True Traitor (First Wave Book 7) (27 page)

“Koda modified the tractor beams so that we could disable human craft without killing everyone. He grabs them in the beam, then sends an EMP pulse through it to disable the craft, then puts it close enough to the ground to prevent needless loss of life,” he said with pride in his intelligent brother.

Thjodhild chuckled. “So it really is what it looks like. He’s picking them up and chucking them on the ground like toys. Damn, you’ve got to get us some of those,” Thjodhild said with an appreciative smile.

“They’re firing on a pregnant female! Blow the bastards out of the fucking sky!” Reven roared, fighting against Ivint.

Ivint nodded at Amun and Reven never noticed the mediband that Amun slipped onto the back of his neck, the sedatives inside calming him enough to make him stop fighting while Ivint and Fiorn helped him to sit down.

Slate called out, “Extraction team ETA, four minutes!”

Sam’s voice came through the comm. “They’re dropping troops! We need backup!”

Grai growled in frustration. “Koda!”

“I heard! I’m on my way!” Koda responded.

Everyone watched with bated breath as another chopper tumbled from the sky, the men rappelling down catapulted through the air before crashing to the ground, unmoving. Grai looked to another screen and watched the dots, representing other hybrid teams, begin to converge on Jax and Sam. But, they were still far enough away to scare the hell out of him.

“Grai, this won’t be pretty,” Koda warned, his voice strained.

Grai knew immediately what his brother was saying and shook his head.

“I don’t care. They opened fire first,” he said, then watched another helicopter burst into flames before hitting the ground near the soldiers that had rappelled from the other choppers.

Grai shook his head at the unnecessary loss of life as the human body count rose. Still, they continued to rappel from the other choppers and fired on his people.

If they are looking for a capture, it was dead or alive,
he thought.

This was much more aggressive than he was used to from the regular military forces, and he couldn’t help but think they were mercenaries.

Grai watched another chopper jerk and knew Koda had the tractor beam locked onto the craft, inside of watching it tumble like the others, the remaining choppers began firing wildly around them. Grai had a sinking feeling in his stomach and opened the comm.

“Koda, get the hell out of there!” he roared, his panic rising.

But, it was too late. Grai watched in horror as an RPG hit Koda’s craft. His cloaking shimmered and Grai saw the ship come into view as the cloak failed.

“What happened to his shields?” Thjodhild whispered in shock.

Ivint shook his head.

“He had to lower them to use the tractor beam. Get him out of there!”

Grai trembled and struggled to remain calm.

“Koda, get out of there and eject. We’ll come find you. I will find you, brother,” Grai said hoarsely, sending a call through the Shengari’ for his people to track Koda and prepare to extract.

Slate called out.

“Everyone but Jax, Sam and Koda are out of there!”

Grai watched his brother fight to control his disabled ship as the helicopters continued to fire on him. Seconds later, two choppers exploded, lighting up the sky in a shower of flaming debris.

“Hang on Koda!” Grai heard one of his fighters say as they swarmed the area.

The last chopper was blown out of the sky as Koda’s ship limped deeper into the forest, avoiding populated areas. Grai had a white knuckled grip on the edge of the table, when the comm crackled and he heard Koda’s voice.

“Grai, I’m going to set the dec-charge before I eject. Clear the damn area!” Koda said warningly, the stress in his voice clear, even to those who didn’t know him.

“No!” Grai roared, his fear escalating. “No, Koda, we’ll take care of it when you’re clear,” Grai said, his tone telling everyone it was an order.

“What’s a dec-charge?” Thjodhild asked, fearing the answer.

Slate shouted, “We got Jax and Sam!”

Grai gripped the table so hard, it was cracking beneath his fingers. “Koda, eject now!” he growled into the comm as he watched the craft continue deeper into the mountains.

Koda’s comm crackled again.

“Damn Grai, now you’re nagging. Next you’ll be wanting to tuck me in and cut my meat,” Koda teased before turning serious. “I’m getting clear of the Folly before I set the charge. Just be ready to pick me up.”

“Koda, don’t do this!” Grai growled.

“What’s a dec-charge?” Thjodhild asked again.

Koda had gotten the damaged ship several miles from the folly when it began to lose all power to its main propulsion systems and he knew he was going to have to leave now. He programmed in the master sequence to the dec-charge and hit the button to eject.

Koda watched the timer to the dec-charge count down as the protective skin shuttered over him and his seat before he was ejected from the craft.

Grai watched the screen and prayed silently as he watched his brother’s ejection pod launch from the ship, seconds before a bright flash lit up the sky and the ship began to disappear in spectacular pops of light.

Grai sunk to his knees and roared in rage and pain when Koda’s ejection pod was clipped by a pop of light from the dec-charge and broke up in the sky, three pieces each heading towards the ground in a rapid descent before flashes of fire erupted in the forest below.

“Get teams there now!” Ivint roared.

Grai turned to Fiorn. “Get me there!”

Fiorn nodded, calling out orders as he led Grai to the hangar and one of their own choppers, Ivint and a few others following. Thjodhild remained behind with Scaden and a few others, who were silently praying for Koda’s safe return.

