Rebellion (A Titan Romance Book 1) (14 page)

By then, most of Akyra’s team had reached her, surrounding her and Raemus’ group, overcome with curiosity and the excitement of the military might that just descended upon them. Ton for ton, a Titan Raptor was the deadliest piece of weaponry in the galaxy.

Clarx tried pushing his way closest, but Akyra had to grab him by the hand to yank him through the throng of powerful women. “What’s going on, captain?”

“Shh, Clarx. Captain Raemus is about to let us in on his plans and why he’s smiling so big. Right, Raemus?”

Surprisingly, Raemus’ smile diminished. “I’m smiling because more of my brothers are here. And they’re safe. But there’s a lot more to all this. And I’m afraid it’s bad news.”

“Bad? What’s so bad about having ten Raptors on site?” She said ‘ten’ on purpose.

Raemus looked around at the Banshees surrounding them. He was at least a foot taller than them, so he was able to see their eyes and engage them all. Looking back to Akyra, he said, “Your superiors on High Orbit Anchorage are beginning to assemble an assault force. A big one.”

All the Banshees straightened their backs and took an audible breath.

“They’re coming here. To Pergamon. They’re coming for me, definitely. Maybe for you, too.”

Akyra felt the tension in the air as every single Banshee’s heart dropped. “Shit.” She turned to Valarae several bodies away, who shot an angry glance right back at her. She asked Raemus, “Any idea how long?”

“Three days at least. Bu probably more. They can’t land here directly from orbit. But once their cruisers and skimmers are planetside, they could be here in three days. Colonel Weir is heading up the landing force himself.”

“Shit,” Akyra said again. In the face of this very bad news, it simply seemed the best thing to say.

No wonder Ar-Drezar is still offering me a way out.

R
aemus tore
through the night’s sky over the black mountains.

It was his turn to be alone.

The meeting with his own leadership team had not gone well this evening. The frustrations and tempers of Titans began to flare because this situation had evolved far differently than what they’d expected. Even his closest companions such as Akino and Levi, weren't holding back any longer.

They were pissed that the Bio-Teck cube hadn’t been destroyed. They were pissed that the presence of the human team was affecting there plans.

He couldn't blame some of them for hooking up. As the company commander, he had very little privacy, and that was one thing he wanted most to have with Akyra.

Even though the magical spell of initial love was wearing off, he was still struck by her great leadership skills and ability to run a tight military unit.

She’s damn funny
, he thought as he laid into his horizontal thrusters, hugging the mountainous terrain at an extremely dangerous altitude.
She doesn’t take shit from anyone. Whatever she wants to do, she knows she can get the job done. On top of all of that, I can’t get the image of her body out of my head. That curvy, round ass is going to drive me crazy if I don’t fuck her again soon. Very soon.

But the amount of time they could spend together was simply too limited. This one fact made him more pissed off then all the other Titans experienced put together.

I've got the best thing I could ever want, something I never dreamed possible. And there's nothing I can do to hold onto her.

He’d seen her becoming distant these past few days. Even before arriving here at the Ishkari Abbey. Even before Xerxus’ goons tried taking her out at the boulder field.

They just couldn’t get time together. It was no one’s fault. It was just the way it was.

It’s our separate destinies, once crossed, now slowly, painfully drifting apart.

Raemus felt the trigger of his turret gun nested the Raptor’s chin, resisting the impulse to squeeze it. He wanted to light something up, anything. He was so mad, he could barely control the urge to destroy half a mountainside.

Just a kiss goodnight. If I could just count on a kiss goodnight every night…

He eyed the black silhouette of a row of trees along a long ridge.
Fuck it
, he thought, as he slowed to a near hover and fired several hundred explosive rounds into the perfectly innocent trees. The blue explosions lit up the sky like an immense nighttime electrical storm focused on one spot.

It didn’t make him feel any better.

“Humans will cloud your judgement!” Akino insisted in his own fit of temper earlier. “I'm not talking about whatever you’ve got going on with Akyra, captain. I mean, humans are always caught up in a tangle of political drama. Always. It’s always about lies and deception with them. That’s not our style. We like to get in and get out. Maybe blow some shit up along the way. Having these humans around is a guarantee that your plans…
our
plans will turn out badly.”

“Your little obsession with humans is going to get us killed,” Tomohiko added. “Are you willing to let that ruin everything we’re fighting for?”

