Starfighter Command

by Grace Goodwin

“Ms. Becker? This is the front desk. There’s someone here to see you.”

  This building had super-tight security. From key fobs for all areas to retinal scans for access in others. But I also wasn’t expecting anyone. I had no outside appointments, and my only friends were… well, one was missing and the other lived in London. I frowned.

  “Did they give a name?”

  “Kassius Remeas.”

  3

  Mia

  * * *

  “What?”

  I blinked and my heart went erratic. Was someone making fun of me? No. How could the front desk staff know I even played the game? We only offered quick hellos in the morning when I arrived. They certainly weren't aware I obsessed over my MCS partner. No one in Germany knew.

  “He said his name is Kassius Remeas.”

  “Is this a joke?” If so, I was not amused.

  “No. There is a gentleman here who asked specifically for you. He insisted you would know him.”

  What the hell?

  “Send him to conference room three. I’ll be down in a moment. Thank you.”

  “Of course. My pleasure.”

  I put the phone in the cradle and popped to my feet, my desk chair rolling backward.

  Kass wasn’t here. The very idea was a joke. He wasn’t real.

  As I had not discussed my gaming habits with anyone at work, someone must have set up surveillance equipment inside my apartment. “Sohn einer Hündin!”

  I knew Starfighter Training Academy was a popular game all over the world, but I had no idea the game had already infiltrated Earth’s culture to such a degree. Then again, I never went out these days, so I didn’t know a lot about pop culture at the moment. I did know that curiosity was killing me and I could not ignore the chance to see Kass one more time—even an actor dressed up to look like him. I would enjoy looking at the man, and hunting down whoever had sent him—and put surveillance in my apartment—even more.

  Someone out there knew exactly how obsessed I was. I had become heartsick and pathetic in the hours since I’d beaten the game. Pathetic. Capital P. Weak. Given someone a vulnerability to use against me.

  I put a call in to our security teams. “This is Becker. I need an apartment sweep as soon as possible.”

  “Copy that. What do you think the odds are we’ll find something?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll have a team dispatched in ten minutes.”

  “Thank you. Please let me know immediately.” The tech teams would search my apartment top to bottom. Whatever surveillance equipment had been installed would be gone. But that didn’t help me with the current situation. Who had sent someone here using Kass’s name? And what the hell did they hope to gain? This made no sense. I would be stuck sitting behind a desk for God knew how long. I’d been removed from most of my cases. What was the play? And why now?

  I waited for the call. Ten minutes felt like an eternity. Twenty. Thirty.

  I was about to pull my hair out when my phone rang. “Mia Becker.”

  “Your apartment is clean, ma’am. We’re finished.”

  “What? You didn’t find anything? Nothing?”

  “No, ma’am. We can look again if you’re sure. But my teams is experienced and efficient.”

  “No, thank you. I appreciate your work.”

  “Not a problem.” The line went dead, and I discovered I was shaking.

  If no one had bugged my apartment, then how the hell did they know about Kass? Maybe Jamie had been kidnapped and interrogated? Had they planted surveillance in Lily’s apartment in London? Lily was a librarian, spent hours dusting off ancient books. And Jamie was a delivery driver, not James Bond. This made zero sense.

  I wiped my hands down my black pants, my palms suddenly damp. The elevator ride to the first floor felt like an eternity as I made my way to the meeting room I’d instructed this Kassius Remeas be escorted to. My high heels clicked rhythmically against the hard floor, and I straightened my suit jacket, buttoned it as if I were putting on armor. I arrived to stare at the closed door, hands shaking.

  Waited.

  Before I could open the door, it flew open, smacking against the wall and bouncing back a few inches. I jumped, startled. Then I stared. And stared. There, standing before me, was a really good likeness of Kass.

  Someone had gone all out. This guy had the same dark hair. The same crooked smile. The same small scar under his left eye. The same dark brown eyes. The same fucking dimples that made him look like a mischief-making, super-sexy space pirate. He was dressed head to toe in black, the cut and tailoring exactly matching the in-game uniforms of a Starfighter MCS, but he had no adornments or anything else that indicated he was in the military. Any military. And fool that I was, my gaze darted to his chest to look for the Starfighter insignia. Which was there. Black on black, but the damn swirl was there. I even recognized the buckles on his boots.

