Somehow, being in this Titan fighter on another planet ripped every emotional Band-Aid from my modest, quiet, mouselike heart and turned me into a beast.
Yes, that’s what I felt like, an Atlan beast, filled with fighting rage. Huge. Powerful. Unstoppable.
Jumping up onto the top of the cannon, I wrapped my Titan arms around the firing tube, braced my feet against the base, and pulled. Twisted. Hard.
The cannon’s metal screeched with a fingernails-on-chalkboard rending sound as the firing bit tore away from the base.
“What. Am. I. Doing?” I whispered the question, and Darius backed up a few paces to look at me, his hands out in front of him as if warding off an attack.
Oh, he was going to get an attack, all right.
“Analysis of your tone indicates you are angry. I have been allowing your communications to Elite Starfighter Darius to broadcast on your private comm frequency.”
“Good.” I wanted him to know I was furious with him and his lack of faith in me. His overprotective bullshit.
Lifting the cannon piece, I threw it in his direction, not to hit him, but as a message. He avoided the large chunk easily. “Lily, talk to me. What is wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” Was he actually asking me that? And why was I suddenly on the verge of tears? Fucking brilliant.
The other Titan teams took down the last of the ground assault cannons, and I looked up as alarms blared in my helmet. Scythe fighters incoming. Lots of them.
“Move, Titans!” General Romulus’s voice jolted me from my own thoughts and back into action.
I jumped down from the rock and ran toward the entrance to Queen Raya’s bunker. More weapons fired from vents in the heavy doors, but they were much smaller than the cannons we’d just wiped out like a swarm of killer bees. They would pose no real danger. It was the fighters coming in from above that could destroy one of us.
“Lily! Take cover!”
“No!” I ran for the door, rage fueling me as hot blood poured through every cell in my body. I was not a child to be coddled and protected. I was not some silly girl who didn’t know how to protect herself, how to fight. I was an Elite Starfighter, and Darius had damn well better learn that and accept it, or we were going to have serious problems.
Maybe we already did.
I fell in step next to Bantia and Ulixes, the three of us the front line of an assault formation that spread out behind us like wings. We were the tip of the spear.
My blood pounded. Adrenaline flooded my already exhausted system. But we weren’t finished yet.
“Scythe fighters! Coming over the ridge!” someone shouted. I didn’t recognize the voice, but Athena’s displays informed me it came from someone in Titan team four.
Looking up as I ran, I saw two fighters blast over the top of the cliffs I’d just been climbing, moving faster than any jet I’d ever seen. Two more. Four. They were all in battle formations that I recognized from Starfighter Training Academy.
“Lily! Wait for me!”
“Four in the rear, take a knee and shoot those Scythe fighters out of the sky,” General Romulus ordered.
Display data showed the last four Titans peel off and take positions to defend the rest of us. Darius was one of them. I could hear him cursing in my helmet.
“Fuck! Goddamn it! Lily!”
But he did as General Romulus ordered.
“Break down that door. Ground assault is two minutes out.” Bantia’s order was clear and precise. We had two minutes until the smaller assault teams would be pouring into this bunker like water. Assuming we had the door open for them.
“On it!” I shouted, then used my boosters to fly to the topmost opening in the door. A large energy weapon rotated toward my face. I wrapped one Titan hand around the tip and pulled with all the power I could get from Athena.
The weapon hummed; the power surge so strong I could feel it pulsing up my arm inside the Titan’s protective armor.
Athena’s voice filled my helmet. “Lily, recommend you disengage. The weapon will destroy us in six…five…four…”
With a scream of frustration, I put every ounce of rage and fear and anxiety I’d felt since leaving Earth into my next pull.