DarkRevenge (34 page)

“The shuttle bay,” she told Tory.

“I heard. Okay, it’s this way. Be careful. Too much noise
and we may alert them we’re here.”

Stealthily, quietly, they moved along the duct. Sunlight
streamed through the covers and she heard weapons and fighting above them.

They reached street level. Ahead, Jezar, Tesia and Johan
waited. Jezar put a finger to his lips.
The duct ends here. We will have to
go on the street.

How will we get into the shuttle bay
?
Johan
asked the question, but Alex heard it as if he’d spoken it. She blinked and met
Tory’s gaze. He shrugged.

Whatever happened in that room underground when she’d pushed
back at Kyler had changed things a bit.

We will have to fight our way there.
Jezar glanced at
each of them.

There was no argument from any of them. Even Celeste, who
seemed to also hear Jezar, said nothing. They all knew what could happen.

Jezar moved the cover away from the opening and crawled out.
Tory followed, then Johan, then Alex. She helped Tesia and Celeste out. The
street was completely deserted.

Fire had broken out in several of the buildings. Blood and
torn flesh strewn across the streets. There was no sign of anyone or anything,
including those infected. The sound of laser fire seemed distant. Smoke and
blood filled Alex’s nostrils. An acrid taste of death made her mouth dry.

“This way.” Alex knew this city like the back of her hand.
She could take them over side streets to the shuttle bay. Once there, she had
no idea how they would get in, but they’d have to.

Then, a thought rolled through her mind and she stopped
dead. Of course. Why didn’t she think of it? “Wait,” she whispered.

Quickly, she touched Tory’s mind with hers. It was quicker.
She showed him her idea and he nodded vigorously. “Why didn’t I think of it?”

“Fill us in?” Celeste said impatiently.

“There’s an armory near the shuttle bay.”

“Shit! You’re right.” Celeste slapped her hand to her
forehead.

“There’s some big stuff there. The one I’m thinking of will
clear any crowd gathered at the shuttle Bay and save the ones barricaded
there.” She wasn’t waiting. She started moving toward the location.

They needed a hovertank. With its big disintegrator, it
would turn all those infected to dust.

They had uniforms there too. Maybe she could get some
fucking clothes on. The trick was to get there without getting killed.

I hear you on that one
.
Her mate agreed. She
shot him a grin. Now was probably not the time to tell him she liked him naked.
Back at you, dear heart
.

They had two disintegrators and about a kilometer of streets
to negotiate. They snuck quietly until they ran out of side streets and reached
a major boulevard. On either side of the street, shuffling and grunting, were
mindless killers who were once human. In a mass of twisted humanity, they moved
toward the shuttle bay, their backs to the small, hidden group. But one move,
one slight noise and the hordes would come after them, overwhelm them.

“There are about a hundred of them,” Tory calculated.

“Shit. The gate is right there.” Alex stared at the metal
gate. Across the street, maybe a hundred yards. The code was in her head. All
she had to do was get inside that compound.

Celeste gripped her sister’s arm. “Go. I’ll cover you,” she
whispered. Her mouth set in a determined line, her blue eyes older than they
should be, Celeste didn’t look at all like the girl Alex had left weeks ago.

Alex nodded. She tossed the blanket aside and sprinted
completely naked across the road. Behind her, Celeste fired at the oncoming
horde. Shit! They were faster than Alex had expected. Less time. Hurry!

Her fingers fumbled, but she put the code in. The locks
clicked open just as her sister went down.

Alex turned and kicked the man who had Celeste in the
throat. Someone grabbed her from behind and she threw an elbow back connecting
to a nose. She followed with a deadly headshot.

Several of the attackers turned on their own wounded. Alex
tried not to hurl.

Tory, wielding the Dav to make a hole in the crowd of
killers, fought to get to her. His fear, his rage, slammed into her mind, but
she focused on surviving. Johan kicked and fought toward them, but Jezar
reached them first. Jezar tossed a body into the surging enemy and gripped
Celeste’s hand to yank her to her feet.

Two other zombies disintegrated as her sister rose and
fired. With Tory and Jezar firing, they managed to throw the crowd back and the
five of them slipped inside the compound.

Alex shut the gate and locked it.

