Read the opening below to get a real feel for the characters, voice, and pacing before choosing an edition.
Starfighter Command
by Grace Goodwin
Chapter 2
Kass, Pilot on Transport Shuttle XF41, Airspace above Eos Station
“Shuttle XF41, this is Eos Station. Come in.” The Velerion ground base comm officer hailed my shuttle. I’d just dropped a bonded pair of Starfighter Titans and a dozen ground troops at the outer grid for a training exercise. I was coming in for the day. Done.
“Eos, this is XF41. Go ahead.”
“Lieutenant Remeas, you are to return to the Battleship Resolution immediately.”
“I dropped off their team. Are you sure?”
“Orders are to return to the Resolution at once to receive modified mission instructions.” The ground tech’s voice came through the cockpit loud and clear. Apparently I was not yet done with today’s taxiing service.
“Copy that, Eos. Going back to the Resolution.” I replied, checking my display for speed and expected arrival time. “What are the mission modifications? Does someone else need transport?”
I was tired and needed to sleep before I could be assigned another mission. All I wanted was to take a shower and stroke off to my usual fantasy of Mia, my Starfighter training partner, yelling at me while we fought in the simulations together and taking her against the wall to silence that sharp tongue. If the new mission instructions delayed that, it might be an issue because my body was hard for her, even now, alone in space.
“Per protocol, you are to report immediately to Battleship Resolution. You have been reassigned to Starfighter MCS. Your partner has completed the training program and must be retrieved immediately from their home planet.”
My breath caught in my throat. Holy shit. With the time delay between Velerion and Earth, the training simulations we participated in together were an odd mix of recorded messages and mission reviews. Mia would go through a training simulation and then I would be notified and load up the program to experience and participate in the mission simulation myself. I knew Mia now. Her reactions. The tone of her voice when she was exasperated with me. I assumed she was familiar with me as well, as many of the pre-recorded messages I created were spoken in the heat of battle. The new Starfighter training system was like an odd game of virtual tag. We both had to learn and make adjustments on our own before the training simulation would allow us to win as a team.
And now, we were finished. Training complete. Mia was a Starfighter and so was I.
“Lieutenant?” The comms officer at Eos Station sounded confused by my silence, but this was a lot to process. Mia was mine. I was a Starfighter MCS. Free from Sponder’s control and free to make my own destiny at last.
“Shuttle X41, do you copy?”
“Yes. Earth. Mia’s on Earth.” I stared out the window at the blackness of space on my left and the looming Eos Station, a massive, sprawling ground complex on Velerion.
The comms officer chuckled at my rattled response.
“Congratulations, Starfighter. General Jennix is expecting you to report for duty.”
It had to be real if Jennix was giving the order.
My heart started to pound, and I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. The shuttle was empty. Ensuring the comms were off first, I shouted out my pleasure.
“Fuck, yes!”
She’d done it. My Mia. The female I’d been matched to for months. Who I longed to touch and craved like a drowning man needed air. Since I’d hacked my way into the training program, I’d kept the fact that I’d been partnered to a female MCS trainee a secret. From everyone. Friends didn’t know. Fellow shuttle pilots either. No one. In fact, the only one I could speak to about the training program was Mia, who was in the simulation itself. And that conversation had been limited to the few prerecorded options available. There certainly wasn’t one that said, Finish the mission and I will reward you with my head between your thighs.
I’d heard her voice. I’d spent hours and hours in the simulation fighting beside a recorded version of her. Yet I’d never seen a real image of her, only her avatar. Brown hair I ached to run my fingers through. Full lips. Dark eyes so intense and filled with secrets I longed to push her until that rigid control broke and she became fire under my touch. And she would burn. I saw the passion in her gaze, saw it in the way she battled next to me in our training ship, aptly named Phantom.
Since I was being sent to retrieve her from Earth, it meant she had not only finished the Starfighter Training Academy; she had accepted my prerecorded request to pair bond with me. Fight with me. Be mine. Forever.
