Chapter 1 #2
“I am not in love with Vesh.” Oh, hell. I so was. But who could blame me?
“You used his name,” Gina said.
“Because that’s his name.”
“He's not real. He's a sim.”
"So is Corvan. And Torek. Are you telling me you two aren't in love with your game boyfriends?"
"Oh, no. I'm totally in love with Corvan. He's ruined dating for me." Gina giggled. “Like Alisha isn't obsessed with Torek,”
Torek was Alisha’s covert-operations partner. Assassin. Spy. Master thief. The perfect alien warrior, created specifically for a woman who counted cards for fun.
“Torek is not an obsession,” Alisha said. “He is a well-developed appreciation for dangerous men in tight pants.”
“That’s an obsession," I insisted.
“Corvan could crush both your puny men with one hand,” Gina said.
“Corvan is compensating,” I replied.
Gina gasped. “He is not. Have you seen the size of the bulge in his pants?”
I laughed. The last of the tension from work slipped out of my shoulders. This was why I played every Wednesday, no matter how tired I was. The missions were fun. Flying was incredible. But Gina and Alisha were the reason I logged in. Mostly.
In reality, I had feelings for an online character in a game I'd been playing for over a year.
And so did my friends. One of the things that made this game so popular was every single person created their own unique game companion.
I selected every detail about Vesh, from his clothing to his eye color, his skill set and specialty.
Scout. Sounded dangerous. And fun. So much fun.
"Corvan is hot," Gina sighed.
"Not as hot as Torek," Alisha sound bored, like she was reading a weather report.
"You're both crazy."
"We know," Gina laughed again. "We are all stupid in love with guys that don't exist."
Well, shit. They weren't even trying to deny it. Hell, I couldn't deny I had real feelings for a alien guy who wasn't real. Sad, but true. “I hate both of you.”
“No, you don’t,” they replied together.
They were right. We had been friends for years. Gina and I met in eighth grade after she punched a boy who made a habit of snapping our bra straps in science class. I held her earrings while she did it. Loyalty like that lasted.
We met Alisha at a Comic Con five years ago while waiting in line to have our Star Trek merchandise signed. Three hours in line, and several celebratory margaritas later, we had acquired another best friend. They knew everything about me.
Including the pathetic fact that I had not gone on a real date since creating Lieutenant Vesh, Elite Starfighter Scout from the planet Velerion.
The game loaded on the center monitor. Then Vesh appeared and my nipples went hard beneath my hoodie. Traitors. Both of them.
I had created him when I started the game, choosing from what seemed like thousands of options.
Tall. Lean, but muscular. Dark hair. Green eyes.
A jaw that could have been used to demonstrate geometric perfection.
And a very impressive bulge beneath his fitted uniform pants. The developers had been thorough.
Vesh stood beside our scout ship, the Wraith, dressed in matte-black armor with his hands clasped behind his back. He looked dangerous. Impatient. Completely incapable of discussing his feelings. Apparently, I had a type.
I liked him because he never panicked. He did not waste words. He always had my back, never questioned my competence, and shot anyone who tried to kill me. What more could a woman want? Besides a pulse. A physical body. The ability to leave the monitor and ravish me in bed. Minor details.
Vesh’s animation finished loading. He turned his head toward the camera and looked directly at me. My heart did the same ridiculous little flip it did every time.
It was only an animation. I knew that. Somewhere, a programmer had written the code that made his eyes lock on mine. Another had recorded the low voice that whispered through my headset during missions. Knowing that did not stop me from staring.
Those green eyes were intense enough to make me wonder what he would do if he really could see me. Would he like the soft stomach hidden beneath the giant hoodie? Would he care that I was too tired to put on makeup or that my fuzzy socks had little pink airplanes all over them?
Would he look at me the way he did now? Like I was the one person in the universe he had been waiting for? God. I needed a date. Or new batteries. Probably batteries. They were less disappointing.
“Stop staring at him,” Alisha said.
“I’m not staring.”
“Your camera is on.”
I glanced at the small video window in the corner of my screen. Both women were watching me. “You two are nosy. Load up your own games.”
“Start the mission, Priya,” Gina ordered. “You're about to win and I'm going to watch. Some of us are old and exhausted.”
“You’re twenty-nine.”
“Exactly. Ancient. Go.”
I wiped the salt from my fingers, settled both hands on the controls, and hit start.
The simulated cockpit closed around me. My chair shifted into flight position.
The side monitors filled with stars, enemy positions, weapon status, and the moving debris field that had killed me fifty-six times so far. Not that I was counting.
