by Anna Hackett
They hit the rise. She heard the aliens crashing through the trees behind them, accompanied by the deep roar of an engine.
The assholes were coming.
Her throat went dry. Where could she and Nate go? They couldn’t outrun the alien vehicles.
She glanced down the hill and saw two more vehicles coming up the other side. One had a giant saw blade on the front of it, cutting into the trees and slashing a path through the vegetation.
Ari’s stomach dropped. Oh, no. They were surrounded.
She grabbed Nate’s hand. “What will we do?”
His rugged face was grim. He tightened his hold on her hand and yanked her to the left. They sprinted through the trees, but the aliens were closing in.
Her chest felt like it was filled with concrete. They were going to die here.
All of a sudden, there was a huge roar of sound, and a rush of air.
With a startled cry, she tossed her arms up in front of her face. Laser fire lit up the trees around them.
Nate threw his arms around her and they crouched together.
She lifted her head and watched as a laser sliced into the alien vehicle closest to them, leaving it a smoking ruin.
She looked up and sunlight glinted off gray metal.
A quadcopter!
Another shape rose up, rotors spinning. Two quadcopters.
As the weapons on the aircraft kept firing, Ari watched the silhouettes of soldiers rappelling down from the Hawks. The big, armor-clad soldiers hit the ground.
One team moved together, carbines up, as they fought the aliens.
Another team, with no sleeves on their armor and their muscular, inked arms on display, were coming in from the other side.
“Woo-hoo! Come on, you Gizzida scum, don’t be shy.” A stocky, bearded man laughed, advancing on the alien soldiers.
“How?” Ari whispered. “How did they find us?”
“I had an old emergency beacon. It was ancient.” Nate’s face was serious. “I wasn’t sure it would still work since it transmits on an old military frequency.” His hand slid up her arm, his face looking conflicted. “I thought about activating it a million times over the last two years. Most of those since you arrived.”
But her scarred hero had thought he should be alone, should keep punishing himself.
“You pressed it for me.” She went up on her toes and kissed him.
“I should never have let you leave.”
“You couldn’t have stopped me.” She pressed her face to his chest. “But I’m glad you came for me.”
Suddenly, the sounds of fighting stopped, and silence reigned, interrupted only by the pop and crackle of burning alien vehicles. The alien soldiers were lying dead on the ground.
“You guys okay?”
The smooth voice had Ari spinning to see a handsome Hispanic man approaching them. His white smile was wide as he took them in.
“Yes,” Ari said. “Thanks for the rescue.”
“We followed your beacon signal.” The man’s liquid brown gaze moved to Nate. His brow furrowed. “You look familiar.”
Another man stomped over. He had broad shoulders, a scarred face, and green eyes.
The man’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Shit, Nate? Nate Caldwell?”
Nate grinned. “Marcus Steele? I should have known you’d be leading the charge against the aliens.”
The men shook hands, and Marcus slapped Nate’s back. “Should have known you were too tough to die.”
Nate looked at Ari. “Marcus and I were in the United Coalition Marines together.”
“This is my second in command, Cruz Ramos.”
Nate nodded at the man.
Cruz lifted his chin. “Pleased to meet another fellow Marine.”
“I suggest we do our catch-up back at the Enclave,” a sharp, female voice said. “Not where more aliens are likely to descend on us.”
Ari jolted. Another soldier stepped forward. A woman. The brunette had a tough face and held a carbine in her hands like she knew how to use it.
“Thanks, Claudia.” Marcus waved at the descending Hawk. “Let’s get out of here.”
Ari looked up at Nate. “With pleasure.”
As the Hawk lowered into the underground base, Marcus watched Nate and his woman looking out the window with undisguised interest. Nate’s dog sat beside the couple, enjoying her Hawk ride.
The quadcopter’s skids touched down, and Marcus opened the side door. “Home sweet home. Welcome to the Enclave.”
Nate helped his woman out of the aircraft, and kept his arm around her as they took in the Hawk hangar bay.
Mechanics in coveralls had one quadcopter stripped down. Others bustled around, pushing carts and carrying parts.
A tall man strode across the bay toward them.
He might be out of uniform, but General Adam Holmes still had the bearing of a leader.
“Good work, Hell Squad.” The general’s laser-blue gaze moved toward the berserkers who were jumping off the second Hawk. “And you, too, Squad Three.” Then the general’s gaze fell on the couple they’d rescued.
“This is General Adam Holmes, the man in charge,” Marcus told them. “General, this is former Marine Nate Caldwell.”
“You were a Marine?” the general asked.
“Yes, sir,” Nate replied.
“I was an Army man, myself.” Adam smiled. “I’ll forgive you for picking the wrong branch of the military. Welcome to the Enclave.”
Nate nodded. “Thanks. And this is Ari. Ariana Matthews.”
“We’re so glad to be here,” Ari said.
The general nodded. “I’m glad that you’re both okay.”
