True Traitor (First Wave Book 7) (28 page)

Aftermath

Hours later they had arrived in Dillon by the hundreds. Coming from every location on and off the planet to honor Koda and assist in the Death Rite Ceremony. The air was thick with sorrow and grief as Grai stood stoically, holding the hand of his son as he stared at the rock pillar erected for his brother and the eternal flame he had already lit. Tricia stood beside him, holding Traze as the tears flowed unchecked down his face. 

A hush fell over the gathered crowd for a moment before they parted, allowing the Dranovians to reach their family at the pillar. Most of the hybrids gave them words of comfort or gentle touches as they passed and each of Grai’s children politely thanked them, grateful that this was one time they would be accepted by their own. Although, they were heartbroken and devastated at the reason.

Balduen, Dare, his mother, and his sister hugged each of them as they entered the circle. Angel pulled away from Drago and ran into her father’s arms.

“Daddy . . .,” she said before the tears overcame her.

Grai hugged her closely, while Mikal picked up Tristan and kissed his head. While Chris walked over to Tricia and put his arms around her and Traze at the same time and bowed his head near theirs, fighting his own tears. The rest of his children, stood as stoically as their father had, some fighting their tears and others, like Liam, allowed them to flow unchecked. Dree held his hand, her other wiping her own tears.

“Where is Ratoka?” Grai asked, gently pushing Angel into Drago’s waiting arms.

“Gibly went to get him,” Ivint said.

Moments later a dozen Sibiox ran through the crowd, led by Gibly. The large cat stopped in front of Grai and bowed his head.

“Ratoka comes,” Gibly said as Grai saw the man coming towards them.

Each of the cats that had come with Gibly, had lined up behind their leader. Now each bowed their heads at Grai, who bowed his in return.

Gibly fluffed out his fur before settling it back down again as he looked at Grai.

“My people come with gifts of respect for our fallen. We ask that you grant us the honor of lending our energy to your ritual so that our ancestors will forever watch over Koda,” Gibly asked.

The first cat behind Gibly moved forward and stood in front of Grai before lowering his mouth to the ground and placing a seed by his feet. Then the rest of the cats followed suit. Each placing a seed at the feet of Koda’s family. Including the Dranovian’s.

Grai looked puzzled, but nodded his head in respect to the cats.

“Thank you all. I’d be honored to have you here with us,” Grai said hoarsely.

Traze leaned down to pick up the seed and the Sibiox standing next to it growled at him and shook his head.

“I’m glad you tried that first,” Chris said with a slight grin as he whispered to Traze.

Traze shrugged his shoulders, not understanding about the seed, but ignoring it as Ratoka entered the circle and raised his arms.

“Let us begin,” Ratoka said.

Everyone in the circle joined hands as Ratoka began chanting the ritual words that would allow a part of their souls to find Koda’s in the Death Realm.

The energy started to whip around them, rising with the emotions and love of Koda’s family until it became a swirling storm around them. Just as Ratoka finished the ritual, the whirlwind of energy vanished, leaving everyone stunned and afraid.

“Why didn’t it work?” Chris asked with concern, looking around at the shocked faces in the circle. 

“Koda is not dead,” Ratoka said.

“No! Oh Gods, No!” Grai roared as his knees hit the ground and he collapsed in pain and rage.

Everyone was too shocked to move, their thoughts and emotions in turmoil. Grai stood, “I have to find him,” he said as he started to run towards the Headquarters building.

Ivint and Reven stopped him. “You can’t! The area is swarming with the military and news crews! We need to think this through!” Ivint warned him.

When Grai looked to fight them, Reven said, “You will do him no good if you get captured!”

“We left him there!” Grai roared in rage at himself.

Amun stepped forward. “Grai, there was too much blood in that pod shield,” he said by way of explanation as to why he thought Koda dead.

Fiorn turned to Sam, “Get your animals looking for him.”

Sam nodded and turned to Jax who nodded back at him before she told Reven what they were going to do, then left. Mikal walked over to his father.

“We will find him, father,” he said before he disappeared in a sparkle of iridescent lights.

Chris went to Grai and put his arms around his shoulders. “Let’s think this through and find him,” he said.

“Why didn’t we find him before? Where the hell could he be?” Grai asked brokenly.

