Earth

2027

Warning flashes lit up all over Jace's field of vision as bullets popped. He cast a soft net of energy to slow them but he couldn't accurately judge how much to release without an analyst, so he erred on the side of caution, not softening the hits quite enough. The bullets bit into his body suit, but didn't even pock the outer layer of his armor.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Jace peeled off three shots in a row, stunning as many soldiers.

Rustling on the other side of the wall caught his attention. The cocking of a gun. He smashed his arm through the wall and ripped the weapon away. The soldier clung to it, coming halfway through the wall with it.

Bullets ripped through the wall. Jace flew sideways, the shots seeming to follow after him. His enhanced reflexes allowed him to evade the blind gunfire. Stress flooded him at the thought of Aeryn reaching the building while he dealt with this. Leaving before someone came to handle them wasn't an option, but he needed to go.

A soldier slid into view in the doorway, aiming at Jace's left eye. Jace fired directly into the barrel of the offending weapon, jerking the weapon from the woman's hand. Quick thinker, she was. Going for his weak spot. It likely wouldn't have broken through his helmet, but still. Not a chance he could take.

An adjoining door opened, but Jace ignored it and burst through the wall, showering a soldier in drywall and insulation. Jace wrapped his hands around the man's throat, twisted, and threw him back into the other room through the fresh hole in the wall.

Well, shit.

He'd ended up in a small lobby with soldiers funneling in from each door. Twenty-seven of them. No. Now, twenty-nine. And they were all aiming at him.

He really shouldn't have tried taking a short-cut. With these numbers, Jace could not hold back as much as he'd wanted to.

The soldiers shot at him from all directions. Using his flight mods, he spun rapidly in a tight spiral and torpedoed through a group of soldiers. Sliding across the ground on his knees when he landed, he aimed both hands at different sections of the ceiling and blasted hot balls of energy at them. Debris scattered over the soldiers, obscuring their line of sight.

Jace grabbed the two closest men and threw them hard at other soldiers.

Then, he jumped up and disappeared in the hole in the ceiling, speeding across the room where he broke back through to the lobby. The soldiers hadn't been able to track him and none fired accurately, leaving an opening for him to act without the risk of sending their own bullets back to them. Jace released a concussive blast that threw five soldiers from their feet.

The room shook when he landed hard. Thirteen soldiers were down and not moving. Four more looked unsteady as they struggled to their feet. Despite all the chaos he'd caused, very little time had passed, and no new reinforcements had arrived. The soldiers all looked haggard and panicked.

Jace picked off six in a matter of seconds with his stun gun. There wasn't even time to check on Aeryn's location on his cuff. He growled in agitation.

"Fuck!" One soldier screamed at the top of his lungs, bravely aiming for Jace out in the open with absolutely no cover. Jace knocked the bullets up through the ceiling with a shot of energy, but it had been a mistake. Enough soldiers had managed to take aim from various points in the room that he needed to use both his hand mods to try absorbing the blow again.

Instead, Jace managed to cast some away and lunged toward the soldier who had screamed.

Pain peppered his chest and shoulders.

He knocked into the soldier, sending him through the wall, and knocking him out cold.

Two more shots of electricity erupted from Jace's palms. He huffed a breath, ripped the gun from a nearby soldier's hand, and bent the barrel in frustration. "Get out of here." He aimed his stun gun at the quick thinker who had almost shot for his eye. "Now!"

No one moved, but for one moment of silence, they didn't fire either. It was all the time he needed. Jace used the distraction to twist in a circle and lob another concussive blast from his hand in a sweeping wave that knocked everyone in the room into the wall.

Before they could get their hands on their weapons to aim at him again, Jace knocked each one out with his stun gun and with electricity from his hand mods.

The pain in his chest really hit him for the first time. He'd thought the soldiers had frozen because of how many he'd taken out or maybe because of how his voice boomed. Maybe because they'd realized he didn't want to hurt them and hadn't killed any of them. But when he looked down, he noticed all the dents in his armor from the shots he hadn't avoided, and the faintly bloody holes of those that managed to pierce his suit.

Maybe they'd frozen because they saw him fight unfazed with at least a dozen bullets embedded in his chest and arms and probably back. He plucked one bullet that was lodged in his vest free and dropped it on the ground. Breathed out a heavy sigh.

Bodies covered the floor. Strangely, the only part more disturbing than sheer number was the lack of blood, because this was a sight that should have been saved for carnage. Apart from some injuries from those he threw or ran into, they were simply unconscious. Jace had never incapacitated so many people without killing them. And they repaid him by managing to actually pierce his suit and skin.

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The mesh should have caught most, if not all, of the bullets. His chest was throbbing now though and his shoulders ached. He grunted as he lifted his hands to remove his helmet and catch his breath.

"What the hell?" Alix stepped over the bodies on the ground. "Where'd they come from?"

"I told you we needed an analyst." Nikka followed behind him.

Jace narrowed his eyes at her. "I could have used you about thirty seconds ago."

"We saw your heart rate increase," she said. "You took them out too fast."

"Great." Jace looked down at his cuff to see that Aeryn had made it to the building. "Can you look around here to see what they were protecting? Other squads should come soon. There might be more Americans hiding."

"You got hit." Lyon caught Jace's arm as he tried to walk past. "A lot. Why did you let them shoot you?"

"They were like a swarm of bees."

"Yeah, still doesn't answer my question."

Nikka removed her helmet and looked at his chest with a pensive expression. "He doesn't want to kill them, Lyon."

