Starfighter Command

by Grace Goodwin

  Kass was swiftly cuffed, but he didn’t make it easy. Sponder stepped close to Kass. While the captain was shorter, he must have felt as if he had the upper hand. Especially since Kass’s hands were restrained behind his back.

  “Not much of an MCS now,” Sponder said. “You’ll go down as a Velerion without honor.”

  Kass glared, then whipped his head forward, headbutting the fucker right in the nose. Holy shit. Blood spurted everywhere, and I stepped back. Sponder howled in pain and clutched his—most likely broken—nose.

  The guards yanked on Kass and started to push him out of the room.

  Scheisse.

  Gaius and Sponder followed, leaving a vacuum of silence. Then everyone started talking at once.

  “Quiet!” Jennix raised her arms, and silence quickly returned.

  Jennix swore under her breath, stared at the ground for a bit. No one moved. No one practically blinked while we waited. I was silent because I was stunned. I wasn’t in Germany where I could go back to my apartment, put on some sweats, and eat ice cream until I felt better after dealing with a colleague. I was in space. I hadn’t even been here a week and… scheisse. The only guy I’d wanted, depended on, craved, trusted—hell, even loved—was something I hadn’t expected.

  Hacking and pushing boundaries was one thing. That I could respect. But manipulating training programs when other people’s lives were at stake? When the consequences affected more than just him? Hell, the consequences of his cheating gave me to him. For life.

  Pair bonded. Permanently together.

  But what happened when the bond was created by a lie? When we hadn’t earned the right? When we hadn’t actually completed the missions? The training? Was I still a Starfighter if Kass was not?

  What happened now? Did I go back to Earth? I held my breath, waiting for Jennix to say something.

  “While that was… unpleasant,” she said, cutting into my thoughts, “the mission will proceed, as planned, in eight hours. All of you are required to rest, then coordinate with your team leaders. Support crews will be making preparations while you do.”

  “Wait. Don’t you wonder if I’m good enough?” I asked her but spoke to everyone.

  “We don’t have time to test you. You’re the best we’ve got.”

  “You’re not sending me back to Earth?”

  Jennix’s eyes widened. “No. Why would you assume that?”

  “I might not actually belong here.”

  I was no longer proud of what I’d accomplished. We might have been the only MCS pair bond, but we were shamed. My abilities were in question. Everyone on the mission would wonder if I might let them down. Let them die.

  “MCS Remeas will be investigated. The truth will become apparent. The mission must go on. The IPBM threat must be eliminated.”

  “But how—” I began. Jennix cut me off. I’d never flown with anyone but Kass. I’d only had him by my side for every level of the game. I knew nothing else. Could I even do my job with a stranger, no matter his or her skill? Could I do my job at all? They were counting on me to take down the moon base’s force field and frequency generators.

  “You will have a new flight partner, a pilot,” she said. “Obviously it won’t be Kass, but a qualified pilot nonetheless, the best we can find. He or she will be assigned prior to the mission.”

  I stepped closer, spoke softly so others couldn’t hear. “What about our pair bond? I mean, is it even real? If he cheated, would he even be allowed to stay bonded with me? What’s going to happen between the two of us?”

  She offered me a soft smile. Not of a general but of a female.

  Jennix pitied me. Just like if I’d been cheated on back on Earth. Kass hadn’t had an affair or anything like that, but the entire basis for our relationship was built on a lie. I’d told him about Earth dating and marriages and how I didn’t trust them. How could I trust our pair bond? Was there a pair-bond divorce?

  “Rest, MCS Becker. You have a job to do soon,” she said.

  I could only nod. I wasn’t familiar with the dynamics of the Velerion military. I’d never been a soldier, not like the rest of the group members. But I knew to be respectful. I thought I knew my place out here in space. It was in the MCS chair on the Phantom.

  Right?

