Prime Selection (12 page)

“Ard? This is Huw. I’m approaching your coordinates with a security team. What’s your status?” He really wanted to ask if Nadia was safely inside the caves, but refused to expose his interest in her any more than he already had. It wasn’t time yet.

Soon. Not much longer. After the mission to search for Lost Ones.

“A security team?” Ard’s voice was calm, but Huw read sarcasm in his tone. “I don’t need security. We have that under control. I need regen beds. Dr. Morgan has three severely injured patients who need more care than we can provide.”

“Understood. But we can’t risk the medical response teams until Gold contains the enemy. Medical teams are ready to hit the dirt as soon as Wulf gives the go-ahead.” Huw gazed at the mountain where the entrance to the cave system Gold’s training team had taken over was located. It was a rough climb about thirty meters or so above the canyon floor. “Any perimeter security I need to know about before coming up?”

“Yeah, Nadia and I whipped up some explosive surprises. I have a man on guard at the base. He’ll show you the safest way through the security perimeter.” Ard chuckled.

“Don’t want to blow up our crew members.”

Huw snarled under his breath. He hadn’t appreciated the way Ard had coupled his name with Nadia’s. The
Leonidas
’s science officer had set his sights on Nadia since the first merger meeting on the space station. Huw had practically killed the
apayebo
last week in a training session when Ard had shared his plans to ask Nadia to spend leave with him on the resort planet of Tooh 2.

But you haven’t claimed her … so why shouldn’t Ard have a chance with her?

Because … before he could remind himself of his justification for postponing his courtship of Nadia, a Prime soldier dressed in an Alliance uniform stepped out from behind an outcropping of rocks and scrub and gestured his team forward.

Huw waved his men ahead and was about to follow when Nadia’s shields slipped.

Her anger, her fighting rage, her fear consumed him, almost driving him to his knees. She was in danger again. He sought her mind and found the red haze of battle hormones. But underneath the fighting spirit, she was exhausted, in pain. Her energy reserves were low and that was probably the only reason her shields had dropped, she needed all her energy to stay alive. Huw instinctively supplemented her strength.

“Nadia! Nadia!”

No answer.

“Ard, have you heard from Nadia’s team?” Huw barked out the question as he turned in a circle in an attempt to hone in on Nadia’s exact location. He wasn’t sure how this psychic connection they had worked, but he knew he could find her if necessary.

It was necessary.

“About a quarter standard hour ago. She and her team met up with the team I sent to back them up. After a short, but successful, skirmish with a small band of mercenaries, they were heading in. Why?”

“What’s the alternating com frequency you’re using for intrateam surface communications?” Huw repeated the com codes for his team’s benefit over the general Gold frequency. His team waited for his orders at the base of the mountain along with the guide. He keyed in the emergency frequency on his unit. “Nadia? This is Huw. What’s going on? Answer me!” He waited a few seconds and got no response. “Ard, what was their last position?”

He tried the link they had once more.
“Nadia! Nadia!”
Still no answer, but he knew she was alive; he could feel her drawing on his energy.

“They were getting ready to exit the cave system that’s connected to the facility’s underground escape tunnels.” Ard paused. “I can’t reach them either. They might have run into the enemy fleeing our forces. The guide has the coordinates and will take you to their last known position.”

“Good.” Huw signaled to his team and the guide to head out and that he’d bring up the rear. “I’ll let you know when we find them. Until then, I am going on monitor only.”

“Understood,” said Ard. “She has A’tem and four Elite-trained crew members with her. She’ll be fine. The team I sent her has instructions to protect her.”

Fear and dread ate at Huw’s gut. The rebel faction’s mercenaries would like nothing more than to capture a female Alliance officer and turn her over to the rebels to be used as a hostage to get concessions for their cause.

“I’ll make sure of her safety myself. Out.” Huw checked on Nadia again. Her emotions seemed caught up in the battle rage of her Prime team members; it was as if she rode the wave as any Prime warrior would. But she was not a Prime warrior; she was a fragile Terran woman no matter her training. Icy fear swept over him, chilling him to the bone.

