Colliding Worlds Trilogy 03 - Explosion (6 page)

Jax’s father had gotten some bad intel or else someone had gotten antsy and initiated the attack too early. He suspected the latter. It didn’t matter. They had approximately zero chance of outrunning several kilotons of H6 about to rain down upon their heads. But still …

He snapped around and grabbed Roden’s arm. “Get in the truck now!”

Roden shoved off him and continued shouting commands into his wrist-com. “I don’t care about the risk! Destroy anything directly above these coordinates. Now!” Roden gave Jax a wary look. “You’d better take cover.”

With a curse, Jax twisted to his right, then to his left, searching for Talla. He found her hurrying Laze as he loaded his family onto the truck. Jax lunged forward, taking her down with him off the edge of the dock. They dropped four feet and hit the ground hard. She grunted and yelled something, and he ignored her, rolling them both under the dock.

She pushed against him, but he held her down, covering her body with his at the exact moment several explosions rocked the world around them. Dust and pebbles rained down from the dock above.

Talla looked upward, past Jax, her open mouth in the shape of a silent
oh
. “But it’s too soon for the bombs to detonate,” she whispered as the first shrapnel from the bombs or jets or both hit the earth.

“Roden,” Jax replied quickly, as though it answered everything.

The ground shook, and screams erupted in the distance. It sounded as though a meteor shower had picked the Etzee to bombard. A cacophony of impacts, smaller explosions, and screams took place all around them.

Though it lasted no more than a minute or two, the bombardment seemed endless. Jax, muscles hard, held onto Talla, and she clutched him even tighter. They watched each other, flinching at each too-close impact. Only after the deafening sounds lessened to
thumps
of less substantial debris did Jax loosen his hold the slightest.

They both let out a sigh. He lay his forehead against hers for a brief moment, before pulling back enough to watch her. “You okay?”

She nodded.

Something sharp and hot landed on his shoulder and he hissed.

Talla brushed it off his back. “We have to move. It’s not safe down here.”

He glanced over his shoulder to see light flicker between the wood boards of the dock. Burning material sprinkled through the cracks, twinkling like red lightning bugs as gravity brought them down. “Ah, hell,” he muttered as he rolled off her, staying at her side as they crawled out of from under the burning dock.

Talla jumped to her feet first. Jax kept a firm grip on her wrist and took in the scene while still down on a knee. Debris from bombs — and likely from the jets that had released them — sat in burning piles across the Etzee. Some debris was many feet wide, large enough to rend trailers in two. Most was far smaller, inches, maybe a foot or two at most, splattering the buildings and ground with intense heat and deadly shrapnel. Walls and people alike were shredded. Bodies looked like small boulders through the haze.

It looked like a war zone, but they were alive, proof enough that Roden’s incoming support had successfully blown the bombs out of the sky before they could detonate.

The stench of jet fuel and burned explosives scraped at his nose and throat. Crackling fire blended with the cries and moans of the injured. Names were shouted, and he blocked out the noise to focus. At least three of Roden’s small aggressor ships circled above. A transporter was already on the ground, ready to take on passengers. One transporter would never be enough. Each transporter held twenty, maybe thirty passengers. They’d need a hundred transporters to clear out the Etzee in time, and Jax suspected Roden didn’t have the fleet for that kind of extraction.

Roden’s attack would not go unnoticed. The Etzee stood smack-dab in the middle of a MOA (Military Operations Area). It was just a matter of time before they’d be swamped with troops. Those who survived the falling debris would not escape quietly.

Talla tugged on his grip. “Laze!” she shouted.

Jax turned just as she yanked free and ran toward the truck where all the children were. For the first time today, he felt fear. Shrapnel and debris had pelted the truck. Metal was blackened. Fire shredded the oiled canvas tarp covering the back, leaving flaming tatters swinging across the entrance.

He looked around for anything he could use. But the Etzee had been kept intentionally bare in order to prevent common items from being turned into weapons. A backpack lay near a Sephian woman sitting cross-legged, rocking back and forth, her head clasped in her hands.

He rushed over and grabbed the bag and ran back to Talla’s side where she was dragging out a Draeken man holding a crying baby. More coughing and cries came from the truck. Talla gave him a quick nod and stepped back. He took the bag and swung it against the tarp, knocking the flaming tatters to the side. With one more swing, he was able to pin the burning tarp against the side of the truck, using the bag to hold the flames away from the entrance.

