Viper (Second Wave Book 1) (8 page)

“He won’t leave until Amun has her
stabilized.” Dread answered, hoping they would understand his meaning.

He really didn’t want to try to explain
things with everyone listening and there were things he wouldn’t explain until
he talked to Ratoka.   

Ratoka had explained to him,
through the Shengari’ that he wouldn’t speak of it anywhere other than in the
mountains of their compound in Dillon, Texas. They couldn’t go there until
Viper left the woman and was debriefed. He was starting to get pissed at all
the crap going on.  

Ivint sighed and shook his head.
Reaching out through his private communication path with Amun, he asked when
the woman would be stable.  

“I’ll call her stable now to get
him the hell out of here, but I need hours with her, and I have no idea what
the outcome will be.” Amun said, his sympathy for his patient and his determination
to save her coming through clearly along the mental pathway.

Ivint shook his head sadly. He
hated the thought that the woman may still die or be permanently injured. Her
bravery was unquestionable, the extent of her skill in the forest already
becoming legendary tales around both of the compounds. Someone that special
should never have to suffer like that, he thought.

*****

Viper stood at the head of the bed,
staring down at Lara’s pale face. Amun’s treatment had healed his vision, but
he still hadn’t been able to speak to his beast or use the Shengari’. Amun said
it could be hours or days before he would be fully healed. But he could finally
see her.

There was nothing about her physically,
that he recognized. If it wasn’t for her energy, he would never know who she
truly had been. She was still beautiful though, he thought.

The paleness of Lara’s skin
terrified him. The flurry of movement of the techs and Amun told him just how
seriously she was hurt, and panic started to set in.

He reached out a hand and tenderly
stroked the side of her face, the only place on her battered body that no one
was working on. The softness of her skin surprised him. She was so strong in
mind and spirit that her whole body was a surprise to him.

Although Lara was tall for a human
woman, she was terribly thin. The upper part of her pale ribs that weren’t
ruptured outwards were protruding easily through her skin, as were most of her
bones. He remembered how he had thought that her clothes were swamping her body
and could now see why.

The angry red wound in her shoulder
was still swollen, a testament to the seriousness of the infection. The nano
tech in the medibands covering the area obviously struggling to get it under
control.

It was the gaping holes in her
stomach and back that shook him to the core. The dark one had pushed his fist
just past her spine, his long talons puncturing her internal organs before
pushing her lower ribs out of her stomach, through her skin.

Amun had Lara in suspended animation;
it had been the only way to keep her alive while he tried to repair the
extensive damage. It left her looking so close to death that Viper was scared
to leave her side, afraid that if he did, he would never see her again. That he
would lose her… again.  

He gently caressed her cheek,
admiring her high cheek bones and delicate features that were so at odds with
how strong she was inside. She wasn’t beautiful, in an Earth classic sense; it was
her striking features that drew the eye to her face.  

The perfect arch of her eyebrows,
her clear, smooth skin and full, pouty lips. He could almost see what she would
look like with her beautiful light brown eyes open, and his heart clenched as
he prayed to his Gods for her to be saved.

“Ivint says that David knows
something about her.” Amun said, hoping that he could get the man’s attention.
It was doing him no good to stay in here while they worked on her. When he saw
Viper raise his face to him questioningly, he pressed on.

“Ivint wants to wait for you to get
the information, get the whole story at one time so we can figure out how to
help her. If we can pull her through… she may not make it next time if they go
after her again.” Amun explained, knowing that whatever Viper’s feelings for
the woman, he wanted her safe.

He hoped it would be enough to make
him leave. The woman was so close to death; Amun feared Viper’s reaction if
anything went wrong.

Viper considered what Amun said as
he looked down at his large hand on her face, his thumb bigger than her button
nose. She wasn’t going to do this to him again. Not again. When she pulled
through, her fight would be over. He wouldn’t allow her back out there to die.  

She would probably hate him at
first, but he wouldn’t allow her to leave them. Her fight would become his own
until she was safe from whoever was trying to harm her; and until he could
convince her to stay with him.

Determination flooded through
Viper, this time it would be different for her. For them, he vowed. He turned
fierce green eyes to Amun and was going to speak when Amun spoke first.

“Go. There is nothing you can do
for her in here, but you can make sure when we get her out of here that she
won’t be hunted. I swear to you my friend; I will do everything I can to save
her.”

Viper nodded his head and leaned
down. “You will live this time, and we will be together.” Viper whispered into
her ear. Ignoring Dread’s advice, he placed both hands on the sides of her head
and sent short, rapid bursts of his energy into her body.

“Sir, her life support signs are
increasing. It looks like the little thing is fighting back hard.” One of the
techs said with a grin and slap to Viper’s shoulder.

Amun looked up and gave Viper a
hard stare. Viper pulled his hands back from Lara’s head and held them up in
the air for a second before turning and heading out of the door.

Viper was a little surprised to see
the crowd outside of the MedLab. Normally, his ability to communicate through
the Shengari’ would have allowed him to listen to what was going on, he hated
the way he felt lost and alone without his beast.

Dread looked at his brother
strangely, wondering why he was out here. He quickly learned of Lara’s
miraculous resurgence of fight and wanted to beat the hell out of his brother.

Dread understood why Viper would
take the chance, Amun said the female’s chances were diminishing slowly until
Viper had shared his energy with her. However, they had no idea what the long-term
effects of that energy would have on her body, and he should have waited until
they could have spoken to Ratoka about it.