* * * * *

Tory’s chest hurt. No mission could prepare him for the
carnage he’d seen out there. He glanced at his mate. She was gulping for air,
her hand on her chest.

He came near but didn’t touch her. Those monsters outside
had grabbed her, scared her. She slid down the wall, shaking, white. She shook
her head and met his gaze.

Finally, she took a deep breath and nodded as if they’d had
a conversation. The connection between them was so strong, they basically had.
She calmed and he straightened.

He wanted to yell at her, shake her. But this was Commander
Alexander Zeerah. She wasn’t going to sit back. Ever. He wondered if his heart
rate was ever going to beat the same. When he watched her sprint toward the
gate and those bastards lunge for her…his insides shook. It wasn’t going to be
easy being her mate. Provided they lived through the next twenty-four hours.

Three hovertanks were in the yard, ready for deployment.
Probably all of the military contingent had been killed, either infected
themselves or killed by those who were. During Shoshani, the armory was empty.

And there were uniforms.

They all put on the gear and armed themselves with
disintegrators, chargers, and laser guns.

“Johan, can you operate a hovertank?” Tory asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Alexandra, I want you with me.” Tory insisted and hoped she
didn’t argue with him. Surprisingly, she didn’t. “Jezar?”

Jezar nodded. “I can.”

Celeste asked, “What’s the plan?”

“We clear the shuttle bay and contact the military
installation in Zeerah.” He glanced at Alex. “They still have one there, don’t
they?”

She nodded. “And it’s the closest.”

“Right. Let’s move. Jezar, you’re with Tesia. Johan, you’re
with Celeste. Alex and I will take this one. Move out.”

The hovertanks started with a roar and the three of them
started through the streets, disintegrating anyone who attacked them.

He and Alex reached the shuttle bay entrance first. The
sight through the scope scared the shit out of him. Thousands of mindless human
bodies hurled themselves at the makeshift barricade. They were making progress,
too.

Together, he and his mate began the fight to save the people
who were barricaded in that shuttle bay. The hordes continued to pummel the
barrier. Did they have weapons in there? Tory fought to get the tank in front
of the barricade.

Someone got on top of the tank and Alex fired as one of them
tried to get in. Then she used the laser gun to weld the fucking thing shut. He
and Alex would have to blow their way out of the can.

If they survived.

Those things weren’t weaponless. Some of them had resonators
that shook the tank.

The other two tanks rode in and began to clear the way,
moving in unison toward their goal. Finally, Tory managed to get the tank in
front of the entrance to the shuttle bay.

But the attackers just kept coming.

They were going to run out of charges in the tank before
these fuckers died. No point thinking about that now. They might die, but
they’d go down fighting.

Suddenly, a fleet figure running past his tank and over the
barrier caught his attention.

Celeste.

She catapulted over the barrier and rolled into the shuttle
bay, weapon drawn. Tory covered her.

What the fuck was she doing? Luckily, someone on the inside
recognized Celeste when she charged the barricade and she disappeared into the
shuttle bay. Then he didn’t have time to worry about it. He kept firing,
ignoring the fact that the energy level on his weapon was low. Alex kept firing
the laser on the sides of the tank.

Just when he thought they were dead meat, a fighter appeared
in the sky above. It fired, cutting a swath through the crowd.

He sent Jezar a quick mental thought.
Use the turtle
armor. Celeste can blow this whole fucking street up.

Tory hoped Jezar would send the same message to Johan and
slammed the button on the tank to fold up like a turtle in its shell.

Only moments later, Celeste dropped a laserbomb. The impact
tossed the tank like a fucking rag doll. They rolled over and over, his head
slammed into the ceiling. Blood spurted from his nose and he didn’t have time
to register it before he was thrown into Alex.

Then, it stopped and the metal groaned to a stop.

He was just able to lift his head to see Alex, bleeding,
unconscious, before darkness edged around his mind and he dropped away into
oblivion.

 Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Hurry! Cut them out!” A voice penetrated the dark screen
that had fallen over Tory’s mind.

Alex’s face swam in front of him, lit by the dim glow of the
greenish lights of the tank’s console. She was alive. A little bloody, but
alive. Thank God.

“Thank God, you’re alive. I thought—”

“Me too.”