Reven shook his head. “We have footage of everything that happened, we’ll go through it all until we figure it out,” he promised, willing to do whatever it took to get Koda back and keep Grai from doing something that would get him captured by the military.

Gibly walked over to Grai and laid a paw on his leg. “Grai, take my people out there. We will find him,” Gibly said.

Ivint nodded his head. “It’s a good idea. They can hide much easier from the military and cover a lot of ground,” he said, hoping Grai would agree.

Grai kneeled down. “Gibly, make sure your people do not put themselves in danger. Thank you . . . my friend . . . thank you,” Grai said choking up.

Viper stepped forward. “Come Gibly, grab your people and I’ll drop you near the forest,” he said.

Gibly put his paw on Grai’s shoulder. “I will not fail you, my friend,” the cat said before running towards the doors to the docking bay. The cats in the circle followed their leader and disappeared as Viper jogged after them.

Grai stood again, squaring his shoulders and strengthening his resolve. “I want every piece of footage we have gone over down to the microsecond. Four teams, our best are to remain on standby, their only job to wait to evacuate him. I want to know every damn thing they are talking about on that site right now and I want to know where they go when they leave. We have to go on the assumption that they have him,” he said, looking at Ivint, Reven, Fiorn, Lara and the fle’ te’ Trugh brothers.

Slate looked over at Risk and they both went into the Headquarters building to hack into the military communications at the site.

Fiorn grinned.

“It’s a good thing we know who they are now,” he said, cracking his knuckles.

Ivint crossed his arms over his chest and nodded.

“We were going after them anyway, maybe we can get all of the captives out,” he said.

Lara nodded. “I’ll do anything I can for you.”

Dread agreed. “You have the backing of the Tezarian people.”

Grai nodded his thanks. “Lara, I want you and the kids to go back to Washington. You already have government contacts through Devon and Angel. Use them. If they won’t help find the people farther up the food chain in this, then expose all their dirty secrets.”

Grai ground his teeth. “We’re done playing nice. It’s time to show force and make them fear this time. No one on that list survives. But, I want none of their women or children harmed. Brutality in the face of the same is one thing, but, we are not the monsters that they are and we won’t let them turn us into ones either,” he said.

Ivint and the others were glad that the old Grai was back. Sort of, anyway. This darker, more violent side of him was one that they’d never seen before and it was intimidating enough that they were seriously glad that he was on their side.

Someone moved to extinguish the eternal flame at the top of the pillar and Grai growled. “No! We keep it lit until he is returned to us!”

Dog’ee nodded his furry head and several cats moved through the crowd to him. Everyone watched as the cats stamped the seeds into the soil then lay on top of them. They was a whisper of sound, unlike anything anyone had heard before. Although it was high pitched, it wasn’t unpleasant at all.

The sound stopped and the cats stood and stepped back from where they tamped the seeds into the soil. Gasps were heard all around as the seeds sprouted into a circle of flowers around the pillar.

Ivint was shocked. “Those are hyperian blood roses. How did you get them here?” he asked in awe.

The flowers were the rarest on Valendra. They grew in odd places, never in groups, appearing randomly. They couldn’t be grown by anyone, once the plant was pulled from its location, it died and couldn’t be transplanted. Ivint had never seen so many in one place.

Dog’ee chuckled. “We brought them. We make them for those who need the pretty. The pretty is good to heal the heart,” he said before he started to walk away.

“Wait!” Ivint said. “How do you make them?”

Dog’ee stopped and rolled his eyes. “We eat the fruit, we poo the seeds and use our energy to make the pretty,” he said matter of factly.    

Traze said, “Ew, that’s nasty. You had that in your mouths!”

David slapped him in the back of the head. “Respect!”

Dog’ee stuck his tongue out at Traze. “We clean them first,” he said before he ran off.

Ivint shook his head. “That’s amazing. I had no idea,” he said, in awe of the special cats.

Amun pulled out his comm. “The flowers produce a scent that acts like a drug. It’s known to lessen emotional pain naturally. There’s no telling what therapeutic properties it could have that the Sibiox know of. We really need to get someone looking into that back home,” he said as he followed everyone into the headquarters building.

*****

Lt. Col. Marcus Ballard walked up to the five bodies on the ground with a disgusted look on his face. Blood and foam was crusted to their faces with the exception of the first one, whose mouth was still opened on a silent scream. Creeped out by it, Marcus turned away.

