Prime Selection (2 page)

Joen stared at the empty plain. The only thing visible out there was scrubby foliage and dust devils as the heat of the early morning sun met the chilled air of the night. He turned to look at her. His eyes glowed with the intense emotions roiling within him.

“Aeron chalked the lack of emotional readings, other than our own Prime team members, up to the fact no other Prime were nearby when we landed and set up base camp.”

He scowled and rubbed a hand over his dark, close-cut hair. “But that read wrong also. Any Prime soldier worthy of the name would have, at the very least, established perimeter alarms on the cave system we chose and had spotters in the mountains.”

The caves had turned out to be a storage area for excess supplies and munitions for the military facility and would’ve been a coup for any invading force.

“Plus, why didn’t our opponents challenge our predawn landing?” Joen frowned.

“They knew we were coming sooner or later. Prime are always vigilant.”

“We’re on the same page. I had the same thoughts and feelings.” Nadia clenched her jaw. “And there are other intelligent beings on this planetoid—and the emotions I’m picking up aren’t particularly friendly. Call me overcautious, but we need to send our scouting teams back to base, regroup, and figure this out. It smells like a clusterfuck in the making.”

“That’s not overly cautious. It’s a very wise call.” Joen’s golden eyes darkened with his concern. “You’ll find Aeron has arrived at the same conclusions.”

Nadia didn’t particularly care if Aeron had or not. This was her op, her responsibility. If something bad happened, it was on her. There were too many science, engineering, and medical personnel and officers on this particular operation, crew members who normally didn’t get exposed to battle situations. This training was supposed to be not only a test of the newly merged crews, but also a refresher training for skills some hadn’t used since basic training. She refused to risk her people. The situation was feeling more and more explosive.

Nadia switched her com unit to team-wide communications. “All team members are ordered back to base. Code Foxtrot-Uniform-Bravo-Alpha-Romeo. Proceed with caution.

Commander Nadia out.”

If it wasn’t FUBAR yet, it soon would be. Her gut was doing backflips at the increasing sense of danger.

“Ard, here. Logistics officer is in total agreement.” Aeron sounded grim. “My teams are securing base camp. Suggest switching to alternate Com Code Tango-Tango-Two-Four.”

“Agreed. All team members switch to Com Code Tango-Tango-Two-Four.” Nadia sighed with relief. Aeron was thinking along the same line—regroup and defense.

Maybe, between the two of them, they could figure out what was wrong.

“Let’s pull back, Joen.”

Nadia rose to a crouch behind the boulder where they’d taken shelter. They’d gotten as close to the Prime facility as they could and were about thirty meters away from a side entrance to one of the buildings that did not back up to the foothills. She hadn’t been overly concerned about being seen since their uniform jackets and pants changed colors to blend with the desert and mountainous landscapes surrounding the military facility.

Even the laser target sensor vests, which registered the low impulse laser fire for war gaming, had the same ability to merge into the background.

Between their camo and the large rocks scattered on the flat land from some past tectonic activity, she and Joen should be able to retreat as easily as they’d infiltrated.

Once they made it into the foothills and the thick forests that grew there and up onto the mountains, they would be home free.

Empathic senses blaring and movement on their right had Nadia tackling Joen to the ground as a stream of laser fire streaked across where his torso had been. If Joen had been hit, it would have registered on his vest as a kill shot.

Instead, the stream hit her arm, and she hissed in pain. The searing burn of a fully powered laser blast shot up and down her dominant arm. Her eyes watered as she inhaled the smell of her burnt flesh and jacket sleeve. Her nerve endings screamed. She called upon every iota of her warrior forebears’ strength to stay alert and aware and not succumb to the bowel-burning pain.

One hundred Gold Squad members relied on her command decisions, and no laser burn would stop her. Only death could do that—and she didn’t intend to meet death today.

“Live fire! Live fire! Code Red. Code Red,” she screamed into her com unit as she shoved Joen behind a boulder.

