Starfighter Command Read online

  Starfighter Command

  Starfighter Training Academy - Book 2

  Grace Goodwin

  Starfighter Command

  Copyright © 2021 by Grace Goodwin

  Interstellar Brides® is a registered trademark

  of KSA Publishing Consultants Inc.

  * * *

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, digital or mechanical including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning or by any type of data storage and retrieval system without express, written permission from the author.

  * * *

  Published by KSA Publishers

  Goodwin, Grace

  Cover design copyright 2021 by Grace Goodwin

  Images/Photo Credit: deposit photos: sdecoret; Ensuper; innovari; kiuikson; Angela_Harburn

  * * *

  Publisher’s Note:

  This book was written for an adult audience. The book may contain explicit sexual content. Sexual activities included in this book are strictly fantasies intended for adults and any activities or risks taken by fictional characters within the story are neither endorsed nor encouraged by the author or publisher.

  Contents

  Get A Free Book!

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  A special THANK YOU to my readers...

  Find YOUR Interstellar Match!

  Do you love audiobooks?

  Let’s Talk!

  Get A Free Book!

  Also by Grace Goodwin

  About Grace

  Get A Free Book!

  Join my mailing list to be the first to know of new releases, free books, special prices and other author giveaways.

  http://freescifiromance.com

  Prologue

  Lieutenant Kassius Remeas, Planet Velerion, Eos Ground Station, Private Quarters

  * * *

  My fingers slid over the keypad with expert precision. Yeah, I knew they could throw me in the brig for this. My commanding officer, Captain Sponder, underestimated me, which was fine. I didn’t give a shit. If he wasn’t going to add me to the Starfighter Training Academy as a potential recruit, if he thought he was going to deny me the chance to become a pair-bonded Starfighter, he was wrong. I didn’t need him to approve me. If he was going to be an asshole, then I was going to hack into the system and do it myself.

  The Starfighter swirl popped up on the holographic monitor in front of me with a list of newly added candidates qualified for training. There were hundreds—people from Velerion, the Arturri moon base, every battleship and hex port.

  Everyone but me.

  Captain Sponder hated me with a passion I completely understood. But if I had to do everything over again so that he wasn’t my nemesis, I would change nothing.

  I focused on the display and analyzed the code my cipher implants allowed me to see. Connecting directly with the computer systems was a rare skill, one the Starfighter Mission Command Specialists, or MCS, coveted in their recruits.

  As long as a certain captain didn’t hate them, this skill would guarantee anyone a chance to enter Starfighter training. Which was great… for everyone else.

  I entered yet another password, hoping to crack the final layer of security on the program. The complex system interacted directly with the alien races the rulers of Velerion were counting on to save us. Aliens training to be Starfighters on other worlds.

  An orange string of code flashed across my vision before turning red and hovering there.

  * * *

  ACCESS: DENIED

  * * *

  “Asshole,” I breathed but wasn’t deterred. I’d been at it for two hours, trying to hack into the new training program’s back-end system. I’d get there. I was deep in the code. I just needed to crack one final level of security.

  There would be no stopping me. I had motivation and defiance driving me. Shuttling Starfighters from mission to mission was a solid job. Worthy. I did it with pride and skill. But it wasn’t front-of-the-lines. It was support and damned important to ending the Dark Fleet once and for all, but I was underutilized. Captain Sponder knew it but wanted to see me suffer. Perhaps I deserved his wrath for all the shit I’d pulled. No doubt I was cocky. No doubt I didn’t show the proper amount of respect for a superior officer.

  I’d done enough to earn Sponder’s raw hatred, and I’d ignored the consequences until he’d rejected me and kept me from the one thing I wanted: to be an MCS. He was holding not only me, but potentially other Starfighters back, and that didn’t sit well. I could have already been paired with a graduate of the new program and be out there kicking Dark Fleet ass.

  I had no idea who my potential match would be. Fuck, I wasn’t past the last firewall. I slowed my fingers, stared at the data before me, and considered why I’d been denied access so far. The new password system had been added to keep Velerions like me out, but specifically to ensure the Dark Fleet didn’t hack in, which meant there was a double parse code.

  My quarters were typical for a low-ranking officer on the ground station. I was a pilot in the shuttle fleet, had been for several years thanks to Captain Sponder and the rod he had shoved so far up his ass I didn’t know how he could sit in a chair. After a long day of shuttling crews and supplies between the surface of Velerion and the Battleship Resolution, returning to find yet another denial of promotion into the Starfighter Training Program—signed by Sponder, of course—had filled me with ice-cold determination. He’d denied me what I wanted for too long. I’d played by the rules—okay, maybe not all of them. But I’d done everything I was supposed to do, never putting what I wanted above the lives of the fighters I shuttled. Now I was tired of waiting.

