Someone had cleared out the huge ballroom and put the Mock125 inside. It wasn't a place the Inter-world Council would look for a missing transport.
Waverly moved up behind him.
She gasped, and breathed, "Shanks, it's beautiful, isn't it?"
Jax nodded, instead of voicing his opinion that it looked just like every other transport he'd ever seen. He skirted the Summer House, coming around to the large doors, which opened into the ballroom.
"Turn them on," someone yelled, and the front of the building was suddenly flooded with light.
Jax had tripped over the overgrown landscaping at the sound of the voice, and ended up in a heap when the lights came on. Waverly, walking several paces behind him, stopped in the glaring brightness.
Huge flood lamps hung about the clearing before the house.
"Hands up!" a voice yelled.
Jax didn't realize that the voice spoke to Waverly, until she raised her hands.
"Step into the clearing." The voice had an odd feel, as if someone attempted to disguise it.
Waverly walked into the clearing.
A low rumble filled the air.
"Turn around!"
Waverly turned. For the first time, Jax saw her eyes flit to where he lay on the ground. He didn't think she could see him where he hid between two overgrown bushes, but she shook her head once in warning.
Fighting his instinct to save her right then, Jax had to admit he would do more good free than he would if he got caught.
The second Mock125 came over the tree line, the roar filling the clearing. Jax could barely hear the words when the man shouted to her, "Stay where you are. Run and we will shoot you."
Waverly became a statue in the clearing, her arms in the air while the pilot landed the Mock right beside her. Jax used the noise to wiggle further into the bushes.
The pilot cut the engines, and for a few seconds, silence rang in Jax's ears.
Then Waverly's captor shouted, "Lace your hands and put them on your head."
Waverly followed his command.
"Now walk into the house."
Two men dressed in black, with hoods over their heads, came out of the ballroom. The pilot jumped out, and prepared the Mock to roll it inside.
"I can't," Waverly said in an even tone.
"Can't what?"
"My dress is too long. I'll trip."
"I said walk!" the man shouted.
Waverly took one step and immediately fell. Hitting the ground, she rolled towards the Mock.
A man ran into the clearing after her, and for a brief second, the flood lamps illuminated his face.
Caelen!
Crouching low behind the bush, Jax shoved his confusion to the back of his mind. He'd deal with the secretary's betrayal later-now he had to concentrate on saving Waverly.
"Freeze," Caelen raised his blaster.
"Don't shoot up the Mock!" Del screamed from the doorway.
Waverly rolled closer to the transport, then launched herself into the pilot seat.
Caelen shouted, "I have to shoot her, she's a pilot. She might be able to fly it."
The power source to the Mock engaged with a roar.
Caelen sighted on her.
Jax exploded out of the bushes, jumping onto the man's back, driving him into the ground. The blaster went off, searing a hole in the hold of the ship on the front end, very close to where Waverly sat.
Blaster fire shot from the ship's guns, and the three other men dove into the bushes Jax had just vacated.
Caelen turned over, fighting, but one slam of Jax's fist stunned him, and his head bounced off the hard ground with a thud.
The Mock lifted off, hovering an arm's length up. Jax sprinted forward and grabbed onto the open doorway beside Waverly.
"Duck," he shouted, above the whine of the power source. Waverly pressed down the blaster fire buttons and hunched across the fly wheels. Jax grabbed the top of the transport and swung inside.
It was a better idea in concept than in execution. His upper body smashed into hers. She grunted as the transport swayed dangerously to the left. Unable to find a hand hold, Jax crushed her against the seat.
Waverly tried to compensate for the turn but they listed violently to the right, dumping Jax onto the floor with a crash that almost stunned him.
"Get a hold of it!" he shouted.
"Hello! I'm trying!" she yelled back. Using both arms and legs, she struggled with the complicated machine. They lurched forward, smashing through the glass that ringed the top of the ballroom. The old structure groaned with the assault.
Jax pulled himself into the copilot's seat, wrestling the harness over his head.
They dipped dangerously to the left again. The blasters, still firing randomly, dinged with the low pulse warning.
Suddenly, they righted and lifted straight up, flying low over the top of the Summer House.
"Waverly! You can stop firing now." Jax wanted to pry her finger off the button, but was scared he'd unbalance the ship again.
For a heartbeat, he thought she hadn't heard him, but then her thumb lifted and the loud pulse sounds ceased.
Expecting silence, a warning bell still dinged.
"What the hell is that?"
"Caelen must have hit one of the steering lines. I need to land us now. The left side is locking up."
They flew low above the trees. Jax scanned for a place to put the Mock down but didn't see one. Then they broke out of the forest into the gardens. Waverly lowered the ship onto a flowerbed, landing with a thump that jarred his teeth.
She unbuckled her harness. "We need to get out of here."
Jax stumbled out of the transport. Waverly took one step, tripped on her skirt, and fell hard into a patch of thorny roses.
Lifting her out, Waverly turned in his arms and growled, "That's it. I'm done with dresses for the rest of my lifetime."
CHAPTER TWELVE WHO ARE THE VILLAINS?