“What just happened?” Thjodhild asked in confusion and concern.

Scaden shook his head. “He used a dec-charge. A Decimator Charge. It’s a Relian design meant to eliminate all traces of something. He didn’t get fully clear of it,” Scaden said, sadly seeing no hope of finding Koda alive.

Thjodhild gasped.

“No!” she said, looking around her at the saddened Valendrans and hybrids before turning back to the screen and the fires now burning in the forest where the pod had crashed in flaming pieces.

Seconds later the energy in the Shengari’ surged. When it resettled itself, everyone could feel an emptiness, as if something were missing. Hearing Grai’s roar of pain and rage echo down the tunnel, Thjodhild’s tears started to fall silently as she realized what had happened.

Koda’s energy was gone. He and his beast were no longer connected to the Shengari’, his energy extinguished. A hush fell over the room and the Shengari’ until their people realized what had happened and that one of their own was gone . . . and who.

Rage, pain, sympathy and love throbbed so strongly through the Shengari’ that those connected could feel the surge in their energy. Unable to contain the rising level of emotions, as one people, they cried out their pain for their fallen.

A hush soon fell over the Shengari’ as one man, whose energy and power ran deeper than anyone knew, throbbed so strongly with rage that it replaced the pain. With each step he took down the tunnel, the emptiness inside of him, where his brother’s energy had resided only moments ago, was replaced by vengeance.

*****

Halfway around the world, Mikal closed his beautiful white eyes and reeled from his father’s pain as it echoed through him. Moments later he knew the cause and ran to hold Tricia as she cried out in pain at the loss of Koda. 

Tristan, still in his warrior form, gently took his mother from Mikal’s arms and golden eyes stared intently at white while the brother’s spoke silently to one another. Mikal nodded his head and was gone in a sparkle of iridescent lights.

Chapter Twenty Four

Countdown Clock to Human Discovery

1:00 Hours

This is a WSBC special report. We have reached out to some of the homeowners and campers affected by the land slide that occurred almost 24 hours ago at Burnt Tree Ridge. We will have a full statement from 5 different people who were forced to evacuate the area.

We have also learned that a local JROTC squad is helping direct traffic. We’ll talk to the teens about their volunteer effort first thing on WSBC news in the morning.

Grai searched the area, frantically calling out Koda’s name until his voice became hoarse. Gibly and dozens of cats had dispersed the moment they landed, searching for any sign of Koda and still hadn’t found anything.

Ten minutes later, Grai was led to Amun, who was standing over a large piece of debris. He saw right away that it was the ejection pod shield and fell to his knees on the ground beside it. With a shaking hand, he reached out to touch the blood soaked shield, then stared at it on his fingers.

Amun put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s Koda’s . . . Grai, I’m so sorry,” he said, his own pain over Koda’s loss, bleeding from his energy.

Grai shook his head.

“He could still be alive . . . just unconscious,” he said, rising to his feet and looking around for more debris from the pod. The ship itself had been vaporized by the dec-charge.

Fiorn and Ivint looked over at Amun and when the doctor shook his head at them, they knew the odds of Koda having survived the crash were zero. Ivint pulled Grai to a stop.

“Son . . ., we need to get our people out of here before more of those bastards arrive,” he said, trying to get through the haze of pain and rage that was clouding Grai’s energy.

Grai looked at Ivint blankly when the comm came to life.

“We have survivors! Please tell us we can kill the bastards.”

Grai’s eyes turned an icy gray that actually sent a shiver up Ivint’s spine.

“Hold them there, I’m on my way,” Grai said before he sprinted to the chopper.

The others had barely got in behind him before he ordered it to take off. In minutes they were hovering over the area and the pilot called out, “I can’t get lower unless I go further away,” he said.

Grai looked down at the 16 foot drop and jumped. Amun, Ivint and the others looked at one another for a second before they jumped out as well, more afraid for Grai and the emotional state he was in than the height of the jump.

Grai was standing over five men, each in various stages of injury from perfectly fine to broken bones. His anger radiated from him so powerfully that the other hybrids stayed back from him to avoid feeling it so deeply.

A strong gust of wind blew by them, causing the dust to rise a bit and everyone waited for it to die down. Suddenly, Grai crossed his arm over his chest, touching his fist to his shoulder he bowed his head for a moment before looking to the sky and the building wind.

“Thank you, my son,” he said. Mikal responded by whipping up the wind until the dust was too thick to see. But, only 10 feet off the ground.

“That’s incredible,” one of the fallen mercenaries said as he watched the vortex of dust and wind whip around overhead while there wasn’t even a breeze where they were below it.

Picking the man who looked the healthiest, the one with a sneer on his face, Grai grabbed him by his throat and yanked him to his feet.

“I want the name of the man who ordered this,” Grai growled in the man’s face.

The idiot chuckled and said, “Sorry ET, this is my home.”

There was no warning. One moment the man was laughing in Grai’s face and the next he was flat on his back, his mouth opened on a scream as Grai held his bleeding heart in his hand.

