Page 39 of Darken
Gina caressed him and planted little kisses over his face. “It’s all over now. I’m all right.”
“I am never taking you on a dangerous mission again!”
“But how will you know? We were working it just fine until the others showed up,” she protested. “He could have shot you instead.”
“I know. Every day since, I wished it had been me. Nothing could hurt me worse than seeing you shot down and knowing you could die. Queen tried to save you, but he shot her too.”
“Oh, no! …But she seems fine.”
“She is fine. It went through the muscle and bone of her shoulder. I reprogrammed the nanites to fix her.”
“I’m so glad you could do that. The wolves are like family.”
Darken nodded and hugged her, pressing his cheek against hers.
“Can I still go with you to the villages and pass out the tablets?” Gina pulled back and looked into his eyes, hopefully.
He gave her an indulgent smile. “I don’t have a problem with that. It’s not likely any of our survivors will have an armor-piercing rifle. The guys in the flyers came from Devlin White. He has the connections to source something like that.”
“He was behind the abductions, too, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, we got them all back---the recent ones. I don’t think he will mess with us again.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No. With the Federation backing their operations, I could lose everything here,” he said. “The team will have a virtual debriefing tomorrow.”
“Are you in trouble?”
Darken shook his head.
“Officially, however, they had abducted nearly two hundred people and were about to sell them. By now, they are all home. The Feds might grumble, but White was breaking Federation law.”
They just held each other for a while, and Darken urged her to finish her lunch so she could get some rest.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Since we’re in a secure connection, I can tell you now. You did a great job, and I appreciated that you kept me out of the loop so I could honestly tell the Federation council chief that I had no knowledge of this operation,” said Vyken Dark. “The video from the desert location and from Devlin White’s compound left no room for the Overlords to dispute our human trafficking claims.”
“We didn’t feel we had a choice after Darken discovered their operation in his territory,” Blaze Savage replied. “They almost killed Gina… and where the hell did they get that modified rifle that pierced the new armor?”
“The Fed is wondering that as well,” said Vyken. “Their operative has not learned the source. The Enclave council chief blasted them for ignoring the Overlords’ slave trade. She told them in no uncertain terms that we will only abide by the non-interference agreement as long as the Overlords do.”
“What happened to the cyborg convert I fought in the desert? I thought we would find him at White’s compound,” said Darken.
Vyken hesitated. “It’s classified, but he is the Federation operative.”
“Fuck! He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. Do we know who he is? I never saw his face.”
“No,” said Vyken. “By the way, who killed Devlin White. He certainly deserved it.”
“I wanted to kill him,” said Darken. “He’s responsible for what his thug did to Gina. But I didn’t, and my internal records can prove that. I just restrained him there, figuring one of his flunkies who escaped would free him eventually.”
“They found him dead.”
“We left him alive.”
Vyken knew he could take his word. Cyborgs couldn’t lie.
