“Hell yes!” Kara shouts, “The bomb went off inside the shield!”
“One bomb,” Sara says.
But then the rest of the spheres fall away, revealing nine ships blown to pieces. And three of the Marauders are dead as well--killed in the blast despite their biosuits--probably they didn’t have enough antimatter left to shield their vital organs or brains.
“Six Marauders,” Cygnus says. “Two-hundred Seraphim…”
“We need to attack!” I shout. “Malcolm and his squad are in that ship, ready to join us.”
“Alright,” Cygnus says. “Let’s go.”
“I can’t help but think this feels fucking stupid,” Sara says.
It does feel stupid. There are seven of us in biosuits, loaded to the bring with antimatter at least, but still only seven of us.
We then have fourteen humans in combat armor, and Kara and Felicia’s drones hovering over us.
And we’re walking straight into six Marauders in biosuits, and an army of 200 Seraphim.
“Think how crazy they think we are,” Kain says.
“They’ll know we’re up to something,” Cygnus says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Seraphim break.”
“I trained them to kill each other,” I say. “Hopefully they’ll remember their training.
There’s a crater between us and the Darkstar army, and we climb the lip of the crater as Kara’s drone feeds an overhead view of them onto the corner of our HUDs.
Kara zooms in, and I see the Marauder generals waving their arms around, thrusting fingers at each other, while the Seraphim stand in disarray.
“They know there’s a traitor,” I say, “And they’re afraid to commit to an engagement before they figure it out.”
“I hope Malcolm will be okay,” Felicia says.
“Alright,” Sara says, “I know I was skeptical, but I’m all in now. Can you get eyes on Malcolm? Let’s unload some plasma beams down onto them from the crater lip, force them to start fighting. Don’t hit Malcolm and his squad.”
“How does that help him, exactly?” Felicia asks.
“They’ll be forced to start fighting,” Cygnus says, “locked down, and we give Malcolm a big opening to do whatever he’s got planned.
Kara and Felicia’s drones start to zoom way in until they can see faces through the faceplates of the suits. They take pictures in rapid fire, until Kara’s drone spots Malcolm. He looks right into the camera, tilts his head toward it to show the top of his helmet, and he traces an ‘x’ on it with his finger.
“Switch to ultraviolet view,” I say.
The view from Kara’s drone switches over, and I see that there is actually an ‘x’ painted on.
“How did you know that?” Sara asks.
“I did train them.”
Kara zooms out, and there’s over thirty other Seraphim with x’s painted on their helmets in ultraviolet paint.
“Shit,” Sara says, “They’re all spread out along the back line…”
“Perfect,” I say. “Everyone ready?”
Our small squad crawls the last few meters up to reach the lip of the crater,
A plasma beam shoots up toward Kara’s drone, blowing it to pieces.
“Shit,” she says, “Sending in another, pull back, Felicia.”
Felicia’s drone starts to lower down below the lip of the crater, just as we pull ourselves over it.
We all fire immediately. We can’t see anything, as the lip of their crater shields them, but our plasma beams sweep across the lip, melting it to molten rock. Within moments a wave of lava is pouring down the crater lip toward the Seraphim.
I watch on the view from Felicia’s drone as the Seraphim on the front lines all fall to the ground, their ankles melting out from underneath them, dropping their bodies into the molten rock. The middle lines of Seraphim begin to fall back, and the Marauders scramble, shielding themselves and leaving the Seraphim as cannon fodder. Ironically just as Adus wanted them to be used.
As the Seraphim run back, our human soldiers open fire into their backs, combining with our plasma beams. We cut them down dozens at a time, and Malcolm and his squad drop to the ground and open fire into the Seraphim lines.
Few Seraphim manage to get their guns up in time. Malcolm’s squad lobs grenades into the Seraphim as they run from lava and plasma and bullets, and the explosions totally break them. When the smoke clears and the magma hardens, there is nothing left of the Seraphim. Though Malcolm and his squad remain untouched.
