13
Darius, Titan Tycho
I watchedLily climb inside her borrowed Titan and breathed a sigh of relief that she had not sought me out. Well, not me, but Dea, the Starfighter who was supposed to be on this mission.
Dea herself had helped me sneak on board the shuttle in the dark hours of the night. We’d swapped Titans so she could take Intrepidus on her newly assigned mission on Velerion while Tycho and I took her place out here. With Lily. My stubborn, beautiful pair-bonded female.
The launch sequence commenced and the Titan shot off the rail system as fast as I’d ever seen. I stood in the view room and waited until she’d confirmed her coordinates and fired her boosters.
There was no turning back now. For either of us.
She was mine. I was a fool. I’d humiliated her without realizing my mistake. Made her feel that I lacked confidence in her abilities when the opposite was true. She was strong. An excellent fighter. Fearless.
Just like my brother had been.
I was the one who was weak. Afraid to lose her. And yet, my need to keep her safe had driven her from my side, out here, to the most dangerous Titan mission ever attempted.
Somewhere out there were two other shuttles with two Titans on each. Bantia and Ulixes on one. A bonded pair I did not know well on the other. And if any one of our teams failed, Velerion would fall to Queen Raya and the Dark Fleet.
There were few things I was willing to die to protect. Lily was first. But second was my home. My planet. My people. We could not fail.
“Load up, Starfighter. We are approaching your launch coordinates.”
I nodded at the shuttle crew member as she walked by and made my way toward Tycho.
After climbing inside, I waited for the rail system to lift me into the launch position. My Titan swayed.
“Starfighter, loading has commenced.”
“Copy. Ready to load.”
I watched the inner support structures of the launch bay sway before my eyes. There was no change in gravity, or lack of. The only indication of my movement was the shifting position of the shuttle’s walls.
Fighting back the urge to bark at them to hurry the fuck up and get me to Lily, I bit my tongue.
“Launch sequence has commenced. Launch in ten…...five, four, three, two, one, launch.”
I closed my eyes as my display screens showed streaks of light moving past, the tiny pinpricks of light from distant stars had become lines of white in my peripheral vision.
“Tycho, check out coordinates and launch trajectory. Confirm our position and send it to the shuttle crew.”
A few seconds later my Titan responded. “Trajectory confirmed. Ready for booster burn.”
“Good luck, Starfighter.” The shuttle crew was nothing more than a dot on my monitors now.
“You too. See you on Velerion. Going dark.”
Tycho shut down our communications and non-vital systems so we could come up on the Cruiser with as little detectable noise as possible. I wasn’t sure this wild scheme of Mia’s was going to work, but no one had come up with a better plan and anything was better than sitting on Arturri waiting for Queen Raya’s armada to come and destroy our entire civilization.
And then there was Lily. She was out here somewhere. Alone. Angry with me. Hurting. I had done that with my obsessive urge to protect her. I needed to apologize, explain, get her naked and make her come over and over until she gave me another chance.
“Darius? Shall I fire boosters?” Tychoasked. He’d been silently waiting for my command.
“Increase thrust by five percent. I don’t want Lily on that Cruiser alone.”
“Five percent. Acceptable. However, our reserves will be on the red line.”
“Understood.” Red line meant I’d be running on luck and prayers if I needed to use them again. Red line was usually good for one adjustment or jump on the ground, but not much else.