  What the hell? This space alien uniform was absurd. Laughable, which meant I was the brunt of the joke now for the half second that my heart leaped and my body tightened as if he was real. Two heartbeats later the stupid organ ached ten times more than it had before as the leap of joy crashed back into the pit of despair. Because this man looked exactly like Kassius Remeas, in the flesh.

  So, was this man a model? Maybe the game developer had placed him in front of a green screen and based the avatar of Kassius Remeas on him. Maybe I was hallucinating and a pimply-faced teen with a half-grown mustache and gangly legs was staring back at me. Perhaps the stress of the job had finally sent my mental health into a tailspin.

  But I couldn’t tear my eyes off him. Fuck that, I couldn’t blink. Or breathe.

  “Mia Becker.” He didn’t say more but inspected me with the same intense scrutiny I gave him.

  I wasn’t going to call him Kass. It would hurt too much. Uttering that one syllable meant that I was buying into the entire joke. And I felt that it was all on me.

  Without tearing his gaze away, he pulled me into the room and shoved the door shut behind me. He even turned the lock. The sounds of the reception desk, security checkpoints, and scattered voices dropped away, leaving us very much alone. The room was sealed and searched every morning for surveillance equipment. The walls were thick, and there were no windows.

  I still didn’t speak, and he narrowed his eyes. Then he closed the distance between us, gently placed his hands on each side of my head, and kissed me.

  Scheisse.

  For a second I froze because a paid actor or model—a complete stranger—was kissing me. With soft lips. With a need I felt seep through his fingers, his mouth. Every inch of him radiated desire. For me.

  Damn, he was good. I almost believed what his lips were telling me.

  I whimpered because it was one hell of a kiss. He took advantage when I opened my mouth, to plunge his tongue deep and take. To claim.

  His hands angled my head as he wanted, taking us deeper into… a connection. A fusion that was more than just our lips and tongues touching.

  I didn’t even know we’d moved until my back pressed into the wall and his hard body leaned into me. I felt how hard he was. Everywhere.

  I had no idea how long we kissed, but when he finally lifted his head, I realized his hand was beneath my shirt and his rough palm cupped my breast.

  “Mia,” he said again. This time the rasp was deeper. Darker. “I found you.” He spoke in English, which confused me further but I responded in kind.

  “Wow.” I licked my lips, and his gaze dropped to the motion. “I don’t know who you are, but you kiss really well.”

  The corner of his mouth tipped up. “I am Kassius Remeas of Velerion, as you well know, Starfighter MCS Mia Becker of Earth. I am your partner and pair-bonded mate. You had better not greet all your visitors this way.”

  He looked down to where his thumb was moving slowly back and forth beneath my silk blouse.

  I was wet. Achy. Needy for this stranger.

  “T
hank you for the fun because… sure, you look just like him. I’ll even give you a bonus for excellent kissing, but if you would like to keep your hands, you need to take them both off me. Now.”

  He slowly shook his head as a grin spread across his lips. He called my bluff. I didn’t want to hurt him. At least not yet.

  “I’m just getting started. We’ve been fighting side by side for months, and I’ve been waiting to silence that sassy mouth all this time.”

  I eyed him now. Wary. He wasn’t dropping his game, but I wasn’t quite ready to knee him in the balls either. He looked like Kass. He sounded like Kass. He was wearing a Starfighter MCS uniform so detailed even the boots matched. But the leap my hopeful heart wanted to make was impossible.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said, studying me closely.

  “That an avatar from a game I’ve been playing is actually a real person, a real alien, who’s come to my office to kiss me? And that you are from another planet but you just happen to speak English?” I played Starfighter Training Academy in English since Jamie and Lily spoke it. German was my first language, but I was fluent in both. For an alien, he spoke English really well.

