Colliding Worlds Trilogy 03 - Explosion Page 19

  They’d done this many, many times before. After all, Meyt was the ideal Draeken. Tall, strong, gorgeous in a militant sort of way, smart, and he was incredible in bed. But this was the first time his kiss felt wrong. Empty. It wasn’t Meyt. His kiss was as perfect as ever. Talla had changed. She frowned, then pressed her palms over his heart and gently pushed him away.

  He backed up and looked at her. “Thought so,” he said and turned away so quickly that she’d nearly missed the glimpse of hurt in his eyes.

  “Meyt … ”

  He held up a hand. “Otas would’ve known we were on board the moment we landed. He’ll demand me to update him soon. He’s superstitious. He uses twelve rooms, changing the room he stays in every day, so now we wait until he notifies me which room to come to.”

  “It would be so much easier if he didn’t disable his tracking on his wrist-com.” Talla watched as he went about checking his weapons. She ran her fingers over a painting he’d done several years back. “Why are you helping me?”

  He turned to face her, his brows furrowed in confusion.

  “I need to know that I can count on you. I mean, you’ve served as Otas’s right hand for a year. Why the sudden change?”

  Meyt opened his mouth to speak and snapped it shut. After what seemed to be a long internal debate, he went to his wall screen and turned on a sound dampener. Then, he approached her, held her close, and talked quietly in her ear. “We all knew Hillas’s days were numbered, but we were counting on Roden taking over. The thought of Otas never crossed my mind, never crossed anyone’s mind. No one paid him any attention.” He lowered his head. “That was our mistake.”

  “What happened?”

  “A few days before Hillas was killed, Otas impersonated Hillas and had everyone on the Grax take pika injections, under the pretense that they were inoculations.”

  Talla covered her mouth with her hand. “I had no idea.”

  Meyt pulled back and frowned, his next words coming out softly. “You thought I’d willingly follow an imposter?”

  “No, maybe, I don’t know,” she stammered, running a hand through her hair. “I guess I didn’t give it much thought.” She paused. “He also injected all of Hillas’s guardsmen on the Earthside base, didn’t he? That’s why all you follow him, that’s the reason, isn’t it.”

  Meyt pursed his lips before giving a solemn shake of his head. “No, he didn’t inject everyone. Just a few.”

  Confusion and anger pressed her brows together. “I don’t get it. Why would you stand by and watch all the humans get scanned if you knew what Otas was doing? Did he threaten to kill you if you don’t do what he says?”

  Meyt glared, stepping away from her. “You think I give a fyet about what he could do to me?”

  “What did he do?”

  Meyt turned, paced the room a couple times, before facing her once again. “At Hillas’s Earthside base, the first time Otas gave me an order, I laughed in his face. You know what he did then? He pulled up a screen and had me watch as he killed a mother and her baby on the Grax. He laughed as they collapsed.”

  Bile rose in her throat. Draeken numbers, especially females, were far too low already. To kill a mother and a child spoke of an incurable sickness. She knew Otas needed to die before. Now, she craved to kill him even more, to clean their race of his darkness. “That monster.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  She watched Meyt pace, and dread crept in. “Was she yours?”

  He glanced up. “No,” he replied quietly, before waving his hand in the air. “Just someone on the Grax. But they weren’t the enemy. It was a mother. An infant, for fyet’s sake. They died for no other reason than for Otas to prove that he was the one with the power.”

  She stepped closer, placing her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  “They weren’t his first victims, and they won’t be his last.”

  Talla thought for a moment. “I take it you’re not alone in wanting Otas dead?”

  Meyt belted out a laugh. “He may hold the Grax by its balls, but there’s not a single person on this ship who willingly supports the imposter.” His wrist-com vibrated, and he jerked away. After a moment, he typed in something. “I’ve been summoned.”

  Talla swallowed. “Leghat?” Meyt nodded. “He’s in a sanctuary on the fourth floor. It’s not a heavily populated floor. All the rooms around him are vacant, since if anyone gets within twelve feet of him, it sets off their pika programming. That you don’t have pika must be making him nervous because he specifically said for me to come alone.”

