by Anna Hackett
“God, I can’t wait to get outside. I’ve been going crazy in here.” Camryn McNabb’s voice was edged with a tiny hint of a Scottish accent, and her short, dark hair was still damp. The tall, dark-skinned woman wouldn’t have looked out of place striding down some catwalk. But as she slammed her armor on, you couldn’t miss the fact that she was a soldier to the bone.
Theron fell into his pre-mission routine, pulling out his armor and weapon. With all the chatter, he could almost be back at his childhood home in Sydney’s northern suburbs. Surrounded by a gaggle of foster siblings, his mother laughing in the background and his father watching with a smile. Damn, he missed them.
He pulled his upper armor on, and shoved the painful memories aside. He glanced at Sienna and felt that now-familiar spiky knot in his gut. No, dammit.
He listened to the women talking around him. Cam making a snarky comment that had the others laughing. He’d never minded being on a squad with mostly women. He’d worked with lots of soldiers in the Coalition Army, and some of the elite with the Rangers, but the ladies of Squad Nine were some of the best he’d ever fought beside.
“Okay, listen up,” Roth called out. “We’ve been tasked with checking on some survivors holed up in a town not far from here. The last drone flyover showed limited movement in their camp.”
“How come these people didn’t want to live at the Enclave?” Sienna asked.
“They’re anti-government,” Roth answered. “Most are older folks who didn’t want to leave their homes and farms. And they didn’t trust our former president.”
Theron heard the acid in Roth’s tone. Everyone knew the sordid story of President Howell. The leader of the United Coalition of Countries had sold out mankind to the aliens in return for his own private little Enclave, and his own safety. But more than that, he’d sold out Avery Stillman, a former intelligence agent who’d been trying to stop him, and the woman Roth was in love with.
Of course, the Enclave was now under the leadership of General Adam Holmes and Nikolai Ivanov. Now, it was a sanctuary for any humans who needed it. Howell had met his own grisly end when he’d been snatched by some flying alien bugs.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Theron’s finger caressed his carbine. He fucking hated bullies.
Soon, the squad was following Roth through the corridor leading to the northeast exit.
Sienna was walking ahead of Theron, her curves now hidden under her armor. But that didn’t stop Theron’s screwed-up mind from wondering whether she was still wearing that sexy, black underwear under the carbon fiber. Underwear he’d given to her.
He’d known she’d look good in it. For all her sweetness, she was also sexy as hell.
Blake, for God’s sake, get a grip. She’s your friend. He was grateful when he stepped outside, squinting in the sunlight, and he pressed the button to have his retractable combat helmet slide into place. Theron didn’t mind living underground, especially with the Enclave’s state-of-the-art artificial lighting system and all the other amenities. It was far more luxurious than their old home, Blue Mountain Base. He liked to stay tucked away in his own quarters, reading, or beating the crap out of his punching bag. His father had taught him to box, and it was in his blood. But there was definitely something to be said about having the sun on your face.
“Let’s go.” Roth gestured. “It won’t take us long to get to the town on foot.”
They started jogging through the knee-high grass. All around were gently rolling, green hills, dotted with small stands of trees. This area, south of the former Coalition capital Sydney and inland of Wollongong, had contained a lot of underground coal mines. One had been repurposed in order to build the Enclave. But topside, there had also been a lot of farms.
“There it is,” Mac murmured.
Ahead, Theron saw the town. It had been small, and was made up of a group of abandoned houses and a couple of storefronts. What looked like it had once been a church was now a burned-out shell.
They stepped carefully onto the now-cracked road leading into the town. Roth lifted his hand and gave a signal. The squad stopped in place, and listened. The village was as quiet as a graveyard. They all brought their weapons up. Theron looked down the scope of his carbine, and stepped a little closer to Sienna.
With another sharp signal from Roth, Squad Nine crept forward with the practiced synchronicity of a team that knew each other well. On either side, they were flanked by houses with doors gaping open, and smashed windows. The lawns were all overgrown, and fences sagged.
Theron had visited here once before, on patrol. The survivors lived, grouped together, in just a few of the shops and houses in the very center of the town.
As they turned into the main street of the town, the destruction became even more pronounced.
From somewhere, he heard the subtle hum of a generator, but his attention was focused on the scorch marks on the buildings, and the overturned cars in the middle of the street. His jaw tightened. The burn marks had been caused by raptor poison.
They moved inside the first shop. Its door was hanging off its hinges, and more burn marks covered the walls. Inside, a horrible smell permeated the air, and Theron breathed through his mouth. He knew that smell. For a second, he was back on the day of the invasion, running to his parents’ house, praying they’d be alive.
In the middle of the room was a pile of burned bodies.
“Goddammit!” Roth turned and slammed his boot into the wall.
Theron stared, frozen, at the remains of the people who’d fought for nothing more than to survive. They’d ended up just like his family.
“Theron? Hey?”
He blinked and looked down into Sienna’s brown eyes.
“You okay?” she murmured, her brow furrowed.
He nodded. No, he wasn’t, but he’d do his job.
