The First Starfighter

one of the chosen planets later.
If Velerion fell. I was determined not to allow that to happen.
“This can’t be real.” Reaching up with both hands, she brushed the hair out of her face and tucked the long strands back behind her ears. After all the time I’d watched her in the simulations, I was finally seeing the real female. She looked sleep rumpled and sexy. I wanted to bend down, grab her, and haul her to me, crush her mouth with my lips. Make her body mine. But I dared not. I was on very treacherous ground. The law was clear. Even though she’d completed the training, she had to come with me of her own free will. I was not without honor. No matter how badly my people needed her help, I would not force her to return with me to Velerion to save the planet.
“I am real.” She was an Elite Starfighter now. She would choose to help. We needed Jamie Miller. We needed a thousand more just like her. Male. Female. Androgynous. Human. Centaurian. Andromedan. I didn’t give a fuck where they came from as long as they had the skills to protect Velerion.
The fact that Jamie had chosen me in the program was a gift. I’d gotten hard the first time I’d received word of our match, when I’d seen her avatar appear on my data screen. Her curves. Her dark hair. Seeing her stand before me now was a shock to my system. I’d heard her voice in the training simulations. Seen her smile. Heard her sass. Ached to touch her. In fact, I had thought of her, been consumed with my need for her from the first moment the training simulation had connected us. I had to hope she felt the same in return, but the way she was acting, I couldn’t be sure.
The reality of her was a shock to my system, lust and physical need both urges I was not prepared to feel pulsing through every cell as she stood before me. So close I could smell her soft skin, see the sleek shine of her hair. My fingers twitched at my sides as I fought to remain calm. She was mine now. She’d finished training and taken her vow to be mine. She had accepted me. We were a bonded pair. My body belonged to her as hers belonged to me.
Yet she stared at me as if I was a stranger. As if we had not spent hundreds of hours together in training simulators. True, we’d been on different worlds, but I knew her voice. Knew the way she moved. Knew her.
Surely she was familiar with me as well? “Are you going to invite me in?”
“No. Not that it matters since you’re already inside my head.” She reached up to touch my cheek but stopped before making contact. I nearly groaned in disappointment. “Shit, you look so real.”
I grabbed her hand and pressed her palm to my cheek. “That’s because I am real, Jamie. I have come a very long way. I need to speak with you.”
My growing obsession hadn’t boded well for my mission the last few weeks. It was pretty fucking hard to be undercover—behind enemy lines—as a smuggler on Queen Raya’s Syrax asteroid base when all I wanted to do was watch Jamie’s training sessions. During the day, I lived and worked among the Dark Fleet. Eating with them, doing business, and staying alive within the black heart of the Dark Fleet’s strongest fighter base.
At night, in my quarters, I’d watch the replays of my missions with Jamie. Distraction led to mistakes and mistakes cost lives—mine and those of Nave and Trax, my fellow Velerions who were undercover with me.
At first I’d been skeptical of the Velerion Delegation’s plan to bring the Elite Starfigher squadrons to full staff. But the more I’d watched Jamie in the sims, the more I’d rooted for her. Anticipated her completion every tortuous day working on Syrax.
Now I was light-years away from the Vega System to retrieve her. To take her to planet Velerion and her rightful place in the Elite Starfighter program.
“Please, Jamie, may I come inside and speak with you?”
“So polite. Sure, dream man. Come on in.”
“Thank you.” My understanding of her native language was nowhere near fluent. Yet I had to convince her to agree to come with me before I could give her the cipher injection. Even then, it would take the nanoparticles several hours to establish the proper connections with her brain, optical and auditory neurons so that she could understand all languages.
The way she was looking at me, I feared she may refuse to accept anything I said.
Impossible missions seemed to be my only missions since the war had begun.
I ground my teeth together in continued frustration that somewhere on Velerion a traitor, a high-ranking Velerion who had betrayed our people, still wandered free. Continued to feed information to Queen Raya and her troops on Asteroid Syrax. I was not comfortable with divided loyalties. My oath to find and destroy the traitor now warred with my need for my pair bond. Just over a year ago, some fucker had given Queen Raya the information she needed to launch a surprise attack on our highly secret and hidden Elite Starfighter base. To cripple Velerion defenses.
Their mission had unfortunately been successful. My brother had died that day. Many friends, too. I’d made a promise to myself to bring justice to the person responsible. After months pretending to be part of the Dark Fleet, embedding ourselves so thoroughly, Nave, Trax, and I were within a few days of discovering the identity of the Velerion traitor.
I’d been ready to kill, to have my vengeance, but Jamie Miller had completed her training and accepted my pair bond. Velerion still needed me, just in a new way. I’d returned to Velerion and then come here, to Earth, for her.
Jamie stepped back and held out her arm in invitation for me to enter,