Colliding Worlds Trilogy 03 - Explosion Read online

  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.

  The room was nearly full, only several chairs sat empty. She intentionally took a seat that had occupants to both her left and right. Jax took a chair several down, and Talla was thankful he was out of her direct line of sight.

  Roden was already on his feet. “The numbers are still coming in, but we’ve taken in over eight hundred human refugees and lost three of our own today. While the loss of anyone is great, to die saving many more lives is an honor to be remembered. The heroes were Exed Dehem, Tyn Scohm, and Badrin. All three names will be added to our wall of heroes.”

  A moment of silence fell across the room. Talla knew both Draeken. She’d come across them in the halls every day on the journey here. She hadn’t met the Sephian yet, but she mourned his loss all the same. They were all heroes, equally, though she hadn’t expected Badrin’s name to be added to the wall. He would be the first non-Draeken on the Striga’s wall, and Talla suspected he wouldn’t be the last.

  “We can expect more refugees to show up in the days ahead. News of today’s events will be broadcasted. It may garner us more support,” Roden continued.

  “This is about to become a non-viable zone for anyone to come near the Striga,” Jax said.

  Everyone turned to face him. Roden spoke first. “I suspect General Jerrick is not joining us?”

  “No,” Jax said, with a hard edge to his voice. “They’ve thrown everything they have at the Striga, and they haven’t even scratched the ship. They only have one weapon left in their arsenal.”

  “Ah, hell, no. Don’t tell me they’re going nuclear,” Ace muttered loud enough to be heard from across the room.

  Jax nodded. “They’re willing to sacrifice much of the Midwest to take out this ship and everyone on it.”

  “A nuclear bomb cannot harm this ship, but it poisons the land,” Roden paced around the room. “Fyet! The fools are fighting us when they should be fighting the toxin.”

  “Any response from the Grax?” Laze asked from several chairs down, and Talla couldn’t help but feel relieved. While he still looked as bad as he had after the Golran battle of two-oh-four, he looked — and sounded — much stronger than he had this morning.

  Roden frowned, shaking his head. “No response yet, but soon it will no longer matter. We’ve had a breakthrough in analyzing the toxin. We’d been using our computers for analysis, but one of the human scientists we brought on board had an archaic, but brilliantly practical, idea. Rather than recreating the toxin using our technology, he has brought on board a plant native to this world that provides an enzyme that looks promising. We should have something for testing within days, a week at most.”

  Murmurs erupted across the room. Talla smiled. It was the first good news since … she couldn’t even remember. It was exactly what the Striga’s collective morale needed.

  “In the meantime,” Roden continued, “we continue with our plan. We scout for resources and pick up refugees if their lives are in danger. With the risk of nuclear attack, this is more important than ever. We will make no aggressive actions unless the humans are foolish enough to cross a line from where there’s no return. Yes, I’m aware we were forced to fire upon troops today, but that was to protect refugees and the Striga’s people. If they wound this planet with nuclear technology, they will discover that we are its saber of vengeance.”

  Talla sucked in a deep breath. Was it wrong that a part of her wanted the humans to bomb the core ship so the waiting would be over? She craved to have the violence end, and sometimes a broadsword was the only way to force peace. Even so, a more logical part of her knew that bloodshed only bred more bloodshed and that they’d never reach true peace without working at it.

  Roden stopped his pacing suddenly and looked at his wrist-com. After several moments, he looked back up, his face tight with emotion.

  “The Omega toxin has breached American soil. It’s taking over the east coast as we speak.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jax watched the screen while he did
sit-ups in his room. He should be on the ground, helping save who he could rather than sitting on his ass watching the world end.

  It had been nearly a week since Omega hit the east coast. It had taken the toxin less than twenty-four hours for it to unravel its tentacles all the way to the west coast. Even though they shut down all air traffic, trains, and buses as soon as the first case was confirmed, it had already been too late. The U.S. was under attack by an enemy it couldn’t see.

  Twenty-four/seven, every television channel reported news of Omega as well as propaganda about the aliens. The Draeken had been blamed for the virus, and the government wanted to make sure everyone knew it. Still, the clear message did little to stop the onslaught of refugees coming to camp outside the Striga.

