Dekkir (Galaxy Alien Warriors #1)(54)

The crowd started to fall apart, some trying to filter their breathing through their uniform jackets, some already inoculated and collapsing under a wave of euphoria, others staring up at the descending golden cloud in wonder. Norcross gagged, curling up and cradling his wounded balls, and then started to choke and wheeze as the Strain hit his system.

I got up and looked around at all of them. “Don’t panic. This substance is benign in nature. You will be all right. Please, just listen to me. Lieutenant Norcross has been lying to you from the start. He’s the one who tried to kill the commander!”

Someone in the crowd tried to take a shot at me, but the bolt went wide. I ducked, looking down at Norcross as I did so. His eyes were rolled back in his head, and the golden motes were turning black as they settled over him. I could see blackness moving through the veins under his skin; he convulsed, drool gathering at the corner of his mouth. Serves you right, *.

I bolted for the stairs. No one stopped me; two of the guards looked my way, but their eyes were wide and dilated. I could hear the psychic chaos being unleashed around me. Soldiers and scientists alike panicking or trancing out or falling to fascination; a few even wept with joy as their minds expanded and started to connect. It was like a slow explosion, a wave of psychic energy so powerful it staggered me. I felt a soldier’s mind expand empathically, radiating confusion; I gave him a gentle nudge. Be calm. Tell the others to be calm. You’re not hallucinating. You’re not dying. You’re getting superpowers. And in the process, learning the truth, the truth that would hopefully end this conflict.

I ran out the door and into the hallway, stepping over a lab-coated tech who lay on the floor dreamily, staring up at the downpour of golden spores from a ventilation grate as her eyes slowly went from green to gold. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “Am I dying?”

I paused, crouching by her. “No. You’re just adjusting. You’re fine. Soon, you’ll be better than fine.”

She rolled her eyes toward me. “What is this stuff?”

“A gift from the Lyrans. It’s going to help you understand.”

She blinked, and when her eyes opened again, the golden threads had multiplied again. “Understand what?”

“That we and Lyra don’t have to fight for us to get what we need.”

She stared after me as I hurried down the hall, reaching out to Dekkir as I did. I could barely feel him through the cacophony of awakening minds . . . but finally, I found him, heading my direction. He was not alone.

I broke into a run, squinting through the gold-dust-filled air, my head starting to pound from the psychic chaos radiating from the auditorium behind me. It took a minute, but I reached the lifts at the end of the long hall and waited.

The doors opened, and Tabirus walked out with a weak looking but very conscious Wickman leaning on him heavily. His blue eyes were threaded with gold, and a look of hazy wonder filled his expression.

He focused on me after a moment and blinked. “You all right?” he mumbled.

I laughed. “You nearly got your heart flash-burned, and you’re worried about me? I’m fine.”

Tabirus helped him out of the lift, followed by his second, Dr. Eastman, whose eyes were slowly turning the same bronze as mine. He too had a look of wonder on his face. And behind him . . .

I saw Dekkir and ran for him, ignoring the pain in my arm and ribs, thinking only of being in his arms again. But before I could get more than a few steps, a look of horror crossed all four of their faces.

A hand closed on my shoulder and yanked me backward with such strength my feet left the ground. I heard more than felt my collarbone snap and gasped as I was flung back against the wall and pinned.

Norcross held me there with inhuman strength, his lips twitching up into a leering grin. “Got you,” he gurgled, the inside of his mouth as black as his eyes and threads of darkness turning his skin gray. “Whore. Told you I would.”

Eastman stumbled back in horror. “What the hell is that thing?”

“It’s Norcross,” Wickman muttered, pulling the pistol from his belt and aiming at what his second had become. “Let her go, Lieutenant. Your murder and coup attempt have failed.”

“Never! I . . . I . . . I . . . Bitch poisoned me . . . poisoned us all! I’ll take her with me! I’ll take her with me when I die!” His claw-like hand dug into my wounded shoulder, making the broken ends of bone grind against my flesh.

Tabirus started to say something, but it was lost in a roar of outrage from Dekkir. Before anyone could do anything else, he bulled forward, and I saw he had his black spear in his hands. Tabirus had retrieved it for him on the way up.

He drove the spear through Norcross’s midsection; it thunked home in a spray of black, acrid-smelling blood, knocking him away from me. I stumbled back, and Tabirus and the others moved to surround me protectively. But all I could see was Dekkir and the thing he was fighting.

Norcross seemed to have swelled in size. His muscles bulged enough to tear his clothes, black fluid drooled from the corners of his mouth, and his breath came in a wheeze. He grabbed the spearhead and yanked it free. Dekkir twisted it out of his grasp and then stared as the wound knit together in seconds. Norcross shrieked out a laugh. “You can’t kill me!”

“We’ll see about that, abomination,” Dekkir growled.

Norcross hissed and charged him. Dekkir knocked him back with the spear and raked the blade end across his throat. More black gore flew, but the wound still knit together in seconds.