  9

  Mia, Battleship Resolution, Personal Quarters

  * * *

  I was expected to sleep. It was actually required. I agreed, in theory. But the mission had been laid out and they expected us to just shut off all the plans, all the anxiety that went with something so dangerous, and sleep? And that was just the mission. That didn’t even take into account the rest.

  General Jennix expected me to go to the moon base and disarm the Dark Fleet controls by hacking in from the Phantom after my pair bond was arrested and thrown in the brig? For being a cheater?

  I laid in bed staring up at the ceiling. Willing myself to wind down and sleep. It wasn’t happening. The sheets were a tangle around my legs, and I turned onto my side. Stared at the wall. What was I going to do without Kass in the pilot seat? Could I even hack and take down the force field over Xenon? Was I even qualified? What if I failed? What if I actually couldn’t do it and Kass had done things to the training program to make me succeed?

  I now questioned everything I’d done in the game. Because everything I’d done had been with Kass.

  Had he been using me?

  Scheisse.

  Everyone was counting on me. On us, whoever the other half of the new MCS pair was.

  Us was supposed to be me and Kass. But now I had no idea what was real and what wasn’t.

  I paused, thought about what was real.

  Kass had admitted he’d hacked his way into the Starfighter program. That was fact. Sponder hated him. From what Kass had said, for a long time. When I’d first arrived on the battleship, Sponder was there. Waiting. He’d discovered Kass’s shift to the MCS group while Kass had been on Earth. Sponder hadn’t mentioned cheating then. He must’ve had someone look into it after that. But why? Jennix had been the one to tell Sponder off, not Kass. I’d even sassed him. Sponder didn’t like to be humiliated. That was fact, too.

  Why was Sponder such a dick? Had he always been one, or just to Kass?

  Kass was cocky. He bent the rules. Literally flew by the seat of his pants. Hacking into the Starfighter Training Academy and adding himself as a potential match wasn’t the end of the world. Jennix didn’t even seem to care.

  But cheating? Humans and Velerions had similar notions of honor.

  Kass was rebellious, without doubt. But a cheat? A liar? Something just wasn’t right.

  If Jennix wanted me to sleep, too bad. I climbed from the bed, threw on some clothes. A glance at the clock told me well over an hour had passed as my brain churned. Yeah, I’d rested.

  Now it was time to get to work. If Kass had broken into the system, there would be a path to follow, data and records showing him adding himself to the training program. Invisible bread crumbs of sorts. I’d find them. I’d also find out exactly how he had cheated.

  If Sponder had found it, I definitely could. And why had Sponder wasted time looking? The IPBMs were a huge problem. Everyone was working around the clock to deal with the issue. So why was Sponder so focused instead on Kass? A cheater was bad news, sure. But shouldn’t Sponder be focused on the most crucial issue of saving his planet?

  And why would he pull in that old guy? The commissioner. Sponder knew about the mission. He was the leader of Group Two. Yet he’d left his base and those under his command to deal with Kass instead. Here on the Resolution.

  There were answers here, and I was going to find them. Kass had showed me that the main computer controls were in the wall. But there was a portable unit, like a laptop, that could be pulled from it to work more efficiently. I took it from the small docking station beneath the comm display and went to the couch. Setting it on the low table before me, I got to work.

  This was my element. A comms scre
en, a keyboard, and access to data. Lots of data. I began to work my way through it, starting with the basic bio on Kass. When his smiling face came up on the screen, I ached for him. My body, sure, but my heart, too. When I’d accepted him as a pair bond, I hadn’t known he was real. I’d thought him part of a game.

  I’d loved him. Even then. But now? Now I followed the trail. Dug back to the day I’d started the game, when I’d chosen Kass by answering a partner questionnaire. I found his access even before then. His acceptance into the program. He’d been waiting.

  It showed it wasn’t me specifically he’d targeted. He was one of a long list of matches. It was my random data that matched to his. Statistically it was almost impossible for us to have been put together. But we had.

  Then I searched our training data. The scores at each level.

  I stilled. Froze.