Roth sucked in a deep breath. “Break into pairs and search the place. Look for survivors.”
As always, Theron and Sienna moved off together. He saw her scanning the street, sadness evident in her dark eyes. They moved up to one of the houses, clearing it in a matter of seconds. When they met in the hallway, she looked at him expectantly. He shook his head.
They moved through two more houses, all eerily empty. In the last house, Sienna turned, eyeing the pink curtains still hanging in one of the bedrooms, flapping in the breeze coming through the broken window.
“Everything good always gets destroyed,” she said quietly.
“That’s not true.”
She let out a sigh. “When you see wanton destruction and death like this, day after day, it makes it hard to believe in the good.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “I told you that I went to my parents’ house during the invasion.”
She looked at him. “Yes. But you never told me what you found there.”
“Pretty much the same thing we found here. The raptors burned the house down. My parents’ bodies were in the yard. They’d obviously been trying to save their foster kids. Raptors had burned them all to a crisp.” He knew his voice sounded wooden, like a robot mechanically repeating facts.
“Theron.” She grabbed his arm. “You should have told me. Talked about it.”
“I was too late to save them.” He didn’t tell her that he’d disobeyed orders to go there, and abandoned his fellow Rangers during the fight. By the time he’d gotten back to the city, his friends, the men and women he’d vowed to fight with, were all dead, too. “I heard rumors about General Holmes setting up Blue Mountain Base, and decided to take a chance. There were so many dead and dying.” His voice cracked. “Then I saw you.”
Her face softened. “I remember.”
He reached out and grabbed her ponytail, giving it a gentle tug. “And I realized that not all of the good things were gone. There’s good at the Enclave.” There was good in her. “I see it every time I look at you.”
She looked up at him, shock on her face. “Theron—”
Dammit. What part of stay away
from her didn’t he understand? He took a step back.
Suddenly, he saw a shadow move behind her, darting from one room to the next. He lifted his carbine, and jerked his head.
Instantly, she clicked to attention and lifted her own weapon. “What was it?” A quiet murmur.
“Not sure.”
He moved down the hall, aware of Sienna one step behind him. He trusted her to have his back. He reached the room where he’d seen the shadow enter. It was the kitchen.
Theron turned slowly, taking in the old cabinets and scarred countertops. The fridge door hung open, jars and containers smashed on the floor, and the wooden dining table drunkenly tilted to one side because of a broken leg. The room appeared empty.
The back door was also ajar.
Sienna pointed and nudged it open. She looked outside and gasped. “What the hell is that?”
He moved up behind her as she stepped outside. Attached to the house was some sort of orange growth. It looked like a cocoon that pulsed with an amber glow, and had organic tendrils spreading out of it, both up onto the roof, and down into the tall grass.
Sienna stood beside it. The pod was about half her size. She looked back at him. “We should—”
A creature burst out of the nearby shadows.
Theron knocked Sienna out of the creature’s path. He opened fire, laser hitting the animal.
The small, four-legged creature growled, jaws snapping. It was about the size of a dog, with glowing red eyes that dominated its face. It was covered in a strange mix of fur, and tough, scaled skin.
Theron kept firing, but the small beast kept coming. It leaped and slammed into Theron’s chest. He stumbled backward.
“No, you don’t.” Sienna jammed the butt of her carbine into the animal’s back. It fell to the ground, and the two of them opened fire on it.
With a final yowl, the animal died.
Theron stood there, chest heaving, staring at the twisted remains. It wasn’t a canid or hellion—the aliens’ rabid hunting dogs.
Sienna crouched beside it.
“Careful,” he said.
She touched the creature with her gloved hand and her face looked sad again. “Theron, I think it was a dog. A real, regular dog.” She looked up. “It somehow got infected with alien DNA, and turned into a hybrid.”
Something good touched by something bad. They’d witnessed the alien-humans the Gizzida created in their labs. The raptors liked shoving captured humans into their so-called genesis tanks, and morphing them into monsters.
But they hadn’t seen alien-animal hybrids before. Why waste a genesis tank on a dog?
“Sienna? Theron? You guys okay?” Roth’s deep voice in their earpieces.
Theron touched a finger to his ear. “Just had a run-in with some sort of hybrid dog. It’s down, but there is also some strange alien pod here.”
“We saw one too,” Roth answered. “Got some pics to take back for the team to analyze.”
“Acknowledged. We’re on our way back.”
“Any sign of survivors?” Roth asked.
Theron’s gaze met Sienna’s. “No.”
***
Sienna followed her squad as they trudged back through the fields. The mood of the entire group was somber. For a second, she paused, looking out over the hills. The view was beautiful, and that beauty seemed like such a wrong, stark contrast.
What they’d just left behind hurt her heart, and made it damn hard to acknowledge any beauty in the world right now.
Her gaze moved over a rocky hill nearby. There were no trees, but the hill was overgrown with grass, and topped by a small cluster of boulders near the top. She frowned.
“What?” Theron asked from beside her.
Her frown deepened. She could just see something fluttering in the wind. Fabric, maybe? “There’s something up there. On top of the rocks.”