While she listened for chatter in response to her call, she pulled her laser sidearm.

Thank God, her hand still worked. The laser hadn’t cut any major nerves, just all the little painful ones. She rearmed her laser for live fire.

Nadia glanced at Joen who’d rolled out from under her once they were behind cover.

He was dirty, but uninjured, and was arming his laser for live fire also.

“Nadia…” Joen’s voice was a low snarl. It reverberated over her skin like a swarm of stinging insects.

His aura glowered in her mind’s eye. The heat of his anger danced and burned its way along the edges of her empathic senses as if seeking a connection, warrior to warrior.

And isn’t that strange?
The energy flowed from his body in churning waves.
So, this is
what a Prime male’s battle rage, his
batel rabia
, felt like.
The man could power a transport shuttle on the energy coming off his body.

“Nadia…” Joen touched her hand.

She flinched and pulled her hand away. His touch had disrupted her ongoing sensory scan of him, of their surroundings. She focused on his grim face.

“We have no intrateam communications,” he said. “I can’t raise any of our squad.

We have no off-planet communications either.”

“Fuck!” she muttered, testing the air around them for any hint of a further attack.

“Can you fix the problem?” As Joen opened his mouth to answer, Nadia motioned for quiet.

The shooter approached their hiding place. He was very close. His eagerness for the kill was palpable; it tasted like day-old meat and copper.

She pointed one finger in the direction from which the would-be killer approached … no, wait … there were two of the fuckers. She added another finger. At this point, she could care less who the shooters were; they’d used live, full-stream laser fire and had attempted to kill Joen. They were the enemy. They needed to be eliminated.

Joen nodded, raised his weapon, and indicated with an angling of his head that he’d go right.

Nadia mouthed, “Go” and went left as Joen dove right; they let loose killing streams at the same time. She nailed her target in the torso and knocked him on his back. Joen’s man was down also.

Joen checked on the two assassins. He turned and sliced his hand across his neck.

Both were dead. He hurried to join her as she headed away from the Prime installation.

“Prime?” she asked in a low, noncarrying tone as they used boulders and dips in the land to hide their retreat.

From her quick glance, neither man had the look of a Prime male—who were almost uniformly tall, very muscular, dark-haired, and bronze-skinned with golden or amber eyes—even though they wore the Prime uniform. Some really bad juju was going on. She and her officers would try to make sense of it later—once all her people were safe and their base camp secure.

Nadia only hoped her order to return to base camp had been received. But in case it hadn’t, she headed south to where another scouting team would’ve set up for surveillance of the military facility. She wouldn’t head back to base until she was sure all her scouts were heading in and weren’t under attack. As she and Joen moved swiftly, she listened for the high whine of laser fire.

“Not Prime,” Joen finally answered. A sense of urgency poured off his aura.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. His normally bronze skin was more of a pale gold. He was scared—almost sick with it. “What’s wrong?” She looked around searching for the enemy and saw and felt nothing. They were alone for the time being.

“Lia is out with one of the scouting teams.” Joen’s voice held more than concern for a fellow officer; it held gut-wrenching anguish. “She’s a doctor, a healer. She shouldn’t be here.”

“Lia’s a trained Alliance soldier. This is exactly where she should be. Give her some credit.” Nadia would question what was going on between Lia and Joen later. “Stay alert, soldier. We have to get
all
our people to safety.”

Joen’s lips firmed and his color returned—but underneath, his emotions stirred and reflected rage and determination.

Laser fire sounded ahead of them. They increased their speed. As they sprinted from the cover of one set of rocks to the next, Nadia shoved away the pain of her wound and her worry. This was war—and her soldiers needed her.

Whirling dust clouds danced along the valley floor. The setting sun’s rays created weird optical illusions through the haze, casting shadows over the arid land. Visibility was deteriorating at a time when the watchers on the cliff needed it most.

