Colliding Worlds Trilogy 03 - Explosion (17 page)

“Don’t act like you’re doing this for me,” Jax said. “Saving my life is for you, not me. You know damn well leaving me to rot in the brig is not saving me. You’re doing this to keep your conscience clean, isn’t that right,
Dad
?”

His father bristled. “I’m not going to let my son die with aliens. Not if there’s anything I can do about it.”

“With the Omega out there, being with those
aliens
is the safest place to be right now.”

“Not for long.”

Jax furrowed his brows. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Things are changing. I may not agree with the General of the Army on this, but it’s my duty to obey. What’s left of the Etzee, and the core ship, neither of those things will matter in another week.”

Jax’s temper roiled. “That’s insanity! All that will be accomplished will be to guarantee a war that we don’t have a prayer at winning.”

“Perhaps,” his father replied quietly, the pain clear in his voice. “But the General of the Army is a man of action. Peace talks and delays don’t become him. We did what we could to prevent war. Now that war is upon us, as soldiers it is our duty to defend our country.”

Jax opened his mouth, but his world suddenly lit up around him, a soldier fell onto him, and they tumbled to the ground. Jax twisted out from under the unconscious soldier and struggled to his knees. Another three men dropped from blaster fire coming through the window from the tree line. He spun around and shot one final glare at his father.

The General reached out for him. “Don’t do this, Jackson!”

Jax turned and ran, his gait made clumsy by his wrists restrained behind his back. The clerk was standing by his desk, his eyes wide in shock. When he saw Jax, he scrambled for his piece. Jax ducked, lunged, and then head butted him. He sprinted out the front door to see Humvees heading in from the east. He ran west.

Adrenaline sang in his veins as he crouched, weaving through cars. If he was seen, he was dead, so every movement was slow and careful. At the last car, he looked up to see Sana still laying down cover fire on the office building.

He took a step forward and was yanked to his feet. Jax kicked out and Qan blocked the blow. The Draeken glared but grabbed Jax’s bicep and pulled him toward Sana. When they neared, she came up on a knee, still firing, then from a standing position.

Qan pulled out a knife, and Jax gave him his back. “Get the ship ready,” he ordered as he felt the plastic restraint fall away.

“On my way,” Qan said before taking off for the ship.

Sana continued to fire. Jax counted to five, and then tapped Sana on the shoulder. “Let’s go!”

She fired off three more rounds before turning and they sprinted toward the aggressor.

The engine was running, and Qan was strapped in. Jax and Sana tumbled inside, and Jax hit the switch. The door closed, and Jax went about untangling him from Sana. The interior was cramped. It only had two seats — one for a pilot and one for a gunner — and two jump seats for passengers. Jax took the seat next to Qan, leaving Sana in the back.

“No pickup?” Qan asked as he pulled the aggressor off the ground.

Jax grimaced. “No pickup.” He shouldn’t have been surprised that his father thought to protect him by betraying him, but his betrayal was acid to his gut all the same.

Qan throttled forward. Jax was thrust against the back of his seat, his fault for not paying enough attention to brace himself for the torque. The hard rain they’d encountered earlier was nothing but a light drizzle now, granting them miles of unhindered visibility. Their speed and the aerodynamics of the streamlined aggressor were a perfect combination so that rain glided over the windshield without touching.

Even the air force’s fastest jets couldn’t keep up with a Draeken aggressor. The one hundred sixty miles back to the
Striga
took only a few minutes, and they weren’t even at full power. Jax still couldn’t believe that he’d been set up. Screwed by the General, no less.

My own fucking father.

The reality of the soul-deep betrayal seeped into his already drenched pores, dousing his mood all the more. While they’d never been close, he still trusted his father. Hell, he’d idolized that man for much of his life. That his father thought that bringing Jax in was the right thing to do went to show that he didn’t understand his son in the least.

What a wake-up call.

Jax and his father had one thing in common. Duty was everything. But they had different ways of accomplishing that. The General was all about orders; making them, following them, it didn’t matter. Jax, on the other hand, believed the end result was more important. They both sought peace, but had such different approaches.

