by Holly Hook
Table of Contents
Invaded
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
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Invaded
Homeworld Trilogy Book Two
By Holly Hook
Copyright 2017 By Holly Hook
Chapter One
It sucked, knowing that we could die at any second. Even us taking a break in my house didn't dismiss that pleasant thought.
We were trying to chill in the living room, but all Matt and I heard was a horrible crunching sound outside. I knew it was just our nanobots fixing our stuff after the last fight, but I also knew that they were walking over bodies and black dust.
It didn't help that my house was dark since we were still hiding out from possible Grounders and Identity people, all of whom were bent on killing us. It didn't help that the park that I called home had gone otherwise silent. There weren't even any security guards shouting to each other across the expansive grounds. Even the crickets that inhabited the dome weren't chirping tonight as if they knew that something was wrong.
I sat on my couch and trembled. The crunching continued. I felt like I had landed on an alien planet. The eerie dark and the artificial moonlight brought me no comfort tonight.
“The nanobots will finish in about half an hour,” Matt said. “Then we can get back into the walker and get the heck out of here.” His words carried a tremor.
Fiona had gotten captured by the Mars Identity people, and she was way back on the Red Planet. Even now, they were forcing her to launch more Identity folks—the radical ones, not the moderate type who just wanted to make Mars a better place to live. The radicals hated Earthers like me, and anyone else who fought to take Earth back from the Grounders. Matt was worried about the scientist. I could tell as he leaned forward on my couch, staring at the blank screen on the wall.
“Matt, Fiona's a smart woman,” I said, trying to reassure him. “She'll figure out a way to stop the Identity from sending too many people.” I hoped that I was honest. Matt was honest, which was why I had grown to like him. He had told me the truth about the Grounders and the government when my parents had held that fact from me.
“I should have known the radicals are in league with the Grounders,” Matt said, a look of rage flashing across his green face. “I bet the Grounders send them supplies in exchange for them stopping people like us.”
“That would make sense on Mars,” I said. I got up and looked out my front window and onto the park below our hill. The dome remained shattered, and the landing crater formed a hole in the forest. I could barely see the dirt rim through the trees, but it was there. The artificial moonlight illuminated it just enough. Our cylinder glinted in the pale light. I couldn't believe that Matt and I had ridden in that, entered the atmosphere, and crashed back on Earth after only two days in space. We should have gotten crushed by the G-forces alone.
That meant that the radicals weren't far behind. Fiona didn't have the power to launch constantly since supplies on Mars could get scarce, but all ten of the cylinders would arrive on Earth within days. The Grounders would work with them, and Matt and I had to get to the Great Council, shut them down forever, and rescue my parents. It was no small task. I wanted to throw up, just thinking about it.
The Grounders could be taking over their brains right now. It wasn't bad enough that they polluted Earth, making the air the way they wanted, but they also attached to the necks of people in power and wormed their red tentacles into skulls. The Grounders were body snatchers, and from what Matt had told me, they had originated from the Mars underground. It was the only explanation that made sense since they'd appeared on Earth about eighty years ago when the first big human colonies blasted their way into the Red Planet's underground and ships started going back and forth more often.
And I was just sitting here, waiting for our nanobots to finish rebuilding the legs of our walker.
“It would,” Matt agreed. “I don't know if the Grounders send the radicals anything to keep us in line, but I wouldn't be surprised.” He got up from the couch. “We have to march right to the Great Council from here before more radicals build tripods and come after us.”
“Now you're calling them tripods,” I said. Matt kept no secret that this whole invasion plan—originally meant to take Earth back from the Grounders and allow humans to return from their exile to the colonies—got inspired by some old stories people used to make about Mars.
“Well, they are tripods. They have three legs and stand off the ground.” He grinned, but something about it felt forced. “The design just happened to work.” Grounders hated heights. Having a vehicle that stood off the ground made sense, but something unnerved me about arriving from Mars and then piloting one of those things.
“You and Fiona drew a lot of inspiration from that story,” I said. “It's almost like you have some inside joke.”
Matt stood there in the middle of my living room like he wanted to say something, but instead, he turned his gaze outside. “We need to go check our progress,” he said.
It was better than standing here, twiddling our thumbs and waiting for the repairs. I left the front door of my house open as I followed Matt out into the wee hours of the morning. The night air wrapped around me as we walked down the hill. I scanned the area for Grounders, but so far, after this battle, none had shown up.
The nightmare remained on the far edge of the park, about half a kilometer from my house. Across the open fields, black dust coated the ground and the two walkers—tripods—that lay there. The remains of the black vapor that Marv the radical had unleashed on us remained. I hated the thought of walking over there for two reasons. I hated touching the dust, even though Matt said it was harmless once it settled on the ground, and I didn't want to stand among a bunch of dead bodies, though most of them were people once taken over by Grounders.