But then one of the Marauders who fled fires a beam at Malcolm
“No!” Felicia shouts, but Malolm raises his hand and forms a shield.
“What the fuck?” Cygnus asks. “They gave a Seraphim a biosuit?”
Malcolm blocks the plasma beam as his squad falls in behind him. The rest of us open fire on the Marauders, and they stop firing on Malcolm to shield themselves and retreat.
Malcolm gives a hand signal for his squad to move around the edges of the crater, circling it to meet up with us.
Cygnus and I lead our squad down the lip of the crater--not wanting to stay to close to the edge for fear the Darkstar Marauders will melt the lip into our feet just as we did.
Kara’s fresh drone comes in behind us as we circle around toward Malcolm.
“That was totally badass,” Felicia says. “Did you see what he did?”
“We get it, Felicia,” Kara says, “You think he’s hot.”
Sara laughs, and Malcolm comes into view. We throw tendrils out to each other and to the rest of Malcolm’s Seraphim, and patch them into our comms network.
“I mean,” Felicia says, “Let’s just say that if Malcolm wanted to claim me...I would totally let him.”
“Who am I claiming?” Malcolm asks.
“Oh, shit!” Felicia squeaks.
“Your message to us cut out at the toilet part,” I say to Malcolm. “What was the good news?”
“The bioglove,” Malcolm says, clenching his fist. “Obviously.”
21 Kara
“Guys!” The Marauders are all running back to the dropship!”
I bring my drone a little bit closer, and I see one of them--Raius, I think--scowl up at the camera.
“Why is he scowling at me but not firing?” I whisper to myself.
“Kain,” I say, “Can the dropship make it back to Darkstar?”
“Yes,” he says. “If it has enough fuel.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’m blowing it up then.”
I fly in closer, and fire a missile at the dropship.
I expect a flurry of plasma beams to hit me as soon as I open fire, but instead I see Raius shove a Marauder onto the ground by the dropship, and the other Marauders run.
What the hell?
The missile blasts toward the dropship, and the Marauder gets back up, then shoots tendrils into the ground to catapult himself into the air.
I watch as he flies headfirst into the missile. He explodes in the air, a few hundred meters in front of the dropship. The other Marauders are now rushing toward the ramp.
“They’re out of antimatter!” I shout. “I’m just blow the shit out of them!”
“Raius is mine!” Kain shouts.
“No way,” Felicia says, “You two are supposed to have a nice Martian honeymoon, no bullshit fights!”
Felicia’s drone starts to dive toward the dropship as the Marauders rush toward it. She opens fire with a gatling gun. I see a few Marauders get cut down by the bullets, but the ramp shuts.
The dropship starts to lift into the air, and Felicia pulls her drone’s nose up and rams straight into the ship.
The drone and the dropship explode in one big blast.
“Dammit!” Kain shouts. “You shame-debted me!”
“It was me,” Felicia says. “Kara didn’t shame debt you!”
Felicia turns to me and smiles, then whispers to me, “Now he can be mad at me instead of you, aren’t I a great sister?”
“I heard that, Felicia,
” Kain shouts. “Learn to work the comms properly for once!”
Epilogue
“Uh,” I mumble, “Mr. Tsar, Tsarina…I mean…your Excellencies—“
“Aegus and Anya,” The Tsarina says to me, smiling.
It’s the second time I’ve met them. The first was when Kain took me back to Sankt Petersburg, but now they’ve come all the way to Mars. They insisted I drop the formal titles when I met them back on Sankt Petersburg, so I just avoided addressing them at all.
“I’m, uh,” I say, “shame-debted that you travelled so far for our wedding…”
Anya smiles. “If it makes you feel better, we had to come here on official business anyway. Your wedding was a nice bonus.”
I sigh relief. That does make me feel better.
“And I haven’t seen my brother in ages,” Aegus says. “Where is he?”
“I think he’s inside,” I say.
Someone grabs my arm, and I jump. In Martian gravity, I grab some serious air.
