Chapter 6 #2
“It’s okay. I’m just a bit sensitive about the baby thing.” She tried to force a smile as the lights above their heads flickered. She was a bit sensitive about everything at the moment, to be honest, but Aled didn’t need to be spooked any further.
“Do you really think the Ungrich managed to create something?” he asked slowly.
To her surprise, she was willing to talk to him about it. He was the only person she could talk about it with.
“I don’t know. I just have a sense of . . . something happening to me just before they ejected me from their space. Some kind of loss.”
He walked her over to the couch and sat down with her. “If I let myself be caught, I could find out for you.”
She scowled at him. “And Kai Mexr would kill me. I don’t expect you to do that, Aled.”
“But it might be my child as well.” He hesitated. “I fucked you almost the whole time we were there. The odds are in my favor.”
“I know, but it’s still my responsibility.”
Aled’s blue-gray eyes narrowed. “You’re not thinking about going back in there yourself, are you?” He sighed. “Hell, you are, aren’t you? If you do that on my watch, Rehz Akran will eviscerate me.”
“If I end up back there, both Rehz and Kai will probably be dead.”
Aled took a deep breath. “So if that happens, and we’re left unprotected, how about we both go back? It’s that, or we agree to kill each other, because I’m not letting you go alone.”
She stared at him and saw no weakness and no hint of compromise. The Ungrich had taken him and refined him into an intimidating man. “I can’t stop you coming, can I? But I don’t want Rehz and Kai to have to die so we can go.”
“It sucks,” Aled said tightly. “Kai Mexr is my world.”
She nodded as the light flickered again and a torrent of orders came in over her earpiece. She couldn’t share her feelings about Rehz with anyone. They were far too private. It was excruciating hearing the battle and not being able to do anything to help out. She’d always hated sitting on her ass.
Aled took her hand again.
“So here’s the plan. If Kai and Rehz kill Palk and his men, we’ll all go and live happily ever after, and you and I won’t go back into Ungrich space.
If our males die, and Palk captures us and hands us over to the Ungrich , we’ll go back, find out the truth, and blow up as much of the Ungrich world as we can before dying heroes’ deaths. Agreed?”
“I don’t like any of it, but it makes sense,” she said reluctantly.
“Shake on it, then?”
They solemnly shook hands. Then Aled wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head, and they settled back to wait.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Bron muttered as he stared down at the group of marauders attempting to get through the main gates.
There were three combat vehicles parked right on the front driveway, which meant they must have blown through the original security points damn fast. The speed and audacity of the frontal attack seemed almost suicidal.
Kai reckoned the defenders were already outnumbered at least three to one, and that was only by the men he could see. But why be so blatant?
“What doesn’t?” He took a shot, but the soldiers were too far away to really be worried. He liked watching them duck for cover, though.
“Why are they attempting to get in through the most obvious place?”
“Because they’re overconfident and stupid? They certainly seem that way.”
“Somehow, knowing Palk, I doubt that. They must be planning a counterattack.” Bron pressed his com and then his earpiece. “Rehz and Farn? Any signs of activity on your side?”
“Not yet.” Rehz’s clipped voice sounded in Kai’s ear. “But from our viewpoint, I think Palk’s stooges are about to set explosives on the front door.”
“Fuck it,” Bron swore. “They still won’t get through that way, but they’ll probably cause some smoke and fire damage. I asked the president’s wife not to plant fucking flowers around the fucking front door.”
Kai glanced over at him. “Just think what a valuable training exercise this is for your security detail.”
Bron’s teeth flashed in a feral grin. “Yeah, if we survive, we’ll know exactly where all the weaknesses in our system are for future review. I just don’t get Palk’s tactics.”
“Incoming from the air, Bron.” Farn yelled. There was the sound of rapid gunfire and then a scream and a rattle, as though either Farn or his weapon had hit the ground.
Kai spun on his heel. “Where is he?”
“Roof garden. Take Wrantz with you.” Bron talked fast into his cuff as Kai cocked his weapon and sprinted for the stairs that took him upward.
He met Wrantz on the last flight and they continued up together, their panting breaths echoing in the stairwell.
In his ear, Rehz reported that the explosives had been detonated—as if they hadn’t heard the huge explosion—and that the gardens were on fire and the front windows were cracking in the heat.
