The Alpha Prime Commander (7 page)

Jackson had never moved
so fast in his life as when he saw the men appear and Lena was swallowed in
black-cloaked bodies. He felt her in his mind, still deep in the thrill of the
fight, so he knew she was holding her own, but he wanted her out of there,
now.  He hit the oncoming tide of men at the same time Cordan rammed into
them.  They moved through them so fast, slashing and ripping, that Lena was on
her own for less than a minute before he saw her flip over the back of one man,
cut his throat, and then roll off his falling form to take out the knees of the
next one. 

There was probably something
seriously wrong with him that he was turned on by that.  Watching her cut a
swath through the men who would hurt her, he was suddenly glad for every second
of assassin training she had endured.  If it kept her alive, fuck the rest.  He
felt Cordan’s savage agreement in his head and felt Lena’s laugh in the same
place.  Guess he was projecting.

The Collector came out of
the same nowhere the men had come from, and it finally occurred to Jackson he
had an illegal and apparently undetectable transporter, and he was heading
right for Lena with something glowing and round in his hand.

He’s got the immortal
stone
, Cordan hissed in his head and moved faster.  
If
he touches her with it he’ll start the transformation.

Jackson moved faster and
got there first, wondering as he did what The Collector had to gain by making
Lena immortal.  His hands pushed the red-cloaked arms up and away from Lena,
even while she was moving under a separate attack.  The Collector dropped the
stone, his black eyes burning into Jackson’s promised retribution; unfortunately
for Jackson it came sooner rather than later.  The stone hit Jackson’s bare arm
on the way down.  He felt the light tap like an explosion in his brain, and
even as he was dropping like a boulder, he saw the satisfaction hit those black
eyes as they watched him fall.  Then the blackness swallowed him.

Cordan was, for the
second time in one day, recovering from going feral.  The power of the stone
had knocked out Jackson and Lena, while he had barely managed to hold onto
consciousness himself.  What he had not done was hold onto his control when
both of his Roenh had fallen.  He had torn through the rest of the attackers
like paper, but by the time he made it to them, Lena, The Collector, and the
stone were gone, Jackson was out cold, and the marines were standing between
him and the rest of the house lords in expectation of him starting on them
next.  He did not.  He had not lost that much control. 

He could see how they
would think it though, having fought their way to find him blood splattered and
crouched over their commander, snarling and surrounded by the body parts of his
enemies.  Still, they had pointed naked swords at him and he had refrained from
taking the swords away and cleaving their spines with them.  He should get some
credit.

Now standing in the
infirmary of the
Jupiter
,
where he had insisted on going when the
soldiers had taken Jackson, thankfully no longer blood covered, and growling
when anyone but the doctor moved towards Jackson.  He waited, even feeling Lena
moving farther away from him, he had to wait.  Every ship had been locked down
by the Alliance until they could figure out what was happening and could ensure
the safety of the house lords back to their own people.  Not that he was there
because the Alliance gave an order.  He was waiting for his Roenh.  He heard a
great many things waiting. 

The Collector was
missing, this he knew.  The army of mercenaries hired were Getorians, and
Jackson was suspended from service while a full investigation was conducted. 
Since it was Jackson and his men, not to mention Lena, who had saved every
single one of the house lords that bit of news had incensed Cordan all over
again.  But as four of the house lords had been damaged, one extensively, they
were looking for a scapegoat and Jackson fit the bill, having been the man in
charge of security.  Meanwhile, Alliance Command was sending a high ranking
official to deal with both the fall out and the investigation.  And Cordan
cared not one whit about the Alliance and their plans.

Feeling something change,
Cordan looked at Jackson just as the man shoved up in the bed and opened his
eyes.  Breathing hard, his whole body shaking and sweating cold, he looked
right at Cordan ignoring the rest of the men.  “Lena?”

“Taken.”  It was the
first thing Cordan had said and his voice sounded like so much ground beef. 
His control was precarious.   The two Alliance officers looked at him and froze
at the sound of his voice, but movement at the bed drew their attention.

Jackson was halfway out
of bed already, and the doctor and a big burly man who wore the insignia of a commander
rushed forward to stop him.  They both stopped mid motion when Cordan growled
at them in warning.

“Captain.”

“Jackson, what are you
doing?”

Both men spoke at the
same time, and both moved past the Prime cautiously to reach the bed.

