Elite Starfighter: Starfighter Training Academy - Game 3

by Grace Goodwin

  A few seconds later my Titan responded. “Trajectory confirmed. Ready for booster burn.”

  “Good luck, Starfighter.” The shuttle crew was nothing more than a dot on my monitors now.

  “You too. See you on Velerion. Going dark.”

  Tycho shut down our communications and non-vital systems so we could come up on the Cruiser with as little detectable noise as possible. I wasn’t sure this wild scheme of Mia’s was going to work, but no one had come up with a better plan and anything was better than sitting on Arturri waiting for Queen Raya’s armada to come and destroy our entire civilization.

  And then there was Lily. She was out here somewhere. Alone. Angry with me. Hurting. I had done that with my obsessive urge to protect her. I needed to apologize, explain, get her naked and make her come over and over until she gave me another chance.

  “Darius? Shall I fire boosters?” Tycho asked. He’d been silently waiting for my command.

  “Increase thrust by five percent. I don’t want Lily on that Cruiser alone.”

  “Five percent. Acceptable. However, our reserves will be on the red line.”

  “Understood.” Red line meant I’d be running on luck and prayers if I needed to use them again. Red line was usually good for one adjustment or jump on the ground, but not much else.

  I didn’t care, as long as I made it to Lily’s side, where I belonged.

  Tycho fired the booster and I stared out into space for the journey, eyes open but seeing nothing. Thoughts of Lily consumed me. The soft curves of her skin. The way she tangled her fingers in my hair when I pleasured her with my mouth. The hot, wet heat of her clamping down on my cock when she came. The sounds she made.

  Her voice. Her smile. The adorable crispness of her speech. She sounded nothing like the other two human females. Her tone was clear. Concise. I loved the way her cheeks turned pink when I teased her. And her obsession with her books.

  I’d recovered the two she had placed in the recycling unit. Read every word last night. Had to use my hand to find release more than once as the dominant beasts in her stories claimed their human females. One claiming in particular caught my interest and I fully intended to speak to Lily about it once she was speaking to me again. Allowing me to touch her.

  This time, I wouldn’t make the same mistakes. She was a Starfighter. An Elite warrior trained to fight to protect Velerion and our people. I could not deny her that power in a bid to keep her safe any more than I could order General Romulus to stop being a general. I’d made peace with that and determined my only course of action going forward.

  I would stay by Lily’s side. Always. Every mission. We would face every threat, every danger together. And if she died, her life would only be taken once I’d already given mine fighting to protect her.

  That was a decision I could live with.

  The silence stretched for long hours. Perhaps I dozed off. Perhaps my musings about my female made the time pass quickly, but Tycho alerted me to our arrival a short time later.

  “We are five minutes from our destination.”

  “Copy that. Give me visuals.”

  A nav grid popped up on my screen and I frowned. Squinted. “You have the wrong vid up, Tycho. Switch to a live camera feed.”

  “Affirmative. This is the live feed.”

  What. The. Fuck? This was not possible. “Is that a Dark Fleet Battlestar?”

  The nav grid screen shifted and the small black star I’d seen in the center of the screen grew in scope to be equal in size to my face. “Based on the camera evidence, there is a high likelihood that the structure is a Battlestar. Class Seven. Twelve thousand ground troops, four hundred eighty Scythe fighters. Twelve detachable assault towers. That is all the data I have. I cannot confirm that data without scanning the ship. There has never been a Battlestar in the Vega system before.”

  That, I knew. This was not good.

  “Where is Lily?”

  “Unknown. Do you want me to activate my scanners?”

  “No!” Fuck no. We’d be dead in seconds. This was no half-century old Cruiser from Queen Raya’s fleet. That would have been bad enough. This was so much worse. A planet killer. Twelve ships traveling as one designed to break into pieces, surround a planet, block all transmissions, jam all signals in and out as their ship mounted cannons destroyed thousands of targets on the ground below. Followed by ground troop invasion with air support. Of course, they didn't send in their soldiers until there was no resistance left.

  “Are we on target?”

  “Yes. Impact in two minutes.”

  “Vega help us. We’re in trouble here.” I wasn’t sure how much Tycho understood about our situation, but I didn’t have to tell him to activate our grappling claws or tighten my flight suit in preparation for impact. “Give me a countdown when we’re close.”

  I didn’t have long to wait.

  “Three. Two. One.”

  The Titan slammed into the dark black panel near a structural point attaching three of the twelve spikes to the core. I nearly lost consciousness as the force of impact hit me like a boulder in the chest despite Tycho’s automatic adjustments. Rather than strike head on, my Titan rolled, the mechanical arms redirecting our armored body in a way to minimize contact as the grappling claws dug deep and slowed us down.

  When we finally stopped moving, I held still for several minutes taking stock of our condition. I should be dead. But the engineers, the people who figured things out, built and programmed our Titans, had pulled off a miracle and managed to get my Titan onto this ship without killing me.

  I’d buy them all a drink if I made it back alive.

  With a groan I felt all the way to my bones, I anchored the grappling claws of my foot deep in the ship’s surface and stood to take a look around, engaging the magboots which were designed to keep us from drifting off into space.

  I was near the center connecting point for three rising assault towers. Each one black, taller than I could see, and each facet lined with too many energy cannons to get an accurate count. Each of those cannons was easily three times the size of anything we had on the Resolution. Compared to this ship, my Titan was like a microbe standing up to inspect a mountain.

  “Tycho, are you getting this? General Aryk is going to want every bit of intel we can get him on these ships.” Assuming he was still alive in a few hours. But I kept that thought to myself.

  “Confirmed. I am recording and archiving all data.”

  Well, that was something. “Have you found Lily?”

  “Negative.”

  I had to find her. Now that I knew what she--we--were up against, working as a team was going to be more important than ever.

  “Do we have enough firepower to destroy this ship?”

  “Negative. However, if the Titan Bellator has retained its full ordnance, the combined force would do significant damage if the charges were strategically placed.”

  That’s what I’d been afraid of. “Hold that thought. I’m going to climb, go to higher ground. Number one priority is locating the Bellator.”

  “Understood.”

  Using my Titan’s claws, I climbed toward an energy cannon about a third of the way up the structure’s side.

  “Stop, Darius. I have located the Bellator.”

  “Where?”

  Tycho replaced my forward camera feed with a panoramic view and zoomed in on movement on a neighboring tower. Lily was there, running.

  Seconds later, she leaped, propelling herself without grappling hook or claws, toward the core.

  “Lily!” What the fuck was she doing?

  And then I saw the attack drones chasing her.

  “Do we know anything about those drones?” I held on to my calm by a thread. I had to trust Lily. She’d been right all along.

  Tycho changed my view again to focus on the tip of the structure I’d climbed. “Negative. I suspect they are programmed to remove debris and repair the hull should the ship take any damage.”

  “
You’re guessing.”

  “I am. But we will know soon enough.”

  I looked up to find half a dozen drones closing in. And I’d lost track of Lily.

  She was gone.

  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 f
ierce. 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.