When my match to Mia had occurred, I’d expected to be called into Captain Sponder’s office so he could yell at me for insubordination. But that had never happened. No alarms had been raised when I’d been matched to Mia. No one had known, which only made my satisfaction sweeter. There were so many around the universe using the training program, I figured there was no way any officer in the Velerion fleet would have time to monitor them all, which meant I’d flown under the proverbial radar.
At least until now, when a recruit from a far-off planet actually finished and impacted the current role of someone like me. Since Mia had graduated and was now a Starfighter MCS, that meant I was one, too. It also meant I’d meet her in person. Soon get her beneath me. Tell her how much that bossy mouth made me crazy. I wouldn’t have to get off to thoughts of her. I’d get her off.
And thank her for ensuring I now outranked Captain Sponder and his hatred.
The grin that spread across my face was unavoidable.
“Starfighter, you have not altered course to the Battleship Resolution.”
Starfighter. He called me Starfighter. Fuck yes!
“Is there a problem?” The comm officer from Eos Station must have been monitoring my position on their sensors.
“No, Eos. No problem. On my way. XF41 out,” I said once I had my voice and emotions under control. No, my emotions weren’t under control. I’d done it. Well, I’d hacked into the system and added myself. No, I hadn’t done much except that and partner with the most amazing, smart, and talented human. She’d worked her ass off in all the simulations. We had. I’d been with her on mission after mission, watched as she’d failed. As she’d succeeded. Learned. Grew. Because she’d done all that, I’d been able to enhance my flying skills, tie in my own computer abilities to hers. Every simulation and training session we each completed had to relived and completed by the other.
The long distance between Earth and Velerion made the training more difficult, but somehow we had become a powerful pair. So skilled that as far as I’d heard, Mia and I were only the second pair to complete the new training program.
Word had spread fast about the newest Starfighter pilot, about how Jamie Miller, a human female, had become the first recruit from Earth. If I was getting word of Mia’s success, then everyone at Eos Station would have heard. And know that she had chosen me.
Definitely.
Mia was it. The second Starfighter, but this time a Mission Control Specialist would come to Velerion instead of a pilot. My MCS. I would see her in person. Talk to her. Hear her laughter. Touch her. Fuck her. Now she was mine.
* * *
Mia, Treptowers, Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt (BKA)), Berlin, Germany
I stared at the nearest screen, one of six, and watched the data change. The chart shifted in real time, and I was able to analyze and make changes swiftly to the data I’d requested for my latest project.
They might have stuck me behind a desk—as I deserved after the clusterfuck my so-called informant had made of our last investigation—but I was determined to be useful, to prove myself. Getting over the two agent deaths my bad information had caused? That would take longer.
Maybe they were right about me. Maybe I should have chosen a profession outside of law enforcement. Like knitting. Or gardening. At least then the only deaths I would be responsible for would be plants.
And who could make a damn plant grow anyway? In fact, the stupid plant I had on my desk was dead, the brown, crispy leaves taunting me with yet another failure.
Damn it.
I picked up the small pot and dropped the whole mess into the garbage bin under my desk. Gone. Next.
The windows of my office afforded me a view of the city’s charming mix of new and old buildings, but heavy rain streaked the glass and a thick fog obscured all but the post-war offices across the street. My mood matched the weather. The night before, I’d finished Starfighter Training Academy. Lily and I had watched as I was congratulated by the Mission Control Commander, General Jennix. Her avatar showed a woman with black hair streaked with silver at the temples, focused hazel eyes and a back so straight I wondered if she was a cyborg with a metal spine. But the sound of her voice through my speakers had been almost eager. I remembered the same screen, the same words spoken when Jamie had completed the game, although a different general had welcomed her. Perhaps because she’d been a pilot instead of MCS? I had no idea, but I distinctly remembered a tall, dark, and handsome man. General Aryk?
Jamie had accepted the game’s ceremonial bonding to Alexius of Velerion with mine and Lily’s coaxing. The first time we’d all seen the final cut scene, the pair bonding questions had been exciting if a bit weird. Jamie might have hesitated that day. Not me. I’d pushed the X button before Lily even prompted me. Maybe because I’d won after Jamie and knew what to expect, the oddly personal nature of the scene had seemed less daunting. Or maybe I just wanted Kass so badly that accepting a fictional bond with a man was the most exciting thing I’d done in months.