Nadia was in deadly danger, and he was too far away to protect her. And yes, he was acting irrationally, but there was nothing rational about his feelings for Nadia.

As Nadia’s team, with Bre still on point, exited the cave, the atmosphere seemed heavy, laden with the scent of ozone and charged with waves of pressure like an impending thunderstorm. But the night sky was clear, and it was the dry season on Tarn.

Then she recognized the sensory impressions were the accumulation of the menacing emotions of mercenaries lying in wait.

“Down, down! Get down, Bre!” Nadia dashed forward and tackled Bre as intense laser fire strafed the area outside the cave entrance. Rolling off Bre, she found his alert, but pain-filled gaze on her. Behind them, the team laid down cover fire, forcing the enemy to take cover. “Come on, let’s move.”

Bre nodded, his breathing labored. He was wheezing ominously.

“Can you move on your own, or do I need to help you?” In less than a second, Nadia rolled him over and checked him out. His entire front torso had laser singes from multiple hits. She worried he might have taken a direct hit to a vital area of his chest or abdomen.

Moving him could make it worse, but moving was their only option.

Another barrage of laser fire streamed over them. Nadia flattened over Bre’s body, front to front, his breaths hot and moist against her neck. A burning pain streaked across her already injured shoulder. Her shields dropped, something in her forcing them down.

Immediately, Huw’s searing hot mental touch swept through her mind like a solar wind, alleviating her pain, taking it down to bearable levels. She also managed to absorb a much-needed burst of energy; she had a feeling she’d need it before she got Bre to safety.

“Go, Commander! I will make it.” Bre wiggled out from under her, rolled onto his lacerated and burned front, and turned toward the safety of the cave entrance. Then he stopped and waited for her to precede him.

“Unh uh, doesn’t work that way. You go first. I’ll cover.” She shoved his ass with a hand. “Move, dammit!”

Nadia got up into a crouch and covered his retreat, placing her body between his and the enemy positions. Her team was doing a good job of keeping the enemy pinned, but she couldn’t count on that much longer. She and Bre were sitting ducks, and she hadn’t planned on dying now that the rest of Gold was here to back them up.

After less than a meter, Bre collapsed and buried his face in his arms. She snarled, “Move! That’s an order, soldier. Move that ass! Or I swear we’ll die out here together.”

His face as white as Tarn’s limestone rock faces, Bre grunted and once again pulled himself arm over arm along the rocky ground toward the cave entrance. His pain rolled off his aura in tumultuous waves and threatened to topple her control over her own exhaustion and stinging aches.

Bre’s agony was horrific, even felt secondhand. Only Huw’s constant stream of energy and support kept her going.

How Bre kept going Nadia would never know. But he did, and she’d do whatever it took to protect him. No Alliance soldier ever left a man behind.

One audacious mercenary stood and fired wildly at her and Bre. Nadia dove to cover Bre’s exposed body. She was hit in the side by a chunk of rock sheared off by the laser fire.

Damn!
The projectile hit the laser wound she’d received in the firefight in the cave.

The added pain was excruciating.

Once again Huw responded, a seemingly endless reservoir of strength, encouragement, and faith, a surprising confidence in her ability to save Bre and stay alive. Greedily, she drew on his energy like a black hole sucking everything around it into its core. The surge of adrenaline and power across the psychic thread connecting them was astonishing.

“Go, Nadia. Go. Get to safety. We are close. We’ll get the
apayebote.”

Using the extra spurt of energy while she could, she tossed her rifle toward the cave and moved to Bre. She screamed at her team. “Cover me, guys!”

Nadia dragged the injured soldier up by his shoulders, lowered her shoulder into his laser-lacerated chest and abdomen, and lifted him in a fireman’s carry. She ran for the cave, propelled by fear, instincts, rage—and the strength of a bond that shouldn’t have existed.

The other two Jod brothers came to meet her. Cred took his brother from her. Cas picked her up and followed the others into the shelter of the cave. Bram and A’tem fired their laser rifles to cover their retreat.

“I’m fine, Cas.” She reassured the Prime soldier as he set her on her feet. He kept a hand on her arm, steadying her while the cave swirled around her and her knees threatened to give way. After several deep breaths, she adapted to the buzz of adrenaline and energy Huw shoved at her across the link.

