Elite Starfighter, Game 3 by Grace Goodwin

6

Lily

Nothing like walkingon beams in total pitch-black. Athena’s infrared and sonar systems were providing me with a visual display, but it wasn’t clear.

“Athena, can’t you clean that up? I can’t see.”

“Negative, there is too much interference from their jamming frequencies.”

“Brilliant.” I took two more steps. The Titan’s left foot slipped, and I barely caught the massive body with my right hand. “This is ridiculous. Give me a flashlight and open the shielding so I can see with my own eyes.”

“Defensive shielding will be at fifty percent.”

“I don’t care. I need to see.”

“Understood.” With a few loud clicks and swooshing noises, the front shielding that covered my face slid away so that I was protected only by my helmet and the translucent canopy. Bright floodlights pierced the darkness for three to four meters in front of me, and I sighed with relief. It wasn’t perfect, but at least I could see where I was going.

“Lily, I’ve lost sight of you. Report.” Bantia’s voice gave the order.

“Line-of-sight visibility is three to four meters. Only way to see is without full shielding. Using only canopy and helmet cover.”

“Ulixes?” she asked.

“I can’t see a fucking thing. The jammers are getting stronger the deeper we go.”

“Go to visual. And be careful.”

“Copy that,” Ulixes said.

The other two Titan’s lights turned on, and between the three of us, I could just make out enough of the structure to see a spiral pattern. “Up or down?”

Light appeared behind me. I turned to find Darius in Tycho just a few steps away. “Both. Bantia and Ulixes go down; Lily and I will head up.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be out there shooting down Scythe fighters?” I asked.

“Air support from the Elite Starfighter pilots came in and wiped them out. They are patrolling the airspace. We’re clear.”

I looked at the set of lights I assumed belonged to Bantia. “We could head back out and tell the pilots to blow this door into pieces.”

“Negative. It’s too thick. We’d need battleship cannons to get through,” Ulixes said.

“And there would be nothing left,” Bantia added.

I didn’t think we cared much if there was anything left of the place, but then I had no idea how many people were inside. What if they had children here? “All right.”

Bantia leaped down three levels and caught a beam with her Titan hands, swinging to drop down on the level below. Ulixes cursed.

“Damn it, female.”

She laughed. “Keep up then.”

The two took off like bouncing fireflies in the darkness. I looked at Darius, then up. And up. We were about equidistant from both top and bottom. Jumping down suddenly seemed a lot easier than climbing. “Let’s go.”

Using my boosters for an assist, I leaped up and landed on the beam above me.

“Careful,” Darius instructed.

“You didn’t tell Bantia or Ulixes to be careful,” I pointed out, jumping to the next beam.

“I’m not in love with them.”

Shit. I nearly missed the beam, caught myself with the claws on my right foot as my right hand missed the handhold entirely.

Darius jumped up to the beam I had just abandoned.

Love? He loves me? After one day? And he tells me now? Not when he was buried inside me. Not when I was gasping and clawing at him, screaming his name. Now?

And love? Like real, honest-to-goodness love? How was that possible? My parents had known me their entire lives and barely remembered to send me a card at Christmas.

Leaping again, I overshot the mark and grappled for a hold on the beam above where I’d been aiming. Thank goodness the Titan’s arms were a lot stronger than mine. I pulled myself up and took a couple of slow, deep breaths. I could do this. I was not rattled and on edge simply because the sexiest man I’d ever met had treated me like a helpless child one moment, then told me he was in love with me the next.

Was this tightness in my chest anger? Anxiety? Frustration? Disbelief? Pain? I didn’t know, and trying to figure it out was making me shaky and distracted. I wanted Darius to love me, badly. I simply couldn’t accept the fact that the emotion came so easily to him.

Not even my own mother loved me. I was tolerated. A tool to make her look like a good parent. Sent to the best schools, the best universities. The best clubs. The best of everything. And not once had she attended a recital or award ceremony. No matter how hard I tried, she never cared. I finally figured out the problem; I was the textbook definition of unlovable.

Athena’s feet safely planted on the beam, I looked down. And down. I could see nothing in the darkness, not even Bantia’s and Ulixes’s lights. I felt like I was standing over an abyss that wanted to swallow me whole.

“Lily? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Try to keep up.”

Darius chuckled and I felt the tightness around my heart loosen a little. “Vega help us, you sound like Bantia already.”

The idea of being as strong, confident, and skilled as Bantia seemed to be, pleased me.

Moving quickly, I reached the top level of the structure, Darius arriving less than a minute behind me.

“What now?” I asked, looking around at…nothing. Stone. Beams. There was nothing here that looked like any kind of control, wiring or power source. Just rocks and darkness.

Darius stood next to me in his Titan, and we used our combined light to widen the viewable area. Still, I saw nothing.

“Team One? You see anything? We are at the top, and there is nothing here.”

“Stand by.” Ulixes voice sounded gruff and like he was nearly out of breath.

