. I was going to be the very first one of us to hit the ground.

“Fucking brilliant.”

“I’ll be seconds behind you. Wait for me.”

“Copy that.” I was in no hurry to charge onto a foreign planet in a new machine I’d never operated.

Except that was a lie. Every single control, light, and sound was familiar. I knew the layout of this Titan better than I knew the car I drove every day to work at the library. The controls responded to my movements and commands exactly as they had in the ga— training simulation. This Titan might not be digital, but the display in my helmet was identical to the headset I wore on Earth. The hand controls, the system monitors. Heat. Weapon counts. Energy readings. Oxygen levels. Pressure sensors. The map. I recognized it all. I felt like I was trapped in the biggest déjà vu moment ever.

I was a six-meter-tall giant with a nearly indestructible exoskeleton, claws, and enough weaponry to blow up the entire city of London.

The rig jolted, and my entire body rumbled and shook as Athena, Titan Fourteen was rolled toward the launch doors. The rail system would catapult me in the direction I needed to go, and I would have to rely on my machine to hit the ground running.

“Here we go, Athena. Don’t let me down.”

“Of course not, Starfighter.” The female voice was the one I’d chosen in the fighting simulation. The simple, recognizable voice calmed me more than anything else could have. “All systems are optimal. Launch in ten, nine, eight…”

The voice of the artificial intelligence that operated my Titan, aka Athena’s voice, continued to count down as I settled into my seat and scanned all my readouts. This felt exactly like the game had. Same screens. Same joystick style controls and buttons. Same voice in my ear. “I can do this.”

“I’m right behind you, Lily. Wait for me,” Darius commanded.

When he’d said something similar in bed? Hot. My whole body had gone up in flames, and I’d come all over his cock, moaning his name as my fingernails dug into his back.

Now? Not so much. What the bloody hell did he think I was going to do? Hit the ground and run away from him? Hide? Battle everything on the planet by myself? Did he think I was suicidal or just stupid?

“…three, two, one, launch.” Athena’s voice confirmed what the heavy weight of my back against the Titan’s cockpit already told me. I was launching forward with at least five or six G’s of force shoving me into the seat and simultaneously trying to tear my cheeks off my face. I loved roller coasters, and this was one hell of a ride.

My screen filled with the planet’s horizon as I hurtled toward the ground. The target was just ahead, the two outermost defense cannons almost in range as my Titan hit the ground with a thud and I kept running.

With a flicker of my gaze I silenced outgoing comms. I could still hear everything that was going on with the rest of the teams, but I had a tendency to talk to myself when I played—fought—whatever, and I didn’t need Darius or any of the others listening to my babble.

“Athena, block outgoing comms unless I specifically address one of the other Titan’s by name.”

“Affirmative. Monitor and filter audio.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure, Starfighter Lily Wilson.”

“Just call me Lily.”

“Thank you for the honor. I shall address you as Lily.”

“Brilliant.”

“Of course, Lily. I am a Titan.”

Was I arguing with a machine? Not arguing really, but why did I feel like this artificial intelligence was being elitist? Could a machine feel superior to other machines? How much did Athena really understand? Was she just an advanced computer, like we had on Earth? Or was she actually conscious? Alive?

“Lily, slow down!” Darius’s command came through loud and clear. “You’ll be in range of those cannons before I can reach you.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” I muttered. But what was Darius going to do about it? Pretty soon, we were all going to be target practice for Queen Raya’s people.

“Sherlock is not a member of the Titan teams,” Athena clarified.

“No, he’s not.”

“Then why did you address him? To whom shall I relay the message?”

This did not happen in the training simulation. “I was talking to myself.”

Silence. Perfect.

As I approached the target zone, I analyzed the new data coming into my Titan. Three of the cannons had been moved to high ground since General Romulus had given us the mission briefing. Things had shifted, which meant the plan needed to change.

If we didn’t take out the cannons mounted on the cliff walls, they would be shooting fish in a barrel.

“Athena, share the new cannon placement data with the rest of the Titan teams as well as mission command.”

“Data transmitted.”

“Good.”

“Lily! Damn it, female. Wait for me. It’s not safe.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

As if in direct response to my sarcasm, the nearest energy cannon fired a blast of blinding light in my direction. I jumped instinctively, Athena leaping over the blast like a deer clearing a fence. “Darius, I am heading for target bravo. It has been relocated into the canyon wall.”

“I see that. Lily, don’t go anywhere near there. I’ll take care of it. It’s too dangerous.”

“Too dangerous for who?” I asked.

Athena answered. “Titan Tycho believes approaching target bravo is too great a threat to us, Lily.”

“Why is that?”

I didn’t expect an answer, but I got one anyway and wished I hadn’t.

“Unknown. My calculations predict our success rate at seventeen percent higher than Titan Tycho’s on his current trajectory.”

Lordy. Now I had a talking calculator. What did Han Solo say? “Never tell me the odds.”

A cannon blast lit up my screen. Heat soaked the right side of my body as my Titan’s shields absorbed the hit. I had to dive and roll to evade a second attack. A third immediately followed, striking my Titan in the back and pushing me into a faster tumble. Damn it.

I skidded to a stop and hopped into a three-legged stance, weight on the balls of my feet, one hand down for balance, the other arm lifted, targeting systems locked on the nearest cannon.

I fired, the small missile screaming through the slight atmosphere until it exploded against the force field that surrounded the cannon.

Cursing, I fired again and shifted position as a neighboring cannon targeted and fired on my location.

“Lily! Get out of there!” Darius was practically screaming in my ear. I checked my maps. He was about fifteen seconds behind me, the next Titan right behind him and so on. Everyone was on the ground now. Running. Closing in.

“I’m fine.” My proverbial hair was probably singed, but all my sensors indicated Athena was good to go. I’d taken a lot more damage than this in our training simulations. A lot more.

I ran for the cliffside, using boosters to increase my speed. When I was close enough, I leaped onto the side of the rock, the Athena’s long claws extended from hands and feet. They pierced the soft, crumbling rock like diamond drill bits as I crawled up and up. And up.

Fifty meters. Eighty. A hundred meters. I could see the anchors that attached the base of the cannon to the rock above me, just out of reach.

I glanced below. The rest of the Titan teams had spread out and were attacking the previously mapped cannon positions. The two Titans assigned to the two additional cannons that had been unexpectedly relocated were making their own climbs.

And Darius in Tycho? He was climbing. Not fighting. Not helping the others. Not doing his bloody job.

Climbing. Behind me.

“Lily! Watch out!”