Viper ignored his brother’s
accusatory look and headed down the hall with Ivint and Grai, carrying the pack
Lara had carried so protectively through the forest. He would end the threat to
her.

He sat heavily in the first chair
that he came to in the command center down the hall from the MedLab and waited
for everyone to sit down.

Ivint, Reven Debreskii, Grai T’Alq,
Decano, Niklosi Jevasari, Jaxson Adronatof, his brother Dread and Lt. David
Jacobs surrounded him at the table while Traze and Risk Demetrios stayed at a
command center a few feet away from them.

“Tell me what you know about her.”
Viper said hoarsely. He needed to know everything about who she was here, on
this planet.   

At Ivint’s nod of approval, David
stood and raised his hand to Traze and Risk. The air behind David shimmered as
a picture of a smiling Lara dressed in a military uniform appeared.

“She is Sgt. Lara Blain. She was
medically discharged from the US Army approximately eight months ago. Prior to
that she was deployed in Afghanistan as part of a combat team in the Mountain
Division.”

“Her records and statements from
her team say that she was one of the best that they ever worked with. If you
looked at the vids of the traps in the woods, you wouldn’t doubt it either.”

“She’s smart, intuitive and her
teammates said that she had an almost unnatural bond with nature and the
animals.” David paused, noticing the strange looks that passed between Dread
and Viper.

Dread kept his thoughts to himself
but he assumed that the connection Lara felt had to be her true self coming
through.

Ivint cleared his throat, and David
continued as Traze and Risk put up pictures behind him of footage taken from
some of the missions Lara had been on that they had hacked from the government
computers.

“She had a teammate, a Sgt. John Miller,
who was like a brother to her and just as talented as she was. They were
inseparable from what we were told.” He again paused as the Tezarian brothers
looked oddly at each other.

They knew something that they
weren’t sharing. He’d find out what it was though, David thought before moving
on with his briefing.

“What the records don’t say, but we
learned from some ex-teammates is that the two of them had been doing side
missions of their own. Off the books. They never told anyone what they were doing,
but it had to do with some secretive unit that was over there with them.”

“Whatever it was; they got too
close. A few months later, they were hit by an IED and John was executed. Lara
had been wedged under a seat, out of view and was found later by a local tribe
that she and John had been familiar with.”

“After that it’s the typical
government and VA treatment of neglect and blame games while more suffer and
die. Since you are no longer useful as their cannon fodder, they basically
abandon you and try to screw you out of benefits.” David said with a sad shake
of his head.

The woman’s record was impeccable;
she had been a decorated, good soldier and the way she had been treated after
the injuries she had sustained, pissed him off.  

“She said the secretive unit was
the Relian’s. She recognized some of the hybrid clones in the forest as the
same ones she’d seen in Afghanistan that had killed her friend John. It was why
she chose to save me.” Viper said, the pieces of what happened to her finally
coming together for him.

“Did she tell you anything about
why she was hiding?” Ivint asked, amazed, but also curious about the brave
young woman. The strength of the human females never failed to surprise him.

Viper sighed heavily, then reached to
his feet for the pack that Lara had kept close to her at all times. “Whatever
is in here should answer that for us.”

Traze and Risk came over to the
table when Viper reached into the heavy pack and pulled out some kind of
electronic contraption and placed it on the table. Both young men reached for
it, but Risk got it first and gave a satisfied smirk to Traze whose eyes lit up
when he saw what Viper pulled out next.

Grabbing the stack of CDs and
notebooks that were heavily wrapped in layers of freezer bags, Traze ran back
to the computer panel and began pulling out the discs. Risk put down the
electronic device and went to look at the CDs with Traze, figuring that they
would be more interesting.

“While they figure that out, tell
us what else you learned. Start from the crash.” Reven asked, needing to
confirm Viper’s account of the events that occurred when the transport was shot
down.

“There was the warning sounds on
the transport before we went down, but I don’t remember anything until right
before Lara freed me. I came to in a clearing tied to a tree.” Viper went
through everything that he could remember from the time he had crashed to when
they had reached the cabin.

“Was she close to anyone, in
particular, that she may have confided in?” Reven asked. He was betting that there
was at least one person they could speak to regarding their new visitor.

David nodded to Traze, who pulled
up a picture behind him. David watched Dread and Viper closely for their
reaction and was glad he did, or he would have missed the slight wince before
both brothers looked away. Yeah, David thought; something was up with those
two.

“Just this John Miller and he
didn’t make it. There are very few people who knew either John or Lara well.
They were very private and quiet. The two of them were considered very
talented, but odd.” David answered.

“Were they mates?” Decano asked,
wondering if that was the bond they shared. It would explain why she would hide
if they had killed her mate, he thought.

“No!” Viper growled, before Dread
cut him a warning look.

Risk interrupted, “By all accounts,
they were like siblings. They were even called ‘bro and sis’ by their
teammates. There is no blood relation between them though. I think we have
something here. Give me a sec…”

Viper looked up, hoping that he
didn’t betray Lara’s trust for nothing, that they had found what it is she was
being hunted for.

“Here we go…” Risk said before a
video clip began playing behind him.

Everyone watched the screen behind
David, curious about what they were looking at. Traze cleared it up for them.

“These notebooks are logs of each
of the discs. This disc is a meeting in the mountains between Lara’s commanders
and the Relian troops embedded in the Army.” Traze said before looking up to
watch the vid.