by Anna Hackett
Made love? She scoffed at herself. Gabe Jackson fucked her. For relief, to pound out his pain and frustration. Actually, she had no idea why he came to her. It wasn’t like he took the time to talk to her, tell her how he was feeling.
“Nothing much to report, yet.”
With a nod, Priya left. Emerson turned and eyed the last few patients sitting on the chairs in her makeshift waiting area near the door. One was standing, pacing a little as she waited.
Dr. Natalya Vasin had been painfully thin when Hell Squad had pulled her out of the raptor lab. But Emerson had been pumping her with high-calorie supplements, and the woman’s face and figure were starting to fill out. Her dark hair had been shorn off, but she’d had it cut and shaped by someone in the base and now her hair accented her long, slim neck and made her look like a pixie. But what Emerson guessed was slowly leaching the anxious, worried look from Natalya’s face was working with Noah and the tech team. She clearly loved her work as an energy scientist and was helping boost the base’s current power systems.
“Natalya.” Emerson waved her into the exam room.
The woman shook her head. “No. Someone else can go.” Her voice held the faintest Russian accent. “Look, Doc, I really am fine. I don’t need a checkup.”
Natalya’s anxiety poured off her in waves. Emerson knew the woman still had violent nightmares of the lab. Her scar was still visible, peeking out of her neckline, ugly and red. She’d refused treatment on it. Refused to let Emerson help much at all. Emerson had scanned her when she’d first arrived to check for anything dangerous, but apart from that, the scientist refused any further examinations.
“Natalya—”
A violent shake of her head. “I’ve been poked and prodded enough.” Her voice hitched. “They cut me open, scanned me, all against my will. This is my choice. No more tests, or scans or procedures.”
Emerson’s shoulders sagged. “Okay,” she said quietly.
With a nod, Natalya turned and ran out of the infirmary.
Emerson sighed. Natalya had also refused to talk with the base therapist, but Emerson might just have to force the matter. She turned to the remaining patients. “Okay, Helen, you’re up.”
The distant peal of alarms rang. She dragged in a breath and wondered if Hell Squad were headed out.
Norah popped her head out of the office. “Doc? Call for you. I routed it to your comp.”
“Thanks. Excuse me, Helen. I’ll just be a minute.” Emerson entered her office and tapped her comp screen. Marcus Steele’s tough, scarred face filled the screen.
“Doc. One of Santha’s team found the Genesis Facility.”
Emerson gripped the comp screen. “You’re sure?”
“Saw tanks with human bodies floating in them. Sounds like the right place.”
“You’re heading out?”
“Yeah. And I need you to suit up. We might have survivors who need medical attention, and you wanted to see the tanks.”
Her chest tightened. “I’m on my way.”
Chapter Six
Emerson strode toward the Hawk landing pads. She was in her black body armor, with her small black backpack full of medical supplies slung over her shoulder.
The landing pads were always busy. Mechanics bustled around the Hawk quadcopters, while other Hawks were landing or taking off. They’d lost one on the mission to rescue the final lab survivors and that had been a serious blow. They were obviously impossible to replace.
She saw Hell Squad milling near a Hawk, checking their weapons.
As she walked over, her gaze went to Gabe. His head lifted, his face impassive. She looked away. God, it hurt to look at him.
“Doc.” Marcus stepped forward.
“I’m ready.”
“Good. Hell Squad, let’s move.”
Marcus helped her into the Hawk. She settled into a seat and strapped in. Cruz sat nearby, looking alert and ready.
“You are such a moron.” Claudia Frost swung her carbine over her shoulder, her hot gaze on the team’s sniper.
Shaw rolled his eyes. “Will you get off my case, Frost? I don’t need your bitching today.”
“Bitching?” Claudia’s tone turned Arctic.
Reed was watching them, grinning. He looked ready to grab a tub of popcorn.
Marcus took a menacing step forward. “Not now. You can both bitch at each other when we get back. Right now, I need you focused.”