“Actually, Ari was trying to find you,” Nate told the men.
Holmes raised a dark brow.
She held a hand out. “I was…trapped in the aliens’ labs for a long time.”
Holmes’ jaw tightened. “I’m sorry to hear that. We have lots of survivors here who went through similar ordeals. We have an excellent medical team who can check you over.”
She lifted her chin. “Thanks, I’m fine. I’m alive, unlike many others.”
Marcus liked the young woman. She had a spine. He fought a smile. She reminded him of someone else he knew.
“The aliens moved me to one of their labs in the Blue Mountains. While I was there, I saw something. A bomb.”
They all stiffened and Marcus traded a glance with Adam.
“What did it look like?” the general asked.
“Big, black, octagon-shaped.”
Hell, yeah. It was the damn bomb they were all looking for.
“You know where it is?” Holmes asked. “You know where the lab is?”
“Yes, I think so.” Ari nodded. “I can tell you that the aliens were protecting it with their lives. It’s important.”
“It is,” Marcus growled.
“What is it?” Nate asked.
“A bomb to end all the last remaining human survivors on Earth,” Holmes said.
Ari gasped.
“There are two others,” Marcus said. “If they set off all three simultaneously…it’ll turn us all into Gizzida.”
“No,” Ari breathed.
“Shit,” Nate muttered. “Gizzida. Name suits the bastards.”
Marcus realized that this was the first time that Nate had heard the name of the alien invaders.
A man stepped closer to their group. “It isn’t gonna happen. We’re going to find all these bombs and destroy them.”
Tane Rahia, the leader of the berserkers. He was a tough bastard, and Marcus had no doubt Tane would fight hard, to his very last breath, to stop the aliens. The tall man’s dreadlocks were pulled back at the base of his neck. His bare arms and face were covered with gore from fighting the aliens.
Ari looked at Tane and blinked. Then she nodded. “I’ll do my best to help you find the lab where I was kept. It looked like it was built in an abandoned human facility, underground. It was close to Nate’s cabin.�
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“You got a map?” Nate asked. “I’ll show you.”
The general pulled out a small comp screen and held it out. A map appeared on the screen.
“My cabin is here.” Nate pointed. “Ari came running from this direction—”
“The fuckers,” Marcus bit out.
Ari’s eyes went wide. “What?”
Holmes muttered a curse. “The raptors are hiding the bomb in our old base. Blue Mountain Base.”
Grumbles sounded from behind Marcus. His squad and the berserkers weren’t happy.
“We know where the bomb is.” A fierce light ignited in Tane’s brown gaze.
“Yes,” Holmes added. “But we can’t forget that there are two other bombs out there, somewhere. We need to find them as well. I’ll update Groom Lake Base. Thank you, Ari and Nate. We’ll make sure you get assigned quarters and can rest.”
With another nod, the general strode out of the hangar.
“So, single quarters or couples’ quarters?” Marcus asked.
“Couples,” Ari answered. She turned to Nate, and the man dropped a kiss to her lips.
Marcus fought a smile. Ari was a little younger than Nate, but clearly she’d claimed him. Since his squad had all hooked up and fallen in love over the last year, he recognized the signs. There were the beginnings of love in Ari’s eyes.
And Nate looked at her like he couldn’t quite believe she was real, and he wasn’t sure he deserved her.
Marcus recognized that look too. He’d once felt much the same way about his woman.
“I’ll have my wife organize quarters for you,” he said.
Nate raised a brow. “Wife?”
“Yep, best damn thing that ever happened to me.” Like he’d summoned her, he turned to see Elle appear in the doorway to the hangar. “Here she is now.”
She walked forward, smiling, her shiny, brown hair back in a braid. “Welcome to the Enclave. I’m Elle Steele. Let’s get you settled into new quarters.”
“Thank you.” Nate’s woman held out a hand. “I’m Ari.”
Elle shook the other woman’s hand, and waved forward a young comms assistant to escort the pair to their new home.
Marcus slapped Nate’s back again. “Good to have you here, man.”
Nate gave a nod, looking at Ari. “It’s good to be here.”
“We could use a man like you on the squads. If that’s what you want.”
Nate nodded again. “Yeah, I think I might be ready for that.”
As the man turned back to his woman, Marcus slid an arm around Elle’s slender shoulders. She looked up at him and smiled, her face glowing. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he responded.
“I’ve got something to tell you once we have your friends settled.”
Marcus cocked his head. “Oh?”
She nodded, her smile wide. She took his hand and pressed it to her flat belly. “Yes. Something important.”
He froze, about a dozen emotions rocketing through him. “Elle?”
She just smiled in reply, and he wasn’t sure that his heart was going to start beating again.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Fuck. She cut through every shadow, every dark corner, and every black hole, and poured life and light in.
“I love you, too.”
Ahead of them, he saw Nate kissing Ari. Marcus pulled his wife—his pregnant wife—close and did the same.