"You know," Waverly said, as Jax set her down on the path, safely away from the thorns. "I'm not really a big fan of Three Bridges." She paused to make sure she had his attention and took a deep breath. "I don't want to live here, Jax."
Jax nodded slowly. "Okay," he said, his tone careful. He studied her for a few moments before adding, "You sound like you'll go, with or without me."
"I don't want to raise our children here."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "This seems like a longer conversation than we should have standing beside a stolen transport. We don't know if Del's got people looking for us."
Stubbornness rose up in her. She wanted this conversation now. "I want to leave this place tomorrow, Jax. One day here has been enough for me."
"You'll go without me?" The muscles in his jaw tensed.
"I don't want to, but I won't raise my children here."
"Since you don't have any children, I'm not sure I understand what the rush is."
What to say? She suspected she was pregnant, but she didn't know for sure.
Jax loomed over her. She hated when he did that. It was annoying, especially since bare feet made her that much shorter. She was used to being the tallest person in the room.
"Are you trying to tell me that you're expecting our child, Waverly?"
"It's too soon for me to be certain."
Voices rang in the distance but they both ignored them.
"But you suspect?"
"It's a possibility, yes," she hedged.
"And you're saying you don't want to live here if you are?"
"I'm saying I don't want to live here period. But I won't raise my child in a pit of vipers."
"Fine."
"What?"
"We'll leave tomorrow." Jax glanced to the nearest bridge. A group of ten people ran out to meet them, his father in the lead.
Waverly put a hand to her stomach and suppressed the urge to jump up and down. They were leaving.
* * * *
Jax watched his father and Babbet cross the bridge, trailed by e
ight servants. He put an arm around Waverly's shoulders, and smiled at her obvious joy at leaving Three Bridges.
"What's happened here, Jaxon?" his father called.
Jax rubbed his eyes with his free hand. Where to start? He organized his thoughts while his father closed the gap between them. "Earlier today, Waverly and I stumbled upon a cache of weapons in the tunnels below the house." Babbet gasped, and his father started in surprise. "We overheard some gun runners plotting to bring in another Mock125 to join the one they had stored in the Summer House. Waverly and I went there and stole this one when they brought it in, but they were shooting at us and must have hit one of the steering lines, so we had to crash land."
He was proud of himself. The summary covered the basics. The harder part would be to tell him about Del and Caelen's involvement.
"You're saying there's another one of these in the Summer House?"
His father always did get a firm grasp of any situation.
"Yes."
"Let's go see it." He turned to the house servants behind him. "Martin, call the Inter-world Council Police. Tell them we've got stolen property we've found on our land."
The servant was gone before Jax could stop him.
"Um, I think you should hear the full story first, before you bring the police in, father."
"Let's go see the Summer House."
His father marched off, leaving everyone scrambling to follow.
Jax swung Waverly up into his arms and reluctantly accompanied them.
"Why are you carrying me?"
"I don't want you to fall again if you're pregnant," he said, wondering what they would find at the Summer House.
"Jax, put me down." She wiggled in his arms. "I am perfectly capable of walking."
"Ever since you got into that dress, I've questioned that statement. When you're in pants again, you can walk on your own."
Waverly punched his chest. "Don't you even think about getting all protective on me during this pregnancy."
Taking in her dirty face and dress, her wild tangle of hair and her determined face, Jax grinned and goaded her further. "And no flying until after the baby's born."
Her mouth dropped open in shock, and she took a breath to give him hell, if the furious look in her eyes was any indication.
But the path spilled out into the lit clearing at the Summer House, and the view struck both of them silent.
The grass was torn to shreds. The row of windows across the ballroom had been shot out, the ground littered with sparkling shards of glass. The gaping hole in the front of the building where the Mock had punched through revealed the second transport, shot to ribbons. A body lay in the doorway, another in the middle of the clearing. Dead or alive, Jax couldn't tell. Waverly's random pulse fire must have mowed them down. Except that no one in the clearing should have been hit.
"My God," his father said, kneeling by one of the slain men. "It's Caelen."
He checked for a pulse.
"He's been double-crossing you," Del said from the shadows. Then he stepped out, a blaster in his hands.
Jax set Waverly gently on her feet, and pushed her behind him.
"Del!" Babbet cried. She started to run to him, stopping in confusion when Del warned her off with a slash of his hand.
"Caelen and Jax have been in league with one another. I caught them with these Mocks and tried to stop them." Del's hair, pulled loose from the ponytail, hung in clumps. His eyes, wide and wild, darted from face to face and his lip curled, making him look slightly insane.
Unable to stop the deep belly laughs that rolled through him, Jax doubled over, clutching his stomach. All eyes focused on him, but it was still several seconds before he could control himself enough to speak.
"That is so great, Del." He wiped his eyes. "You couldn't come up with a better explanation than that?" He met his new-brother's gaze. "Because no one's going to believe that I've been on this planet for a handful of hours, but I still managed to buy two Mock125s and six cases of 988 Assault Blasters. It worked last time, but logistically, my taking the fall for this would be impossible."
"How do I know how you did this? You could have easily set all this up before you got here." Del spoke to Jax, but looked to their father, one hand out in a plea.