"None of us do but there comes a point where casualties happen. Like when a small army is firing high-powered–"

"I'm not killing them." Jace gripped his helmet tighter. "I'll have to at some point. I know. It'll be unavoidable when phase two starts and Vehru paints the world in blood. Today, it was not unavoidable." Only he hoped he could escape that outcome. He couldn't say it out loud with the Analysis General potentially listening in. They didn't have much time before Vehru stopped playing nice.

"He's right," Alix said. "Jace will be fine. He can handle it. Back off."

"It's reckless," Lyon said. Beneath the frustration, Jace saw worry. This wasn't about the bullets in his chest. It was because his friend thought that Jace didn't care about his life. Because for years he'd been upset with Jace for letting himself undergo so many excruciating procedures and for always going too far with training. For Jace being the only one to hurt himself more than Vehru had.

Jace clasped the other man's shoulder and spoke with his voice soft. "I'm okay. I promise."

Lyon turned his head away. "Whatever. Our squad can't lose anyone else. Think about that, will you?" His shoulders fell. "Tell Aeryn that too. You both have to be careful."

The apology burned on his lips. Lyon had helped Jace survive losing Aeryn. It wasn't right to dismiss him like this. Jace didn't know what else to do, though. His friends knew him too well to believe any lies he might try to tell. He hadn't tortured himself in training and with enhancements to take it easy now that the war had begun. It had all been for a single purpose.

Jace left to find Aeryn without offering any false promises, not looking for any shortcuts this time. As he ran up the stairs, the pain from the shots that had hit started to cramp up his lungs. Maybe he was just being stubborn. This was a war. But they'd invaded this planet. Jace didn't want to kill people who were protecting their homes when he respected them for it.

He pushed the thoughts away and followed Aeryn's location on the cuff until he heard her voice in the lobby. Slowing to a stop, he looked up and saw her pointing at one of the unconscious technicians from the server room. The woman lay unmoving on a stretcher.

"She's pregnant," Aeryn said. Her copper eyes glowed with indignation. "There's no benefit to attacking an unarmed person. I know Commander Vehru has not trained you to attack civilians."

The same analyst Jace had chastised now nodded. "I made a mistake."

"A mistake. She might lose this pregnancy now. You don't know how that feels. This innocent woman posed no threat to you. Have some respect for human life. "Turning, Aeryn slid her hand over the woman's forehead and looked down her. "I'm so sorry, Christine."

While Aeryn couldn't necessarily order anyone, considering that she was no one's commanding officer, Vehru had made her position one of such respect that she had much more of a voice than she otherwise would have. Although, having served for ten years on Lumiea, Aeryn had earned consideration beyond her role as Witness.

The analyst apologized again and motioned for medical personnel to come help. Jace watched Aeryn for a few seconds longer, content that she was safe, and taking his time before she saw him to look at the ways she'd changed. The way she was still the same.

She ran her hand through her fiery hair and turned, her anger and heartbreak so clear on her face.

Aeryn saw him then. Her eyes changed as she took him in. Jace was standing on an alien planet that he'd helped to invade even though he didn't want to with a dozen bullets buried in his body. But he smiled, gazing down her face, her long neck, the curves of her lithe form. The day Vehru had taken her, it hadn't felt possible to ever heal or become whole again, and for the first time, he felt a drizzle of peace, like maybe, if he survived long enough to see it, things could be okay. That seemed like an incredibly dangerous hope to feel when the alternative promised the only heartbreak that could be worse than what he'd already endured.

They walked closer to one another until he could feel her warmth. "You found me," he said. "I knew you wouldn't listen."

Aeryn wiped a smear of dirt from his face. Conflicting emotions mired her expression. "I did something."

"I figured."

Pursing her lips, she lowered her gaze. "I stabbed Trin in the femoral artery with a hunk of glass."

Jace heard the words. Understood them. Had them circulating through his mind. And still, he could not actually grasp what she'd just said. "What the fucking hell, Aeryn?"

One slender shoulder raised in a shrug. "She talked about you and Levi. I've been telling myself I did it strategically or to take back some power. I was just angry. So angry, I thought I would die if I didn't let it out."

When Jace feared Aeryn would piss Vehru off, he had not imagined just how badly she might do so. Could he blame her though? That Replica had tortured and haunted them for years. He was angry too. And Aeryn had been through so much. "Did she feel it?"

"For a second."

He smiled. Slid her hair back from her shoulder to draw his knuckles along her neck. "Good." Things were complicated. There was too much to figure out, but he couldn't think right with her so close. She was the mother of his child. And she was here. Before, he'd felt furious with her for walking blindly into a hotspot, but now he couldn't feel anything except helplessly drawn to her. "Do you want to find a place to talk? There's not much else anyone can do for this base tonight." He scratched by his earpiece, indicating he could not talk openly yet, but hoped she realized he was trying to tell her that soon he'd be able to disconnect.

They had done everything they could with the time they had back on Lumiea, but there were crucial elements of their plan still missing. He needed Aeryn's mind. Vehru had taken out the two most intelligent members of their squad, which certainly felt purposeful. Not that the rest of them were incapable, but they were dealing with complicated science. Jace could not claim for that to be his area.

"Will the people here be taken care of?" Aeryn asked.

"Vehru will arrange for them to be released. She doesn't want to be accused of having hostages."

She nodded and met his eyes. "Yeah. Let's talk." A soft smile came over her now, drawing his eye to her plush bottom lip. It felt unnatural not to draw her close and kiss her. "There's so much we need to say."