It’s not just a curiosity about humans
, Raemus insisted only to himself, his grip tightening again on the controls of his Raptor, looking for something else out in the night to unleash his frustration upon.
It’s a curiosity about myself. About all of us. Aren’t we part human, too? On some level? Aren’t the best qualities of humanity somewhere inside us?

But he was disconnected now from anyone who could answer such questions. Several times in the past, he asked his mentor, Bin Ar-Drezar, who lightly entertained such question at first, then brushing them off with answers that grew increasingly cruel, always pointing out that Raemus was not human, not even close.

In the Titan meeting that night, Raemus replied to Tomohiko and every other Titan in the room, “We
are
fighting for humans, Tomo. We always have. We always will. What’s in the Bio-Teck cubes doesn’t change that. What’s in
here
,” he pointed his heart, “doesn’t change that.”

However, Akino’s words continued eating at him as he charged over the invisible contours of Pergamon’s erratic mountains.

…our plans will turn out badly.

Akino was extremely smart. That's one of the reasons why Raemus kept him so close. He needed Titans like Akino, brave enough to push back, to keep him on track, to dish out the truth.

Then again, sometimes the truth was too difficult to take, and he wanted to make Akino shut up.

The political climate was changing rapidly, and even with his augmented intuition, Raemus was finding it difficult to keep track of things.

Titans were good at battle tactics, not political strategy.

Political strategy was best left to the devious, back-stabbing humans. Unfortunately, Raemus needed answers. He needed a human on his side.

But Akyra isn’t devious. She’s not back-stabbing. She’s the opposite. Like some relic of humanity’s golden past, somehow transported to the present day when humans thrive on oppression, lies, and cruelty—all in the name of The Almighty.

Another stand of trees met its end within a huge plume of exploding blue fire.

His Raptor buzzed the fiery column, the only light as far as he could see, curls of blue flame twisting in the violent wake of its wings.

He would go back the abbey, he decided. He would tell Akyra the whole truth about the Bio-Teck cube. It’s the last piece of the lie, he finally admitted, keeping them apart.

If I’d been honest with her from the beginning, maybe there wouldn’t have been this agonizing gap growing between us since our Shu’ri.

* * *

“
A
kyra
, we need to talk.”

Raemus had finally set his Raptor down in the wee hours of the night. He knew full well that he’d be waking up every soul in the abbey, but he didn’t care. He was focused. He was going to do the right thing for the woman he loved.

For the perfect, purebred human I love!

Akyra was probably the only one in the abbey who wasn’t asleep when Raemus’ Raptor thundered down on its skids, rattling the windows of the small office she’d commandeered for her HQ, where she sat up, drinking blue phenia tea, praying Raemus would return safely.

She’d heard about the confrontations between Raemus and his leadership team from Rayeley and Emilia. Consequently, she paced and fidgeted for hours in the near dark, imagining all sorts of bad outcomes.

Raemus burst through the door, wasting no time getting to the point.

When Akyra heard his words, she reached for the back of her neck. Her shoulders suddenly felt fatigued. “I know.”

“You do?” He threw his helmet and gloves to one of the long, ancient wooden tables littered with Banshee computer equipment.

“Raemus, I’ve been thinking, too.” Despite her strong words, her head was slightly moving back and forth in doubt.
I can’t believe this is happening,
she thought.

Raemus was about to throw his arms around her, but when he noticed her closed off posture, her tired, saddened face, he halted before her. “Akyra, there’s something important you’ve needed to know about our mission.”

That got Akyra’s attention. Her chin twitched just as she froze.

Raemus took a deep breath. “The new generation of soldier, the genetic material in the Bio-Teck cube, they’re not going to be our partners.”

Akyra’s eyelids narrowed. “What? Wait, what are we talking about?”

“The Titans are being replaced, Akyra. Church guardians are going to exterminate the Titans. All of us. Everywhere. They’re going to kill us off.”

Akyra let her weight drop on the desk she was leaning against. She’d been steeled for a breakup. Not this. “Are you kidding me?”

“Not much of a joke.”

“Raemus, I’m sorry. I… should’ve figured that out. What are you… what are
we
going to do?”

“Stay the fuck away from Zebra for starters.”

Akyra began biting her thumbnail. “Yeah, that move makes a helluva lot of sense now. Why don’t you just get a hold of the Bio-Teck cube and destroy it?”