Gabe was standing near the back. He finished checking his carbine, then grabbed a handhold dangling from the ceiling.
“Hold on, Hell Squad.” The pilot looked back from the cockpit. From what she’d heard, Finn Eriksson was the best Hawk pilot they had. He’d broken his arm in the Hawk crash and he hadn’t been happy that she’d had him on restricted duties while he healed. But he was back in fighting—or rather flying—form, now.
The quadcopter lifted off. They ascended through a vertical tunnel of rock. Out the window, she just caught a glimpse of the overhead doors retracting. Once they were airborne and clear of the tunnel, the Hawk spun, the four rotors tilting, and they flew east toward the city.
The sun was shining and it was such a beautiful day. Emerson really needed to try and get outside a little more. They had set times people could head topside, with an armed patrol. But she did have a few who were too afraid to leave the safety of the base and needed vitamin D boosters.
Marcus had left the Hawk’s side door open and air rushed past. As they reached the outer limits of the city, her chest tightened, like it always did when she saw what had been done to her home.
Rubble and ruin.
That was pretty much all that was left of the once-bustling capital of the United Coalition—the union of several countries including Australia, the United States of America, India, Canada and several European nations. Sydney had thrived, been a place to share knowledge, do business, holiday and see amazing culture. She’d always loved that it was such a melting pot of people of different backgrounds and histories.
She sighed. Gone. And it wouldn’t be coming back. Just like the shining career she’d had before the aliens came. She’d had such grand plans, had wanted to help so many people.
She set her shoulders back. She was still helping people. The world was changed, different, but the core values were still there. Every day, she saw courage, tenacity, hope and love.
Her gaze strayed to Gabe. A lot of things weren’t what she’d planned or thought she’d want, but it didn’t make them any less real.
“Okay.” Marcus stood, his tough, muscular body silhouetted by the sun streaming in the door. “The facility is located in a still-intact skyscraper in North Sydney.”
“Not far from the Luna Park lab,” Cruz said.
“Yeah. We’ll land one klick away, move in and take down any raptors we encounter. So far, Elle says the drones have only picked up one small patrol.”
Emerson touched the tiny earpiece in her ear. Elle would feed them whatever intel they needed.
“Okay, we’re landing in three minutes. Hell Squad, ready to go to hell?”
“Hell, yeah,” the team yelled. “The devil needs an ass-kicking!”
Soon, Emerson felt the Hawk start its descent to an overgrown patch of green lawn below. She watched the team press the buttons on the neck of their armor and retractable helmets slide into place. She did the same. Her stomach flip-flopped and she breathed deeply. She always felt nervous, no matter how many missions she came on or how many badass soldiers surrounded her.
“You got a weapon?”
Gabe’s deep voice rumbled in her ear. She looked up.
Damn, this close, his gray eyes were mesmerizing.
“I have a small laser pistol. But I shouldn’t need it with Hell Squad around me.”
“Out there, anything can happen. Keep the pistol close.” He went silent, staring at her. Then he lifted a hand, it hung there between them for a second, then he touched a finger to her cheekbone.
She sucked in a breath.
He’d never touched her in public before.
“Stay safe out there, Doc.”
When he pulled back to stand with Cruz and Reed, Emerson noticed Claudia watching her with a keen gaze. The dark-haired woman shot her a sharp smile.
Emerson swallowed and gripped her backpack. The Hawk touched down.
“Go, go!” Marcus waved them out.
Soon Emerson was jogging toward a tall building ahead, surrounded by Hell Squad. They always kept her in the middle when she was in the field. She didn’t like the idea of them being human shields for her, but she’d seen them fight. They’d take down anything trying to get to her long before it reached them.
“You should be in visual range now of the building’s main entrance.” Elle’s voice was calm and steady. “Directly ahead, five hundred meters.”
Emerson saw it. Large glass doors into a lobby. She glanced around. As far as she could see, everything was still and silent, and there were no signs of raptors. Wrecked cars lined the street, and rubble lay strewn in all directions.
