“Life support down to fifty percent.”
“Ahhh! Shut. Up.” I knew the game’s copilot couldn’t actually hear me, but I chose the appropriate response on the menu provided on-screen to tell him off and keep fighting. “There are only three of them left.”
“You’re going to run out of air.” Mia’s nervous energy was palpable.
Fuck that and the incessant Beep of Doom. “I’m either going to run out of air, or I’m going to blow up three more bad guys and we’re going to complete this mission.”
“Do it!” Lily was fully on board now.
Everything faded as I leaned forward in my gaming chair, closer to the screen. My body flowed. My fingers flew over the control buttons. I knew the game. Knew my ship, knew where the enemy was going to fly before they did. I’d played hours and hours. Hundreds of hours to reach this moment.
I fired. Again.
Two down, one to go.
“Return to base. Oxygen level critical,” Alex said.
“No.” I muted my copilot. Normally I would not have done that, as his sexy voice provided half the fun of playing. But this time I wanted to win. I didn’t want to be safe. It seemed as if his warnings were meant to keep me alive rather than win against Queen Raya. I was going to blow that last bad guy’s ship out of existence if my avatar died doing it.
“Holy shit!” Lily shouted.
“Focus. You got it, Jamie. You got it.” Mia’s calm voice grounded me in the familiar. It was only a game, but this victory mattered to all three of us.
“Almost.” I steered my fighter to follow the last enemy combatant, leaning to the right. “Almost.” I followed the Dark Fleet’s Scythe fighter back toward the planet surface, leaning to the left. He was headed into a deep ravine. One I’d flown into too many times before. And failed. The same ravine that had been the site of an ambush that had killed an entire squadron. “Oh no, you don’t!”
I fired without mercy, moving fast, so fast I knew there was a chance my ship might not survive when I tried to pull up out of the dive.
The enemy ship exploded in front of me. Red flames filled my screen.
Mia shouted.
Lily screamed.
I tried to breathe as I pulled back on the controller and flew straight through the debris on the screen. I was winded, and I had barely moved. “Holy shit. I made it.”
“You did it! You maxed your XP! You finished the training academy.” Mia’s voice was shaky, and I realized how much she’d been holding back. “You beat the game! You awesome, badass bitch, you did it!”
I flopped back in my chair. Stared at the screen.
“Did Jamie just say holy shit, or am I hallucinating?” Lily asked, knowing full well I didn’t swear. Except for now. Lily, on the other hand, used curse words in every sentence, the way a baker put frosting on a cake.
“Shut up, you foul-mouthed wench.”
Lily and Mia were both laughing as the music coming from the game went silent. The screen changed, and we all stared in rapt silence to see what would happen next.
Alex’s face filled the screen. This time he was smiling, although for him that was just the corner of his mouth tipping up.
“Congratulations, Starfighter. You defeated Queen Raya and the Dark Fleet. Your victory returned the Vega System to Velerion control.”
The view expanded to show Alex’s torso, and his hand came up, taking the crest from his uniform shirt and holding it out to me. “As stated in the training protocols, our Starfighter pair has been victorious. We have now been assigned a permanent partnership.”
“What?” Mia shouted, but I could hardly hear her over Lily’s squeal.
Next to him on the screen appeared the words Starfighter Bonding Ceremony.
Um, what?
“We have been paired through the Starfighter Velerion training program. We have spent many hours training together. Fighting together. Do you accept my crest as a sign of our permanent bond? Will you stay with me, Starfighter? Will you remain at my side and fight with me to the end of our days?”