Darius stiffened next to me, and I caught the alert gaze of Ulixes watching us. “It’s not important.”
I was not a fool, but I did not want to make a scene. I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back in my chair as the face of the Velerion General Romulus filled the screen. His voice was deep, his gaze direct. There were lines of exhaustion around his dark eyes and full lips. It was impossible to determine his age. He could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty years old. His face filled the once-blank space on the wall, and he appeared to be staring straight at me.
“Can he see us?” I asked Darius.
“Yes.”
Brilliant. I should have packed some waterproof mascara and blush. With my pale skin I looked like a vanilla muffin that needed a bit more browning time in the oven. Half-baked and soft in the middle. Hell, soft everywhere. I was no warrior. I only played one in my video game.
“Welcome, Starfighters. I am pleased to introduce Titan Team Seven, Darius of Velerion, whom you should all remember, and his newly pair-bonded mate, Lily Wilson from Earth.”
The room erupted into applause and shouts of excitement as we were formally introduced to the rest of the Starfighters. When the brief round of cheers quieted, General Romulus continued.
“We welcome you both to the fight to defeat Queen Raya of Xandrax and her Dark Fleet allies.”
With his next breath he launched into a fifteen-minute recap of their last mission where, apparently, Mia—my friend Mia—had saved the day like a real-life superhero. According to the general, bad guys had taken over a Velerion colony, enslaved the people, and forced them to use their factories to make a bunch of planet-destroying missiles, which had then been fired at both Velerion and Earth.
What the hell?
Why were they attacking Earth? We weren’t part of this alien war.
Were we?
I breathed a sigh of relief when General Romulus shared that both missiles had been destroyed before reaching their destinations and that Elite Starfighter pilots continued to run around-the-clock patrols to intercept more.
Hence the reason I had yet to see Jamie. Assuming she was really here as Mia had claimed when she texted me.
The general displayed ship locations, planetary orbits that were identical to the fictional planets in the game. I had seen all of this before, in a headset back on Earth.
However, if I’d had any doubt that this was a real war, they were gone when he finished speaking. Either this was real, or I was in a coma somewhere back on Earth drooling on my straitjacket.
“Any questions?” Ulixes asked those assembled as he stepped forward. No one spoke.
“Good. Now, your mission, Titan Teams, is to infiltrate and destroy one of the few remaining underground facilities controlled by Queen Raya’s forces on Xenon. We have cleared ninety percent of the planet’s surface; however, we continue to encounter resistance. The facility we will destroy was built after occupation. The structure is heavily armored and has extensive ground defense weapons. We have our Starfighter MCS teams working on a jamming system that may blind the targeting computers; however, that will not prevent manual operation.”
“How many?” Darius asked.
“Twenty aboveground turrets have been identified so far, but there may be more.”
A few grunts were the only indication I had of whether twenty was an average number. During missions in the game—training simulation- I had to stop thinking of it as a game—during the training simulations, twenty would have been an above-average defense for one facility.
“Get your Titans ready, Starfighters. Shuttle pilots are on their way from Eos Station now to give you a ride. Mission specifics have been loaded into your Titans. I expect you all to be experts on that facility by the time you drop.”
Bantia raised both hands above her head and yelled out, “Two hours, Titans.”
Holy shit. I was going on my first mission in two hours? I hadn’t even seen a Titan in real life yet. What if I didn’t know how to work it? What if it was different?
“Ground and pound,” someone spoke behind me.
All the Titans in the room lifted a fist and slammed it down on the table in front of them in a unified boom.
Just. Like. The. Training. Simulation.
The room cleared quickly as I stared at the now blank wall in front of us. For the first time since Darius had knocked on my door, this felt real.
Like I might die, I might get hurt…I might have to kill someone, real.
Darius watched me in silence until we were alone. He reached forward and touched my cheek with his fingers. “Are you all right?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
He leaned in and kissed me until I melted.
“That’s better.” Forehead pressed to mine, he stared into my eyes. “Ready to climb into your Titan?”