“He has to die, Vice Admiral.”
She tensed beneath my hand and sat forward, pulling out from beneath my touch on her shoulder. “And he will, but not on Latiri 4. Have I made myself clear?”
A chorus of yeses sounded.
Commanders Karter and Phan nodded.
I disagreed but wasn’t about to try to argue with her now. Not here, in front of all these people. Alone, with my cock buried deep, I could get what I wanted. Vengeance. In the meantime, I had some questions. “What is knock-out gas? And do you mean Doctor Helion? And what is H.Q.?” Another human word I didn’t understand?
Commander Chloe Phan, human, grinned at me, her gaze locking with my mate’s for a brief moment before she answered my questions. “Sorry about that. Earth slang. Knock-out gas means it will make the prisoners unconscious, so we can transport them without a fight. And H.Q. is slang for headquarters. You know, Core Command.”
I knew what Niobe’s pussy felt like gripping my cock. I knew what she sounded like when she came. I knew the color of her nipples, but I was beginning to realize that I had no idea who she really was.
8
Niobe, Transport Room, Latiri 4
Surrounded by twenty Atlan warriors, half of them partially transformed into their beasts, I couldn’t see over the closest set of shoulders as the first round of fighting took place. I lifted my hand instinctively and tried to shove the giant warrior aside.
That accomplished nothing. He turned and growled down at me. He wasn’t in beast mode, but his eyes were too bright. He was holding on by a thread… to protect me. So all of his angst and beast rage wasn’t directed at me.
“Do not move, Vice Admiral. Warlord Zan will signal when it is safe for you.” The Atlan speaking was one I did not know, not that it mattered. They were here to rescue their Atlan brethren along with the rest of the prisoners still alive on this base. Most of the prisoners here, according to Zan, were fighters from Battlegroup Karter. Friends. Family. This wasn’t a random ReCon mission for these fighters, this was personal. I was vital to their mission. I got them all here. Until I reversed the lockdown on this base, no one was getting off this planet unless I allowed it.
Hive or Coalition.
Prisoner or warrior.
“My apologies,” I replied with a deferential tip of my head. “I served almost ten years in ReCon. It was instinct.”
The Atlan nodded in understanding and turned back around to face the corridor, where sounds of fighting still filled the air. I stepped back and tried to be patient as the screams and ion blaster fire filtered back to me through the warriors blocking my view. Not big talkers, the Atlans. Which was just fine with me. They got shit done.
One moment we’d been standing on the transport pad on Battleship Karter and the next we were inside the Coalition’s former reconnaissance base, under half a mile of solid rock. Back where all this started. Had it all happened in one day?
God, Rachel and Kira were going to freak when they found out all that had transpired. They’d expected to contact me to hear about sexy times. Oh, there had been some of that, but the rest? This Hive clusterfuck? Totally unexpected. And all of it had happened because I’d been tested and matched to Quinn.
We were back and trapped now. Intentionally, because there was nowhere for the Hive to run, not with the transport system and operations on lockdown. I’d trapped them inside, sealing the doors, communications and transport controls with the Intelligence Core codes I had never really believed I would need to use.
Not that it would matter if the Nexus here could communicate with the other Nexus units via some kind of psychic, internal broadcasting system. We had no way of knowing, and that was why Doctor Helion had comm’d me with new secret orders just moments before the assault began. I was to take that Nexus alive—that was nothing new. But he’d upped the ante. I was to take the Nexus alive… at all costs. I was informed, in no uncertain terms, that it didn’t matter how many warriors I had to sacrifice to make that happen. I was to lie, cheat, steal, kill or lay down my own life to make sure the Nexus was transported to the I.C. scientists. Obtaining that blue fucker was imperative to ending this war.
Besides those orders, Helion transported two beacons directly into my temporary quarters. Even Commander Karter didn’t know I had them. He knew, of course, that we had orders to take the Nexus alive. But he had no idea exactly how far Helion was willing to go to capture him.
I knew the I.C. wanted the blue bastard, but that comm had shocked me. They didn’t just want the Nexus, they were willing to sacrifice hundreds of warriors’ lives to get their hands on him. Alive. That was the caveat. He had to be alive, fully functional. No damage. No injuries. As Helion had informed me, “Not a scratch on him.”
Our last lead on a Nexus had been on The Colony months ago. A Forsian renegade from Rogue 5 named Makarios and a human female who had—unknown to us—been altered to become the mate to one of the Nexus units, had vanished in a stolen ship. Much to Helion’s aggravation, the Fleet had been unable to track them. They appeared and disappeared like ghosts.
Damn Rogue 5 pirates and smugglers. No doubt that Forsian pilot knew every hiding spot and dead zone in the system. He and his new mate, Gwendolyn Fernandez, from Earth of all places, were using that ship to take out small Hive outposts. One after another. It reminded me of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. A ship battling the Dark Side.
I’d read the reports. Not that I didn’t appreciate their efforts, but they’d gone rogue, beyond the I.C.’s control, and Doctor Helion did not approve of hotshots or soldiers who didn’t follow orders. Part of me wanted to pump my fist into the air every time I read another report about Gwen stirring up trouble out here. But the vice admiral side of me agreed with Doctor Helion. We could accomplish so much more with them if they’d just come in and coordinate their efforts with ours.
Attempts to reach out to them had been answered in one, succinct sentence.
We will not be caged.
I had no doubt Helion assured them that no such thing would happen if they just turned themselves in.
That was a lie, of course. They’d be caged and trained, set free only under strict control of I.C. Core Command, and most likely one at a time, to assure compliance.
Doctor Helion was ruthless, but I understood his rationale. It wasn’t one planet, one species, one solar system at risk in this war. It was all of us. When that fact tipped one side of the scale, there was nothing capable of balancing out the equation. Nothing he wouldn’t risk or sacrifice to defeat the Hive threat. And that meant getting this Nexus. Alive.