"From Sector 12? Please. Sector 12 doesn't have access to this type of equipment. You only find this stuff on wealthier planets." Jax paused. "If you hadn't tried to kill us, we wouldn't have even found out about all this."
Del shook his head, easily waving away the accusations. "More lies? Come now Jax, that's one huge imagination you have there."
"When your two men shot at us and we fell, we landed in the underground tunnels and had to work our way out. We found your 988s and overheard your plans for the Mocks. How do you think we knew you'd be in the Summer House?"
"Because you and Caelen planned all this, and I stumbled upon it." Del's voice filled with confidence.
"If we follow your logic Del," Waverly said. "We stole our own transport, and shot up the other one to the point it's scrap metal. That wouldn't make us very bright, would it?"
"How in the hell should I know why you've done what you've done?"
"I heard you." Jax's father cleared his throat and said again, "I heard you, Del. Tonight on the stairs. Jax told you then that he had found the 988s, and you didn't say anything." His father took a step towards his new-son. "How could you do this? How could you try to set Jax up a second time?" He waved a hand around the clearing. "I would have treated you fairly. You've done a great job at Romely. I wouldn't have taken everything away from you just because Jax came home."
Del shook his head. "Yes, you would have. I know Romely leadership is always handed down within your family--a family I've never been a part of."
"Del, I've always treated you like a son. Always."
Del laughed, a sharp bark filled with bitterness. "I'm not fooled. I knew the only way you'd accept me was to get rid of Jax."
"So you got rid of me," Jax said, feeling an odd sadness well up inside him. "What does that have to do with running guns?"
Del stepped towards him, the blaster still in the hand by his side. "I needed money to pay off Caelen. He found out that I'd set you up, and blackmailed me."
Babbet hissed in a breath and covered her mouth to stifle a cry. Del ignored her.
"What eats me up is that I thought all my problems were over when Jax took the fall for that load of worthless 190's, but I only delayed them for seven years." He shook his head. "I thought you might come back and be welcomed with open arms, so I tried to have you killed on Sector 12. But you've survived four assassination attempts that I paid good money for." Del took another step toward Jax. "Sparticus promised me you'd be dead before you left Sector 12, and in you waltzed today, acting more arrogant than you did seven years ago."
The raid on his safe house had been staged to kill him. He'd had a few close calls with the Eaters during his stay on Sector 12, but Jax hadn't realized they were actual assassination attempts. After all, he had been living on a rough outpost, things were bound to get out-of-hand occasionally. Jax's mind flipped through all of the times he'd had close calls. He couldn't grasp that Del had been behind them.
Waverly pressed her body close to his protectively, as if she could shield him from Del's words.
"It was all supposed to end with the sale of the Mocks." Del looked at the disabled transport in the Summer House. "One last pay off, and then Caelen would leave the planet and stop bleeding me dry." He turned back to them. "But then you had to ruin the ships, so I didn't have the money to pay him." He glanced at the dead man. "So I had to kill him."
Del's voice turned dreamy and distant. "It was brilliant, really. We crashed obsolete planes, and then wrote off the Mocks as if they were the ones that went down." He laughed, a strange sound, as if tears clogged his amusement. "I should have been able to sell those babies for 400,000 decodreams each. And then Caelen would be gone."
Jax stood listening t
o his new-brother in shock. He didn't even know how to feel. They all stood like statues while Del held center stage, riveted by his soliloquy.
"But now everything is over. The dance, as they say, is done." His eyes turned hard, and he raised the blaster. "There is no way to pick up the pieces from this."
Del placed the muzzle into his mouth and shot his head off.
Jax smashed Waverly's face into his chest so she wouldn't see the carnage--his first thought was how this would impact her.
Babbet screamed, ran to Del, and fell into a heap over her son's body. Deep, wracking sobs shook her shoulders.
"My son," she wailed. "My precious son!"
"I had no idea," Jax's father said, his voice dazed.
"I'm sorry," Jax murmured. He was sorry for all of them. Everyone in the clearing had lost something in the past few moments. Not knowing what else to say, he hugged Waverly close to him.
Straightening, his father seemed to shake himself. "You need to leave Three Bridges immediately, Babbet." His voice snarled in the clearing. "I don't want your demon son buried here, either." Slashing an arm as if to signal that he was done with them, he turned to Jax. "So you'll stay and run Romely." It was a statement, not a question.
Waverly stiffened in his arms.
"No," Jax said.
His father's gaze leapt to his. "No?" he said, incredulous.
"No." Jax ran his hand down Waverly's arm. "We're leaving Jimlee."
"But your rightful place is here!"
"Maybe seven years ago it was. But now my rightful place is with Waverly." He looked down at his mate and tipped a small smile at her. "With the money grandmother left me, we could live several lifetimes without spending it all."
"But your heritage!"
The sounds of the Inter-world Council Police's arrival filtered through the trees.
"I didn't realize until I came back, how miserable this place makes me." Looking at his father, he shook his head. "Waverly and I don't want to raise our children here in this nest of vipers." He smiled as he used Waverly's words. "Goodbye, father."
With that statement, years of hurt and anger fell from his shoulders. Sometimes, he thought, you just have to let things go and start again.
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