“Celeste is getting them to cut us out.”

“I heard. She’s bossy isn’t she?” He hurt everywhere and
winced when he tried to sit up to hold his mate.

Alex grinned. “In this instance, I’m glad she is.”

“How long have we been out?”

“Long enough for Celeste to land her fighter and the
reinforcements she called for to arrive.” Alex ran her hands over him.

He brushed them away. “I’m fine. I just want you.” He
grabbed her and held her against him. It shook him. How many times had he been
close to losing her? He was going to lock her up and throw away the key.

As long as you’re in there with
me.
She
brushed his lips with hers.

Light burst into the interior and he blinked. Celeste’s face
peered through a hole made by a laser. “Thank God! Can you move?”

They crawled out of the tank. Standing around the three
tanks were about five hundred stricken-looking souls. All of them clapped and
shouted when he and Alex came into view.

“Apparently, we’re heroes,” Celeste murmured.

“Jezar and the others?” he asked.

“Almost free. Enough to know they are okay. The military is
eliminating the last of the infected.” Celeste’s gaze met his. “It was a good
thing Kyler never got that other shipment.”

“What happened, Celeste?” Alex asked. “We heard—”

Her sister’s glance slid away from them and down to the
ground. “You heard I was looking forward to mating with Pulzer and Ena.” She
took a deep breath. “Ena saved my life. When your ship was taken, Gregor tried
to arrest me. Two men in my command were arrested and killed. Ena rescued me.”
She shrugged. “Let’s just say I wasn’t too bright about her.”

“It’s understandable,” Alex said. He caught some of Alex’s
surprise at her sister’s sexual preference.

“I was attracted to them both, but dependent on Ena. When
Pulzer…changed, I confronted Ena.” She pursed her lips. “Ena admitted she and
Pulzer had been exposed to the plague, that all of us had. I was terrified.”
Celeste’s shoulders rolled. She’d be feeling guilty for a long time.

“You couldn’t have known about Kyler’s agenda,” he pointed
out.

“No, but I shouldn’t have been blinded by Ena and Pulzer.
Neither of them gave a shit about me. It was all about winning Teran One for
themselves,” she said bitterly.

“They had help. Kyler manipulated everything,” Alex added.

“They ripped Ena to shreds.” Tears were in Celeste’s voice,
though her eyes were dry. Tory’s stomach clenched and he felt Alex’s sympathy.
Her sister’s voice was thick. “When Kyler sent the kill order to Pulzer, I
guess he sent it to everyone in his vicinity. Which included everyone around
us.” Celeste bit her lip for a moment. “One minute, we were standing side by
side with our friends, our fellow rebels. The next minute, they tore her throat
out.”

They were silent for a moment. From Alex, he could feel her
relief that Celeste hadn’t died. He asked the hard question. “How did you make
it to Kyler?”

The agony in those blue eyes tore him up inside. No one that
young should have a look like that, he thought. She spoke in a low voice. “I
almost didn’t.” One of her eyes twitched and a muscle in her cheek throbbed. “I
really don’t want to talk about it.”

He nodded. “What now?”

Celeste glanced around her. “Now, we clean up and salvage
what we can. King Darius is on his way home, but I don’t think things will go
on as they were.”

“How could they?” Alex said.

Celeste stared at her sister for a moment. “I thought
you’d—”

“Abandoned you?” Alex finished for her. “No. But I don’t
hold it against you for thinking I had.”

“You never had before,” she admitted.

“No, but someone tried to kill you, Celeste. It isn’t easy
to know who to trust.” She placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I know
about that.”

Celeste started to cry, awkwardly at first and, when Alex
wrapped her in her arms, then with loud sobs.

Tory nodded at Alex. It was all going to be okay.

* * * * *

Where the hell was he? Alex paced the quarters at her home
on Zeerah Island. She hated being apart from her mate. He’d gone on a shuttle a
month earlier to meet up with
The Pinnacle
and he was supposed to come
back yesterday.

The aftermath of the plague on Teran One had been
complicated and annoying. First of all, Darius didn’t want to run the damn
planet anymore. Of course, he’d never wanted to be king. Pontoon Gregor and
most of the Gregor family had died in the laserbomb blast. In fact, few of the
first families had survived.