What To Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection Part Two (85 page)

Lilly searched for another plan. To the right of her, a staging for media had been set up. The front of the platform was lined with televid cameras pointed down at the crowd. Behind them stood several aliens she recognized as city officials. Perhaps from that vantage point she could better scan the crowd.

And that’s when she saw him—behind the media, mingling with dignitaries—the Drikspa who, six months ago, had made her worst nightmares a reality. Her world became a narrow focus of anger, revenge and the alien. He spoke to another Drikspa. Their heads were close together, their eyes surveying the area, wrists lifted to their mouths as they spoke to an unknown entity. Definitely with security. The two looked at each other and nodded before separating and her Drikspa headed off the platform.

But she no longer followed his movements.

The crowd burst into a loud round of applause and she was vaguely aware of Ambassador Tervoss taking his place behind the podium. The roar of the crowd barely penetrated the rush of blood pounding in her ears. Lilly stared in disbelief as the second Drikspa took up position behind the media, hidden among the dignitaries.

The crowd quieted and the ambassador spoke. “Good evening. I’m pleased to be here on Garalon Five…”

But Lilly wasn’t focused on what Tervoss was saying. The Drikspa above the crowd now had her fully attention. Sometimes karma smiled and shined in her direction. The alien above her wasn’t a Drikspa by birth. This alien wore the tattoo of a Braugtot and the marks snaking along his neck to swirl up his cheek and around his left eye were the same ones she’d seen on Grebetz’s communicator last night.
Hij’Rozhod
. Lilly had no doubt. He’d come here to take out the Commander-elect.

“…will be meeting with the league of galaxies and begin working…”

The Ambassador’s words rolled into the background noise of the crowd around her. The instincts of a detective, honed from years on the Chicago force, kicked into gear without any thought for her safety. Lilly’s own problems would wait. She had probably been the sole witness to the last-minute plans of an assassin whose intended target was Ambassador Tervoss.

She had no time to stop the man above her on the media platform. Bringing attention to him at this point would only leave the ambassador vulnerable to any number of weapons the alien may be carrying. Lilly’s only course of action was to get to the man behind the podium.

Propelling herself through the crowd, Lilly ignored the protests of the aliens she pushed aside. Unapologetically, she flashed the fake badge, her only care—protecting the ambassador. She’d answer to the authorities later. If
Hij’Rozhod
succeeded, the galaxy would be thrown into turmoil and the criminals would score another win.

In excruciating slow motion, the other Drikspa with the missing horn stepped out of the tent on the far side of the security area. In sight of everyone, he lifted a Treljon laser, aimed it directly at Tervoss and managed to pull off two rounds before being taken down by security. The zip of beams cut through the air, but she couldn’t tell what, if anything, they hit. The ambassador was swarmed by security, blocking him from her view. Screams reverberated as chaos erupted.

Lilly pushed against the flow of the crowd as they swarmed in a panicked mass away from the podium. Tervoss, surrounded by his security team, was pushed directly toward the staging on her right. More security rushed across the platform, clearing the escape route for the ambassador. The Braugtot-Drikspa moved with the contingent, in direct line with the approaching Commander-elect. Her Drikspa had only been the catalyst to put the assassination plan in motion.

She broke through the crowd with the credentials flashing and screamed, “There’s another assassin on the platform!”

A feral yell of frustration roared from her left. “You bitch!”

Lilly turned to see the Drikspa near the stage pull a weapon of some kind from his sleeve. With deadly precision he shot two of the security guards and sliced a lethal energy beam across the neck of a third. The aliens crumpled at his feet. In the time it took to blink, the Drikspa turned to her, his eyes burning with recognition. The flashes of light blasting from the weapon were nearly blinding in their intensity, the sound of the energy unusually loud in her ears. Pain exploded in her back just before she went down hard on the tarmac.

Fire burned in her gut, spread out to lick hungrily at her arms and legs and explode in her head. Lilly rolled to her back, moaning with the wave of pain the motion brought.