“Sir,” Kyle said. “Under the circumstances it may be wise to put the teams in a secure location.”

Marcus turned his sneering face to the Major. “Are you a coward, boy?” he asked.

Kyle closed his eyes and prayed for patience. “No sir, I’m not a coward. But, there’s no telling who else the others have seen and dealt with over the years. Who they know. You saw that guy, you saw what they did to these men. We have a duty to protect the people above our paygrade,” he said, already writing the email in his mind to their commanders about the situation along with a copy of the incident footage. Before that freak killed their feed.

Kyle didn’t give a damn if they killed the idiot in front of him, hell he was hoping they did so he could gain command of the unit. But, he damn sure didn’t want to end up facing that freak. The ease in which he ripped the soldier’s heart out had been terrifying. And the one who forced them to talk before they died wasn’t much better in his opinion.

Marcus chuckled. “Boy, they aren’t going to do a damn thing more than what they did here. They’re impotent. They blew their wad right here on this. Now drop your nuts boy! I need men, not sissies!” he said before he walked off.

Kyle clenched his fists in rage. The man was either a complete idiot or in denial. What happened here had only shown how unprepared they were to handle these creatures with the resources they had at their disposal. And how truly dangerous they were.

“We found one alive!” Kyle heard through the radio.

“One of ours?” he asked immediately.

“No sir! He has that dark spot in his eyes! But, he’s in really bad shape. There’s barely a pulse.”

Kyle couldn’t believe his luck! “Get him out of here! Now! Medivac him out! Secure location Alpha Taurus under heavy guard!” he ordered, running to tell the Lt. Col. that they’d just gotten the prize of their careers.

“We got another body out here too. Not one of ours. Looks like a civilian in cammo. Wait, he’s got service tats,” came through the radio.

Kyle stopped short of the Lt. Col. “Bag him with the rest. I want to know who he is and what he was doing out here,” he ordered.

Epilogue

Leif and True settled into her cabin in Dillon within a week of losing Koda. They’d both decided that until Koda returned, they’d remain in Dillon to help find him. There was plenty of time to delve into the mysteries of Beta Base, but for now they felt more useful where they were.

True flopped onto the couch beside him in their living room and sighed. Leif pulled her into his lap and kissed her neck. “What’s wrong baby?” he asked.

True leaned her head on his shoulder. “Tomorrow is a big day for us. I’m going back on mission status and you’re starting mission training. I hate to say it, but I might miss you,” she admitted with a teasing grin.

Leif chuckled and tickled her ribs until she giggled. “You’re going to miss me a lot and you know it. But me, I’ll be so busy with training that I probably won’t have time to miss you. Sorry,” he said teasingly. He laughed when she punched him in the arm.

“You better not be that busy. Ever,” she teased back.

Leif hugged her close. “Never. Just promise me that you’ll stay safe and not take any unnecessary chances,” he said.

True pulled back and kissed him. “I won’t, I promise. Seriously though, you do need to pay attention in training. It’s going to be a lot tougher than you’re used to and I don’t want you spending all your time getting patched up,” she said, worrying about him.

Leif’s mouth dropped open. “Are you calling me a pussy?”

True looked shocked. “Of course not! I’m just saying that training is very hard and no one cuts you any slack. I ended up in MedLab six times! And with the mood around here now, they’re probably going to be even harder on everyone,” True said defending her concern for him.

Leif nodded. “I know. There’s a whole lot of anger going around. Hearing confirmation that they have Koda was hard on everyone,” Leif said, remembering Grai’s scream of rage when they heard the soldiers on the military channel confirm he was alive and they had him. They were still repairing the conference room from the damage Grai had caused in his rage.

True sighed and nodded her head. “Tricia said Grai spends most of his time working or standing at Koda’s pillar. He’s always been so controlled and now he radiates anger and a dangerous energy that makes you damn glad he likes you,” she admitted with a grimace.

Leif chuckled. “Yeah, we’re still working on that liking thing so I tend to avoid him. It seems the more prudent course of action right now. The last time I ran into him, I felt what you mean though. Like there was a serious predator inside of him that was waiting to be unleashed. Do you think that’s the Relian side?” he asked curiously.

True got up and went into the kitchen and brought them both a bottle of water before she sat back on the couch and cuddled in his arms.

