She hurried over to crouch in front of him, and Leigh leaned sideways to see blood bubbling from a wound on Steve’s neck. Mia cut his wrists free, her hands shaking and splashed with blood, the sharp scalpel in her fingers making short work of the cable ties.
When his wrists were free, he reached up and wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, pulling her into him as potent relief rushed through him so hard it made him light-headed, like the ground beneath him was tilting. Or maybe that was all the blood loss.
However, before he could take a full breath and let it sink in that she was really okay, she’d slipped out of his grasp to free Kayla.
Leigh pushed to his feet, taking an unsteady step as his brain tried to catch up with the whole idea of standing. He walked over to Steve, who had shuffled back a few feet, one hand clutching uselessly at his neck, the other still gripping the knife. Leigh got down, kneeling on Steve’s forearm until he released his grip on the blade.
He picked it up and reached over to grab a handful of Steve’s hair. “I made you a promise I intend to keep.”
Steve shook his head frantically, eyes going wide. He tried to speak, but the words got lost in a garble as blood dribbled from his mouth. Leigh fisted the knife and swiped it across traitor’s neck, then let him fall back to the ground.
As Robinson’s body went limp, it didn’t lessen the woozy, disgusted churning in his guts. The guy would have died from the wound Mia had given him. He’d just expedited matters and made sure Mia wouldn’t feel like his death was on her hands.
Yet he couldn’t purge the image of Robinson thrusting against her from his mind, no matter how much he tried to force it away. The churning in his stomach intensified and he pushed up from the body, stumbling three steps before falling to his knees again, retching as the contents of his stomach emptied. It was a long moment before he could suck in a full breath and gain some control over the spasms.
A palm touched his shoulder and he sat back. Mia gave him the bladder of water, and he took a mouthful, rinsing his mouth and spitting it out before taking a longer drink.
“Are you okay?” Her voice was low with concern as she took the water back.
He wiped his mouth with the bottom of his shirt. “I’m fine. But we need to get out of here before Steve’s buddies show up.” He shifted closer to her, his hand slipping up to cup the side of her neck. “Are you okay?”
He urged Mia to tilt her head to the side, cataloging every little scrape and bruise she had. When they got back onboard the Valiant Knox—and they would, he refused to believe anything else—he was going to take her home to his apartment and kiss every single contusion better, love her with his body and soul until they forgot this day ever happened.
She nodded again, the relief in her eyes obvious. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”
He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to breathe, but he needed to keep his emotions in check until they weren’t trapped behind enemy lines. Instead, he grabbed hold of Mia’s arm, helped her to her feet, and passed both her and Kayla a gun, then collected his discarded weapons. He led them out from their shelter to make a run to the armed personnel carrier he’d flown down. It only sat four, and wasn’t nearly as maneuverable as a fighter jet. But Seb and the rest of the squadron should keep the CSS in the area busy while he evaced them out of there.
At the far end of the church, he paused and crouched down, searching the open area between the crumbled building and where he’d set the ship down.
One of the patrols had returned. Six men. He cursed under his breath as they spotted the transport bearing the Valiant Knox’s ID markings. It had been a calculated risk bringing one of their own ships behind enemy lines, but he’d gone for firepower over stealth.
The six CS Soldiers fanned out, alert and looking for them. It was only a matter of time before they radioed for help.
He turned to where Mia and Kayla were crouched just behind him. “I’m going to lay down cover fire. Make a run for the mausoleum. When you get there, I need you to return the favor so I can get across the open ground.”
“What about your shoulder?” Mia asked, her tone even, but he caught the fear beneath the careful words.
“My shoulder will be the least of my worries if we get caught. I can still shoot a gun, so we’ll be fine. Don’t think about anything except getting low and running as fast as you can.”
She nodded, her features settling into an anxious, yet determined expression. Turning from her, his heart bumped over an uneven rhythm as he brought his gun up. He’d been on the ground plenty of times and had to lay down cover fire for his fellow soldiers. But he’d never been so on edge, never been so tied up in knots about making sure they got out of this in one piece.