The doctor already trying
to shove him back into bed, “We don’t even know what’s wrong with you.  You can’t
get up.”

“Fuck that,” Jackson
muttered and then stood less than carefully and would have fallen if the doctor
and commander hadn’t both grabbed him to steady him.  Jackson was looking over
their heads at Cordan.  “How long?  How far?  I can’t feel her!”

“Your body is
transforming, it must be affecting the bond.  I can feel her.”  He snapped his
teeth at the room.  “I can feel her getting farther away ever second we waste.” 
He was not going to tell them how it was a physical pain to be separated, and
that every moment the pain grew.  He studied his Roenh.  He was in so much pain
already he had no idea where the pain of his missing Roenh started and the rest
began, but his too would worsen; they needed to get moving while they could
still function as thinking men.

Jackson pushed his men
off him.  “Get the ship prepared for pursuit, we leave now.”

“We can’t.”

“You can’t!”  The chorus of
voices had Jackson glaring at both of them.

The commander went first,
his face and voice grim.  “Command has grounded us.  This ship is locked to
port, and you are suspended from duty until the investigative officer arrives
to either clear or convict you.”

The doctor started as
soon as he finished talking, “And you’re body is undergoing some form of
metamorphosis.  I have no idea what it’s going to do to you, or what I can do
to stop it.”

Jackson glared at both of
them.  Cordan saw his jaw lock just before he turned and met his eyes, his
brown ones blazing.  “Your ship?”

Cordan bared his teeth.  “Does
not answer to Alliance law.”

Jackson nodded, his face
going hard.  “We leave now.”

“You leave now,” the commander
said grimly, “you kiss your career goodbye.  You might even be looking at
prison time with your court martial.”

Jackson bared his teeth
at the man.  “They used a transporter, and our sensors could not detect the
poison.  That means our transporter shield and our toxin sensors did not work. 
Two
of our failsafe sensors were either defective or deactivated.  You
want to tell me the chances of two systems going bad on the same job?  A job
where an unknown was allowed the use of Alliance security and then permitted to
hire his own at the last minute against the expressed opinion of the commanding
officer in charge.

His commander looked
shocked, then turned his eyes to Cordan and back again in subtle warning.

“Fuck that.”  Jackson
repeated in answer.  “The Collector just tried to assassinate most of the
powerhouse leaders in the known galaxies.  And he had someone high up in
Alliance brass helping him.”

All color drained from
the doctor’s face, the commander just looked angry.  “That’s unsubstantiated! 
And you have been acting insane since you met with this . . .,” he looked at
Cordan who snarled in the face of that look, “Prime and his female – a female
whose origin seems to be in question.”

Cordan felt the growl
start in his throat as his temper started to rise.  Jackson narrowed his eyes
on the commander and gave his own version of a Prime growl.  “We are walking
off this ship, Charles, even if I have to go through you to do it.”

The commander looked him
up and down, taking in his naked, sweating, and shaking length.  “You are in no
position to fight anyone and your new friend starts something on an Alliance
battleship, it will be an act of war Alpha Prime does not want.”

“Do not presume to know
what I will do, human.  The Prime do not run from battle, and you have cost me
too much time already.”

Charles looked at Cordan
and saw the promise of death lurking in those eyes.  He swallowed and switched
his attention to Jackson before his arrogance reasserted itself.  “You don’t
have your sword this time, Jackson.”  Then the idiot smirked.

Jackson moved, leaping at
the bigger man in a move only Cordan expected.  Taking him to the ground, he
beat his fists down into that smirking face four times before the other man had
a chance to react, then it was too late.  Jackson grabbed him by the hair and
pounded him down against the floor, knocking him out cold.  He stood up shaking
with the change and adrenaline.  “You always were slow as fuck, Charles,” he
muttered.  Cordan snorted his agreement.  They both turned to look at the doctor
who stood watching it all.

He looked at Jackson, his
eyes grim, and the awkward moment stretched as they waited to see what he would
do.  When he finally spoke, it was Jackson’s turn to be surprised.  But he
should not have been. Besides Jus, he had known Flynn the longest.

