The First Starfighter, Grace Goodwin [popular novels .TXT] 📗

could click through them using my main joystick and controller, but I didn’t need to do that.

Although I could. One entire mission in the game—I glanced at Alex—in the training program—had been about mastering every single command and control mechanism in the ship, including those Alex ran from the copilot’s seat. And worse, I’d had to do so with the emergency helmet locked in place. The helmet was part of the flight suit but only deployed in case of an emergency.

That stupid mission had taken me two weeks of obsessive, angry gaming. I’d rage quit more than once, the task seeming impossible at the time. But now I was grateful for the intensity and time I’d spent learning how to operate every part of the ship, even when something was damaged or not working correctly.

I knew this ship inside and out. Even the very small jump seat area behind us was familiar. In one mission I’d had to pick up three stranded traders and cram them into the space, which wasn’t much bigger than the extended cab of a pickup truck and had one less seat belt. The entire ship’s body wasn’t much larger than a private jet’s back home, but the engine and weapons took up most of the space. There was no chandelier-and-wine-tasting interior. Two dark flight seats side by side and enough room for two adult passengers, three children, or a handful of supplies in the back.

This was a short-range fighter, not a shuttle or transport.

“Valor, you are clear for launch in three…”

I squirmed in my seat. Holy shit.

“Two…”

I bounced now, too excited to sit still. A quick glance at Alex showed he was watching me and grinning like the cat who ate the canary.

“One… Launch.”

With a flick of my wrist I moved the controller forward and the ship took off like a bullet fired from the barrel of a rifle. I felt like a bullet, too, as the acceleration threw me back into my seat.

This had not been in the game.

God, the vibration, the sound, the hum… the guy beside me…

The flight-suit armor I wore had somehow connected with the ship’s control system, and the suit pressurized, hugging me tightly from toes to shoulders the moment we began to move. Good thing, otherwise every bit of blood in my body would have rushed to my feet and legs, and I would have fainted.

We were pulling some serious g’s. Roller-coaster-on-steroids g’s.

“Yaaaaaaaas!” I let out a yell, then a whoop as the Valor shot down the launch tube and out into open space.

Silence.

Darkness.

Billions of stars shining on a carpet of deep black.

“Holy shit.” The weight of the moment made my chest clamp down until I had trouble breathing. This was real. Space. Aliens. I was flying a starfighter while sitting next to Alexius of Velerion with a real planet full of billions of people now counting on me—me! A daughter of a drunk, fatherless, high school graduate—to save them. All I’d done was excel at a video game. And yet… it hadn’t been a game.

“Oh my God.”

“Your heart rate is elevated, Starfighter Valor. Do you require assistance?” The voice of the launch control operative from Bay 4 interrupted my panic.

I took a deep breath, let it out. “No. Just taking a moment to adjust.”

She chuckled. I heard her, and I knew she had left her comm unmuted purposely. “Understood. Welcome to Arturri. Enjoy the ride. It’s a beautiful night.”

“Night?” I turned to Alex, and he pointed to his right.

“We are on the dark side of Velerion at the moment. Vega will crest the horizon in a few minutes if you want to watch your first sunrise from space.”

Did I?

“Yes.” I wanted to do a dozen different things, but seeing a sunrise on a new world with the sexiest man who’d given me the best orgasm of my life at my side? Definitely.

Impossible to miss now that I was looking, the massive planet directly below us filled my navigation screen. I turned our ship toward the new world and moved in the direction Alex pointed.

“Throttle back. We don’t want to be too close.”

I did as he instructed and held us in position halfway between the moon base and the planet’s surface, adjusting as the planet moved around its star. “What’s it like down there?”

Alex stared at his home world as he answered. “Peaceful. Beautiful.” He turned his head away from me, then pointed. “Look.”

I gasped as Vega, the Velerion star, peeked above the horizon. From here, the star moved quickly, enveloping us in bright light in a matter of moments. But even more spectacular was the view of Velerion.

White, swirling clouds. Deep turquoise seas, the darker blues of the water closer to what I assumed were their north and south poles. The land below looked like Earth. Some green. Some brown with desert sands. The shapes of the continents were all wrong, but still I recognized them. I’d seen them before, in the game.

“Velerion is beautiful.”

“Yes. Our people are peaceful. Queen Raya must be stopped.”

Total mood kill.

Several minutes passed as we hovered in place and I took it all in. The planet. Their star, Vega. Billions and billions of stars in an endless ocean of black. I really, really, really was in outer space now. Inside a small ship not much bigger than my mother’s old beat-up minivan.

Good God. What the hell was I doing out here?

“You ready to see what Valor can really do?” he asked.

My smile was instant, and I jumped on the distraction before I could get more homesick for a place that had never really felt like home. “Do bankers love money?”

“What?”

“Never mind, everyone loves money.” I pulled the controls to move us away from the planet. “Give me some coordinates, Alex. ‘I feel the need, the need for speed.’”

He didn’t even blink at the Top Gun movie reference. He’d probably roll his eyes and laugh if he ever saw it.

“The Valor is an Elite Starfighter class zero-one-zero-one. The newest ship we have. Her top