“Ready back there?” He lined up the soldier he thought would present the most threat.
He gave them a go, putting pressure on the trigger of his electromagnetic pulse gun to fire off several rounds as the girls sprinted out from the corner of the church toward the mausoleum. He didn’t let himself follow their progress, instead concentrating on taking out as many of the patrol as he could until they found shelter. He nailed three guys, cutting their number in half and putting the odds a little more in their favor. But it wouldn’t last. Another patrol would turn up here any second. News of a UEF transport on the ground would spread fast.
Mia and Kayla made it to the mausoleum, one of the few remaining intact structures in the graveyard. The two of them laid down fire, keeping the last three CS Soldiers pinned as he pushed up and sprinted, dodging fallen headstones and other debris. As soon as he made it, he tapped the girls on the shoulder.
“Come on, we need to keep moving.” He put himself out in the open on the opposite side of the mausoleum, but the three soldiers stayed down, probably because their backup was only seconds away. Once the girls reached the ship, he sprinted the remaining distance, ignoring the way his energy flagged. He didn’t want to think about how much blood he might have lost from that damn shoulder wound.
Inside the transport, he snapped an order for them to strap themselves in. He dropped into the pilot’s chair and hit up the controls, the comms first of all.
“Seb, this is Alpha. I’m on the ground and have secured the targets. Bring on the rain.”
“You took your sweet time, Alpha. I was beginning to think I’d have to drag my ass down there to rescue the rescue party. At ready and willing to blow these monkey-assed bastards into dust.”
Leigh quirked his lips at his friend’s usual irreverence, but considering his current condition, wasn’t exactly in the mood for belly laughs.
“Waiting on your go.” He replied into the comms, then disconnected. A few beats of silence went by until he heard the low, vibrating boom of jets entering the atmosphere, followed by the high-pitched whirr as the fighter squadron closed in on their position.
“Here comes the rain.” He shot Mia a smile, and she returned it a little uncertainly. A few seconds later, the city lit up with incoming weapon fire a few blocks down from them. “That’s our cue to move. Let’s haul ass, recruits.”
A few seconds later, they were lifting off—straight into a firestorm.
The CSS had rallied ships from nearby and actively engaged the fighter squadron. Leigh juiced the engines and opened up the weapon’s system, cutting a rough and ready path through the action to make higher atmosphere. The small carrier took some hits. One chunk of ship engine almost smashed them in half, but he saw it and banked aggressively to get out of a collision path, breaking a double sweat at the pain in his shoulder. They literally scraped by the debris, leaving him wondering what kind of damage might have been done to their hull.
Higher up, the smoke and streaks of weapon fire cleared to show a watery-blue sky. However, the carrier’s warning system continued bleeping at him. He checked the screen and then tabbed up communications.
“Seb, I’ve got one insistent bastard on my six, take care of that, will you?”
Seb swore, his br
eath short. “Because I’ve got nothing better to do right now. Hold out for ten and I’ll be there.”
Leigh dropped some sudden altitude and then set into a weaving path, one without repeating patterns to avoid being blown out of the ether by the CSS ship dogging them. Just as Seb had promised, right on ten ticks of the clock, he closed into range and opened fire, forcing the pursuing ship to cut off and fall back into defensive maneuvers.
“Thanks, Seb, I owe you one.”
“Give me back the money you swindled off me last week when we played poker, and I’ll call it even.”
Leigh blew out a relieved breath as the carrier hit lighter atmosphere. “Deal. But only because we both know I can win it back again next week.”
Seb muttered a bunch of curses at him. “I’ll catch you back on deck, Alpha.”
Leigh cut the comm and switched over to autopilot as they left Ilari’s gravity and headed for the graceful lines of the Valiant Knox, lights flickering serenely in the distance.
He swiveled in his chair to catch a look at his passengers. Kayla had her eyes closed and Mia was staring at him with wide eyes.