Several lunged out of the truck immediately, nearly knocking Jax over on their way to safety. After a couple more staggered out, coughing, no others came. Talla jumped onto the truck. “Laze!”

No response. She stepped into the darkness. “Talla, no!” Jax yelled, but she disappeared. At least twice as many had entered the truck than had come out, and a knot formed in Jax’s gut. He peered into the smoky blackness but could make out nothing but a tangle of unmoving limbs. He glanced up at the tarp. Flames had nearly engulfed what was left of the cover. The nylon bag was melting. Charred, liquefied pieces were breaking off. “I can’t hold it much longer,” he shouted into the truck.

She emerged then, soot on her face, dragging two bodies, one coughing, with her. Laze emerged next, his arms full, one of his wingtip spurs snapped off.

“Are there others?” Jax asked as Laze went by, but the Draeken didn’t even look his way. His lips thinning, Jax dropped the bag and moved away, careful to avoid the burning sections of the dock that looked about to collapse.

On the ground, Talla had left the coughing pair she’d rescued and now stood at Laze’s back. He was crouched, still holding those he’d carried from the truck. Flowing over his arm was long brown hair with black streaks that had been smooth and straight minutes early, only now was now singed and curled. The woman’s legs sprawled carelessly on the ground. In Laze’s other arm, Jax made out a much smaller figure, the glimpse of tiny wings hanging slack.

Silent, Talla placed her hand on her brother’s shoulder.

Laze didn’t say anything. He didn’t move, didn’t shake, nothing. He just continued to clutch the lifeless bodies of his wife and son to his chest.

Above the sounds of shouts, cries, and coughs, Jax heard something else. More so, he
felt
it first. A vibration below his feet. He jogged over to fence and saw dots on the road in the distance. “We’ve got company!” he shouted over his shoulder.

Talla jerked up and frowned. He scanned the area, but Roden and Nalea were nowhere to be seen. He went straight for Talla. “We have to get out of here,” he said, looking from her to the top of Laze’s head and back to her again. “They’ll have orders to finish off anyone left.”

The
whoomp-whoomp
of helicopters added to the echoing drone of far-off engines, but Jax wasn’t worried about them. As long as Roden’s aggressors were in the skies, no aircraft could get close to the Etzee. Ground troops would be another story altogether. Roden’s air support was feeble compared to the size of the army driving toward them. Despite their superior firepower, they simply didn’t have nearly enough ships to hold at bay the fleet of heavy artillery heading their way.

Talla gripped Laze’s shoulder. “You have to leave them.” Her words were quiet and commanding.

Laze looked up then. Looked at Talla, then at Jax, then down the road. As though not to awake them, he laid his wife and son carefully on the ground. He straightened Sarah’s figure, then bent down and kissed her lips. Ever so gently, he rolled Jacen onto his stomach. With a roar that clenched Jax’s heart, Laze tore the wings from his son’s back.

Jax winced at the alien custom. He’d never seen it done before, only heard rumors about it. A human would see it as desecration, but to a Draeken, it was ritual. To memorialize loved ones, they preserved the wings of their loved ones, displaying them proudly in their homes.

Laze came to his feet, and tucked the tiny, bloody wings into his belt. He stood before them. Jax knew that flat, deadpan stare. It was a torturous place from where few returned. He knew because he’d been there before. He wanted to say something meaningful, something
epic
. Instead, he blurted, “We have to run.”

Laze pulled out a long shiv instead, and turned to face the approaching trucks.

Talla watched Laze before giving Jax a tight, almost sad, look. She strode over and pulled Jax into a hard, deep, penetrating kiss, then pushed away. He stood, shell-shocked, as she, too, pulled out a much smaller shiv and went to stand at her brother’s side. “I’m not leaving Laze behind,” she said.

“Like hell I’ll let you both kill yourselves.” Furious, Jax stomped forward to grab her. Hanging around was suicide, plain and simple. But Laze struck first. He swung out and punched Talla, and she collapsed instantly. Jax barely caught her before she hit the ground.

“Keep her safe,” Laze said, staring straight ahead. “I’ll get you the time you need to get her away.” With that, Laze ran toward the truck with its cargo bed in flames, not ever looking back.

