This was very very bad.
This was betrayal, like the betrayal Jess had suffered, when her partner had damaged her in that other place. She could see it in Jess's posture, and in Doctor Dan's expression, and in the look of fury in Aprils' eyes.
“So.” Bain said. “I will ask you all to go into the recreation facility, where we will seal the doors. Then I'm sure our friends will find something entertaining to do with you. Terribly sorry about it all.” He said. “Nothing personal, you understand. I appreciate all of your talents, I just cannot afford them at this time.. ah ah, none of that.” He pointed his finger at April. “My dear, this suit I'm wearing will send that blast right back at you and I would hate to damage the equipment here. “
April slowly let her hand fall away from her gun, glaring at Bain with seething intensity.
The security agents pointed their blasters at them. “Put your weapons on the table.” The nearest one to Jess barked. “Or I'll blow your arm off.”
Jess stared steadily at him, leaving her hand on her blaster, her nostrils flaring slightly as she stood quite still in the silence. “Sure you want to leave me behind?” She met Bain's eyes directly. “I might just kill them all.”
Bain's ice gray eyes narrowed a trifle.
“You said yourself I was too dangerous.” Jess said. “You feel safer with those six bozos or with me?” She ignored the looks of startled outrage from her erstwhile team. “Maybe I want to go with you.”
Dev felt a completely different kind of shock. Was Jess really doing what it appeared?
Would she go with the man Bain?
Would she leave them all behind?
Will she leave me behind?
There was a momentary silence. Then Bain broke it. “Drake you do interest me.” He said, with a faint almost rueful smile. “Do you really expect me to believe you'd turn your back on this place, these people, your history, and change sides? Come now. I know better. I knew your father, didn't I?”
Jess remained calm, breathing easily. “So what has this ever offered to me? I was going to be mustered out until you showed up. “ She took a step forward, putting a bit of distance between herself and Dev. “This place? These people? My family'd be glad to see the last of me. You know what I am. You want to waste that?”
“I see.” Bain looked thoughtful. “Hm. Ah, you might have a point there, Drake. It seems to me you act more for your interests than anyone else.”
Jess smiled. “I'm not my father.”
“That's for sure.” Kurok spoke up, briefly, and crisply.
Jess ignored him. Ignored the look she knew she was getting from Dev, who was smart enough to realize what she was saying and know her own betrayal.
It was what it was.
Dev felt a wave of unhappiness flow over her. She looked down at the console, not wanting to meet any of the other eyes in the room.
“I owe you more than I do Interforce.” Jess continued. “No matter how you did it or why.”
Something that might have been a faint charmed smile appeared on Bain's face. “Hm.” He checked his chrono again. “Put your weapon down, Drake, and I might consider it.”
Jess pulled her blaster out and tossed it to one side without hesitation. She kept her back to the rest of the room, not daring to look at any of them.
Especially not Dev. She could almost sense the horror and confusion from her, and the steaming fury from Kurok standing just to her right.
That, at least, she understood at a deep, gut level, and taking one very short peek at his face, Jess suddenly knew at her very core exactly what or more specifically who his loyalty was anchored to and finally she had a personal understanding of why.
But she was out of choices. Turn her back on those security rifles and she'd be dead.
“Well then.” Bain said, after a long pause. “The rest of you, to the door. I would just shorten your distress but certain machinery in this facility is not worth risking blaster fire.” He waved them forward. “It appears Agent Drake and I have something to talk about.”
Jess was nearest the door. She kept her eyes shifted as the rest of them slowly started moving, walking past her as Bain came down and stood at her side. “I”m not often surprised, Drake.” He said, conversationally. “Quite an interesting sensation.”
“Yes, sir.” Jess murmured softly.
Dev came past her, trying to catch her eye. But Jess refused to meet it, only just keeping from biting the inside of her lip as her peripheral vision caught Kurok's hand coming to rest on her partner's shoulder and the faint, soft intake of Dev's breath.
There was a pain there, she hadn't expected. Jess drew a breath in and pushed past it, focusing on what she knew she had to do.
Then, April was the last to come past her. Now Jess lifted her head and met her fellow agent's glance for one very long moment, as April shifted her direction just slightly as she moved around a chair, her face a stolid, stony mask.
“I will have to rearrange some things. Find a place for you.” Bain was saying. “I'm sure your new colleagues will be.. hm.. even more surprised than I was.”
“I”m sure they will.” Jess's heart started to pound. “But I've never really been predictable, they tell me.”
Bain chuckled. “Something that might well prove to my advantage. Hm?”
“Maybe.” She felt the blood rush to her skin as her senses sharpened and she dislocated her thinking brain from her instincts as April came up even with her and she let second thoughts and regrets go. The energy flooded through her and her hand shot out, fingers closing around the knife hilt at April's hip. “”Or not. Like now, for instance.”
She drew and spun and slammed her hand and arm as hard as she could into Bain, feeling the grinding shock as the blade in her hand penetrated his light armored jumpsuit and cut through him, as a blast of energy hit her and filled her world with fire.
She let out a roar and yanked the knife back out, then plunged it back into his body again, the hardened blade cutting through his energy suit and sending a keening scream up into the air.
She heard Kurok shout, and Dev yell her name and a scramble behind her but all that mattered was feeling the hot blood on her hands and feeling the jerking of Bain's body as he gasped in her grip.
She hit the wall and took Bain's body with her, feeling something hit him as she yanked the blaster out of his hand and spun again, letting instinct drive her as she fired back towards the guards and dropped to her knees to avoid the returning fire.
She could smell blood, and she was lifting her blaster to fire again when something hit her and blew her back against the wall again, knocking her into darkness as she felt the world fade away, the sound of her own name echoing weirdly at volume following her.
**
Pain woke her. Even breathing hurt. Jess felt something shift under her, relatively soft and yielding as it cradled her body and she forced one eye half open to see what was going on.
A scanner pulled back out of her view and was replaced by Dan Kurok's face, a spattering of blood staining his cheek as he gazed at her. “You were wrong.” He said, glancing at the scanner. “You are most precisely and exactly your father.” He shook his head. “Pair of idiots, the both of you.”
Jess managed a faint smile as she tilted her head up a little, to find Dev looking back at her, since she was the owner and operator of the surface Jess was laying on. Her partner looked totally and completely freaked out, and she could see from the look of her eyes that she'd been crying.
And still was, apparently, as a tear emerged and rolled down her cheek. “Sorry.” Jess managed to croak at her. “I land on ya or somethin?”
Dev answered by hugging her, which hurt, and didn't, all at once.
“Sixty minutes to arrival.” Brent's voice echoed softly.
“Guns six and eight are up.” April replied. “If they come in east we can maybe get one or two of them.”