  There it was. The original scores. The modified ones. The edits to the game code that made each level easier. Shorter. Gave additional lives. Points. All the advantages we’d need to win.

  Scheisse. He’d cheated. It was all right there.

  I leaned back on the couch. It was true. Sponder wasn’t lying.

  God, I hated Kass. I loved him, but I hated him for it. He’d made me believe. Made me think I was different. Special. Important.

  But I was just as Sponder had said. Less than. Not worthy.

  Somehow I had to push past my self-doubt. No one could deny I was good at hacking. On Earth and here as part of Velerion’s team. I didn’t trust people, but I trusted data. Could find it. Understand the ebbs and flows, find patterns.

  And something about this data was… off. Wrong. The feeling was pure instinct, and I didn’t try to deny it. Something about this entire situation was strange. Too personal. And data was not personal. Data was the absolute. Impartial. It didn’t lie.

  I couldn’t trust Kass, and I’d thought him worthy of it. I’d never trusted Sponder.

  I had no one else. No one had my back here. Sure, Jamie did, but she was based on Arturri. It wasn’t the same. I was on my own. So I let my fingers fly. I read. I cross-referenced. I correlated all the information, saved documents. News reports. I focused first on Sponder, then Commissioner Gaius. Discovered the programmer who had created the Starfighter Training Academy.

  That was one genius I’d like to meet.

  Sponder. That bastard had his fingerprints all over the place. And not just on Eos Station. His record went back more than a decade, and it was all a little too neat and tidy. Except for his issues with Kass, it seemed he had a squeaky clean, perfect record.

  An asshole like that? Yeah, right. He had friends in high places, that’s what Captain Sponder, nephew of Commissioner Gaius, had going for him. Nepotism at its finest and the chip on his shoulder to go with it.

  “Starfighter Becker.”

  I blinked, so entrenched in the data I thought I heard my name.

  “Starfighter Becker.”

  I had. “Yes,” I called, realizing I was being paged through the comms system.

  “Report to duty on the flight deck.”

  Report for duty? Now? I looked to the time, discovered hours had passed. I’d learned a lot about Sponder. Things he didn’t want anyone to know. He was a dick, but even though that was fact, everyone knew it. There was more. I was close to something big on him. I was exhilarated, amped on adrenaline. It was there, hovering in the data. Something was off about him.

  “I just need more time,” I murmured.

  “Negative,” the voice replied even though I hadn’t been speaking to her. “The mission begins in thirty minutes. You must be in your starfighter in fifteen. General Jennix wants you to meet your new pilot.”

  I glanced at the comm unit, even though it was only a voice transmission, not video. My new partner. I swallowed hard. I’d forgotten, lost in data. “Yes. I’ll be there.”

  I stood, stared down at the pseudo-laptop. It was in my nature to keep going. To keep digging until I had the answers. But the mission was more important. Kass had cheated. The data was there that proved it. He wouldn’t be flying with me. I also didn’t have the evidence—yet—that Sponder was more of a tool than Kass had said.

  I’d get the data. I’d get Sponder. And then I’d get Kass. Because I was pissed. He’d messed with the wrong woman. I just had to help save a planet first.

  Kass, Cell T-492

  * * *

  Gaius and Sponder accompanied me to the brig. They’d brought four guards to deal with me. I was flattered.

  When I looked at Sponder and his bleeding nose, I was pleased. The fucker.

  I didn’t say anything. Talking now wasn’t the time. I’d humiliated Sponder enough. Doing anything now in front of Gaius would be foolish. I had no idea how Sponder had pulled a commissioner in to help with his cause to see me demoted to a trawler hauler.

  And why? I hated the guy, but once I’d gotten reassigned to Starfighter MCS, I hadn’t wanted to think of him again. Yet he kept coming back. He’d shown up here on the Resolution not once, but twice to deal with me personally.

  Jennix had to know something was up.

  But the mission was huge. Any petty fuckery Sponder had against me was nothing compared to the constant threat of IPBMs blowing up Velerion or any of our outposts. Jennix was focused on that. Not me.