Roth flanked her on the other side, yanking a pair of binocs off his belt. He lifted them up, turning the tiny dial until he got them in focus. “There is something up there.”
Sienna shoved her carbine onto her back. “I’ll climb up.”
She reached the rocks, smoothing her gloved hands across the stone until she found a handhold. It wasn’t very steep, and she started up, easily ascending the slope.
As always, climbing helped clear her head, and pushed back the horror of what they’d seen in the town.
She reached the top and pulled herself over the edge. She looked down and spotted Theron staring up at her, his gaze intense. He was right below her, no doubt ready to catch her if she fell.
Sienna turned and studied the flat ledge. What she saw made her gut cramp.
“You’d better come up and see this,” she called down to the others.
A couple of minutes later, Roth and Theron pulled themselves onto the ledge. Their big bodies crowded in close to her. Theron brushed against her arm, and she was very conscious of his big form. It seemed she was always conscious of him lately.
“You made that look easy,” Roth said, blowing out a breath.
“She’s a damn good climber,” Theron added.
She fought back a flush at the compliment. “Thanks. Now, look at this.” She pointed.
The men turned, both of them scowling and cursing under their breath.
“A nest?” Theron said.
“A camp.” Sienna studied the burnt-out remains of a small fire, a ratty blanket, and a small pile of trash. Then she looked over the field beyond. “If someone hunkered down here, they’d have a perfect view of the Enclave entrances and exits.”
Roth cursed. “How the hell did they manage to evade the drones? Mac, I need the camera.” The woman appeared a second later. She pulled out a camera and started snapping images of the camp.
Roth pressed a finger to his ear. “Arden? Do you copy?”
Sienna was dimly aware of Roth reporting their find back to their comms officer. Arden was an integral member of their team. But the quiet and capable woman kept herself apart, rarely socializing with them. At first, Sienna thought they were just a bit rough for Arden, but she’d learned that the woman had lost her husband and children in the invasion, and now Sienna believed Arden didn’t let anyone close.
Theron crouched down beside the little nest of abandoned goods. “Looks like there was only one person here.”
Sienna nodded in agreement. “And look.” She kicked a boot through the small, picked-clean skeletons of some tiny animals. “I don’t see any vegetable or fruit scraps.”
Theron’s face hardened. “Raptor.”
The invading aliens were all carnivores. “Or some sort of hybrid.”
“It looks like whoever was here is gone now,” Roth said.
Theron stood. “Or moved to a new location.”
Roth paused for a second, head tilted, clearly listening to whatever Arden was telling him. “Okay.” Their leader raised his voice so the others below could hear as well. “Holmes wants us to take a look around, and search for any other signs of our visitor.”
Sienna climbed back down the rocky slope, and soon the squad fanned out, searching through the long grass and nearby trees. Although she didn’t think they’d find any aliens hiding in the trees. For a reason they still hadn’t worked out, the aliens hated the trees. They had some sort of allergic reaction to something the trees emitted.
Finally, with a muttered curse, Roth called them back together. “No sign of anything. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to do this alone.”
What? Sienna glanced at Theron, and he shrugged.
“I called in for some help,” Roth continued, his gaze moving over toward the closest entrance back into the Enclave.
Sienna turned to look over her shoulder. She watched a figure step out of a hidden doorway. The woman was wearing simple, dark clothes, but her white hair stood out like starlight, and matched her pale skin. She strode toward them, a large black bird resting on her shoulder.
Chapter Three
At first glance
, Theron thought that Selena could pass for human. But up close, you could see her skin and hair were too pale, and her eyes were larger and a bright, non-human green.
Cam pushed forward. “God. He’s not a little fluffball anymore, is he?”
Selena smiled, waving a hand at the bird perched on her shoulder. “He’s growing fast, and getting bigger every day. Something the Gizzida did to him causes accelerated growth. I still call him Fluffy, though. The name’s stuck.”
She had a soft, melodious voice, and as she spoke, the bird flapped his wings a little. He’d just been a chick when he’d been rescued, but he’d lost his fluff and now his skin was black and looked like leather.
The alien gyr chick came from Selena’s world—a planet who opposed the Gizzida—and they’d both been snatched by the aliens. Fluffy had been subjected to various experiments, and according to Selena no longer resembled the gyr birds from her world. But after Finn, one of their best Hawk pilots, had rescued Fluffy, Selena had taken him in, and now the chick was one happy little guy.
“You think he can track down our spy?” Roth asked.
Selena nodded. “Do you have something from the camp you found?”
Roth handed over a ragged scrap of cloth that had been torn off the blanket. Selena took it, and held the fabric up to Fluffy’s face.
Then, she said something in her strange alien language, and the bird took off in a flap of wings.
Theron arched his neck to watch the bird slice through the air, the dark shape circling around the blue sky. Fluffy sure was quick. The creature zoomed downward, and landed at the camp on top of the rocky hill. Then he lifted off again, dipping and flying on the wind.
“He loves flying,” Selena said. “He doesn’t get out enough.” The alien woman closed her eyes, breathing deep like she was absorbing the sunshine and the fresh air.