As they emerged onto the roof, a thick cloud of smoke rose to greet them, and Wrantz coughed into his arm.
“Find Farn,” Kai shouted.
Wrantz ducked and ran to the perimeter of the roof while Kai took a more circuitous route over to the dining area and bar.
Above him, he could hear the whine of a helijet.
He peered through the billowing smoke at the small two-person craft, which was open-sided military style.
He sighted his weapon on the pilot. Letting out his breath, he gently squeezed the trigger, watching a straight red line bore a hole right into the man’s skull.
There was an explosion of blood against the windshield as the pilot’s companion tried to jump clear and fell in a tangled heap on the roof.
The helijet peeled off, plummeting crazily toward the mountain range surrounding the house. He paused to report in.
“Watch out below. Pilotless helijet on the loose.”
Keeping his weapon at the ready, he advanced on the fallen figure groaning and writhing in agony on the ground. Unfortunately, he could already tell that it wasn’t Palk. As he warily approached, the man rolled onto his side, a small weapon raised in his hand. Kai shot him through the heart.
“Two dead. Helijet threat nullified,” he murmured into his comm. “Off to locate Farn and Wrantz.”
Rehz saw the four soldiers before they saw him, and immediately fired.
The one in the lead fell off the scaling ladder, knocking the second guy off as well.
They’d come up the sheer rock wall at the back of the mansion, where Rehz was stationed.
He’d watched them inch their way up the climb, and then had leaned over the edge of the parapet and let them have it.
He winced and fired again until the other two hung like dead fruit off a tree.
Attempting to scale the back wall of the compound was a brave but stupid move, leaving the men exposed on the rough rock wall with no cover.
He frowned down at the lifeless bodies. Bron was right. Why were they exposing themselves like this? It didn’t make sense at all . . .
Abandoning his post, he ran back into the house and up the stairs to where Bron had established his command center.
Kai’s furious voice came over his earpiece as he moved. “Farn’s dead. Wrantz and I are returning to you. We have his body.”
Bron turned as Rehz erupted into the room. “What’s wrong?”
“This is wrong.” He made an all-encompassing gesture. “All of this.”
“I agree. They aren’t making any real attempt to penetrate the walls.”
“Why not? Don’t they want to get in? What are we missing? Is there some kind of secret passageway Palk might know about that leads inside?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“How about an alternate way into the basement?” He locked gazes with Bron. “Fuck . . . Aled and Anna are underground, aren’t they? What if Palk doesn’t need to get in, but just has to keep us occupied on the exterior while his allies do the rest?”
Bron paled. “You think the Ungrich might be here?”
Rehz was already running.
Anna shivered as the light flickered again and the booming sounds rocked the safe room.
Aled patted her arm. “It’s okay. I saw the schematics for this place. Nothing is getting through that door without a security code.”
“If it does, we have to be prepared to shoot it. Especially if it looks like Palk.”
“Let me kill him, please .”
She grinned at him. “We’ll do it together.” She jumped as the table and some of the cabinets started to sway back and forth. “That one felt like it came from below us.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed hard. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“We’re in an impenetrable metal box beneath the surface of the planet. No one can get in without the codes.” Beneath her feet, the concrete floor started to crack, the sound ripping and echoing through the space. She met Aled’s gaze. “Unless, of course, they are already down here.”
Aled took her hand and they jumped up onto the table, grabbed all their weapons, then climbed higher onto one of the metal cabinets attached to the wall. Below them the floor rippled, sending up huge chunks of matter as if something below was trying to punch a hole through to them.
“Do you have the mini explosives?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Aled handed her a few of the small, round shells, and she shoved them into her pockets and then tied one into the back of her hair, under the ponytail band.
The whole floor was disintegrating now and falling into a black void.
A familiar salty smell assaulted her. If she squinted downward, she could see the faint reddish-pink glow of slithering parts.
Aled took her hand. “So, plan B, then?”
She tried to smile at him, but she was shaking so hard she couldn’t manage it.
“Not quite.” She raised her weapon and shot him. Even as he fell, he was reaching out to her, his expression desperate, his fingers catching at her jacket.
She carefully laid him back on the cabinet and then turned to face what was coming through the hole. A thin, red tentacle reached her, and she allowed it to wrap itself around her throat.
“Anna Lee.”