“I don’t think it’s a Relian thing so much as a brother thing. But, you could be right. Traze has been acting the same way. He stays locked up with Grai all the time and they’re training together,” True said.

Leif whistled low. “If they were smart, the military would give Koda back and apologize. Grai has led every hit team so far. And Blade has become his constant companion on them. They’ve taken out twelve in a week and got dozens more names. The rest are in hiding. They need to just off themselves to save them from what Grai is going to do to them when he finds them,” Leif said.

True shook her head. “No, I want them to suffer,” she admitted.

“Damn,” Leif said surprised. “you’re a blood thirsty little thing aren’t you?”

True straddled his hips and leaned down to kiss him passionately. “I’m intense, there’s a difference,” she said teasingly.

“Hmmm,” Leif said. “Show me how intense you are little firefly.”

*****

Grai was in a conference room at headquarters, going over more reports and more locations of the new names they’d gotten from the last asshole they killed.

“You’d think with all these people knowing about us that the humans would have figured it out by now,” Traze said, angrily shoving some papers onto the table.

David shook his head. “No, they’re all military or government. They take an oath of office and secrecy for the purpose of national security. In situations like this, with this much at stake, they’re being monitored closely. I would bet all of their communications are watched and where they live is bugged. The watchers of the watchers,” he explained.

Grai turned to David. “So you think that some of these people may be innocent of wrongdoing in this?” he asked.

David sighed heavily and leaned back. “The soldiers no, but some of these other people they’ve been naming, yes. I think some got lured into the job and now have no way out. There’s nurses, admin. assistants, programmer’s . . . people who make no decisions regarding captives. What I’m saying is, there are a lot of people that could be convinced to help. Who may know where they’re being held,” he suggested.

Grai stood and paced. That’s what they needed to know. Where the captives were being held. They’d not been able to find that out from anyone they’d tracked down. Once Koda had been taken to the first secure location, from there, he was picked up and moved to a place that no one seemed to know the location of. He had to give it to the bastards, they were as paranoid as he was and good at keeping things secret.

He turned to David. “What do you suggest?”

David looked at the list again. “We need someone to profile them, find the one most likely to turn. There has to be at least one or more of them that know enough about what’s going on to be really uncomfortable with it,” David said, hoping Grai would give it a chance. He felt strongly that it would work.

Blade cleared his throat. “It would be easy to reap them without being noticed. I could accidently brush up against them in the grocery store, or the gas station . . . this would be easy. Lauren could probably help pick the most likely targets. Between some minor reaping and compulsion, we could easily have our own spy inside,” he suggested.

Grai nodded his head. “Get the files to Lauren. I want the top five candidates by morning and a plan to use them. They have to be in a position to help though. We don’t need any useless baggage, it will only weaken us,” he said coldly.

“What about Gibly?” Niklosi asked.

Grai sighed heavily and wiped a hand down his face. They hadn’t heard from Gibly directly since he’d left to go find Koda in the forest. It’d been a week and all they knew was that he and the other cats had caught a scent and were following it. And that they knew from Dog’ee who said Gibly was going to find Koda, like he’d promised his friend, he would. Grai was devastated that the cat hadn’t come back and felt responsible for him being gone for so long.

Grai shook his head. “Their temporary leader, Ranger, is to be consulted regarding the Sibiox. I want Gibly back as much as everyone, but if we have no idea where he is, then we can’t go get him. We have to trust that he’s ok and knows what he’s doing,” he said sadly, wishing his faithful friend was there with them.

He knew the odds of Gibly finding Koda were non-existent when they hadn’t been able to reap the information from any of the soldiers.

*****

Sheriff Joe Scarborough repeated his statement to the press that were still hounding his office and camping out in his town.

“Again, I know nothing more about the natural disaster that occurred or about the military training accident that occurred not long after the landslide. I have nothing more to say,” he said before he moved through them to get into his office.

He closed the door behind him, ignoring the shouted questions and took a shuddering breath.
Damn, this was a nightmare
, he thought. He was tired. He and his men had been grilled extensively by the military, the same questions over and over again.

Every day, they came and chose someone else to interrogate about what, if anything they had seen. Luckily, only he, another deputy and some of the ROTC kids had seen anything. The kids thought it was all military craft in the air that night and they didn’t tell anyone any different, so that was all they told the military personnel who interviewed them.