A loud boom sounded from below, and the structure we were standing on vibrated under our feet, then shook, shifting enough that I had to use my Titan claws to hold my position.

“We’re in,” Bantia said. Then I heard nothing but static. Both Ulixes’s and Bantia’s locator beacons disappeared from my sensors.

“Athena? Where is Team One?”

“Unknown. We lost the signal when they entered the compound.”

“Shit.” I glanced down. Way down. “Should we go after them?”

Darius was silent for a few seconds. The beams shifted beneath us again. “We need to get out of here. The whole thing is going to collapse.”

As if the beams were listening to him, a loud series of popping noises sounded from below.

Darius turned to the outer wall and fired a grenade that looked like a cannonball with claws. The sharp arms penetrated the wall several meters below us and stuck like Velcro.

“Take cover!” Darius yelled at me. I turned away from the blast, but there really wasn’t anywhere to go.

Darius’s Titan draped itself over my Titan’s back as the explosion ripped through the enclosed space. “Shielding up, Lily. Full body armor. Now.”

I wasn’t about to argue. Apparently Athena’s artificial intelligence had also decided that was the best course of action, because my canopy was now fully enclosed with Titan armor once more and I was blind except for my sensors.

The beams shuddered, collapsed about a meter, and clumped to a stop at an odd angle. The structure was not going to be standing for long.

“Turn around. We’re going to leap to the shielding wall, slide down with our claws and climb out the hole we just made. Understood?”

I sighed. He was right and I knew it. There was no sense arguing with him. I wanted to go after Bantia and Ulixes, but we could do that more easily from the ground. Blow a new hole in the base and get in there…now that we knew what this damn thing was made of.

I turned to face the back side of the shield doors and leaped forward, catching myself with extended claws that penetrated the metal. With a few adjustments and finger flexing I was sliding down the wall at a nice, smooth pace, my claws cutting through the heavy metal like butter.

If it hadn’t been so dark, I would have felt like a pirate with a knife, riding down the center of a sail. Except maybe I needed a white pirate blouse, tight black leather pants, a nice, tight bustier, and a parrot on my shoulder. Now that would be an adventure.

Darius could be the sexy young stud about to walk the plank, waiting for me to swoop in and save him.

Like that would ever happen. He’d probably dive in the water, wrestle a few sharks, and take over the entire ship.

Maybe then he’d fuck me up against the mast of the ship during a storm. Lightning strikes illuminating the sky. Sea spray landing on his back. A canopy of stars over our heads. The two of us alone and unafraid, ready to cash in all the pirates’ treasure and retire to a tropical island where we would have sex in a hammock, or on the beach—sand be damned—or with me bent over a barstool, buzzed on piña coladas as he filled me from behind.

The bright light coming through the opening Darius’s grenade created was like a flash bomb inside my helmet. Athena adjusted at once, but I was still blinking hard and trying to regain my bearings as I swung my feet out through the opening, then rolled so my Titan’s chest faced the outside of the blast door. I dug my claws back in so I could slide the rest of the way down.

“Status, Athena?” I asked.

“No hostile forces within range.”

Nice. At least I didn’t have to worry about being shot off the wall like a sitting duck. I could have used my boosters to basically fly down, but why waste the energy. I might need them later. Because until we were inside this place, this mission was not over.

Glancing up, I watched as Darius performed an identical maneuver to mine, swinging through the opening, flipping, grabbing onto the exterior with his claws. He was sliding down the wall with me, keeping pace until our Titans’ feet touched solid ground.

“Athena, can we blast a hole here without endangering the others?” I asked.

“Unknown.”

Damn it. I wanted to get in there, but I didn’t want to hurt Bantia or Ulixes if they were directly on the other side of the blast.

Facing the giant door, I turned to my right to count off twenty paces. On the inside, Team One had taken off to my left. Assuming they continued that direction, this should be safe.

“Where are you going?” Darius asked.

“Keep up.” At my mark, I backed away from the door, lifted my arm, and fired my largest grenade at the door, chest high. I wanted the largest hole possible, and losing half of my blast radius in the rock under the door would be a waste. “Fire in the hole!” I yelled.

Darius’s Titan tackled me to the ground as a giant plume of rock and debris rained down on us from the blast.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

“Are you insane?” Darius’s voice sounded off. Shaky. “You should have let me do that.”

“Why? Because I’m a girl?”

He growled, the sound one of frustration. “Because you’re mine.”

Two nearby Titan teams ran for our location, then disappeared inside the entrance I’d created. Brilliant. I made the opening, and they beat me inside. “Get off me.”

“You weren’t saying that last night.”

Oh God, I was going to kill him with my bare hands.

“Get. Off.”

“No. We’ve done our job. Ground forces are already on the move.”

I turned my Titan-sized head to see that he spoke the truth. Hundreds of smaller attack units were racing toward us, armed to the teeth, battle cries on their lips. They wore armor exactly like I’d seen when I was playing what I’d once believed was only a video game. The stats on the armor were impressive, and I knew they could take a hit. More than one.