  “Onto Plan B, then,” Talla said. She stepped forward, only to pause. “There’s still one thing I don’t get.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Why do you need me? You’re with him every day. You are one of the most talented guardsmen I’ve seen. There had to be a moment when you could’ve killed him before he set off the pika programming on anyone else.”

  His lips thinned. “It wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.”

  “Until now, you mean.”

  He nodded tightly. “I didn’t know if we had support until now. The Grax will do the right thing once Otas is gone. I needed to know that they would be safe.”

  “Hopefully they don’t put up much fight when the others come to free them.” She glanced at her wrist-com. “Speaking of which, we’d better hurry. We have twenty-six minutes. Roden wanted the troops to engage the Grax three minutes before the deadline. We need to have Otas contained before we breach the core ship’s force barrier. Knowing that Otas could kill nearly everyone on this ship with the press of a button makes it all the more critical to take him out of commission.”

  Meyt double-checked his weapons. “You ready to do this?”

  Talla checked her blaster and blades a final time and nodded. “Leghat.” Show time.

  They strolled into the hallway as a couple, Meyt’s clever ruse in getting Talla on board without suspicion. Holding hands, Talla felt like a poser. When it came to Meyt, they’d always been friends. Sure, they’d also had plenty of history, but that had been to relieve tension or pass the time. After all, war could drag on and on. But, she’d never imagined anything permanent with a man, let alone wanting to hold any man’s hand. With Meyt, it felt awkward. She tried to imagine Jax’s calloused hand wrapped around hers, and she knew somehow that they would fit perfectly together.

  As they walked, something he said earlier nagged at her thoughts. “Exactly how is it that Otas can’t see me?”

  “When Otas summoned me, I notified a com-tec to replay a video of me walking alone to this particular sanctuary.”

  “How’d you know that he’d be in this particular room?”

  “I didn’t,” he replied. “Otas is superstitious. He uses twelve different rooms. The com-tec made videos of me walking to each of the twelve rooms alone a few days ago.”

  “Not bad,” she said, impressed. “Wait, so us holding hands is for everyone else’s benefit?”

  “No,” he said with a boyish grin. “That’s for my benefit.”

  She huffed and pulled free. She watched him and then chuckled. “You don’t change. You’re still one to take advantage of a woman’s situation.”

  He shrugged. “You’ve changed. You used to like me taking advantage of your … situation.”

  Touché, she thought. But that had been before she’d met Jax. And everything changed.

  When they reached the fourth floor, their mood sobered. Neither spoke until they reached the door Otas stood behind.

  Meyt grabbed her arms. “Otas is like a rabid fregee. He’s vicious, but he’s not smart. But if he has any other guardsmen in there, don’t worry. They’ll follow my lead. No matter what he does, you must disable the system on his wrist-com. Do you understand? No matter what he does in there.”

  Talla cocked her head. “You don’t need me for this plan. When we talked about this mission, why did you accept?”

  He brushed a hair from her
cheek. “I could never say ‘no’ to you.” His gaze bore into her for a moment. Then he planted a chaste kiss to her lips. “For luck.”

  Before Talla could object, he swiped his wrist-com over the identification pad, and the door opened.

  Inside, Otas lounged on an opulent sofa, no one else in the room. Meyt had been right — Otas trusted him.

  Upon seeing Talla, Otas sprang forward. “What is this woman doing here?”

  Meyt bowed. “Talla has come on board as my consort. I thought you should know she’d be staying on the Grax with us.”

  Otas’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t she appear on the screens? What is going on here?”

  Talla forced a fake smile and stepped forward. Adrenaline heightened her senses. “I simply wanted to present myself and ask for your blessing for me to stay.”

  “Keep your distance, Talla Kohlm,” Otas commanded, reaching for his wrist-com. “Do not come any closer.”

  “Talla means you no harm,” Meyt said from behind her.