  Everyone but critical personnel was asleep. Just like I was supposed to be. After pulling a ten-hour flight shift, I was required to rest. It was the rule. I would, but it wasn’t going to come until—

  * * *

  ACCESS: USER UNIDENTIFIED

  * * *

  I groaned but pushed on because I was getting somewhere. I could feel it. My fingers flew again. “I’m going to get in and get matched to my pair bond. Nothing—not even a stupid triplex-split pass code—is going to stop me,” I said to myself.

  I held my finger over the last key as I stared at the holographic data, the line of numbers and letters. This was it. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. My fingers itched. I had it. I knew it.

  I pushed the button.

  * * *

  ACCESS: GRANTED

  WELCOME CAPTAIN SPONDER

  * * *

  I almost cackled. Not only was I going to enter my data into the training system, but I was going to make it look like Sponder himself had done it.

  I spoke my command. “Enter new candidate.”

  I waited less than a second.

  * * *

  WELCOME TO THE STARFIGHTER TRAINING ACADEMY PORTAL. ENTER CANDIDATE DATA.

  * * *

  “Yes!” I shouted, the one word bouncing off my quarter’s thick walls. The holographic screen filled with instructions about what I needed to do next. I pulled in my service record.

  “Lieutenant Kassius Remeas, shuttle pilot.” I found my data file and confirmed its accuracy before submitting the file. I would need to complete my bio and survey, but first I had to stand and allow my body to be scanned to create my avatar. Cool. Next, the training
computer would use my voice and my image to interact with my potential partner. She would see a real version of me, just as I would see a real version of her.

  I stood, listened to the voice tell me what to do as every inch of me was visually imported into the training program. I would hope for a match, then train beside her. She would be a fierce, beautiful female. One who was my equal, my other half. She’d have to be skilled to train as an MCS. We would endure the simulations and welcome victory together.

  When the scan was done, I dropped into my seat and got to work, eagerly giving answers to the program’s questions. The avatar looked exactly like me, except it had converted my standard shuttle pilot uniform into the dark black of a Starfighter’s, complete with the metallic swirl worn only by the elite.

  “Damn, that looks good on you, soldier.” I chuckled, answering the survey and personality questions. I didn’t hold back the truth about myself. Arrogant. Aggressive. Defiant. Disobedient. I was who I was. I would be a Starfighter MCS.

  And Captain Sponder could go fuck himself.

  1

  One Year Later…Mia Becker,

  Berlin, Germany, 2:24 AM

  * * *

  I was ten minutes into the game. I was wired in, and my fingers flew over the controls. On-screen, Kassius, the Velerion hunk I’d created to be my training partner, sat in the pilot’s seat looking handsome and stoic and almost real. Handsome wasn’t the right word. Hot was better. When my friend and fellow player, Jamie, had said she had a crush on her imaginary sidekick, I hadn’t laughed because I had one on mine, too.

  Not a thirteen-year-old-girl boy-band kind of love, but an all-out, I-wanted-him-naked-in-my-bed kind of craving. My vibrator got a workout as I thought of Kass. Nightly and often twice on nights I played the game and spent hours listening to his voice. I knew it made me slightly crazy and a sign I needed to date more, but no men I met matched Kass’s… everything.

  The game, Starfighter Training Academy, was cool and challenging, but it wasn’t all that fun anymore. Not since Jamie had won the game and went radio silent two weeks ago. She’d literally disappeared after celebrating her win. Jamie, Lily, and I had all watched the cut scene finale as General Aryk congratulated her on becoming an Elite Starfighter. Watched when she’d accepted the pair bond to her game-made hottie, Alexius. Sat stunned as her screen had gone black. After that… nothing. No Jamie when I’d tried to connect to play again. Lily hadn’t had any better luck. Our friend had just poofed into thin air. Vanished.

  Gone.

  With my job in the intelligence community and my hacking skills, I couldn’t let it go. I’d accessed places a normal person wouldn’t dream of looking. She might live on the other side of the Atlantic, but everything in the world was online. In police files. Tax paperwork. Employment records.

  I’d even hacked Jamie’s employer’s database—which had been ridiculously easy—and discovered that she’d been terminated for not showing up for work. That had been over a week ago.

  Searching for family had come next. It was possible she was visiting her oma. But no. No grandmother. No father or siblings. Only a mother who was in a prison-run rehab program. Their log showed that Jamie had not called or visited once.

  “You have no idea where she is?” Lily asked through my headset as I watched her pound the side of a Dark Fleet stronghold into rubble with her giant mechanical fists. As usual we were playing together, and her destructive tendencies appeared to be opposite what I imagined when compared to her soft British accent. She was a librarian in real life but made me think of a prima ballerina swinging a sledgehammer when she played the game. Lily tore through Dark Fleet scum like a tank playing in the Starfighter Titan division.

