A wave of grief rolled over me. “I miss her so much.”
“So, do I, Lexi. So, do I.”
General Jones stepped into the room. “Are you ready, Lexi?”
“I am.”
Chapter Four
Earth fights back…
The general was sending three of us through the portal. I was going to Los Angeles, his nephew Jake Jones was going to Chicago and Major Dodd was taking the ship in New York. I just prayed I didn’t end up on the bridge again. It was a pucker factor ten.
Jake Jones was psychic like the general, and oh, my, God was he good looking, but Major Dodd, the sourpuss, didn’t have an ounce of telepathy. I cleared my throat. “Ah, I don’t want to cause any problems, but Major Dodd doesn’t have a lick of psychic abilities.”
“I’m a highly trained combat veteran,” Major Dodd stated coldly.
Ugh, and testosterone rears its ugly head. “With my powers, I know when the Tai-Kok are approaching and from what direction. You’re going in blind.”
Major Dodd sneered, “I have been in hand-to-hand combat with the monsters and survived. Have you?”
“Enough,” General Jones snapped. “None of you is to engage the enemy. Just port in, leave the bomb and get out.”
“Yes, sir,” we said in unison.
Uncle Ben gestured at me. “You’re up first, Lexi.”
“The phase coils aren’t glitching anymore?” Call me nervous.
Dad gave my uncle his death stare.
“The portal is functioning properly,” Uncle Ben said quickly.
I stepped onto the portal’s platform and pulled my Glock. “Let’s do this.”
“Give ‘em hell,” Uncle Ben said, and his fingers danced across the control console.
The golden circles of light engulfed me. My body tingled like crazy, and I appeared in a cavernous room.
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to take my eyes off the grisly scene. Gutted corpses hung from the ceiling. Half-eaten bodies littered the floor. The stench of death penetrated my helmet and made me gag. There were hundreds of people crying, screaming, begging not to die.
A Tai-Kok soldier drove his metal claws into a woman’s abdomen, ripped out her intestines and started eating them.
The woman just stood there, staring blankly at him.
An icy rage vibrated through every cell of my body, and I raised my gun.
“NO!”Kaelen shouted in my head.“Do not! Leave your bomb and go.”
My finger tightened on the trigger.“I have to help them.”
“They cannot be saved.”There was a touch of savagery in his voice as the images of melted bodies formed in my mind.“The Tai-Kok sprays their prey with a chemical that tenderizers their flesh. There is no antidote, and none survive the treatment.”
My eyes widened in horror. Tai-Kok soldiers were herding school children toward the ship.
“Go. Now!”
Obeying Kaelen’s mental command, I placed the bomb on the floor and pushed the retrieval button.