“Well… that’s just it.” For the first time since Raemus’ boyhood primary indoctrination, he looked away from someone’s stare. “We’ve had the Bio-Teck cube.”

Akyra’s eyebrows shot up.

Raemus added, “The
entire
time.”

Akyra suddenly couldn’t swallow. “You fucker.”

“Yeah… I kinda thought you’d say that. I’m… very sorry I kept that fact from you.”

“Wait. I’ve been risking the lives of everyone I care about, everyday, to get it back, and you
had
it? We’ve been following you around this planet for almost two weeks like stray animals, and you’ve been stringing us along?”

“Well… that wasn’t
exactly
the plan.”

Akyra lurched forward and punched Raemus as hard as she could in the chest. It was like punching a wall.

And her form was terrible.

A searing pain ignited in her wrist. She tried shaking it off, but couldn’t do it without letting him know how badly it hurt. “I thought we were both planning on breaking off our relationship tonight. I mean, I know,
what
relationship?”

“No, I wasn’t planning on that. I just needed to tell you the truth, if we were going to keep our relationship going.”

“Well, you may not have been planning on breaking it off, but guess what?” Akyra side-stepped away from him. The office was suddenly way too small.

Raemus continued, “The Church is going to systematically kill off every Titan in the galaxy, Akyra. I found out about it. I decided to put a stop to it.”

Akyra raised her head to look sideways at him.

“Bin Ar-Drezar knew we were drifting from the fold,” Raemus continued. “He’s no dummy. He’s actually one of the smartest humans I’ve ever known, and he probably
knew
that we knew. That’s why he contacted Xerxus. That’s why he convinced Xerxus to ambush you the day you landed. Because he guessed I was going to get to you first. To ambush you. Which…” Raemus scratched the side of his head. “…we
were
going to do.”

“You were going to ambush me?”

“Yeah… We got beat to the punch. Like I said, Bin Ar-Drezar is a smart little human. When he’s not high on Ghula.”

“You would have killed me to get the Bio-Teck cube?”

“Yeah… probably. I didn’t really
know
you yet, you know?”

“Don’t be funny. It’s not your style.” She wanted to punch him again with her good hand. She perked up instead. “Wait, so who assaulted the base? Who sent in the spiderdrones?”

Raemus waited a moment. Then raised his hand.

“You fucker. You put two of my girls in the hospital. You almost
killed
my girls!” The office was dead silent, but the blood in Akyra’s brain was sizzling in her ears. “You
kissed
me when the assault began, Raemus. You
kissed
me. I mean, it was was a really, really good kiss!”

“Well.. I wasn’t going to
kill
you at that point, Akyra. No one was going to die. A few broken bones? Sure. I didn’t know if I could trust you, Akyra. I had a job to do. You need to understand, I didn’t know you yet.” He moved to her, holding out his open palm. “How’s your wrist.”

“It’s stupid. It hurts.” Reluctantly, she gave him her hand, the sprain searing. “How’s your chest?”

“The pain is agonizing. I can barely stand up.” He held her injured wrist in both of his hands. “Akyra, I’m sorry I lied to you. My mission has been to help the people of Minora, and it’s far greater than me. It’s been my goal for a long time. I even have ideas that, maybe just maybe, Titans could help people throughout the galaxy, not just here on Minora.” He lifted her hand gently, kissing it twice. “News of the new generation soldier, the arrival of the Bio-Teck cube, your arrival, all of this pushed up my timetable. And you know military operations, nothing’s gone as planned. In the last two weeks, I’ve discovered that if we don’t set things right, at least on this one little planet, then all my brothers will die.”

Akyra took her hand back and tucked into her armpit, frowning. “How does intercepting one parcel cube stop anything, Raemus? Bio-Teck will have another one at Zebra in, what, two weeks? And there must’ve been more than a dozen sent out across the galaxy. In fact, I know some of the Sec-Ops commanders who received those contracts.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what’s point, Raemus?”

“That they can’t control us.”

“Who?”

“The Church.”

Akyra narrowed her eyes. “You told me just a week ago that God directs your destiny. You told me that you fully believe that.”

“I still do,” Raemus replied. “But don’t you get the feeling sometimes the two—The Church and The Almighty—aren’t as connected as we’re told?” He tapped her pendant with a single finger.