He ran a hand over his hair. “Uh, sorry, it got a bit hairy back there. Are you okay?”
“I will be in about ten years,” Kayla muttered.
Mia reached down and unclasped her belt, then slowly shrugged out of the harness.
And then it hit him. She was here, and she was safe. They’d made it.
Leigh shoved himself out of his seat and ended up on his knees in front of her. He grabbed her shoulders and yanked her up against him.
“My God, Mia. Do you know how terrified I was?”
She laughed against his chest, though the sound was suspiciously watery.
“You were terrified? What about me? I’ve never been so frightened in my entire life. When Steve shot you, it was even worse than how petrified I was a few days ago during the torture test.” She pulled back a little and stared up at him with a searching, soulful gaze. “I can’t do it, Leigh. I wasn’t cut out to be a fighter pilot.”
He shook his head. “Then we’ll find something else for you. But right now, it doesn’t matter.”
She sniffed, tightening her hold on him. “I love you, just in case you haven’t worked that out already.”
He gave a short laugh. “I love you too, so don’t ever, ever do anything like that to me again. I don’t think I could take it.”
Before she could answer, he caught her mouth in a consuming kiss, one that soothed the last few ragged edges of his heart.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Leigh grimaced as he settled back against the gurney, hardly getting his head down before Ace whipped out a pair of scissors and started cutting away the bandage Mia had secured on his wound, followed by the sleeve of his jacket and shirt.
As Ace examined the injury, murmuring something to a nearby nurse, Leigh glanced down to see Mia hovering near the curtain and from the look on her face, he guessed she wanted to be near him, but didn’t feel like she belonged. Plus the habit of hiding their relationship had no doubt become ingrained.
One of the nurses tried to shuffle her out, and he pulled away from Ace.
“Alpha, you need fluids and this wound needs repairing—” Ace began in an overpatient tone.
“Not unless Mia stays.”
Ace hardly spared a glance for the nurse facing off in front of Mia. “Let her stay if it means Alpha will keep still and let me microlaser his damn shoulder.”
Mia stepped around the nurse and came over, a wary expression on her face. But when he reached out and took her hand, some of the tension left her. He brought her fingers to his lips, and she reached up with her other hand to smooth her fingers through his short hair, expression gorgeously intimate, telling him without words everything she was feeling.
Like the first day he’d met her, after he’d carried her out of the damaged shuttle and taken her to the deck triage, when she’d opened her eyes and looked at him, his heart went into a free fall, but this time he didn’t fight the exhilarating sensation. Instead, he let it wash through him and thanked whatever higher powers ran the universe these days that he’d met her and they’d survived the CSS and Robinson to make it back to the safety of the Knox.
“So I guess the rumors are true.” Ace poked a needle in his shoulder, and he grimaced before shooting a glare at his buddy.
The sub-doctor didn’t look the least bit repentant about stabbing him without warning. “It’ll go numb in a second and then you won’t feel a thing. As for your brain and whatever damage made you annihilate your career, well, that I can’t do anything about.”
“I didn’t annihilate my career. I just made a different choice.” He tightened his hold on Mia and cast her a short look to see how she was taking Ace’s comments, however her expression wasn’t giving anything away as she focused on where Ace had started applying the microlaser to repair the tissue.
They were probably going to face more than a few comments over their relationship in the coming days and weeks.
The curtain shifted, and he looked up to see Commander Yang and Bren standing at the end of his bed.
“Alpha, glad to see you made it back on deck in one piece. Mostly.”
He sent his CO a respectful nod, since he couldn’t salute while Ace was patching up his arm.
“We need to debrief. In private.” Yang cast a look from Ace to Mia, and might as well have said get lost.
“Yes, sir.” Ace smoothed a healing gel over the work the microlaser had done and then stood. “For what it’s worth, Alpha, I recommend you stay overnight for observation. But since I know you so well, I’ll tell you to at least stay in that bed for a few hours and let the fluids and the gel do their thing. Come on, Recruit Wolfe, let’s check you out.”
