Page 77 of Alien Mercenary's Wife
She closed her eyes and tried to remember the sound of T'Raal's heartbeat beneath her ear, the warmth of his arms around her, the way he'd whispered her name in the dark.
She was going to die in this concrete box. Die without seeing T'Raal again, without telling him how she felt, withoutstopping these bastards from killing more veterans. Hughes and Mason would break under interrogation or disappear entirely. The remaining lawsuit participants would be hunted down and killed.
They'd win. Change the story, destroy the evidence, and keep getting away with murder. All her fighting was for nothing.
Everyone she'd tried to save would die anyway.
The hopelessness crushed her more than the pain did. It sat in her chest like a weight, making it hard to breathe.
They'd won.
And the people she loved would pay the price for her failure. And she would never see the man she loved again.
She'd lost everything.
19
The conference area at the back of the bridge felt smaller with the entire crew packed inside. T'Raal stood at the head of the conference table, hands gripping its edges while his people arranged themselves around the cramped space. TheSprite'sengines hummed somewhere beneath them as they sat in Earth's outer system planning something that might get them all killed.
Reese had been gone for eighteen hours. Eighteen hours of silence. Every minute that passed made any rescue more complicated and her survival less likely.
"Talk to me, Mayce," T'Raal said, his voice tight with barely controlled anger. "What are our legal options?"
Mayce looked up from the stack of documents spread across the table, his jaw set in hard lines. The investigator had been working nonstop since they'd hacked into the court system and 'acquired' the court files for Reese's case.
"There are none," the big Navarrian said flatly. "Not through human courts. Not with what they've constructed against her."
Silence fell. T'Raal's gut clenched as Mayce carried on talking, each word like a hammer blow to his hopes.
"The terrorism charges are fabricated but professionally done. False evidence, manufactured witnesses, documentation that will pass even detailed scrutiny." Mayce gestured at the files surrounding him. "They've created a narrative where Reese is the architect of an anti-government conspiracy and Hughes and Mason are unwitting accomplices. The other veterans are just victims of her manipulation."
"What about the medical evidence?" Tal asked from his position near the wall. "The neural pathway damage, the implant failures?"
"Dismissed as psychological manifestation of combat stress. Any physical deterioration will be attributed to guilt and pressure from her crimes." Mayce sounded disgusted. "They've covered every angle. Her condition becomes evidence of her guilt rather than corporate malfeasance."
Red shifted in her chair. "So we break her out. Hit the facility, extract all three of them, disappear before human security can respond."
"And then what?" Fin asked quietly. "Earth declares war on the Warborne? Puts bounties on all our heads? Makes us fugitives from every human settlement in the galaxy?"
"We're already fugitives," Sparky pointed out with a shrug. "Most of us, anyway. What's a few more warrants?"
"This is different," Eric said, his expressionserious. "This isn't criminal charges or mercenary politics. This is a potential interspecies incident. If we attack federal facilities, Earth could petition the Empire for extradition. Or worse."
Nobody spoke as the reality sank in. Attacking Earth's detention facilities would cross a line they couldn't come back from. Even the Warborne couldn't stand against the might of the Empire.
"There has to be another way," Skinny rumbled. "Someone with authority to override the charges. Federal contacts, military connections."
"I've run every angle I can think of," Mayce replied, spreading more documents across the table. "The charges have federal backing, corporate support, and media narrative construction. Anyone who tries to intervene will face the same treatment. Character assassination, fabricated evidence, mysterious accidents."
T'Raal stared at the files without seeing them. Every legal avenue blocked. Every potential ally neutralized.
"Dad?" Red's voice carried careful concern. "What are you thinking?"
He was thinking about Reese locked up somewhere, her body failing, being interrogated.
He was thinking about the one option no one had mentioned, but that hung in the air between them. The option he'd sworn never to use.
"There is one possibility," he said quietly.