“General Spears contacted
me specifically to give him information on you and anything I found suspicious.” 
He gave Jackson a stoic face, but that did not mean they missed the tightening
of his lips.  “This was before we landed on space station Lux, by a week.  He
has family connections with the Annux Four Great House by marriage, one of the
few Great Houses that did not come to this auction.  If I were a betting man,
my money would be on him.  I still have friends in high places, we will get to
the bottom of this.”  The grey-haired doctor shook his head in disgust looking
down at Charles bleeding on the floor.  “If it wasn’t the commander here who
did the deed, I will find out who he has working with on the ship that could
have affected the sensors.  You are going after The Collector?”

Cordan watched Jackson
grind his teeth.  “The girl.  But The Collector’s top of the fucking list.”

“You realize even if we
find the truth they will bury it with all haste with the general and anyone
else involved.  You may not have a command to come back to.”  The doctor looked
him over one more time and then handed him his leathers from the chair they had
been hanging over.  “Not to mention you may not survive the trip the way your
body is fighting itself.”

Jackson took his clothes,
barely noticing that they were cleaned of all blood and gore.  The doctor would
have put all of them through the decom before allowing them in his pristine
infirmary.  “I’ll take my chances.”

The doctor held up his
hand and Jackson took it.  They shook.  “Good luck,” Flynn said grimly.  “You’re
going to need it.”

“If you’re going to set
the dogs on Spears, you will, too,” Jackson said, a warning in his words.

“I’m old, but I’m not out
yet.”  The doctor’s voice was a grim promise of justice.  “And I did not work
my whole life for the Alliance only to see it corrupted by the rich and
arrogant.”

Cordan watched the men
shake hands, and then Jackson dressed and armed himself.  Together they walked
out of the infirmary and off the ship.  For now, they were of one mind.  Find
Lena, kill The Collector.  But first Jackson had to survive the transformation,
and in all the visions Cordan had dreamed over the years, it was Lena who had
touched a stone.  Lena who needed the mind touch of both her Roenh to survive
it.  It had never been Jackson.

***

Lena woke from one breath
to the next with no idea where she was, but she knew where she wasn’t; the ache
of her missing men was like a fire branding her insides.  She rolled to her
side in one heaving breath, clutching at her heart where the loss seemed centered. 
She could feel both of them; Jackson barely felt behind a wash of a different pain. 
Both he and Cordan were looking for her, she knew that without even thinking
about it, and they were getting closer.

Lena concentrated on the
feel of the deck under her and realized she was on a ship but docked.  Where,
she had no idea, but at least the men were getting closer, and not farther
away.

“You are finally awake,”
the voice she had never heard before spoke from her right side, and she turned
and met the black eyes of The Collector.  “Good.  We have much to do.”

Lena blinked at him, and
tried to speak around the pounding in her head.  “What, no spokesman this
time?  How do I rate the high honor of your dulcet tones?”

He hissed at her, and
Lena opened her eyes wide at the sound.  “I do not care to converse with
savages.”

“Right,” she muttered
sitting up careful of her pains.  “So why speak to me?”

“You may have no idea what
you are, but I know the truly rare when I see it.”  His words held an almost
glee behind his hissing syllables that she really didn’t like.  “I was not
there for you, but I knew as soon as I saw you what you were.”

“What were you there
for?  I mean besides assassination.”

The being shrugged, “I
needed a certain book the Alliance had well-guarded.  The auction was the price
I paid to get what I needed.  The Alpha Prime, and as an added bonus, most of
the ruling houses gone in one night.  The Alliance blamed.  A new order waiting
patiently to emerge and restore order.  I get the last piece of my puzzle.”

“And now you have
nothing,” Lena said grimly.  This would be a lot more satisfying if she was
anywhere else but here.

The Collector smiled, his
black eyes glinting with satisfaction.  “On the contrary.  I have you.”

Lena swallowed and tried
to be subtle about moving her hands and feet to try to restore blood flow. “And
what is it you think I am?”

“The answer.”  He looked
her over, spending a long time on her strangely colored eyes.  “A very rare
descendant of a species thought to be extinct, known by their amethyst eyes and
the ability to sense the connections in all things.  And you are going to help
me claim the ultimate prize.”

Lena studied him catching
the zealot behind the glee.  “Alright, I’ll ask.  What is the ultimate prize
and how is it you think I can help.”

“Do you know what a blood
stone is?”

“No,” Lena answered
really not liking the sound of that.

“There are two variations
of the blood stone.  One of them you are familiar with by another name.”  He
said it and stopped expectedly, and Lena drew in a deep breath.

“The immortal stone,” she
murmured and he beamed, like she was a prize pupil showing promise.