Mia dropped his hand and glanced down at herself. “The blood isn’t mine. I think most of it is Leigh’s and some is probably—” Some of the color she’d regained since they’d returned to the ship drained from her face, and Leigh reached out to grab her arm, worried she might topple over.
“Don’t think about it. You did what you had to, and you didn’t kill him, I did. Don’t let it haunt you, Mia, or he wins anyway.”
She nodded and started to step away, but he tugged her closer to the bed again, reaching up to pull her down to kiss her too briefly and too innocently, but considering their audience, it was probably brash of him to even do that much. She sighed against his lips, the sensation rippling through him on a low shudder. God, he wanted to get her alone for even just five minutes to reaffirm they were both really okay and soothe the last echoes of panic that he might have lost her. But duty had to come first.
He let her go, and when she straightened, a flush of color had spread across her cheeks. She avoided Commander Yang’s gaze but sent Leigh a smile filled with the promise of later as she let Ace lead her from the triage cubicle.
Bren stepped out of the curtain for a moment, and when she returned, she sent Yang a nod before falling into parade stance with her hands clasped behind her back.
“The immediate area is secure, sir.”
“Thanks, CAFF.”
Leigh resisted the urge to wince. No doubt Yang had purposefully addressed Bren that way to remind of him his demoted status. He reached over and tabbed at the remote to raise the head of the gurney. There were some conversations a man shouldn’t take lying down, and he got the feeling this was going to be one of them.
“So, Alpha, Stanton is rather unimpressed that you failed to bring the other traitor back alive for questioning,” Yang started once he was upright. “Personally, I’m happy to commend you for a job well done. I have no doubt that Robinson got what he deserved.”
While he agreed with the sentiment, it didn’t lessen the weight on his conscience that he’d taken a life, even if the guy had been a scumbag traitor.
“I don’t understand how someone like Robinson was CSS. He was an Ackerly graduate. You said yourself that his father is an
admiral.” He hadn’t thought much about it until he’d arrived back at the ship and started trying to put all the pieces together into a picture that made sense.
Yang nodded, his expression grim. “The admiral has been suspended, pending an investigation into the entire family. I’ve just come from a linkup with Stanton. Intel came to light that the CSS may have been recruiting certain personality types straight out of the academies. However, the source of the intel was questionable and at the time it seemed utterly ridiculous. Now, however—”
“It’s an appalling reality.” Leigh clenched a fist against his thigh. To think CI or Stanton might have had information that could have stopped all this before it started and hadn’t acted on it… But there was no use going down that road. It only led to pointless anger.
“Stanton said he’d put a specialized team onto it, whatever that means. Seems to be his answer for everything at the moment.”
“And the rest of the recruits?” How could he trust anyone he brought into the squadron now, knowing the CSS might have already gotten to them before they even arrived in the Brannon system?
“We’ve got extra screening in place, but that’s not your concern anymore.”
Right, because he’d handed his CAFF insignia over to Bren and been kicked out of the FP squadron. Yang might as well have slapped him with that one. Hell, what if they were about to bust him down to Ilari? Despite constantly reassuring Mia that everything would work out fine, for the first time, the notion that it might not stabbed into him like razor-sharp icicles.
He swallowed down the words crowding up his throat; they would probably make him sound like he was begging and he’d already decided he would face the consequences of all the choices he’d made. The least he could do was take it with dignity, and by the hard expression on Yang’s face, the man had already made up his mind and wouldn’t be swayed, no matter what anyone said.
“Protocol dictates I should not only strip you of rank, but remove you from the FP squadron and send you to the ground.”
“Yes, sir, I understand.” His voice came out rough as the resolution to take this without a fight wavered for a moment, his stomach dropping as though he’d done a high-altitude triple barrel roll in his jet. If he wasn’t flying anymore, it would leave a huge hole in his life, one he didn’t know how he would ever fill.
Damage Control (Valiant Knox) Page 30