Authors: Anna Hackett
Tags: #alien invasion, #science fiction romance, #hell squad
Marcus
Anna Hackett
Marcus
Published by Anna Hackett
Copyright 2015 by Anna Hackett
Smashwords Edition
Cover by Melody Simmons of
eBookindiecovers
Edits by
Tanya Saari
ISBN: 978-0-9941948-3-1
This book is a work of fiction. All names,
characters, places and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, events or places is coincidental. No part of this
book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
electronic form.
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At Star’s End
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At Star’s End
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Her team was under attack.
Elle Milton pressed her fingers to her small
earpiece. “Squad Six, you have seven more raptors inbound from the
east.” Her other hand gripped the edge of her comp screen, showing
the enhanced drone feed.
She watched, her belly tight, as seven
glowing red dots converged on the blue ones huddled together in the
burned-out ruin of an office building in downtown Sydney. Each blue
dot was a squad member and one of them was their leader.
“Marcus? Do you copy?” Elle fought to keep
her voice calm. No way she’d let them hear her alarm.
“Roger that, Elle.” Marcus’ gravelly voice
filled her ear. Along with the roar of laser fire. “We see
them.”
She sagged back in her chair. This was the
worst part. Just sitting there knowing that Marcus and the others
were fighting for their lives. In the six months she’d been comms
officer for the squad, she’d worked hard to learn the ropes. But
there were days she wished she was out there, aiming a gun and
taking out as many alien raptors as she could.
You’re not a soldier, Ellianna
. No,
she was a useless party-girl-turned-survivor. She watched as a red
dot disappeared off the screen, then another, and another. She
finally drew a breath. Marcus and his team were the experienced
soldiers. She’d just be a big fat liability in the field.
But she was a damn good comms officer.
Just then, a new cluster of red dots
appeared near the team. She tapped the screen, took a measurement.
“Marcus! More raptors are en route. They’re about one kilometer
away. North.” God, would these invading aliens ever leave them
alone?
“Shit,” Marcus bit out. Then he went
silent.
She didn’t know if he was thinking or
fighting. She pictured his rugged, scarred face creased in thought
as he formulated a plan.
Then his deep, rasping voice was back.
“Elle, we need an escape route and an evac now. Shaw’s been hit in
the leg, Cruz is carrying him. We can’t engage more raptors.”
She tapped the screen rapidly, pulling up
drone images and archived maps.
Escape route, escape route
.
Her mind clicked through the options. She knew Shaw was taller and
heavier than Cruz, but the armor they wore had slim-line
exoskeletons built into them allowing the soldiers to lift heavier
loads and run faster and longer than normal. She tapped the screen
again.
Come on
. She needed somewhere safe for a Hawk
quadcopter to set down and pick them up.
“Elle? We need it now!”
Just then her comp beeped. She looked at the
image and saw a hazy patch of red appear in the broken shell of a
nearby building. The heat sensor had detected something else down
there. Something big.
Right next to the team.
She touched her ear. “Rex! Marcus, a rex has
just woken up in the building beside you.”
“Fuck! Get us out of here. Now.”
Oh, God.
Elle swallowed back bile.
Images of rexes, with their huge, dinosaur-like bodies and mouths
full of teeth, flashed in her head.
More laser fire ripped through her earpiece
and she heard the wild roar of the awakening beast.
Block it out
. She focused on the
screen. Marcus needed her. The team needed her.
“Run past the rex.” One hand curled into a
tight fist, her nails cutting into her skin. “Go through its hiding
place.”
“Through its nest?” Marcus’ voice was
incredulous. “You know how territorial they are.”
“It’s the best way out. On the other side
you’ll find a railway tunnel. Head south along it about eight
hundred meters, and you’ll find an emergency exit ladder that you
can take to the surface. I’ll have a Hawk pick you up there.”
A harsh expulsion of breath. “Okay, Elle.
You’ve gotten us out of too many tight spots for me to doubt you
now.”
His words had heat creeping into her cheeks.
His praise…it left her giddy. In her life BAI—before alien
invasion—no one had valued her opinions. Her father, her mother,
even her almost-fiancé, they’d all thought her nothing more than a
pretty ornament. Hell, she
had
been a silly, pretty party
girl.
