As the miles passed, CJ thought of all they had been through. The escape pod crashing, the Xakul attack, and Domik being captured and tortured by the resistance. And now their escape. She smiled, thinking about how she’d rescued him. CJ, the medic whose defining experience in battle had been to run and hide. And she had saved him. The biggest, scariest Taurean warrior of them all.
Would he have done the same for you?
Her smile dropped. If they had trapped her, she was certain he wouldn’t have left her behind. Even so, the thought persisted.
She blinked, her eyelids getting heavy, and stifled a yawn. She would soon need to pull over if they didn’t get to the base.
She mentally calculated how much time had passed and estimated how far they had traveled. No, they should make it to the base by dawn.
The Space Force military base.
The site of the first contact between Taureans and humans. She had read the reports about what had happened there, had heard from Oren and Amelia themselves.
Oren had crash-landed on Earth, and Amelia had helped him escape from capture on the base, both of them chased by a Xakul soldier who had fixated on them. Which was a typical behavior of the Xakul.
CJ shuddered. She should know. That’s what they did on Mars. They had hunted down every single person they had seen. She was lucky she had stayed out of sight. It’s the only reason she’d survived.
But she had watched the carnage on a tablet, trapped in the morgue freezer. It had been horrific.
So she had known intuitively what had happened on the Space Force base in the Nevada desert. Complete and utter carnage.
From one Xakul soldier.
So, why did that ship at the motel not send soldiers down to take them all out? Not just her and Domik, but the resistance as well?
It makes little sense.
The Xakul presence and the Taurean technology that was scattered around was an added complication. Someone from Taurus had to be working with the resistance, and she bet it was the Taurean Purists.
It was the only solution that made sense.
The Purists were a hateful group who wanted no mixing of Taureans and humans… or any other species. They felt Taurus was being polluted by contact with humans, and that helping them fight off the Xakul was akin to helping vermin.
Thankfully, the Taurean Purists were a minority, but there had to be someone powerful behind them, because how else had they delivered Taurean military technology to Earth?
She was certain she was right, but the real question was, why?
CJ pondered as she drove, the truck devouring the miles as they made their way toward the Space Force base outside Las Vegas. As the dawn light broke over the horizon, she crested a hill and in the valley before them; the base was spread out.
They must have an alternate source of power generation, as there were floodlights on the gate. And, as CJ turned down the long road toward it, she could see a glow in the distance around which she knew the buildings on the base were located.
Domik woke, blinking sleepily as he sat up and stretched, tilting his head from one side to the other. “Almost there?”
CJ nodded. “Yes.”
Domik twisted in his seat to reach for the pack CJ had thrown behind them, pulling his plasma pistol free and running checks to ensure it was working.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” CJ asked. “We’re not in uniform and you’re huge… and armed.”
Domik shot her a smirk. An actual smirk, and her insides melted. She had been trying to get him to smile for months, and now that he was, it felt like sunshine blasting her after an arctic winter. Like scalding hot water when you expect it to be cold. CJ was wondering if she would survive emotionally if Domik really showered her with attention.
The truck bounced along the road, CJ seeming to find every pothole. Domik grunted as she hit a particularly big one.
“Sorry,” she said.
As the gate loomed ahead, CJ began slowing the truck. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes against the lights as they approached.
Domik’s hand reached across to press on her arm. “Slower.”