And there was a third reason, too. Grounders liked to feed on our blood. I winced, thinking about the pain that the one inflicted on me when it latched onto my arm. Matt had explained afterward that they liked the iron pumping through our veins. Blood was an easy way for them to get it.
“Then they should have stayed on Mars,” I pointed out. “Doesn't rust cover the surface?"
Matt hadn't said anything to that. Thankfully, my house had a medical kit with good, working nanobots that fixed our injuries. The hole in my arm was gone. It had been the shock wave from the pulse cannon that had shaken the Grounder off me because it had shown signs of wanting to plug into my brain next.
As we drew closer and black dust crunched underfoot, I noticed the moving, dark swarm around the shattered legs of our walker. (I would not call it a tripod.) It looked as if a million ants were swarming around the stubby legs, which were noticeably longer than before. The Grounders' pulse cannon had blown off our legs and sent us to the ground. Another stream of nanobots extended back to the forest, towards the crater where our mining bot was still at work.
Matt sighed. “I wish they'd work faster. We can't afford to run into another pulse cannon. Once we get this walker up, we march straight for the Great Council.”
“We still have to cut off Grounder communication,” I said, eyeing the sky. I couldn't see the smog-filled expanse very well through the dome, but I knew that the pollution was out there. The neighborhood outside Woking Park remained dark. The Enforcers had told p
eople to evacuate after I had single-handedly roasted three Grounders who ventured into our crater.
Vomit rose in my throat again, but I forced it back down. I had to fight. It was my duty as an Earther. Not only had Matt brought me the truth, but he had also brought me my purpose as well. Before this battle, I had known that Earthers had the job of trying to protect the planet (which we hadn't done very well so far.) I hadn't realized that my grandfather had formed our party to fight the Grounders. It was yet another fact my parents had kept from me.
I had to embrace it now. War was brutal, and we would have to kill more Grounders, but at least we could do it in a way that didn't harm regular humans. The heat guns were a great invention.
Maybe.
“Just don't look at all the lumps,” Matt said, referring to the bodies buried underneath the black soot. Somewhere down there was the Grounder that had latched onto me. The black smoke stuff was supposed to suffocate everything under it. Matt and I had barely escaped Marv's attack.
Now the radical lay inside his own fallen tripod, lungs coated with this stuff.
I would not think about it, even though Marv had launched that attack. I had fired the pulse cannon, which stood there on wheels, waiting.
So I watched the rivers of nanobots, the only working machines we'd brought with us. The legs of our walker slowly lengthened, shining underneath the moonlight. The morning was almost here, and the artificial sun would rise on the dome's horizon as it always had. This time, it would be a joke.
Mom and Dad could be converted into Grounders by now if Grounders could see your memories by poking tentacles into your brain.
If that were the case, there might be no saving them. The woman I had pulled the Grounder off had died pretty much instantly. Her blank eyes still haunted my visions. I would not sleep anytime soon.
Matt opened his mouth to say something else when a voice echoed from the darkness.
“Freeze!"
Chapter Two
I jumped and whirled around, drawing my heat gun from my pocket. The barrel glowed with orange, ready for use.
A man stood in the tall weeds, dressed in the black uniform of an Enforcer. He held his electric baton in front of him and studied Matt and me with wide eyes.
I didn't dare sigh in relief. Enforcers were human, at least, but those electric batons could paralyze. This man could take us in and question us. I still didn't know how much the Enforcers were helping the Great Council, or if they knew the truth about the Grounders having taken over the government. But it was clear from the way this young guy eyed us that he didn't realize that my weapon only worked on burning the blobs that attached themselves to people, and not people themselves. I would keep it that way.
“Who are you?” I asked. “You're in my park.” Well, my parents' park. My mother managed the place, and my father did all the maintenance. My heart ached thinking about them again. They might have kept the truth from me, but I had to get them back.
“I...” the Enforcer said. It was clear he was a new guy, fresh out of the academy, maybe even one who wanted to prove himself before his older colleagues. “Is that a real gun?”
“Yes,” Matt said before I could answer. I realized that he had drawn his weapon, too, and kept it pointed at the guy. The nanobots continued to crunch as they worked.
“You're not serious,” the man said. He waved his baton, shaking, and took a step back. He might be new, but he wasn't stupid. There was no way that thing would win against a gun.
Only, it could win against these guns. Heat guns were harmless to humans.
“Well, I know that you aren't a Grounder,” I said. “That's good. You don't talk like one.”
“A Grounder?” the man asked. His fear turned to confusion. I guessed that the guy must only be nineteen or twenty.
So Mom was right that most people didn't know the truth. I wasn't in the mood to explain everything. “Why are you here? I thought this area was under evacuation.”
“It is,” the young Enforcer said. “I've been here in the park ever since the Great Council gave us the orders to remove everyone, and then ourselves. When those Task Force people died, they didn't need much convincing. People packed up and left the area."
I shuddered again. I had caused panic.
“Why did you hang around?” Matt asked.