“Uncle,” Sara says, pulling me back to the ground. “This one is a good pilot. I took her for a bit of a coward at first—“
“Hey!” Kain snaps. He appears from seemingly out of nowhere, but there crowd is thick, and he must have overheard us as he approached. “Do no call my wife a coward!”
Sara lets go of me. “I said I thought she was a coward, but she showed otherwise. If not for Kara and Felicia, Raius may have escaped—“
“No,” Kain says. “I’d have taken them down.”
Sara rolls her eyes. “She’s not your wife yet, by the way. You guys still have to get married.”
“I was trying the word out,” Kain says.
I smile and squeeze his hand. “It fits very well, I think.”
Kain taps my shoulder and points out across the crowds. We’re in a domed-off garden—one of the nicest on Mars—and there’s even a big fountain in the middle…a total luxury and extravagance for Mars. Kain is pointing toward the fountain, where I see Felicia and Malcolm holding hands—both hands—and staring at each other as if there were not crowd swarming around them.
“We better get married fast,” Kain says. “Or those two will beat us.”
I laugh. “I didn’t realize it was a race.”
“Ramses should be here soon,” Kain says. “Don’t worry. I can’t get married without my best man.”
I stretch out my arms and smile. “I’m not worried. For like, the first time in my entire life, I’m not worried. Everything is good, and each day we wait is a wonderful vacation.”
“It’s not just a vacation,” Kain says. “We’re free.”
I feel an explosion in my chest at the realization. I really am free. There may be some difficult times ahead of me—no life is perfect—but the worst is all behind me, and I have so much left to look forward to.
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More From Aya Morningstar
An alien warrior breaks all the rules to protect his human mate.
Ramses Ivanov never thought he’d find his mate, but when this alien warrior meets his new partner--a human cop on Earth--everything changes. He can’t resist her soft, sweet voice; or her almond-brown eyes and killer curves. Dating your partner is strictly forbidden, but when it comes to his mate, all rules are meant to be broken.
Elise never really wanted to be a cop, and she certainly never wanted an insufferable, frustrating asshole like Ramses as her partner. The sexy, pink-skinned alien swaggers onto Earth like he owns the whole planet, and he looks at Elise with a cocky grin, like he owns her.
When a terrorist attack exposes Elise to a mysterious gas, the supercomputer that runs Earth tries to kill her. Ramses knows of only one place that he can keep her safe--a planet no one is supposed to land on...Atlantis. He’d go to hell and back to protect Elise, and it turns out that Atlantis is the closest thing there is to hell. Ramses and Elise will have to become much more than partners if they want to survive this ice-cold abyss--freeze to death, or find warmth in each other.
Buy on Amazon or read free on Kindle Unlimited
Also by Aya Morningstar
Mating Wars Series
Marauder Cygnus
Marauder Fenrir
Marauder Aegus
SHIFT Squad Series
SEALED to the Alpha Wolf
Lion Fur The Baby
Dragon’s Bidding
Bear Fur The Princess
Grizzly Next Door Series
Bears Next Door (four-book bundle containing the whole series)
Unbearable Arms
Unbearable Heat
Unbearable Cage
Unbearable Curves
Want more sci-fi? Aya Recommends…
VASH
If I have to burn down the entire city and give up everything to get her out, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.
Sophie’s only hope of escaping is to trust him, but she has been burned too many times in her past.
He’s violent, possessive, and cocky as hell. He’s trouble, and Sophie has more than enough trouble to deal with already. So why does her skin feel like it’s on fire when she looks at him? And why is she wasting her time with his promises?
But Vash al Domitus does not make false promises. When he wins the right to choose a slave as his claim, he chooses Sophie. And once she’s his, he’s never letting go.
They will both need to work together if they are going to survive against deadly gladiators, corrupt guards, and one of the most powerful slavers in the city...Vash’s father.
Buy or read free on Kindle Unlimited
About the Author
Aya Morningstar lives in Denver. She writes with a hot cup of Earl Grey and her loyal were corgi by her side. She writes both paranormal and sci-fi romance.
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Marauder Kain: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars Book 5) Page 14