  I wasn’t worried about myself. I was worried about Mia. She’d accepted her role as Starfighter MCS, and she’d accepted me as her pair bond. Now, because of Sponder’s shit, she was going on a mission without me.

  It was my fault. My guts that were hated. My choices that would now affect her.

  She could die. Who was her partner for this mission? Was he or she qualified? As skilled as I was? Would they click and be able to work together as well as Mia and me?

  Of course not.

  And that was the motivation I needed to figure out how to get the hell out of the brig and onto the Phantom.

  I might have broken Sponder’s nose, but I wasn’t going to fight the guard. I had no issue with him. He was doing his job. After we entered the prison area, there was only one on duty. He’d stood for the commissioner and escorted us down the short corridor. I counted two cells. Clearly the Resolution didn’t have a lot of prisoners. I assumed any Dark Fleet captured would be taken elsewhere. This place was for those like me who were non-dangerous and would be transported to Velerion for a trial.

  In fact, I’d expected to be taken with Gaius and Sponder off the Resolution, but once we were outside of the mission room, they’d argued.

  “He should be taken to Velerion for immediate trial,” Sponder had said to Gaius.

  Gaius had disagreed. “The Starfighter is in custody, as you wanted. Jennix is correct. There is a mission to run that is critical to the survival of Velerion. This is not. He will remain here on the battleship until the mission is complete.”

  “But—” Sponder had sputtered.

  “Your shuttle teams from Eos Station will be without a leader, Captain. I expect you to focus on your job instead of this vendetta.”

  Vendetta?

  Gaius had been right. Sponder had one against me. Sponder’s hatred did not surprise me. However, his obsession with taking me down was a bit of a shock. I had expected him to be more than pleased to have me out of his way. To let me go. I had underestimated his need for vengeance, for control.

  I had Gaius to thank for the small window of time he’d given me. I had to get out of here before Mia took off. I would not have her flying with some random Starfighter MCS. The person at her side would be me.

  There would be serious consequences for my actions. Escape from jail after over fifty witnesses had watched my arrest wasn’t smart. Jennix wouldn’t be able to save me from this.

  But I had to take care of Mia, and that was what mattered.

  I rested for some time, waiting for an opportunity, dozing and watching for the guards to change shifts as I took in my surroundings. Noticed the panels covering the control system burie
d in the walls.

  This wasn’t my first time in the brig and I’d learned a few tricks but I had to time my escape perfectly. Mia needed me, which meant I had to get to her before the mission started, but not so much of a window that I’d be caught and dragged back down here.

  When the mission was just over an hour from launch, I took a deep breath.

  “Guard!” I called. In this brig there were actual bars for the cell, unlike the laser beams that were used for the high-level prison on Velerion.

  The guard came from his desk by the entrance. He was new to serve, perhaps only eighteen or nineteen years of age. “Your first post?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Must be boring.”

  The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You’re the first prisoner we’ve had since I was assigned.”

  “Someone on duty at all times?”

  “No, I’m part of the mechanic crew, but assigned as guard crew per diem.”

  “You’re on call for when a prisoner comes in.”

  “Right. Like you. What did you do to get thrown in here?” He eyed me a little warily, as if I’d gone on a murdering spree.

  “I pissed off an old commanding officer.”

  “They put you in here for that? Was it so bad a commissioner had to come from Velerion?”

  “Yup.” I sighed.

  “Well, tough luck, but I have to get back to my team before launch.”

  “You’ll just leave me?” I asked, faking concern.

  “Yes, but the electronic controls will monitor your well-being.”

  I glanced around. “Electronic controls?”

  He smiled. Pointed to the wall. “The system is state-of-the-art for a battleship. The monitors connect directly to the ship’s central command station. You’ll be monitored from there.”

  This kid was cool. A tech geek like me.

  “Before you go, think you can get me something to eat? I don’t want to be forgotten because of the mission.”