Marcus reached the doors first. He unclipped something off his belt and pressed it to the glass. A light blinked on the small metal circle. A second later, she saw it glow red-hot.
The glass started melting.
Soon, the doorway was just a gaping hole, the glass a melted puddle on the ground. Hell Squad waited.
“Elle, anything?” Marcus murmured.
“Nothing on screen. You’re clear to enter.”
Inside, the lobby looked normal, seeming to be untouched by the invasion. Marcus waved them toward the stairs.
“You need to get to the third floor,” Elle said. “It used to be a gym for the building, and Santha’s people said that’s where the tanks were spotted.”
They moved up through the dark stairwell, clicking on the tactical flashlights attached to their carbines. Six beams of bright-white light cut through the darkness.
“Here we are.” Marcus pushed open the door.
Inside the room was dark as well. It appeared most of the windows had been blacked out. Emerson got the sense of a cavernous space.
The flashlights fanned through the darkness. Illuminating a cavernous empty space.
“Fuck,” Marcus cursed.
Emerson stepped around him, her heart beating hard. She saw round marks on the ground, pressed into a rubber floor that had obviously been part of the gym. Objects with circular bases had sat here very recently. The rows of marks stretched off into the darkness.
The tanks were gone.
***
Gabe stared at the empty room. Everything was gone.
He saw something glittering on the floor and stepped forward. Glass. He crouched and touched a finger to it. It wasn’t like any glass he’d seen before, it was a pale amber with faint vein-like striations running through it. Raptor tech had organic components integrated with it. He guessed a tank had broken on the way out.
Then Elle’s voice cut across the comms. “Raptors! Hell Squad you have raptors incoming.”
Marcus cursed. “Hell Squad, ready for—”
A door slammed and raptor fire tore through the space.
The team dived for cover, returning fire at the same time. Green raptor poison splattered on the rubber floors, sizzling as it ate through it.
Gabe tackled Emerson around the waist. They hit the ground and he covered her body with his.
“Gabe, stay with the doc.” Marcus crawled up beside them. “We’ll chase these fuckers down.” He yelled an order at the team, and in a precision move, they were up, running in a zig-zag pattern and firing at the far end of the room.
Suddenly a large door on the opposite wall opened, letting light in, and the shadows of retreating raptors could be seen running into another stairwell. Hell Squad reached the door and seconds later, followed them out.
Silence fell.
That was what combat was like. All hell breaking lose one minute, silence the next.
Hands pushed at his chest. “Can’t…breathe.”
Shit. He rolled off her and helped her sit. “You okay?”
“Yes.” She looked around, her face hardening. “They’re gone. Those poor people being subjected to God only knows what—”
“We’ll find them.”
She nodded but they both knew the reality. The longer it took, the more humans who’d be dead or suffering.
“I’m going to take a look around,” she said.
He nodded, watching as she wandered around, crouching every now and then to study where the tanks had been. She walked past gym equipment—weight benches, treadmills and bikes—stacked against the far wall.
Gabe clutched his weapon. With his enhanced hearing, he could hear the team’s carbine fire echoing in the stairwell. He also heard the faint guttural shouts of raptors. His fingers tightened on his weapon.
He wanted to be with them. He wanted to be killing raptors. Zeke would have laughed and told him to learn a bit of patience.
A stab of pain in the chest. Yeah, well, Zeke wasn’t here.
A giant boom echoed up the stairwell, along with the shouts from Hell Squad.
Gabe tensed. His hands clenched on his weapon.
Emerson gasped. “Do they need help?”
He could hear the team firing, and heard their shouts through the earpiece. There were more raptors than they’d anticipated. He heard Shaw swearing. A raptor projectile had winged him.
“Gabe, go.”
“No.”
“I have a weapon.” She flashed the little pistol on her hip. “And besides, there’s not much shadows can do to hurt me.”
He stood there, undecided. More than anything, he wanted to be down there tearing into aliens.
