shouting at them about DNA samples and how he didn’t believe that Ginny had jit genes. He’s ranting,” Tiggy said as Tigh and his friends moved ever downward in the underground facility.
Tigh commanded doors to lock as he encountered them, but there were not many, and the base was mostly empty except for those few the bots had already discovered and locked in. The pathway was clear, at least. Any rooms they passed were just rooms, not side passageways. They kept going down, meeting up with the bots and sending them out ahead at a fast clip. If anybody started shooting, hopefully, they’d engage the bots first, but Tigh wasn’t waiting. The whole group was moving at the warriors’ top speed.
“I’ve got two feeds now,” Tiggy said excitedly. “Sally detached the floater from her belt and activated it. It’s giving me a better view. The lab guy looks like he’s about to pop a vein, he’s so upset, but the captain is… Oh, man…she’s starting to glow. I think we’re about to have another divine visitation. You guys had better get your asses down there, pronto.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hansa said, almost laughing at the comm tech’s candor. “I believe we’re almost there.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ginny felt calm take her body and recognized the touch of the jit’suku Goddess. She’d felt it as an observer before, but this time, it was coming through her. She didn’t question it. Somehow, the Light that filled her left no room for questions, only peace and acceptance.
“I made my virus to destroy you. Aliens that have the temerity to look like us, but are far inferior.” The man was raving now, but she suddenly understood he was the designer of the virus that had killed off so many people throughout two galaxies.
“We were not the enemy, Doctor Gruber,” Ginny said. The words were hers but also came from the Goddess. Somehow. “Humanity was found according to My plan and would have created the next evolution of two races, blending together to become stronger and better able to cope with what will come in the future. Your interference—your misuse of your free will—has brought two mighty races low, but you will not win. I am Light to your darkness. I bring wisdom to your ignorant fear. I prevail where you fail.”
Ginny raised her arms. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that something raised Ginny’s arms, and light began to form and glow all around her hands. Light that was so bright and so pure, it could burn, but Ginny had no fear of it. Even as Gruber recoiled, Ginny saw the Light flow into him. It simply blew him away. Disintegrating the being that had caused so much heartache, pain and death across two galaxies.
“That was almost too good for the likes of him,” Krysta said as she watched the Light begin to fade.
“It is not My way to make beings suffer,” Ginny said, knowing it was the Goddess who spoke through her, even as the presence of the divine began to fade.
“No, it’s not. We bring that on ourselves, for the most part,” Sally agreed. “Now, Captain, if you’re back with us, I think we need to make tracks and get out of this hole.”
“Roger that, Ensign. Let’s go.” Ginny was back to normal as the Goddess’s presence faded. “The men can investigate this place later. Right now, I want to get outside and figure out where we are.”
Tigh arrived at the end of the long corridor in time to see the Light of the Goddess flowing through his mate and out into an open doorway in front of her. Tiggy was giving them the run-down on everything she could see through the lens of the floater cam, and he wasn’t surprised when she reported that the man in the lab had dissolved in the Light.
He also heard Ginny’s last statement as he drew closer. He ordered the bots to guard their backs while he went forward to meet up with Ginny and her friends. She turned from the doorway and stopped, catching sight of him as he drew nearer. The smile that lit her face warmed his heart as he closed the distance between them.
Wrapping his arms around her for a quick, reassuring hug, he allowed those around them to take on the responsibility of keeping a lookout for the short moment it took to reassure himself that his mate was alive and well. She hugged him just as tightly, and he felt the slight