  As a precaution, the Striga had gone into quarantine mode as soon as Omega hit the coast. Except for sorties and heavy drops of supplies for the refugees, not even Sephians and Draeken were allowed off the ship in case the toxin mutated. For that, Jax was glad. He’d been intentionally avoiding Talla all week, thanks to the trackers on their wrist-coms making it easy, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to see her safe.

  He avoided her because he was selfish. When it came to Talla, he couldn’t count on his resolve to not take her back to his room again. Hell, he wished she was under him in that bed this very moment, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d hurt her bad enough already. He refused to do it to her again. Now if only he could get his head back into the game and give Talla the chance she deserved. Until then, all he could do was give her the space she deserved.

  Ace had been right about one thing. Talla was nothing like Risa. Even so, Jax couldn’t get past it. Risa had seemed so innocent, he’d fallen for her act like a clumsy kid. He hadn’t suspected a thing until the woman he’d been living with had a blaster aimed at Sienna’s heart, something she could never have done if Jax hadn’t gotten her access to the Sephian Earthside trinity.

  When he killed Risa, he killed something inside that he couldn’t reclaim. Risa had used him, and even though Jax knew Talla was no spy, he still couldn’t find the ability to trust her like she deserved. Jax was a broken commodity, plain and simple. He’d lost his soul two years ago.

  Talla deserved a man’s heart and soul. The only thing Jax could do was stay out of the way for her to find the man she deserved. Even if it burned every fiber of his being to do it.

  Accepting the fact that exercise was not helping to tamp down his impatience, Jax pulled up a map of the ship on his wrist-com and wrote in Roden Zyll. A small bleep indicated the man he was looking for was currently in the sick bay. Pulling himself to his feet, Jax headed out of his so-called sanctuary to hunt down the one person with some answers.

  Halfway there, he bumped into Nalea and Sienna, who had been true friends since he’d learned of the Sephians and Draeken. Of course, he’d known Sienna long before that. Her husband, Bobby, had been a Ranger alongside Jax until he’d been killed. Poor Sienna had never had it easy. Not long after Bobby’s death, Legian had come crashing — literally — into her life, which was how Jax found out that Earth was no longer alone out there. “How’s it going?” he asked the two women.

  Nalea was busy messing with her wrist-com, but Sienna’s face lifted into a bright smile right away. “Hey, Jax. I haven’t seen you around lately.”

  “Been keeping busy.” Not really.

  “I get that,” Sienna said. “It’s been chaos. It’ll be nice when Apolo gets back. I could use the break.”

  “Apolo’s coming back?” Jax asked. Apolo, who’d led the Sephian forces to Earth and who was also the tahren of the Great Leader of Sephia as well as Roden’s childhood friend, was not a man to be trifled with. If the military leaders thought it was tough dealing with the Draeken, they wouldn’t enjoy having the Sephian military against them, too.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “I check in with him once a day. He’s working with his Krysea to pull together several ships as we speak.”

  “Good to see you, Jax,” Nalea said, finally looking up from her wrist-com. She looked positively exhausted.

  “You all right, Nalea, er, I mean, Grand Lord?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you dare call me that, Jax. We’re friends. We knew each other when I was just a member of Apolo’s and Sienna’s trinities. The title feels so formal.”

  Jax chuckled. “It’s supposed to. You’re the Krysea to the Draeken people.”

  She sighed. “It gives me a new appreciation for what Krysea has gone through as Great Leader of Sephia. I’d always thought that when she ordered, people obeyed.”

  “Not the case?” Jax asked, raising a brow.

  “Definitely not the case,” Nalea replied. “Take the Grax, for instance. That ship contains basically a quarter of my ‘people’,” she said, emphasizing her words with air quotes. “I hail the Grax every hour, and still I get no response. I even sent an envoy. They were completely ignored. They waited outside the Grax waiting for clearance to land for three hours before giving up and turning back.”

  “At least they weren’t shot out of the sky,” Sienna countered.

  “Good point,” Nalea said with a nod.

  “I better get going. How’s Roden’s mood?”

