TOPGUN: Phoenix (Brutal Response Book 3) by Michael Anderle

Author:Michael Anderle [Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2023-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mia slid down her cockpit ladder, hitting the bay deck in a crouch. She rotated her sore arms before pulling off her helmet. It’d been a solid day of training, one of her best since boarding the Centurion. All the awkwardness she’d felt with the Espada was a distant memory after a couple of weeks of solid effort.

She wasn’t the only one who felt that way. It’d taken mere days for most of them to get the hang of the interface and begin their true training.

Chen, Ortiz, and McCullough finished getting out of their fighters. Mia had flown with Chen and Ortiz before, but McCullough, a tall, thin redheaded woman, was a new flight mate during the exercise. They’d barely spoken before that day.

That didn’t bother Mia much. With Icaryus’ threat still looming, she wasn’t in the mood to expand her social circle and list of enemy targets. McCullough didn’t seem any more interested in getting to know Mia. There was nothing wrong with keeping her distance and all her relationships professional.

“Chen,” Mia called out. “Be careful about recovering from the loops. Your timing was off, and that’s why you were having trouble transitioning into the new formation. Try adjusting your thruster balance more next time.”

He shrugged. “We can’t all be as blessed by the piloting gods. But, yeah, I’ll take that under advisement.”

Mia didn’t know what she expected after first running into Icaryus. Other than being careful to engage in shorter, purposeful recovery comas so she would be ready to use her hyper-focus in an emergency, she threw herself into training, reasoning that she needed to establish herself in the program before taking any major risks.

Icaryus made no obvious moves and rarely talked to her. She spotted him going through data after every session, but despite the ominous statements he’d made her first time out, he hadn’t done much more than look at her and her data. Mia also took Abigail’s advice and did her best not to go anywhere alone other than her exercise sessions, which was easier on a spacecraft, even one the size of the Centurion, than it would have been on a more spread-out planet-side base. She also always made sure Abigail knew she was going to exercise and when she was done, that way Abigail could alert the authorities if Mia didn’t check in.

Despite those precautions, Mia had worried the first week that she’d be ambushed in the gym. She’d taken note of all the bars and weights, along with the position of the equipment so she could exploit their tactical potential in the case of an ambush. Whatever else Icaryus had planned, it didn’t seem to involve coming after her in the gym. That made her question if he was hunting her at all.

Weeks went by, and despite the threat of an insane, corrupt scientist obsessed with studying her, the overall experience was positive. She was becoming one with the Espada, and the resentment she’d experienced after the tournament had become more subtle, simmering beneath the surface.

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