“Lilly.” Her name echoed through the haze of agony. “Lilly.”

She was sure the angels were calling her. When her eyes focused, it was Dallas’ face that swam in her vision. His halo was nearly blinding in its intensity and she shut her eyes against the beauty, hoping he would carry her from the agony crackling along her nerves into the serenity of heaven.

“Oh no you don’t. Lilly, stay with me.” Dallas’ voice broke with emotion. “Open your eyes.”

She forced herself to obey. Deep lines of worry marred his angelic features. “Why are you here…did I…”

“You saved him, Lilly.” She watched Dallas’ hand move down her face, but she couldn’t feel the gentle caress of his fingers against her skin. The scorching pain had been extinguished by ice that now flowed through her veins.

She wanted to talk. To ask who she’d saved, but she couldn’t get her teeth to stop chattering.

“Thanks to you, Thaegan took down
Hij’Rozhod
.” He leaned in close to her face, his beautiful eyes glistening in the bright lights. “Lilly, you saved the ambassador. Now I’m going to save you.”

Dallas’ voice was a faraway echo that she couldn’t understand. The cold became a roaring black hole, surrounding her in its vortex. It consumed light and sound, dragging her down with it. Lilly wanted to make it stop, to beg Dallas to hold onto her and keep her from getting lost in the darkness. But she couldn’t find him in the swirling vacuum as it engulfed her. The noise and heat and cold and pain disappeared as Lilly was sucked into the blackness alone.

L
illy hadn’t expected heaven to feel this way. Everything hurt.
Jesus
, even her hair follicles pulsed with hundreds of pinpricks of pain. Then it occurred to her, perhaps that wasn’t where her soul had gone. She wondered if she could stay in this darkness and not acknowledge where she was.

“Lilly.”

Inwardly she sighed. She shouldn’t be surprised someone in the bowels of hell knew her.

“Lilly, it’s Dallas. If you can hear me, open your eyes.”

Her lids fluttered, light spearing more pain through her skull. She forced her eyes to focus and he was there, his smile warm and inviting. Had he been sucked into the darkness with her? His happiness made no sense.

“Hi, beautiful,” he said. “You scared the living crap right out of us.”

“Is this hell?” The words were gravel scraped over the soft skin of her throat.

“You’d have thought so if you’d had to put up with him over the last couple of days.” Thaegan leaned in and slapped Dallas on the back.

“You were no picnic with your pacing and hand-wringing, my friend.” Dallas laughed and kissed her forehead. “But no, you’re in a hospital. You were hurt really bad. It’s been touch and go.”

“That explains why I hurt everywhere.”

Dallas offered her water and she drank cautiously, unsure she’d get the liquid past the hot lump of pain in her throat.

“Easy.” He pulled the straw from her mouth. “You’ve been out for a couple of days. They told me to have you go slow. Too much and you’ll puke.” He shrugged. “Despite our best efforts, you haven’t seemed to want to come out of that slumber.”

“I thought I died and went to hell.”

“No, that would’ve been Thaegan’s endless stream of Ka’al prayers he kept repeating in your ear. I kept telling him it was sending you deeper into a coma, not the other way around. But he never listens. Sorry you had to put up with that.”

“Like she was enjoying your reading of
Homer
. Boring Earth drivel if you ask me.” Thaegan grabbed a chair, turned it backward and sat down with his powerful arms thrown over the back, his hands resting comfortably on her shin. “You certainly were tap dancing this side of death’s door. But thanks to this guy…we had a happier outcome.”

Dallas actually blushed. “I just donated blood.”

“Yeah,
indestructible
blood.”

If it were possible Dallas’ face deepened in color at Thaegan’s statement. “Well it’s blood-blood, it’s just that…”

“Your body heals faster,” she said. “And obviously isn’t affected by
my
prowess.” She wiggled her fingers in the air.

“Yeah.” Confusion furrowed Dallas’ brow. “How’d you know?”