My gut instinct insisted that accepting this pair bond with a fictional alien, that beating the game was somehow the key to finding Jamie. I was insane, definitely, to think that, but I needed to know what had happened to her. If following in her footsteps led me to her whereabouts, I’d do it.
Because I was desperate. I’d exhausted every legitimate option I had. The data I was watching scroll by on my monitor offered me no help. I did my work, but I had also used my inside skills and connections at the Federal Criminal Police Office to search for one Jamie Miller of Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. With zero success.
“Mia?” A colleague from the data lab knocked on the door to my office.
“Yes?”
“Sorry. The whole thing’s gone. Scrubbed and overwritten.”
“Scheisse,” I muttered, swearing under my breath. The game, the data, and my game console’s hard drive had been wiped clean? “Are you sure?”
He rolled his eyes at me as he placed the unassembled console on the seat of the chair in front of my desk. “I don’t make mistakes, Becker.”
Not like you. I don’t get people killed.
I could practically hear the accusation in his tone, read behind the lines. But I didn’t blame him for his rage. One of the agents who’d died had been his friend. And mine. But no one seemed to remember that.
“Sorry. Stupid question. Thank you.”
He nodded and left, softly closing the door to my office behind him. Of course he was sure. He was very good at his job. I was talented with computer code and with reading people. But no one could hack into a system that had no data to break into. Not even me.
If this blackout was a game defect or a recall issue, I had heard nothing of it. I’d spent hours in gamer chats since Jamie had disappeared, searching for anyone else who had managed to beat the game, with no luck. I was cranky. The exhilaration of winning had been short-lived. Just like with Jamie, my screen had gone black after I’d accepted the role as Starfighter MCS. After I’d accepted Kass as my pair-bonded, lifetime fighting partner.
It was as if I had blown up my game with the push of a single button. There was nothing left of my score, my avatar. Or Kass.
I couldn’t even start the game over.
I’d tossed and turned all night, frustrated by the fact that if the game was dead, then I wouldn’t hear Kass’s grumbling voice ever again. Thank goodness I’d taken photos of him on the gaming screen and saved them to my phone like a lovesick teenager. Not that I would ever admit that fact to another human being. But I’d taken some very personal time staring at that image of Kass while in my bed.
So far I’d spent the day tackling my new punishment projects—as I liked to think of them—and even more time scouring the system for clues about Jamie’s disappearance. There was nothing. Now the analysts had confirmed what I already knew in my heart.
Everything was gone. Wiped. Destroyed. The Phantom. The missions I’d completed. And Kass, the imaginary man I’d spent the last few months obsessing over.
I was an idiot to become emotionally attached to a fictional character. But there wasn’t much room for dating in my line of work, and Kass had somehow become more real to me than any man I’d ever dated. Which was no surprise if a few dinners followed by casual sex could be called dating. Eventually the men I “dated” all grew tired of my secrecy. I didn’t tell them who I worked for or what I did. Most of them didn’t even know my real name.
Then I’d started the game and saw Kass, and my interest in dating had stopped completely. No one held my interest but him.
“Stop moping, you big baby,” I scolded myself and tried to focus on work. Two long hours remained until I could go home and laze around the apartment. I’d spend another sleepless night with no update on Jamie, no game time with Kass to soothe my nerves, and no idea what to do next.
I was the expert in getting answers. Yet I had none, which made me even more cranky.
All I knew was that I missed my friend. I missed playing the game I’d won and then broken. I missed Kass, a video game–created alien that didn’t even exist.
Without doubt, I worked too much. I needed to get out more. Meet real people. Learn a new hobby. Spelunking. Pretzel making. Hell, even go on some kind of adventure vacation.
Anything as long as I didn’t have to admit to anyone I was upset and frustrated because I was lusting after a computer-generated avatar and my only link to him had blown up.
My desk phone beeped. I picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
“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.