The game generated Vesh in the copilot’s seat beside me. He checked the sensor display, then turned those impossible eyes my way.
“Final corridor,” he said. “Three defensive gates. No fleet support. No extraction if you fail.”
“So, a normal Wednesday.”
Vesh did not smile. He almost never did.
“Your odds of survival are fourteen percent.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine.”
“I do not know what that means.”
Of course he didn’t. The character’s alien confusion was one of my favorite details. “It means try to keep up.”
“Fly fast enough, and I will.”
Gina made a strangled sound in my headset. “Did your sim just flirt with you?”
“No.” Damn, the programmers were good.
“He totally did,” Alisha said.
“Can we focus?”
The first gate appeared ahead, hidden inside a rotating field of rock, wreckage, and free-floating mines. I had failed here nineteen times. Every safe route closed before I could reach it. Every standard flight path ended in an explosion. I knew because I had tried them all.
At work, safe and predictable kept people alive. Separate the aircraft. Maintain the lanes. Never assume another pilot would see the danger in time. The game did not care about any of those rules.
“Corridor is active,” Vesh said. “Your call, Scout.”
My call. I tightened my grip on the controls. For weeks, I had waited for an opening. Tonight, I was done waiting.
“Hold on, Vesh.”
“Always.” One word. That was all. It felt like a promise. I shoved the controls forward and flew straight at a gap that was not big enough for the Wraith.
“Priya?” Gina’s voice went high. “That rock is moving.”
“I know.”
“Toward you.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you speeding up?”
“Excellent question.”
The Wraith shot into the debris field. I rolled beneath the first chunk of wreckage, clipped the edge of a mine’s detection radius, and used the explosion behind us to knock a tumbling slab of metal out of my path. The opening appeared exactly where I needed it. I flew through.
“Holy shit!” Gina shouted. “You did it. Keep going!”
I was already moving toward the second gate. Two cannons guarded the obvious approach. Their targeting beams crossed over the only stable lane. The route was a trap.
“Defense cannons locked,” Vesh warned.
“Can you jam one?”
“For three seconds.”
“I need four.”
“You have three.”
“Fine. Be difficult.”
“You selected my personality profile.”
Alisha started laughing. I grinned. “Jam the left cannon on my mark.”
“Ready.”
I flew at the right cannon. It fired. I rolled hard, felt the chair tilt beneath me, and watched white energy tear through the space where we had been. The second cannon adjusted to compensate. Exactly what I wanted.
“Now!”
Vesh jammed the left weapon. I spun the Wraith between them, fired at point-blank range, and blew the right cannon apart. Its explosion took the other one with it. The shock wave shoved us through the second gate.
“Two clear,” Vesh said. “One remaining. Enemy fighters approaching from behind.”
“How many?”
“Twelve.”
“Of course there are.”
“Thirteen,” he corrected.
“You could have lied.”
“You would know.”
The final gate was a minefield without a visible route through it.
I could hear Gina breathing into her microphone.
Alisha had gone completely silent. Vesh’s voice remained calm.
“The fighters will reach firing distance in twenty seconds.” I studied the moving mines.
There. No… not there yet. But it would be.
I could feel the route before I saw it, the same way I sometimes knew two planes were about to become a problem before the warning flashed on my screen. A tiny shift in speed. An angle that looked wrong. Instinct built from years of watching moving objects and refusing to let them collide.
“Priya,” Gina whispered.
“I’ve got it.” At least I hoped I did. I accelerated.
“You’re flying directly into the mines,” Alisha said.
“Not for long.”
“Scout,” Vesh said, “I do not see a viable path.”
“Neither do I.”
“Good. I was concerned my sensors were malfunctioning.”
That was definitely sarcasm. I had not programmed him to be sarcastic. I didn’t have time to wonder about it. The first mine drifted left. A second rose to fill the space. I rolled between them, dropped beneath a third, and flew so close to the fourth that its warning light filled my screen.
Enemy fire streaked past us and struck the mines behind the Wraith. One exploded. Then five. Then the entire field went up in a chain reaction. My chair shook hard enough to rattle my teeth. Warning alarms screamed through the cockpit.
“Hull integrity?” I shouted.
“Holding. Keep flying.”
I did. The last mine detonated behind us, and the Wraith shot through the third gate into open space.
The stars went still.
No enemy fighters. No cannons. No screaming alarms. For one second, I heard nothing but my own breathing. Then Gina and Alisha exploded in my headset.
“PRIYA!”