There was no time for Jax to respond, let alone convince Laze to come with them. Knowing he’d need every second that Laze could buy, Jax lifted Talla’s unconscious form and jogged down the fence. He was clumsy with her. She was nearly his height and that made her body hard to manage without risk of injury to her wings.

He stopped at the next gate, the one nearest to the offices. This gate was small, no more than a steel door between the Etzee and the rest of the world. He moved Talla to his shoulder so he could use his hands. He pulled out his badge and swiped it over the black pad next to the door. The lock clicked, and he shoved the heavy door open. His Jeep sat a few feet away, exactly where he’d left it this morning, still in one piece. With no time for gentleness, he dumped Talla into the cargo area of the Jeep and jumped into the driver’s seat.

Jax had the Jeep in reverse by the time the engine caught. Pebbles kicked against the fence as he backed up. He slammed it into gear and twisted the wheel, tearing across the gravel parking lot and onto the road, turning the opposite direction of the approaching trucks. The
bat-bat-bat
sounds of heavy gunfire came at him from his six, but he kept the pedal on the floor, expecting any second to get a fifty-cal through his skull.

He risked a glance at the rearview mirror to see an honest-to-God truck of flames barrel between Jax and the .50s. It was a beautiful miracle.

Jax didn’t slow down as Laze drove the deathtrap toward the trucks. But Jax did send a quick prayer, begging the powers that be to save Talla’s brother if there was any way possible. Laze was a hard-headed fucker who’d always butted heads with Jax, but he’d fight alongside the guy any day of the week.

It should’ve been Jax in the truck and Laze with Talla. But, Laze had always been the better man. That’s why Laze was playing hero and Jax was running. Jax kept driving, refusing to look back until the tremendous crash of the head-on collision snapped his eyes to the rearview mirror. Trucks were already making way through the ditches, but Laze’s barricade slowed them down enough to buy an extra mile for Jax and Talla.

“Damn you for being a hero,” Jax muttered. Laze was a good man. He didn’t deserve to die. But war wasn’t about what people deserved. War was violent and brutal, and it didn’t care who died. War was exactly what his government had started today.

Gripping the wheel, he scanned for side roads. They were on the northern outskirts of the Ozarks, a good area to hide. He whipped the Jeep into a small driveway and parked. Leaving the engine running, he pulled out his knife and glanced back at Talla. She was just beginning to stir. He needed to move quick.

Crawling to the back, he nudged her to her side to better expose her neck. Running his fingers over her smooth skin, it took him several seconds to find the rice-sized tracer implanted near her spine. He pinched her skin around the tracer, brought up the blade, and made a narrow cut, just deep enough to pop the tracer out. A small groan escaped her lips but she hadn’t yet fully awakened, no doubt having a full-out concussion, thanks to her brother.

Laze could’ve killed her with that punch. As it stood, Laze had saved her. Jax set the tracer on the metal side of the Jeep and smashed it with the flat end of his tanto. After knocking it to the ground, he sheathed his blade and hurried back to the driver’s seat. Even though the trucks had all turned into the Etzee, he made no mistake in thinking that no one would come after them eventually. They didn’t have much time. He pulled back onto the road and stepped on the gas.

The trucks likely had orders to go for the bigger payoff, assuming they could track any survivors one by one afterward. But they hadn’t reckoned on the cunning of Etzee’s inhabitants. Some would survive. Sephians would align with Draeken. And those survivors would come back at Earth with everything they had.

Consciousness tugged slowly at Talla’s mind, coupled with an entire fleet of core ships blasting away in her head. The entire left side of her face throbbed, and her thoughts swirled. Fortunately for Laze, nothing felt broken. Damn, that lunatic brother of hers was going to get it good this time.

Her wings were pinched against an unsmooth surface. It took many long seconds before her mushy thoughts firmed up. The last she remembered was Laze’s fist coming at her just as the troops were bearing down on them fast.

Why am I still alive?

She opened her eyes to find herself squinting into bright sunlight. She was on her back in a small open cargo area of a Jeep Jax was driving. The wind blanketed the rumble of engine noise, but otherwise the world around her seemed deceptively quiet. The road was of typical Earthside variety, filled with potholes and cracks, and the Jeep jumped and swayed. Pulling herself up, she climbed off the gear and bags and into the passenger seat, snagging her wings clumsily on her way to the front.