The Enforcer kept the baton up. “I was curious. When the Task Force members fell, my medical training kicked in. I ran to the nearest Task Force man and went to check his pulse.” A dark look came over the young man's face. “I pulled back his collar, and--”
“Saw the thing attached to his neck,” I said. “It's nice, isn't it?”
The Enforcer faced me with wide eyes. “What is going on here? The Great Council ordered everyone out of a three-kilometer area, and the last time I checked on my display, they said they were going to imprison everyone who does not obey the order. This whole neighborhood is empty. Haven't you seen the news?"
He was clueless. He had jumped into an alien invasion story by being a Good Samaritan. But this Enforcer had disobeyed the order to leave.
“If you stop threatening us with that shock stick, I'll lower this gun,” I said. “We don't want to hurt you.” Matt and I couldn't, but I didn't want him to know that.
The Enforcer did. He lowered his weapon, and we did the same.
"Explain," the guy said.
“The Great Council have been taken over by beings called Grounders,” Matt explained. “They're the ones who are polluting so they can make Earth the way they like it. The Task Force is all Grounders, too. They're forcing humanity to move to Mars because they want Earth for themselves. I bet they evacuated the area to keep people from learning the truth about them. You were right not to listen.”
The Enforcer stepped back but didn't pocket his weapon. “I knew something was wrong,” he said. “I just didn't know what. If I hadn't seen that thing, I wouldn't believe a word you're saying.”
“Want the whole truth?” Matt asked.
”He'll give it to you,” I said.
The Enforcer shook his head. I felt terrible for the guy. I knew what it felt like to have your world shattered in a matter of minutes. It made life feel fragile. I eyed the bodies again, all buried underneath the soot, and commended this guy for stepping forward. That told me he was less afraid of us than the Grounders.
The young man tapped the side of his head to read something on his contact display. At least we had a link to the outside world. I hadn't seen any news at all since we landed. “The place is still under mandatory evacuation,” the Enforcer said. “Nothing beyond that. The Great Council isn't telling people what's going on. The official story is a mine explosion along with toxic fumes. They say the thing you came out of is a gas tank.”
“There aren't any mines under Woking Park,” I said. Grounders were capable of lying, then. I'd keep that in mind. At least some trust was growing in between us. With Mom and Dad captured, Matt and I had no one.
“I'm not surprised,” Matt said. He went on to tell the Enforcer about our mission.
The whole time, the Enforcer leaned against a tree. It didn't appear that he feared us anymore. He was an open-minded guy because Matt was green and had just arrived from Mars.
I hadn't stayed long enough to let the Identity people inject me with plant cells. The thought gave me a sense of pride. I needed it in the face of becoming a killer.
Once Matt finished with how we had crawled out of the cylinder and let our nanobots make our machines, the Enforcer peeled himself from the tree.
“I had no idea,” he said. His young eyes sparkled. “I need to tell the other Enforcers about this. I don't think my superiors know what our leaders are. I've always wondered why we're not allowed to have guns. I'm Calvin. I've been on the force for two months.”
“Tess,” I said, eyeing the progress of the repairs. The nanobots had moved on to the feet of the walker. The longer we stayed here, the longer the Great Council had to mount another atta
ck. They would think of something else. They must have seen the gas attack through the contacts of the dying Task Force members, or detected it somehow, and must be plotting something else. Maybe the Grounders were digging out worse weapons from the bunkers, the ones left over from the Unifying War. Or they were waiting for more radicals to come and destroy us. It was the only reason we had peace.
“Matt,” my partner said. “Welcome to the war.”
“The war?” the Enforcer asked. His eyes brightened as if the thought excited him. I was right that he was the type who wanted to prove himself.
“We have to stop the Grounders,” Matt said. “What you need to do is tell the other Enforcers what's going on. Tell people to avoid the Task Force and the Great Council. We need all the help we can get.”
Calvin stepped forward, pumping out his chest. "You've got it."
I eyed Matt for a second. I had never seen someone so eager to prove himself in my life.
“I don’t know if they’ll believe me, but I'll try," Calvin continued. "I'll even join you on the way to the Great Council."
"Um," Matt said. "You don't want to do that."
Calvin stared at him, well, as if he were green. Matt's color wasn't apparent in this dark, but it would become so soon enough.
"The Great Council has been taken over by strange creatures, and we're not supposed to attack?" Calvin asked.
"We need someone to go to the other Enforcers. People trust you guys," I said. I eyed the repairs. The nanobots had almost completed our walker's feet. Good. “It's not like Matt and I can go to them. We roasted some Task Force people. What orders did the Great Council give you guys?" I wanted to change the subject because I knew that Calvin wasn't the type to do what others told him.
A look of determination came over Calvin's face. Meanwhile, the nanobots continued to seethe and crunch.
“They ordered the Enforcers to have nothing to do with this conflict,” he said. “We are supposed to look the other way. Look, I’ve always known that something’s wrong with the Great Council. We all do.”