  “I learned your language while playing the game. I am not well versed. And I did not come here to kiss you,” he said; then his cheeks darkened. “That is a lie. I have ached to kiss you for months.”

  “Who sent you? How long have you been watching my apartment?”

  “General Jennix approved your retrieval. I know nothing of your home. I would very much like to see it before we leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “Yes. We must go to Velerion. They need you, Mia. As I do.”

  Oh hell. He was good. His gaze locked on to mine with utmost sincerity. His face held not one hint of a smile, nor of confusion. He seemed perfectly functional and coherent. Which meant either he believed what he was saying, or he was the best liar I’d ever spoken to. Ever.

  “This is crazy. What are you talking about? Who are you, really? How did you find out where I work?”

  “I am your Kassius. We are a pair bond. I’ve come here to take you to the Battleship Resolution. General Jennix is awaiting our arrival. She is very excited to welcome a Starfighter MCS pair to her command.” His gaze raked over my face, and he seemed content to cup my breast. He growled. “First, though, I need to fuck you to take the edge off the need I know we’ve both had all this time.”

  My naughty side loved his dirty talk. So did the rest of me. The feminist within insisted I should slap him, because a stranger coming in and saying he was going to fuck me deserved a solid slap. Or knee to the ’nads.

  But I felt safe with this guy. Aroused. “This is insane,” I whispered.

  “It is not. You call the Starfighter Training Academy a game, which is clearly a problem for the Velerion design team to rectify. In truth, the system is a complex and difficult training program, and you completed it. We completed it. Together.”

  I shook my head, hoping to clear some of the fog his kiss had created. “No. Who sent you? What do you want?”

  “You, my Mia.”

  How had he known that endearment? Even if someone had planted cameras and mics in my apartment, they would not have known Kass called me that. No one knew. His voice, his verbal responses were only ever heard through my headset. I didn’t use the captioning feature. Words floating across the screen distracted me. His name had flashed on the screen for a camera to see. So had the Starfighter uniforms—every detail of him was perfect. But no one knew Kass called me that, no one but the imaginary computer avatar on my now-defunct gaming system. This couldn’t be real. Could it? “What did you just call me?”

  “My Mia. I have called you this many times, love.” He grinned and kissed my forehead. “Especially during that mission to Xenon where you single-handedly crushed an entire squadron of Dark Fleet drones.”

  Holy shit. That mission had been months ago, back in the early days. That was the first mission where he’d used the endearment. I remembered well because everything female in me had practically melted the first time I’d heard that sexy growl say my name like that. My Mia. So hot. So sexy. So him.

  “Kass?”

  “You accepted your role as a Starfighter MCS. You accepted our pair bond. As I have. The bond has been recorded in the Hall of Records on Velerion. You are mine and I am yours. I have been waiting for you.”

  I have been waiting for you. God, a sexy warrior telling a woman that, one whose hand was still on her breast. It was a panty-melting sentence that I actually believed because I’d been waiting for him, too.

  I had.

  I was sappy. A dreamer. Crazy.

  Whatever.

  His. Hand. Was. On. My. Breast.

  I rolled my hips into his, feeling every inch of his hard length.

  He groaned. “I need you.”

  “I’m crazy for saying this, but I think I have an idea of how much.”

  His mouth tipped up at the corner, and his eyes darkened, turned molten.

  I believed him. My instincts and logic were both in agreement. Far-fetched? Maybe. But I lived my life by the theory of Ockham’s razor: the simplest explanation was usually the right one. No one on Earth had any reason to go to all this trouble to pull a joke on me. No one. Regarding aliens, I’d had my suspicions for years. Assuming they did exist, then there were his clothes. His face. His voice. His name. And the clincher, Jamie’s disappearance…

  “Jamie Miller. She won the game. Did Alex come for her, too? Is that why she disappeared?” It was so obvious now. A lost puzzle piece that had been found. It made complete sense. If Kass was here for me, then Alex, the avatar Jamie had chosen to be her fighting partner in her game, must have come for her. I had to know.