And because she’d been inept, her parents
were dead. Elle swallowed. A year had passed since that horrible
night during the first wave of the alien attack, when their giant
ships had appeared in the skies. Her parents had died that night,
along with most of the world.
“Hell Squad, ready to go to hell?” Marcus
called out.
“Hell, yeah!” the team responded. “The devil
needs an ass-kicking!”
“Woo-hoo!” Another voice blasted through her
headset, pulling her from the past. “Ellie, baby, this dirty
alien’s nest stinks like Cruz’s socks. You should be here.”
A smile tugged at Elle’s lips. Shaw Baird
always knew how to ease the tension of a life-or-death
situation.
“Oh, yeah, Hell Squad gets the best
missions,” Shaw added.
Elle watched the screen, her smile slipping.
Everyone called Squad Six the Hell Squad. She was never quite sure
if it was because they were hellions, or because they got sent into
hell to do the toughest, dirtiest missions.
There was no doubt they were a bunch of
rebels. Marcus had a rep for not following orders. Just the
previous week, he’d led the squad in to destroy a raptor outpost
but had detoured to rescue survivors huddled in an abandoned
hospital that was under attack. At the debrief, the general’s
yelling had echoed through the entire base. Marcus, as always, had
been silent.
“Shut up, Shaw, you moron.” The deep female
voice carried an edge.
Elle had decided there were two words that
best described the only female soldier on Hell Squad—loner and
tough. Claudia Frost was everything Elle wasn’t. Elle cleared her
throat. “Just get yourselves back to base.”
As she listened to the team fight their way
through the rex nest, she tapped in the command for one of the Hawk
quadcopters to pick them up.
The line crackled. “Okay, Elle, we’re
through. Heading to the evac point.”
Marcus’ deep voice flowed over her and the
tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed a fraction. They’d be back
soon. They were okay. He was okay.
She pressed a finger to the blue dot leading
the team. “The bird’s en route, Marcus.”
“Thanks. See you soon.”
She watched on the screen as the large,
black shadow of the Hawk hovered above the ground and the team
boarded. The rex was headed in their direction, but they were
already in the air.
Elle stood and ran her hands down her
trousers. She shot a wry smile at the camouflage fabric. It felt
like a dream to think that she’d ever owned a very expensive,
designer wardrobe. And heels—God, how long had it been since she’d
worn heels? These days, fatigues were all that hung in her closet.
Well-worn ones, at that.
As she headed through the tunnels of the
underground base toward the landing pads, she forced herself not to
run. She’d see him—them—soon enough. She rounded a corner and
almost collided with someone.
“General. Sorry, I wasn’t watching where I
was going.”
“No problem, Elle.” General Adam Holmes had
a military-straight bearing he’d developed in the United Coalition
Army and a head of dark hair with a brush of distinguished gray at
his temples. He was classically handsome, and his eyes were a
piercing blue. He was the top man in this last little outpost of
humanity. “Squad Six on their way back?”
“Yes, sir.” They fell into step.
“And they secured the map?”
God, Elle had almost forgotten about the
map. “Ah, yes. They got images of it just before they came under
attack by raptors.”
“Well, let’s go welcome them home. That map
might just be the key to the fate of mankind.”
They stepped into the landing areas. Staff
in various military uniforms and civilian clothes raced around.
After the raptors had attacked, bringing all manner of vicious
creatures with them to take over the Earth, what was left of
mankind had banded together.
Whoever had survived now lived here in an
underground base in the Blue Mountains, just west of Sydney, or in
the other, similar outposts scattered across the planet. All arms
of the United Coalition’s military had been decimated. In the early
days, many of the surviving soldiers had fought amongst themselves,
trying to work out who outranked whom. But it didn’t take long
before General Holmes had unified everyone against the aliens. Most
squads were a mix of ranks and experience, but the teams eventually
worked themselves out. Most didn’t even bother with titles and rank
anymore.
Sirens blared, followed by the clang of
metal. Huge doors overhead retracted into the roof.