Jax was exactly where he should be. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind. He knew war would decimate the United States, if not the world. The best shot he had at saving lives was on board the core ship, in the middle of discussions with Sephian and Draeken leaders. Damn his father for nearly fucking things up.

Though there was one new piece of information Jax learned today. It was unlike General Jerrick to share confidential information, which meant that he’d
wanted
Jax to know. And, that was very much like the General. Even though he’d brought Jax in some rarely revealed fatherly need to keep him safe, he’d also shared critical information just in case Jax could get it back to the core ship. His father hadn’t become a general for not covering every base.

Time was of the essence for Jax to get back to the core ship. Hopefully, once he shared what he’d learned, there was still a chance left for preventing an all-out war. Though he was no longer confident that chance still existed.

His seat moved slightly, and Jax jerked back to attention to find Sana leaning over him, looking out the window. His gaze followed hers and narrowed on the battle scene before them. There were several aggressors still in the air, hovering around transporters on the ground. They were taking heavy fire. “What the hell is going on out there?”

“I’m pulling up the details now.” Qan’s fingers flew over the com. “The
Striga
is on alert. The humans fired on their brethren, and teams were sent out to in waves to retrieve survivors.”

They had begun shooting at protestors?
What the fuck happened in the last three hours?
“Do they need air support?” Jax asked.

“No. The last transporters are lifting off now,” Qan said.

He scanned the area. “Okay, then. If they don’t need us, we’ll head straight to the — wait a sec.” He first thought he was seeing things, and he leaned closer.
You’ve got to be shitting me.
But, yeah, of all people, there was Talla on the ground, huddled next to a gold-skinned man, standing right smack-dab in the middle of an onslaught of several dozen troops. She was facing the Sephian, each with shields on their backs, as they fired in opposite directions.

Jax pointed to the ground. “Clear a path and pick up our guys!”

“But we’re not supposed to engage,” Qan said. “Orders are to pick up survivors only.”

“Then there will be one less Draeken female on the ship.”

Without hesitation, Qan engaged the troops on the ground, firing a barrage of shots at the tanks.

“Get us down there and start a counterattack now!” Jax unstrapped his belt and lunged toward the door. Sana was at the door and had it opened already. Qan was holding the trigger down because the aggressor was blasting non-stop at the ground below.

Later, Jax figured he’d think of how many fellow soldiers he’d just killed, but now wasn’t the time to weigh the consequences. There was only one life he cared about saving. And she was facing certain death.

Talla was furious.

The aggressor Jax rode in on hadn’t even touched down before he was out the door with no shield for defense. He landed on the ground next to her and moved in between her shield and Pires’s shield the instant before several shots fired in the direction of where he’d been standing a fraction of a second earlier.

She glared. “Are you
trying
to get yourself killed?!”

“I’m
trying
to save your ass!” he snapped back over the blaster fire.

The Sephian woman accompanying Jax stood on Talla’s other side, and the four of them fired shots out in every direction.

The aggressor turned around to make another strafing run of suppression fire. The barrage sent the soldiers surrounding them from a head-on offense to a scattering defense. Knowing they were nowhere near to being the victors yet, they remained close together, each shooting at the escaping troops.

“Back to the pylon!” Talla yelled, and the four moved as one, step by slow step, closer to the thick metal. After another strafing run, when they were only feet away, they broke rank and dove behind the cover of the pylon.

Pires and the Sephian woman stood near the center of the ten-foot wide pylon. Jax pinned Talla against the metal, as he held out his blaster, scanning the area, and Talla moved just enough to glance around the edge. Nearly a third of the soldiers who’d encircled Talla and Pires lay unmoving on the ground. The remaining had committed to a retreat, heading to the safety of the tanks, a couple of which were retargeting the pylon with their large cannons. Cannon fire couldn’t get through the pylon, but there was little to protect themselves against shrapnel and debris.