  He nodded once. “Starfighter Pilot Jamie Miller is famous among the Velerions. She was the first Starfighter from Earth and has already saved many lives and faced down Queen Raya. Her pair bond, Alexius, retrieved her as I have now come for you. Starfighters Jamie and Alexius serve under General Aryk on Moon Base Arturri.”

  I relaxed against the wall. I’d looked everywhere… on Earth. I wasn’t losing my touch at hacking and tracking. The best intelligence gathering systems in Europe had not failed. I had been looking in the wrong place. On the wrong planet.

  “I… we, you and I, worked with her on her final training mission. I saw her accept her role with General Aryk and the pair bond with Alexius. You are telling me he came to Earth to retrieve her? And take her to outer space? To Velerion? Velerion is real?”

  “Yes. Exactly. Now you understand.” He lowered his head and placed a line of soft kisses along my jaw. If I hadn’t been leaning against the wall, I would have fallen over. Body melting on the outside, mind reeling on the inside.

  Holy shit. It was real. “Jamie is in space? On Velerion?” One more time. I had to hear it one. More. Time.

  “On Arturri, the moon base where Starfighter pilots are stationed. She has adapted well, by all reports.”

  “You haven’t seen her?”

  Kass shook his head, taking the opportunity to move his lips to the opposite side of my jaw. “Only on official reports. After her escape from Queen Raya’s warship, General Aryk sent excerpts of their debrief to all pilots so we would know what to watch for.”

  “Is she well?” Any sane woman would walk away now. But I was not ordinary. I had access to things, events, reports of UFOs and other phenomena the everyday citizen had never seen. Believing aliens were real was no stretch for me. Accepting that Kassius had traveled here from another solar system to find me? Me? Well, that was the crazy bit.

  “She is healthy and whole, living with Alexius on Arturri.”

  “Show me the scar.” I blurted the order before I could think better of it. On our second mission I’d seen my Kass, the Kass in the game, without his shirt on. That Kassius had a jagged circular scar on the back of his left shoulder. Wide lines. Bigger than my hand. Old.

  No actor could fake that.
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  “With pleasure.” His grin as he stepped back was not what I had expected, and the air caught in my lungs as I watched him pull the black shirt over his head. His chest was… massive. Muscled. Perfect. But a lot of men had nice physiques. Wide shoulders. Arms rippling with strength.

  I’d been staring too long, and he seemed content to allow it. “Turn around,” I ordered.

  He did so, slowly. When he faced away from me, I stepped forward with a gasp. The scar was there. Old. Healed. A mark of extreme pain. Exactly as I remembered. “Oh my God.” Fingers trembling, I traced the mark with a quiet sigh. “You’re real.”

  “I am.”

  “How did you get this?”

  “That is a story for another day.” He rotated and I couldn’t bear to stop touching him as my palm slid from back to shoulder to chest. I didn’t want to give him up. Not yet.

  “I actually believe you.” I reached up, cupped his square jaw, touched his lips—with something other than my mouth—for the first time. “You really are Kass.”

  He stroked my hair back, watched his fingers as he ran them through it. “I am. You chose me in your beginning assessment. We have worked together all this time to get through the training.”

  “Hold that thought.” I stepped away from his touch and pulled my cell phone from my jacket pocket. I had to let Lily know what was happening. If I disappeared, too, poor Lily would freak. What if she got scared or distracted or depressed and didn’t finish the game? What if Darius never came for her and she died not knowing what had happened to us. No. Not okay.

  I pulled up her contact info, grateful we’d exchanged numbers, and my fingers flew over the small digital keyboard.

  Lily, it’s Mia. The game is real. Jamie is on Velerion with Alexius. I’m leaving now with Kass. Finish the game. Darius will come for you.

  I hit send and waited as Kass patiently watched me. Less than thirty seconds later I received Lily’s response.

  WTF? Is this a joke? What??????

  I was grinning now, bubbling over with anticipation and excitement and happiness. My life was about to go in a completely new direction, and I was so ready. So damn ready to do something different.