Emerson turned her back to him, studying the broken raptor glass. She pulled out a small camera. “I promise, I’ll wait here.”
Another boom and more shouts. “Okay. Stay near the stairwell doorway. You see anything strange, you hide.”
“Go.”
Gabe rushed into the stairwell. He ran as fast as he could, his boots pounding on the stairs.
He rounded a landing and saw the squad in the lobby below. Marcus and Cruz were fighting hand to hand with several large raptors, their combat knives glinting. Shaw and Claudia were pinned down, hiding behind the reception desk. He didn’t see Reed.
A raptor leaped at Gabe and he swung the carbine around. The fucker was too close, so Gabe swung the butt of his gun and slammed it into the alien’s face. As the raptor stumbled back, Gabe unloaded laser fire into the alien’s chest.
Gabe lifted his carbine and strode into the aliens. He let his rage loose and fought.
Soon, the raptors lay dead around them.
“Thanks for the help, amigo,” Cruz said, swiping an arm across his brow.
“What the fuck are you doing down here?” Marcus said.
“I heard it wasn’t going well. Emerson sent me down.”
Marcus snorted. “Sure. Wasn’t like you were jonesing for an alien kill.”
Gabe stayed quiet, Marcus’ words hitting a little close to home. Now the raptors were dead, he was anxious to get back to Emerson.
They marched back up the stairs and stepped in the gym.
Gabe frowned. Where was Emerson? There was no sign of her. His heart knocked in his chest.
“Doc?” Marcus said with a frown.
A growl echoed through the darkness.
“Fuck.” Shaw swung his rifle up. “I hate canids.”
The alien hunting dog slunk out of the shadows. It had tough scales, a razor-sharp row of spikes along its back and teeth that would make a megalodon proud. The canid’s eyes glowed hellish red.
And its teeth were coated in blood.
No. Gabe strode forward, his mind emptying of everything except two phrases. Find Emerson. Kill the alien.
He fired, holding his finger down on the trigger. The canid danced out of range, its muscles bunching to attack. Yeah, come on. Gabe yanked out his gladius combat knife and le
aped to meet the animal.
They slammed together. He felt teeth and claws sinking into his armor. But with every ounce of his enhanced strength, he shoved the knife into the canid over and over again. Side. Neck. Chest. Sometimes the skin was so tough he had to work it hard, sawing the knife in.
The canid made a final, high-pitched yowl before it died.
Gabe was up, striding to where he’d last seen Emerson. “Doc? Emerson!” If that thing had hurt her… He clamped down on the thought. He yelled her name again.
If she was dead…no, she couldn’t be dead.
“Over here.”
The sound of her voice washed over him and made him feel weak for a second. He rushed to the back wall.
He looked up. A built-in climbing wall rose from the floor up into the darkness above. Emerson perched half-way up it, clinging precariously to the handholds. And there was someone with her.
Gabe stood beneath Emerson, not remembering moving. “Let go.”
She didn’t hesitate. She let go and dropped into his arms.
“You’re okay? It didn’t touch you?” He saw streaks of blood on her armor and his hands tightened.
“It’s not mine. I’m okay. It got my backpack and it attacked Jason here.”
Gabe didn’t look away from her beautiful face. She was alive. And unharmed.
“Ah, this is Jason.”
She gestured to the man who’d shakily climbed down to join them. He was shaking, his skin pale and sheened with perspiration and blood.
“He managed to escape the raptors and hide so they couldn’t find him. He saw the tanks, saw the raptors taking them out of here.”
The man, in his early thirties, nodded.
Gabe turned back to Emerson, and finished looking her over.
“I’m okay,” she said again, her face softening.
“No thanks to you, Jackson.”
Gabe looked up. Marcus was wearing his “I’m pissed and you’ll pay for it” face.
“You were told to stay here and protect her. You left her unguarded. She could have died…because of you.”
Gabe closed his eyes for a second, his arms tightening on her warm weight. Fuck. Marcus was right. Things could have been very different and he could have been carrying her dead body back to the Hawk.