9
Alex, Starfighter Base on the Moon Arturri
The ship was guidedin through the last grid by the autonav system, and the sigh I heard escape from Jamie echoed my thoughts exactly.
What a nightmare. An unexpected confrontation and fight with the Dark Fleet.
On her first day. I’d hoped to ease her into a battle, but that was the way of it with Queen Raya. Fuck.
Jamie had been so happy and excited about seeing the ship. She’d thrown herself into my arms, and I’d dragged her to the control room, getting a taste of what our future might be. Full of trust. Passion. A partnership in all things.
After, when we’d taken the starfighter out, she’d smiled with my home world spinning below us, the joy on her face making her radiant. Shockingly beautiful. Just watching her, I’d wanted her more than I had before, enough to bring me to my knees.
Then the Scythe fighters attack had killed every ounce of happiness in her. She couldn’t question if this was real now. Our role in this war was devastatingly dangerous. The damage to the Valor was proof of that. An entire section of the rear weapons system was half missing, the control panel nothing more than scorched remnants. The cockpit cover had taken damage from our high-speed encounter with debris from the first ship Jamie had destroyed, the cracks not deep enough to kill us but enough that the entire cover would have to be replaced. The laser cannon power supply was down by fifty percent, and our front-facing missiles were gone. We would need replacements at once. Unfortunately, as I inspected the bottom side of the wings, I saw that two mounting brackets had been damaged as well.
The best repair crew on base would need several hours to repair the minor damage. I had no idea how long the weapon control system would require.
A full day? Two?
I had walked around the entire ship inspecting the damage while Jamie sat in the pilot’s seat, staring at nothing, and I had not registered her distress.
What kind of bondmate was I? It angered me that I would only find my bondmate through a training program, that the only reason she would come to Velerion was because of her fighting prowess. I’d intentionally brought my mate from her own home world to fight in my war, for my people. She was beautiful and soft, and I’d made her face death. I’d been beside her and watched her kill.
Wanted her to kill. Been thrilled and proud of her skill. I had not thought of what any of this would mean for her. She’d played a game, not trained for battle as I had.
“Jamie?”
Startled, she crawled out of our ship, and I held up a hand to assist her down the retractable steps. Even though she placed her palm in mine, she didn’t see me. She appeared to be so tangled up in her own thoughts it was as if she were on another planet.
Maybe she was wishing she were back on Earth. Maybe she’d changed her mind and wanted me to return her. I’d promised to do so, which did not bode well for me or for Velerion.
“Jamie?” I said her name again, softly. The input from the space battle had been an onslaught. She didn’t need more from me.
“What?” She was looking at her hands, turning them this way and that as if inspecting a wound.
“Are you all right?” I set my hand on her shoulder, and I felt a shiver run through her small frame.
That got her attention. She removed her helmet, and I did the same as I waited for her answer.
“No. I’m not.”
She looked up as we both heard a wave of people moving forward in the docking bay, their excited shouts reaching us long before they would cover the distance. With narrowed eyes, she watched as two service techs ran forward to grab our helmets for us. They would be cleaned, inspected, and placed back in our ship within the hour in case we needed to go back out. I glanced at the battered and blasted areas of our ship.
“How do soldiers do this?” she asked without looking my way.
“Do what, exactly?” I asked. “Save lives? Fight for what they love? Protect people who can’t protect themselves?”
“Kill.” She lowered her hands to her sides and looked at me with a sadness in her eyes I remembered feeling a long time ago. “I’m not a Marine, Alex. I’m a delivery driver. I know it’s not a game, not after that. But I played your training program as one. I got good because it was fun, not because I was trying to save a planet full of people.”
I pulled her close and breathed a sigh of relief when she allowed the contact. I hugged her to me, kissed the top of her head. She was soft and warm, and I could feel her breathing. She was alive. She was in my arms, and that was what she needed.
“This,” I said, giving her a squeeze. “Me and you. No matter what you think, we’re not a game. Never.”
She nodded, her forehead sliding against my chest. Fuck, holding her was what I needed. Fighting the Dark Fleet had never weighed so heavily on my chest before. While working undercover on Asteroid Syrax, I’d felt the pressure to find the traitor, but this with Jamie was so much more intense, the threat of losing her much more painful than anything I’d faced since my brother’s death.
“You are an Elite Starfighter, bondmate,” I reminded. “We were in the Valor together. We are a team. Nothing you do is done alone.”
For me, I would be alone no longer.