  Nalea merely smirked. “His usual self.”

  “Great,” Jax said drily. “I’ll talk to you later. And get some rest.”

  “Yes, sir!” Sienna said, saluting.

  Nalea flipped him off, and Jax gave her a lop-sided grin before continuing on his way to Med.

  Though his smile quickly faded as he recalled Nalea’s words. They were still on their own in finding an antitoxin, and it pissed him off. Omega served no purpose, other than death. Otas had made no demands yet. It was as if the bastard wanted Omega to run its course and decimate the human population, which Jax wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. A toxin was an easy way to level the playing field without even stepping a foot onto it. Jax would skewer the bastard’s cold heart the first chance he got.

  At the rate things were going, it wouldn’t matter much longer. Refugees flocked around the Striga in the tens of thousands. They mulled around outside like a horde of zombies. Many were clearly sick. People not showing symptoms tried to avoid the infected, but it was difficult. Even with the Striga making several heavy drops of supplies to the refugees a day, they looked like a sorry bunch.

  Jax had watched the infected the first two days, and then changed to television channels, because it was too damn depressing. Omega started simply enough: chills, swollen glands, and high fevers. But within hours of infection, the infected would already begin to show signs of gangrene on their nose and fingers.

  “Zombie” was the closest term because once the high fever hit, their brains were literally fried. They walked around in delirium, crying out and attacking others, in between vomiting blood, infecting those around them. This phase lasted up to a day, the images seared into Jax’s memory forever. The final phase was almost a relief to everyone. At that point, seizures would overtake the infected until finally, the person drowned in their own blood. Sometimes they were in a coma by then, their brains gone. Other times, the infected weren’t so lucky.

  The only good thing in this whole mess was that nearly all the troops on the ground had pulled back — likely cutting their losses — and reassigned to the more grueling task of quarantining cities. They were counting on the nuclear order having either been rescinded or put on hold since the week timeframe his father had mentioned was nearly up. Jax hoped for the former, because the latter may signal that any kind of peace was impossible.

  Would the General of the Army drop a nuke on a core ship surrounded by tens of thousands U.S. citizens? He hoped to God the answer to that question was a big resounding no.

  He could see why Roden didn’t want to risk getting the toxin on board, but hell, watching innocents die while unable to do anything was maddening. There were so many infected out there, but there were also uninfected people in encam
pments separated from the larger herd. The Draeken had run the first wave of protestors they’d rescued through some kind of screening process when they’d brought them on board to make sure none had Omega. Yet, now they were doing nothing. Roden had said the risk of contamination was too great.

  Jax disagreed.

  “We’ve got to help the ones outside who aren’t infected yet,” Jax said as soon as he walked through the Med’s door and spotted Roden.

  The Draeken turned and cocked his head. “We are. We’re working on an antitoxin.”

  “What if we quarantine the ones not showing symptoms? Like we did to the ones we picked up last week?”

  Roden shook his head. “Like I told you before, it’s too risky now that there are confirmed cases of Omega outside.”

  “We need to do something,” Jax countered, holding out in his hands in frustration.

  “And we will,” Roden said, taking a step away from the man he’d been talking to when Jax arrived.

  He’d been so intent on Roden that he hadn’t noticed Talla behind him. Every time he saw her, it was a punch to the gut. After several days of not seeing her, her presence knocked him back. She was breathtaking. Her long silver-blonde hair was pulled back in a braid. While he’d noticed other Draeken women wore dresses, Talla never did, and he suspected he’d never see her in one. Today she was wearing dark gray cargoes that hugged her curves and a loose black shirt of some kind, the dark color accentuating the swirling tattoos covering her wings like tribal vines.

  Seeing her was a good reminder why he’d been intentionally avoiding her floor. Every time he got within ten feet of her, he craved to go caveman and drag her back to his room to take possession of her in every sense of the word. But that would only make the inevitable harder. While he wanted Talla more than anything, he knew he could never let someone get that close to him again. He just didn’t have it in him anymore.

  That fact didn’t stop of the flare of jealousy when he noticed she was holding the human man’s hand. Jax went to take a step forward, and Roden stepped between them.