Nadia selected a different colored filter on her goggles and upped the magnification to get a clearer view of the wadi. Sorting through the wavering shadows among the large rocks that littered the dry creek bed, she located the two humanoid-shaped figures she’d lost for a few seconds in the glare of the day’s last gasp. The duo slunk from rock to rock in a furtive manner; they wore Prime military camouflage.

Jury was still out on whether they were actually Prime soldiers or not. Her vote was “not.”

“What do you think, Nadia? Friend or foe?” asked Commander A’tem, a Volusian member of her training team and the chief engineer on her former ship, the
Starship
Leonidas
. He was her partner for her third scouting mission of the day.

God, she was tired. The pain of her laser wound was a constant reminder of the potential of danger. There’d be no rest until she had a handle on this clusterfuck. Pushing her goggles up, she turned away from the scene below and focused on A’tem’s emotionless face.

His pale blue skin glowed in the lowering light. His demeanor was calm and alert.

But underneath the facade he was boiling mad; his anger had texture as it vibrated over her skin and made her itch.

Nadia snorted. “Foe until proven otherwise.” She replaced the goggles and focused on the scene below.

Her team had suffered numerous casualties during the surprise attack just after sunrise. Three of her injured were in critical condition and fighting for their lives back at base camp. Someone had to pay. But who? That was the sticky issue.

The action reports from the less severely wounded had been divided as to whether the ones who’d shot them were Prime or not. The bodies of the enemy dead—so far—had been non-Prime males dressed in Prime uniforms. That didn’t mean the enemy soldiers who’d gotten away weren’t Prime. She’d rather err on the side of caution.

“The only Prime I trust on this rock,” she added, “are the ones assigned to Gold Squadron. Mel and Wulf vetted them all and weeded out potential rebels. Any Prime soldier on this piece of shit planetoid not a member of a Gold ship’s crew is the enemy until proven otherwise.”

The culling of the Prime soldiers who’d been merged into the Gold Squadron had occurred as the result of several treacherous acts. The last such act had occurred a little over two weeks ago. Nadia along with Mel Dmitros-Caradoc, her longtime friend and the
Galanti
’s co-captain, had been the victims of a kidnapping from the home of the treacherous aunt of the
Galanti
’s other co-captain and Mel’s mate, Wulf Caradoc. The two women had been taken and roughed up by the Pure Blood rebels.

“I agree.” A’tem’s voice rang with certainty and his ire. His cousin was one of the severely injured being cared for by Lia.

Something in his voice had Nadia once again shoving her goggles up. She glanced at the Volusian with whom she’d served for many years in the Alliance Military. His normally silver-blue eyes were as dark as midnight, reflecting his tangible need for revenge. Volusians, like the Prime, were a warrior race. This sneaking around went against his nature and training. A’tem would much rather roar his family’s battle cry and take the enemy head on.

She could relate. Her Siberian ancestors were all warriors and had managed to survive the twenty-first century Armageddon on Earth. Later they had been instrumental in bringing back stability to the remaining inhabitants in lower Siberia, often having to use draconian methods to do so. Tough situations had called for tough methods until the order of civilization had once again reigned. Her nature, her nurture, had led her to the Alliance military. And while she was a science officer, a job she loved, and spent most of her time discovering and documenting the secrets of the galaxy, she had no problem taking the fight to the enemy when appropriate.

That time would come soon.

Laying a hand on A’tem’s tense shoulder, she squeezed. “Patience, my friend. We can’t go on the offense yet. We don’t know for sure who the enemy is and how many of them we might have to fight.”

Nadia pulled her goggles back down and turned to continue to track the two prowling along the valley floor. “We go by the book. When dropped into enemy territory, we evade. Establish and defend security perimeters. Gather information. Take out any enemy straying into our protected area. Survive until help arrives. Then we go on the offensive.”

“Agreed.” A’tem’s tone said he really didn’t.