“Ease off, Huw. You’re giving me too much. I’m safe now.”

Soothing warmth came over the connection; she classified the emotion attached to it as satisfaction. Then the energy decreased in amount, but wasn’t cut off; Huw’s energy now felt more like a warm massage of her senses, a healing heat.

“Cas.” A’tem came to their side. “Help Bram keep the enemy pinned down. I’ll take care of Commander Nadia.”

“Huw and his security team are already on their way.” Nadia realized she’d spoken too soon when both Cas and A’tem stared. Cas’s eyes lit with interest and A’tem’s, with questions she had no answers for. “I’m telepathic, remember?”

“Yes, sir.” Cas bowed his head to Nadia and placed his fist over his heart. “I honor you, Commander. You saved my brother.”

“We’re a team … shipmates. He would’ve done the same for me. No thanks are necessary. Plus, it wasn’t our day to die.” Nadia reached to balance herself on the cave wall and winced at the pull on her wound. While her pain was not as bad as it could be due to Huw’s psychic assistance, it still nauseated her. A small wave of dizziness swept over her again as the extra adrenaline continued to dissipate. She allowed A’tem to lower her to the ground. Cas assisted him before turning to help Bram.

“I add my thanks, Commander Nadia,” Cred said as he worked over Bre’s wounds with the healing cold laser.

“How is …
dermo
, shit, A’tem. That hurt!” She glared at the Volusian who’d torn away her borrowed, now-tattered uniform top and proceeded to clean the side wound, the most serious of her injuries. She examined the deep gouge, which had jagged edges from the rock that had torn through the seal A’tem had placed on the earlier laser laceration.

“Any grit in that?”

Laser fire blared in the background. She sought Cas and Bram’s emotional auras and found them immersed in the battle. Calm. No fear. They didn’t need help. She touched Huw’s mind and found him even closer to their location, fighting through small groups of fleeing mercenaries to get to them. He was immersed in
batel rabia
which, she now realized, started out as a fiery-hot, explosive buildup and then progressed into a collective icy heat of determination shared by his fellow Prime. Their common goal? To win at all costs.

“Much grit.” A’tem’s tones were clipped; his lips thinned with anger and concern.

“That was very foolish, Nadia. You should’ve had one of us retrieve Bre.”

“There wasn’t time. I sensed the enemy before they fired. I was the closest. I wasn’t leaving a man down to save my own butt.” She shot him an icy glare. “I did what I had to do. You would’ve done the same.”

“Yes.” A’tem’s touch became gentler. “Are you in pain?”

“Hell, yeah, but it’s bearable.” She glanced at Bre whose skin was ashy under his normal bronzed skin tone; he was unconscious.
Probably a blessing.
His front torso was a mass of laser burns and torn skin from pulling himself along the rocky ground. “My injuries are mild compared to his. Then I plowed my shoulder into him. God! That must’ve hurt. He made no sound—none at all. Cred?”

“Yes, sir?” Cred looked up from tending his brother. Worry and anger glittered within his golden eyes.

“How is he?” She winced in sympathy as Cred continued to tweeze grit from the deep lacerations marring Bre’s sculpted abs. She ignored the fact A’tem was doing the same to her; she’d consigned her pain to the deep, cavernous well of Huw’s borrowed strength. The constant pulse along their connection hummed in the back of her mind and tingled along every nerve in her body.

“He will live. I have given him a strong anesthetic and two boluses of the strongest painkiller we carry. He is not in pain.”

“You’re lying through your teeth, Cred.” Nadia snorted which quickly turned into a gasp as A’tem turned the ice laser on her wound. “I sense his pain and so do you.”

“Yes, Commander.” Cred didn’t express any surprise at her statement; the Jod brothers, like Bram had, accepted her preternatural abilities.

What they actually thought about her psychic talent was anyone’s guess. She was pretty sure Bram had shared his theories concerning her and Huw.
Shit.

“But pain is a sign he is alive,” Cred continued. “This is a good thing.”

“Yes, it is,” Nadia agreed.