“Thaegan told me.”

The alien lifted his hands in surrender when Dallas glared at him. “Hey, I didn’t say a word.”

She hurt too much to laugh at their exchange and simply relaxed into their comfortable banter. “Well, not straight out. More like he mentioned it while I was,” she motioned air quotes,
“sleeping
.”

“At the cabin?” Dallas asked and she nodded.

“Yeah, we wondered about that Sleeping Beauty routine,” Thaegan said, squeezing her leg.

“What else did you hear?” asked Dallas.

“That you lost someone important to you…to you both,”

Dallas shot Thaegan a look she couldn’t quite discern. “Lilly, we lost several team members in that operation on Canus Delta. Sarah just happened to be one of them. And every one of their deaths weighs heavy on us.”

“You were betrayed by a leak in QAL?”

“Well, that leak’s been plugged.” Thaegan’s hands tapped out a quick rhythm on the chair back. “Not that we give a shit.”

“Who was it?” she asked.

“Bastower,” Dallas replied through clenched teeth.

“What? Didn’t you tell me he was your boss?” Was there no end to the double agents in QAL? “How’d you—”

“Well, we have
you
to thank for that.” Dallas ran his hand down her hair, letting it rest at the back of her neck, his thumb caressing her cheek. “I saw you on the televid at the news conference. I’d laid down the law about you staying put in your hotel—”

“And he knew how well you always listened.” Thaegan laughed as he reached out again and rubbed her leg. There was comfort in their touches.

“Anyway, the determination on your face shouted loud and clear that you believed something was going down. I wasn’t sure what you were seeing, but a new member had joined our team several months back. A Drikspa, allegedly wounded in the line of duty. It occurred to me the timing aligned with your kidnapping.”

“Bastower had just presented us with some flimsy excuse to pull the Drikspa to Tervoss’ security detail and things began to add up.”

“You also mentioned Grebetz’s boss was a Braugtot—”

“Bastower’s a Braugtot,” Thaegan continued seamlessly. “He’s been everywhere the assassinations have taken place over the past three years because
we’ve
been chasing
Hij’Rozhod
.”

“Actually turns out my QAL team was giving him cover,” Dallas said.

“Why would QAL want to assassinate all those government officials?” she asked.

“Not QAL. Bastower,” Thaegan clarified.

“The same reason he had the Drikspa transferred to our team. Two words…”

“Slave trade,” she responded.

Dallas absently brushed hair from her eyes. “At first
Hij’Rozhod
was simply eliminating anyone publically opposing the slave trade. Over the last few years, he turned his attention to Tervoss’ campaign. Seems having Tervoss or any of his cronies at any level of the planetary governments would have meant a crackdown on their very lucrative business. They’ve been systematically taking out Tervoss’ strongest supporters and filling in the positions with dirty officials who were willing to turn their backs on the problem.”

“And your boss Bastower was involved?” she asked.

“Right up to his hairy Braugtot ass,” replied Thaegan.

Lilly settled deeper in the pillows. “The two were working together at the airstrip then?”

“One causing a distraction…your Drikspa,” Dallas said.

“And one doing the killing…our boss,” Thaegan finished.

Lilly wanted to laugh at the ridiculous way they spoke in tandem. But from their expressions, she assumed they weren’t even aware of it. “They’re both in custody?”

“Nope, dead.” Thaegan said it as if the men had simply gone for a walk. “Dallas shot the Drikspa when he tried to take you out. Pushed you to the ground—”

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough. He managed to get off two shots with some new high-powered luna crystal gun.”

“The weapon’s in government hands now,” Thaegan said.

“You took one shot in the gut and one to the side of your head.” Dallas swallowed hard.

“The man doesn’t give himself enough credit.” He slapped Dallas on the back. “If he hadn’t gotten to you when he did, that second shot would’ve pierced your heart instead of bouncing off that thick skull of yours.” Thaegan smiled.

She ignored Thaegan’s playful jab. “And Bastower?”