Witness [A First Contact Romance]-COMPLETE

48. Phase 1 (Part 1)

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.