Grai rolled the heart on the ground towards the four remaining men. “Now, who wants to tell me, who ordered this?” he asked.

When the men just looked at him in horror, Grai grabbed the next healthiest looking guy and said, “Who sent you here and told you to fire?”

When the guy peed himself, Grai grinned evilly at him. “Mercs . . . working for the military. Give me his name,” Grai said, his grip on the man’s neck tightening slowly until he was struggling uselessly against Grai’s rage and strength.

“Wait! Wait . . . please,” one of the injured said, crying on the ground.

Grai stared at the man in his grip before letting go and turning away as he dropped to the ground gasping for air. Grai kneeled in front of the one who had spoken, his dark eyes quickly taking in his broken leg and the gash on his hand.

“Tell me. Now,” he said simply.

The man looked wildly around him, trembling in fear at the furious faces surrounding him, not a hint of sympathy in their strange eyes.

“They’re watching and listening,” the man said quietly, his hand shaking as he pointed to a small rectangular black box on the shoulder strap of his body armor.

Niklosi and Decano grabbed the boxes off of the other men and smashed them beneath their feet as Grai slowly pulled the one off the man in front of him.

Grai looked into the box and turned back to the man lying on the ground in front of him.

“I want names. Now,” Grai said.

When the man just shook his head in fear, Grai reached for him.

“Wait!”

Grai barely stopped himself from killing the man as Blade ran up to them. He turned slowly towards Fiorn’s hybrid, hoping like hell the man had something incredibly important to tell him to explain the interruption.

“Give me two minutes with them and they will tell us everything we want to know,” Blade said.

Ivint and Reven shook their heads having seen what Blade can do firsthand. Ivint laid a hand on Grai’s shoulder.

“He is incredible. He’ll get you the names. All of them,” Ivint said.

Grai looked back at the man lying on the ground and for once, he enjoyed the smell of the fear emanating from him. Holding the camera so that it was pointed at the captives, Grai stood and backed away.

He looked at Blade and nodded his head.

“Show them who they just started a war with,” Grai said with a sneer. He didn’t really know what Blade could do, but if it wasn’t a strong enough message, he still had one of his own to send.

Blade walked up to the man who’d spoken and grinned as he flinched away from him. He grabbed the man’s leg and looked him in the eyes.

“Name your entire chain of command,” Blade said, giving the man one of the strongest compulsions he’d ever used before.

The man’s eyes glazed over and he began speaking in a monotone voice while the hybrids recorded the whole thing. When he’d named his entire chain of command, Blade smiled at him.

“Good, now name all the other people you work with on these missions,” Blade said, sending another strong compulsion.

The man again began to speak in a monotone voice, several minutes later, in the middle of speaking, blood began leaking out of his nose and mouth and he began to seize.

Grai watched him dispassionately, while Amun had to walk away, the doctor in him having a hard time with what was going on, even though he felt it was necessary.

Blade turned to Grai.

“I think the compulsion I’m sending is a little too strong. I’ll lighten it up a bit with the next one,” he said dispassionately as the first man stopped seizing and lay still.

Grai nodded his head.

“Don’t touch me! I’ll talk!” the next man screamed.

Blade looked at Grai questioningly and Grai shook his head. “They fired on a pregnant female, not even knowing if she was human or not. And they killed my brother, they gave up their right to mercy when they showed none,” Grai said, knowing that Lt. Col. Marcus Ballard was listening. And glad of it.

The man began to scream before Blade grabbed his leg and said, “Name all of the people you work with on these missions.”

Five minutes later, the five men lay dead on the ground in front of them. The last dying in a violent seizure only moments ago. They’d gotten only the names of the lower and mid-level people that these five men knew of. There were still upper level people to learn the identities of and Grai intended just that. Already the mountain hybrids, working with Grai’s people, had gotten every bit of information available on the people that were named.

Grai turned the camera in his hand so that it was facing him. “Until now, we have remained peaceful. We’ve inflicted no intentional harm on any human, seeking only to help. You have captured and tortured our people and seek to continue to do so, you’ve taken kindness for weakness.”

Grai bared his teeth at the camera.

“But, I’m not the kind, loving people you’ve dealt with before. I’m different. Even from them. And I, am coming for you. I am coming for everything that means anything to you. To all of you. When I find you,” Grai growled with a determination that could be felt in the room of people watching him at the base not far away.

“When I find you, you will see exactly what I am and what I can do. And may your God have mercy on you and what you love. Because, I will have the same amount you have shown to us,” Grai said before Gibly and the cats began yowling and growling in a loud cacophony of support.

Moments later, Grai also raised his fist and roared his rage to swirling wind, each of the hybrids following suit until the trees shook with the sound. Grai looked around him at the faces of Fiorn and Ivint, wondering if they would support him, but uncaring if they did. He was going to take them all down. By himself if he had to.

As the noise died down around them, Fiorn stepped forward and moved his fist to his right shoulder, bowing his head in support. Grai looked at Ivint, who immediately copied the movement before every hybrid there did the same.

Looking into the camera one more time, Grai said, “We’re all coming for you,” before he crushed the camera in his hand.