  Otas was still at least seven feet away. One good leap and she could be on him. She prayed it was close enough. She took one small step closer, watching the traitor fidget under her gaze. Close enough. Her smile became genuine. “What’s wrong, Otas? Upset because I didn’t take a pika injection?”

  Otas glared at her and then at Meyt. “I believe you’ve outlived your usefulness, guardsman.”

  “She doesn’t wish to be under your rule.” Meyt pulled out a blaster. “And neither do I.”

  Otas screamed in frustration and looked down at his wrist-com. Talla lunged forward, pulling out a curved black blade the instant before she wrapped her arm around his throat. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she murmured in his ear.

  “Nuleet, Otas Olnek,” Meyt said. “The Grand Lord has found you guilty of treason.”

  “Ha!” Otas yelled. “You kill me, and you kill everyone with pika programming.”

  Talla tensed and she mentally kicked herself for not realizing the truth earlier.

  “Fyet,” Meyt muttered, coming to the same conclusion as Talla.

  Of course Otas would’ve wanted a safety measure for his own protection. “You’re willing to kill your own people … a quarter of the remaining Draeken blood for your insanity.”

  “Of course,” Otas sneered. “If I’m dead, why would I care what happens to them?”

  Talla looked up at Meyt. “Help me restrain him. If he can’t reach his wrist-com, he can’t set off the programming.”

  Meyt grimaced, before leveling his gun on Otas. “I’m afraid I can’t come any closer, but I’ll cover you from here.”

  Talla was just about to ask when the realization hit her. “You’ve been injected with pika.”

  The distraction cost her. Meyt, fortunately, fired first. Otas screamed out, reaching for his wing that now sported a six-inch charred hole. Meyt hadn’t had time to switch his blaster from kill to stun. It was a dangerous gamble.

  Talla tackled Otas to the ground and slammed her blade through his palm, pinning his arm with the wrist-com to the floor. He was strongly than she’d expected, and she remembered that Otas was actually much younger than Hillas Puftan had been, that he’d been surgically aged to become the Grand Lord’s doppelgänger. He managed to fling her off him, and she sailed several feet away.

  “Don’t move, Otas!” Meyt yelled.

  Rather than trying to free himself, Otas yanked out his blaster and began to fire madly. Meyt fired several times, hitting Otas once in the other arm, but it wasn’t enough to disarm him. Talla came back to her feet to find Otas shakily leveling the blaster point-blank at her chest with a look of pure cruel joy. It was a shot impossible to miss.

  She couldn’t duck in time, so she knew to not even try. She jumped straight at Otas. Meyt flew forward the instant before Otas fired. Talla jerked, blinding hot pain burning her stomach. She stumbled forward. Otas was fighting to get out from under Meyt, who was no longer moving. It gave her time to switch her blaster to stun. Just as Otas shoved Meyt’s body off him, she stood over him, keeping both hands on the blaster to steady herself.

  He laughed, reaching for his wrist-com. “They’re all going to die!”

  She fired three shots into his chest.

  His eyes widened as though he hadn’t expected her to shoot, before falling shut.

  She fell to her knees with a wince. Every movement sent searing pain through her abdomen. With clinical detachment, she glanced down at the charred hole in her stomach. It hurt, but already the numbness was creeping in. The shot had hit several major organs. Without immediate repair, she was doomed.

  With her vision already tunneling, she rummaged through her cargo pockets and pulled out black restraints. Leaving the blade embedded in the floor, she ripped Otas’s hand free and hogtied him, making sure to break several wing bones in the process. She cried out at the movement, but she didn’t stop. Can’t risk him getting free, she reminded herself when all she wanted to do was collapse.

  Adrenaline saw her through her mission. When she went to stand, she fell back hard. Curling around her stomach wound, she sent through the all-clear to Roden to pass onto the troops. Target ready for pickup. She paused, and then entered the next line in case they didn’t get there in time. Keep alive until pika can be deactivated.

  A reply quickly chimed back. Are you injured?

  Ignoring the message, she used the last of her strength to drag herself to Meyt. He had no visible injuries, of course. The pika was devious like that. It ended life in a blink of an eye, giving the look of peace even in death. If he hadn’t tackled Otas, Talla would have a blaster shot through her heart rather than her side right now.