They still had the entire forest area under military command while the investigation continued and Joe and his men stayed far away from the place. Going into his office, he shut the door and went to the safe in the wall. He pulled out the comm Grai had given him and sent him a quick update on the situation there before he put it back in the safe.

*****

Gibly watched closely from the cage he’d allowed himself to be put into. He let his pack mates know he was alright and ordered them into positions around where he was being held.

He narrowed his eyes as he watched the small girl child gesticulating wildly with her right hand in the air. It was she that he had gotten into the cage for, after he’d followed her into the small home.

His sharp eyes moved to the door as the adult female, the child’s mother came into the room in a rush. Oblivious to the cage and the cat now inside, the women sat beside the bed, placing a bowl of water on the bedside table.

“If we move you, you’ll die. If I leave to get help, you’ll die. Please, please, please don’t die on me,” the woman begged as she dipped a cloth in the water and placed it across the man’s burning forehead.

Gibly’s eyes took in the tender way she cared for the man, the way she’d carefully set his broken bones and fretted by his side. Gibly tried to reach inside the man’s mind, but there was nothing there to reach. Not now anyway. There was only silence. But he knew that would change.

Too far away to reach his kind back in Dillon, Gibly sent one of his cats on the weeks long journey back to Grai and their people. It’d be at least a week before the cat could contact anyone to get picked up, but Gibly knew that the time would be needed.

He lay down in the cage and watched with intelligent, dark eyes as the light-bringer girl child sat beside Koda in the bed. He saw the sparks of energy that the child sent into Koda’s unconscious and paralyzed body and grinned.

*****

Pfc. Mikey Davis was in hell. The few times he’d woken up, he knew he was in a military hospital, but he had no idea how he’d gotten there and he hadn’t been able to ask. He was strapped into a bed, tubes coming out of his battered body.

The doctors and nurses spoke around him as if he didn’t exist. Or was a lab rat. They wore surgical masks and the only thing he ever saw was their cold eyes as they stared at him. Except for one. She had kind, sad brown eyes that looked at him with pity.

He had no idea how bad he was hurt, but he knew it was bad if they were treating him so coldly and clinically. For some reason, they were fascinated with his eyes. The dark spots he’d had since birth. The doctors had told his adoptive parents that it was a birth defect that wouldn’t affect his vision. He had perfect vision so he didn’t understand the interest. Besides, they were only small dots on the outer edge of his eye, where the blue color was the darkest.

He looked up at the doctor, the tube in his throat preventing him from speaking as he listened to the doctor talk to the kind eyed nurse.

“It’s confirmed. The brain scans prove he’s one of them. Let the Lt. Col. know immediately,” he said.

The nurse looked fearfully at Mikey for a moment before she nodded her head and left the room. The doctor put a needle in his IV and moments later, Mikey was unconscious again.

*****

A day after the landslide, in a few small newspapers around the country, there were a few brief stories and fuzzy pictures about an armada of UFOs being seen in the sky over Colorado before a landslide destroyed half of a mountain in the White River National Forest.

The military called it all garbage and said people had mistaken their training exercise for UFOs. They never did explain how the storms came out of nowhere. Or how they only occurred in that one spot. Or how no radar picked up on it before it happened. No, they just hoped no one would notice the things they didn’t explain. With the horrors occurring around the world on a daily basis, most people quickly forgot about it, the struggles of daily life taking precedence in their minds.

A week later at grocery check-out stands around the country, on the front page of the Global Enquirer, there was a beautiful picture of both sides facing off over the mountain with the headline, “ALIEN WARS ON EARTH!” Most chuckled at the dramatic headline and the obviously altered picture, thinking nothing more of it. Others never even noticed the paper.

Anyone who did pay attention didn’t believe a word of it, never thinking that their government would lie about something so important. It was exactly what the government was counting on. Apathy. And a blind faith in the traitors ruling over them like dictators instead of with democracy.

At that moment a highly classified team was raiding the offices of the Global Enquirer, taking the pictures, the reporter, and the editor into custody. The government didn’t like to be mocked. And these repeated sightings made them look like incompetent fools while managing to keep it in front of the public for those willing to look beyond the bought and paid for, major news networks.

The people who owned the governments, the human trash who think themselves Elite, better than anyone else, were going to send a message this time. A message that they owned this planet and everything on it. And they would no longer tolerate interference on their world. With their possessions.