As if on cue, the general’s voice resonated inside my helmet.

“Stand down, Titans. Guard the perimeter. Ground forces are now engaged.” As General Romulus gave a direct order, I didn’t dare disobey it. Not on my first mission as a Titan.

Not when I was so angry with my perfect, sexy, pair-bonded mate that I was seeing red.

One minute I wanted to jump him, the next? Scream at him. And after that? Shit. I just wanted to cry. I was an emotional roller coaster, and I hated every second of it.

Why didn’t Darius trust me to take care of myself? Why did everyone in my life have to treat me like I didn’t know what the hell I was doing? Like a walking mistake? A clutz? An idiot who needed careful advice and tending? I was tired of being treated like a wallflower.

Was this what love was supposed to be? Passion? Caring? Was this putting another’s needs before one’s own? I didn’t think so, but then, I’d never been in love before, so I had no idea how I was supposed to feel.

Did Darius really love me? After so short a time together? He was an alien, but he was still a man. Most of the men I knew on Earth, including my own father, weren’t big on monogamy or commitment in general. Why would an alien be any different?

“You can get off me, Darius. I’m not going to run away.”

Slowly, as if afraid he might startle a scared rabbit, Darius moved his Titan off mine and held out a massive hand to help me to my feet. I took it, not because I couldn’t get up on my own, but because I was too tired to fight with him. The adrenaline that had powered through my body was gone, leaving me to crash and burn to cinders inside my own mind. I didn’t understand any of this, and I hated the fact that I felt so unsure.. Hated that I wasn’t confident of my place in this group of Titans or with Darius. I’d thought I was sure about him, and then he’d been welcomed back, already a Titan. He was keeping secrets from me. Big secrets.

I knew the secrets game, had played that game my whole life, and I hated it.

I hated that Darius was hovering over me like a helicopter parent making sure I felt like I couldn’t do anything on my own. Acting like I should be scared when I wasn’t.

This was more real than anything I’d ever done before. Should I be frightened? Because as soon as I’d slipped inside Athena’s huge, powerful frame I’d felt powerful. Strong. Nervous but excited, too. Was that wrong? Was that how Mia and Jamie had felt on their first missions? Sure, I wasn’t excited about the prospect of killing a living being, but I hadn’t been terrified of dying either.

Perhaps I should have been.

Or perhaps I should be more worried about giving my heart to an alien who had no intention of responding in kind.

“Team Seven, cover the entrance. I don’t want any surprises down there.”

“Yes, General.” Darius moved to stand on one side of the blast area, and I stood with my back to the blast door on the other.

We stood in silence, scanning the terrain for enemy Scythe fighters, random enemy attacks. Nothing.

Then a rumble deep in the ground.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Darius and I crouched in a defensive posture, weapons ready. “General, there is a ground disturbance.”

“Copy that. Resolution’s sensors are picking it up. Hold your position.”

“Holding position.”

I didn’t say a word, but I had a bad feeling. A really bad feeling.

The rumbling increased until the ground shook like an earthquake.

A moment later Bantia burst through the wall, ground troops running at full speed behind her. She stood at the opening, urging the smaller forces to greater speed.

“Move! Move! Move!”

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“It’s a trap. The whole fucking thing is empty. But there’s enough explosive down there to make a crater out of the whole area. Get out of here!”

Reaching behind me, I buried my claws in the metal wall and pulled, peeling the opening wider bit by bit, relieved when I saw there was enough room for even one more soldier to squeeze through. “More!” I yelled.

Darius followed suit as Bantia joined me in peeling back the shielding. We weren’t doing much, but if we saved even a handful of lives, it would be worth it.

“Where’s Ulixes?” Darius asked.

Bantia answered between grunts as we tugged together. “Bringing up the rear, of course. As usual.” There was frustration and worry in her tone, but admiration as well. Trust that he would be all right. And I missed those touches in Darius’s prior rantings at me all the more.

“How long do we have?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Not long.”

Shuttles were doing touch-and-goes on the ground near us, hovering just low enough for the evacuating troops to leap onboard. The moment they were full, they soared away, another waiting to take its place.

I lost count of the troops as they poured out of the wall, running at full speed. Finally Ulixes appeared.

“Clear.”

“Thank Vega,” Bantia said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Turning together, we all ran for the nearest shuttle large enough to hold our Titan frames. Darius paced behind me, but I wasn’t going to waste energy yelling at him to hurry. My bad feeling had gone from mild anxiety to full-blown panic attack. We had to get out of here.

Now.

The first blast knocked me to my knees. The shock wave lifted my Titan and threw me into the cliff wall more than twenty meters away.

I slid down to slump on the rocky ground. I hurt, but everything seemed to be intact.

I looked up and winced, threw my arms up to protect my Titan’s chest as chunks of rock and twisted metal fell from the sky to bury me alive.