  “Damn it, Meyt. Why’d you have to be a hero?” she muttered, brushing his hair from his face and noticing how this was the first time she’d ever noticed his features softened.

  She was tired of losing friends in this war. When would it end? She chuckled to herself, holding her wound. Guess it ends now.

  Her wrist-com chimed. They were on their way to free the Grax.

  With no strength left, she lay next to Meyt. Her world was getting darker, the tunnel closing in. She hadn’t much time left. Jax was safe. She smiled, knowing in her heart that his survival was all that mattered. It was good Jax wasn’t here to watch her die. She wanted his last memories of her to be from making love.

  Then, she — an atheist — did something she’d never done before. She prayed.

  Please, Jax’s god, please take care of Jax, ta eani.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “We’ve got news,” Laze said from the pilot’s seat. “Otas is restrained. Guess everyone’s pika programming is linked to his vitals. He would be selfish enough to do that.”

  She succeeded. Jax leaned back in his seat, letting out the first easy breath in hours. “And Talla?”

  Laze grimaced, his words gritted through his teeth. “No word yet.”

  Jax’s blood froze in his veins. He rested his head against the back of the seat. “What is Roden-code for ‘shit hit the fan’?”

  Right then, every hangar door opened on the Grax. A voice came through the common frequency. You are cleared to land.

  Jax turned to Laze. “You send the landing codes?”

  Laze was frowning. “No. And no transporter has hailed the Grax.”

  Pires came between them, a smile on his face. “They know we’re coming,”

  “No fucking around,” Jax said. “Anyone looks at us funny, blow them out of the sky.”

  “You don’t need to tell me twice,” Laze said. “That’s my sister out there.”

  Ta eani. The two words continued to haunt him. Talla had offered him everything, and he’d been an idiot, throwing her away so that he could hang onto his past.

  Going off plan, Laze throttled forward, zigzagging around the transporters to enter their targeted hangar first. He was antsy to get to his sister, and Jax was right there with him. If he had the controls, he would’ve done the same thin
g. Laze slowed and the small aggressor settled smoothly onto the metallic surface, keeping the turret pointed at the control station. No one shot at them, even though there were plenty of Draeken standing in the hangar.

  None of them were armed. All of them were cheering.

  Jax eyed the other two men in the cockpit. “Unless they’re decoys, they seem awfully happy to see us.”

  Pires, on the other hand, didn’t look the least bit happy.

  “I don’t buy it,” Jax said. “How can one man enslave an entire core ship?”

  Laze shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Behind them, the first transporters were landing. Jax pulled up Talla’s coordinates on his wrist-com. Thank God she had left her tracker turned on. “Looks like she’s on fourth floor, not too far from here.” He pinged her. No response. Adrenaline sent a shiver up his spine. “Let’s move.”

  The three of them emerged from the jet, blasters raised, at the growing crowd. Chants of ‘We’re free!’ and ‘Thank you!’ echoed throughout the tens of thousands of feet of hangar. Keeping an eye on the crowd, they jogged forward, fingers next to the triggers. “This way,” Jax motioned to a hallway.

  They ran down the hallway, the Grax’s residents cheering them on from the sides. Every wall screen showed the same. Jax slowed down, and then froze. “The Oppressor has been detained! We are free!” read across the screen, over an image of Otas hogtied on the floor. That wasn’t what caught his attention. It was the wingtip of a beautiful Draeken female lying a few feet away, on the edge of the screen, and she wasn’t moving. “Christ!” he yelled and sprinted toward the blinking dot on his wrist-com.

  Laze took to the air and broke ahead of Jax. Pires kept alongside Jax. The short minute felt like torturous hours to get the room. By the time he reached the closed door, Laze had already touched down and was busy firing at the perimeter of the door. Jax and Pires joined in. It took several long seconds to melt enough of the metal away, leaving a red-hot glow tracing the door. The largest of them, Laze kicked out one, twice, and the door fell inward.