  “None,” I replied. “I tracked her phone number and called. No answer. It’s like she vanished off the face of the Earth.” I spoke clearly into my headset as I looked to the pilot’s seat on the stealth ship Kass and I were flying for this mission in the game, which I hadn’t been able to beat.

  Yet. But Kass—yup, I’d given him a nickname—and I got closer to winning every time. As an MCS pair, he flew the Phantom, which was what I had named our ship. Generally, he piloted and I sat buckled into the computer that covered the copilot’s area as well as the entire rear of the cockpit, using my computer skills to hack into the Dark Fleet’s systems from the complex quantum processors as he moved in so close we could have reached out and touched the enemy with our bare hands.

  As I played, I spoke to Kass as if he were real, and he gave formulated responses. I even chatted when he never said anything back, as if we were truly side by side fighting the Dark Fleet. Anyone would call me crazy, but I was half in love with him.

  An avatar in a video game.

  An alien, no less, who was just pixels on my screen.

  Sometimes he seemed more real to me than the people I worked with. Then again, my colleagues were serious and dangerous, and we all lived with a lot of secrets. They were good people, loyal. Dedicated. Lonely. People like me.

  I never once fantasized about my coworkers. Never dreamed of being pushed up against the wall. Never imagined dropping to my knees and making any one of them lose their mind as my hair was tugged.

  “She hasn’t used her credit cards?” Lily asked, breaking me from my dirty thoughts. About an alien in a video game. Maybe Jamie was in an insane asylum and I would be joining her next.

  “How would I know that?”

  “Don’t bother lying. I know what you do.” Lily’s chuckle followed as her Titan mechanical warrior—something like a Mech Warrior or a Transformer straight out of an action movie—jumped on top of a low-flying enemy shuttle and ripped off the communication panel with its powerful hands. “This the one you want?”

  My eyes widened as she’d done that so easily. We’d all improved as we’d played together. Jamie had won the game first because she’d been a badass as a starfighter pilot. “Easy, Lily. There are bombs on that shuttle. They could blow.”

  This bomb-run mission was a new addition to the game with enemy weapons that could easily take us both out. Then it would be game over.

  Our mission task—mine and Kass’s—was to hover over the shuttle and remain hidden from the Dark Fleet ships’ sensors, take control of that shuttle through hacking, then redirect it at the Dark Fleet’s armada and blow them all to bits, using their own weapons against them.

  “Not going to happen.” Lily’s Titan jumped off the shuttle as Kass flew us in close.

  “Thanks, Lily.”

  “Go get ’em!”

  I grinned as I hacked into the shuttle’s navigation system and remotely steered it away from the planet’s surface.

  “You’re fifteen seconds ahead of where we were last time.” Lily’s voice was husky with excitement. “You’re going to bloody do it this time, Mia. You’re really going to do it!”

  My gaze dropped to the timer in the lower right corner of the screen. Fuck, yes!

  My nerves were finally coming to life. I’d never made it this far before. I held my breath. This could be it. Final victory. Or we’d be blown up, our game lives gone, and we’d have to start the mission over. Again.

  I might actually beat the game this time. Not Lily. She didn’t have enough experience points. She needed to level up and tackle her final mission.

  “If I do this, Lily, you’re the only one of us left.”

  “I’m right behind you in points. It’s not the same without Jamie. And it won’t be without you.”

  That was assuming my screen went black like Jamie’s had and Lily would have to play without the two of us. She’d just have to use game-generated playing partners until she finished her final mission.

  “I gave you my phone number so you have it and you can call me. I’ll find Jamie.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I’ve got a few favors I can call in.”

  “In the United States?”

  A reasonable question since I lived and worked in Ge
rmany.

  “Yes. Among other places.”

  “You’re scary sometimes. You know that?”

  Coming from Lily, I wasn’t sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment. She was a one-woman wrecking ball in the game. And her on-screen partner, Darius, was even crazier.

  “Yes. I do know that.”

  Nothing stopped me when I had a goal, and right now I wanted to win. However, winning this game had a downside. I didn’t want to say goodbye to Kass. He was tall, dark, and handsome, of course. But he was also insanely brave, funny, and a real pain in the ass. He made me laugh and scared the hell out of me at the same time. He was arrogant and unpredictable. He was sex and danger and protection all rolled into one.

  He wasn’t real. I knew it, but scheisse, he was the one for me. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted any flesh-and-blood human male. Pathetic but true. Jamie and Lily understood. In fact, Lily had once discussed purposely losing the game so we wouldn’t have to give up our make-believe alien men.

  I watched on-screen as Kass timed our cloaked ship’s movement perfectly and dived directly beneath the wing of a Dark Fleet shuttle, their smallest, most heavily armored transport. The cloaking technology worked, and they never noticed us.