“You better hurry!” Jax yelled into his wrist-com. He glanced down at Talla, his gaze intense and pained. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, and he sighed, closing his eyes just for a moment. When he opened them, his eyes were flickering with fury. But he said nothing. Instead, he shot off a couple more shots around the edge of the pylon.

The small aggressor landed in front of them, making a barrier in case anyone shot at them from this side of the pylon. No one needed orders. Talla and Pires used their shields to cover their flanks as all four piled inside the tight cockpit. The other Sephian took the co-pilot’s seat, and Pires took one of the jump seats. Jax pulled out the other jump seat and motioned Talla to sit.

He stood over her, glaring at her, and she glared right back as she took the seat.

“What the hell were you doing out there?” he demanded.

Her mouth dropped. “My duty!”

“You could’ve gotten killed!”

“Ditto!” she shouted right back.

He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, and she thought he was going to wring it. Instead, he took a deep breath and left it there. Talla sighed. Despite his cowboy approach, he
had
saved her and Pires. The soldiers had been closing in. If Jax hadn’t shown up …

She glanced up. “I’m glad you could make it.” The words came out soft.

He gave a tight nod. His eyes spoke of feelings he denied having. The warmth from his palm infused her, and she craved to snuggle deeper into his embrace. But he pulled his hand away from her then, and she immediately regretted the loss of connection.

“You sure you’re not injured?” he asked, his voice rough.

“I’m fine,” she replied aloofly, frustrated that Jax continued to deny the truth between them. She glanced over at Pires. He was leaning back in his seat, golden blood running down an arm. Her focus shifted instantly. “
Fyet,
Pires. You’ve been shot.”

He glanced down and frowned. “Guess so.”

Pires was on her team. He was her responsibility. She made a move toward him, but the other Sephian must’ve overheard because she pushed abruptly between Jax and Talla to reach Pires. He flicked her hand away, and she punched him in the shoulder. He winced, and she placed her hands over both the entry and exit wounds and closed her eyes.

To anyone, it looked like the woman was applying pressure to minimize blood loss, but Talla knew the truth. Sephians were highly attuned to their own energy, and they could feed energy to another to speed the healing process. There’d been many, many times during the Noble War that she’d wished for the Sephian ability to heal rather than having to rely upon getting to a Draeken Med center in time.

After several seconds, the gold blood spilling out through the woman’s fingers slowed, and then stopped altogether. She stumbled on her feet, and Pires held her up with his uninjured arm. She looked angry at his action, but she clearly needed his help after feeding much of her strength into him. When she slowly stepped away, fresh scarred skin covered the bullet hole.

That was the downside with speeding up nature. Skin can only heal so fast, to push it was to cause scarring. And Pires had an impressive scar collection. He ran a finger over the new skin and shot his healer a boyish grin, like he was saying,
Look, I got another one.

Sephians. Talla didn’t understand them. Their nonchalance about life reminded her of Jax. Like how he’d jumped out of a ship to land in the middle of a battle zone without any sort of defense. Then again, neither the human nor Sephian race was on the brink of extinction. She looked up and found him still watching her. As though he disliked the connection, he broke eye contact and stared straight ahead.

Jax neither moved nor glanced her way until after the aggressor touched down in the hangar. The two Sephians were out the door first and several paces ahead of her and Jax in the hangar by the time they exited. Both hers and Jax’s wrist-coms vibrated the moment they stepped onto the surface of the
Striga
. She pulled up the message. “Roden has called together another meeting,” she said aloud.

Jax grunted. “I was on my way to see him anyway.” He paused and turned around. “Hey, Qan,” he called out. “You did good today.”

Qan blushed before heading quickly in the other direction. Talla smiled at the departing figure of the shy guardsman, but her lips quickly tightened. She realized she was now alone with the same man who’d called her “a mistake” that morning.

Suddenly in a hurry, she rushed ahead, in no mood to pretend civility. Lucky for Jax, he didn’t catch up to her, though she could feel his gaze drilling into her back the six very long minutes it took to get to the briefing room. When she stepped inside, Jax was right behind her, clearly keeping pace the entire time.