I hope you enjoyed Ari and Nate’s story!
* * *
For more Hell Squad survivor adventures, read on for a look at Groom Lake Base and Captain Dak Vaughn’s story.
Dak
Chapter One
She jogged down the concrete-lined corridor and into the dining room. A wall of noise hit her—people chatting, eating breakfast, laughing. Nearby, an unhappy baby in a high chair wailed.
Shit, she was late. Naomi Silver moved over to the buffet and grabbed some toast, quickly slathering on a blob of peanut butter.
A woman and man from a table nearby looked up at her. “Naomi, you’re late.”
She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. The pair were fellow security recruits. “I know, I know.”
The man shook his head. “Captain Tight Buns is running class today. He’ll chew you out. You appear to be one of his favorite targets.”
The toast turned into a lump in Naomi’s throat. Oh, great. “Isn’t Commander Dara taking close combat today?”
“Dara’s sick,” the woman said. “Captain Vaughn stepped in.”
Fuck fuckity fuck. “Catch you later!” Naomi turned and ran out of the base dining room.
She jogged toward the gym, dodging a few people in the wide, round corridors.
Groom Lake Base—also known as Area 51—had once been the center of conspiracy theories galore. A place where many people suspected alien life forms were kept and tested on by the United Coalition government.
Well, it turned out that Roswell was just a weather balloon. The first time humans learned of aliens was when the reptilian Gizzida invaded the Earth. In the two years since the aliens had arrived, they’d destroyed most of the planet, and killed massive numbers of its people.
Naomi’s gut hardened. She’d watched in horror as alien ships had filled the sky, and Las Vegas had burned. She’d been a newly minted cop at the time, and she’d tried to help. Unfortunately, she, her fellow police officers, and the military had been nothing more than a drop of water, trying to hold back a roaring inferno of annihilation.
She’d ended up with a band of survivors. She’d helped keep that little group alive for months in the ruins of Las Vegas’ casinos, scavenging whatever they could find.
One day, she’d been cornered by the raptors—the humanoid-like soldiers of the Gizzida. The fuckers were big, scaly, and strong. She’d been injured and about to die when a Viper quadcopter had appeared above them.
And Captain Dak Vaughn had arrived, and rescued her and her group.
That had been two months ago. She was still getting used to living in the safety of the underground base at Groom Lake. Hot showers, full meals, top-notch exercise equipment, and the fact that she could sleep safely every night were all things she’d never again take for granted.
The place was overcrowded—it had never been designed for this many people—but the survivors adapted and made the most of things.
Naomi still slept like crap most nights—with one eye open. Some habits died hard.
Now, she was a new recruit in training to join the Groom Lake security team. If she passed Vaughn’s tests, that was.
She hit the gym doors and they slammed open. The recruits in her class were already lined up neatly on the mats.
Every head turned to look at her. Great, just great.
But it was the tall, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped man at the front—wearing all-black workout gear and skewering her with his gray gaze—that caught her attention.
“You’re late, Silver.”
Ugh, this man always saw her at her worst. No matter how hard she tried to prove that she was damn good at her job, he always made her feel incompetent. That iron-hard stare of his could make her feel about one inch tall.
Naomi set her shoulders back. “Sorry, sir.”
“Get in line.”
She kicked off her shoes and joined the end of one of the lines.
As Vaughn walked along the line of recruits, she tried to find some calm and focus. He clearly knew about her family. A bitter sensation wound through her. She was very used to being judged because of the assholes she was unlucky enough to be related to. God, they were dead and still causing her grief.
“If you get cornered by raptors without armor on, do not engage,” Vaughn said. “Without the exoskeleton in your armor, you’re smaller, weaker, and slower than your enemy.”
Naomi bit her lip. She’d taken on plenty of raptors without wearing armor. Sure, it was as dangerous as hell because they were all over six and a half feet tall and packed with dense muscle.
But if you knew what you were doing…
She shifted on her feet. Bite your tongue, Naomi.
Vaughn stepped in front of her. “You disagree, recruit?”
Beside her, she heard one of the female recruits stifle a moan. It was a cruel quirk of fate that Dak Vaughn—in addition to having a rock-hard body and the best ass she’d ever seen—had a smooth, sexy voice.
But despite the warm tingle it gave her, Naomi focused on the hard glitter in his eyes. She bit her tongue again. Hard. “No, sir.”
“Come on, Silver. You’ve never been shy.”
She heard snickers from the rest of the recruits, but one look from Vaughn silenced them.
Don’t engage. Don’t engage. “It’s possible to take down a raptor, sir, with armor, or without.”
Titters ran through the class.
Gray eyes narrowed. “You’re more likely to get yourself killed.”
“Not if you’re smarter than they are.”
His face hardened, his square jaw like rock. Something moved through his storm-cloud gaze that she couldn’t quite read.
“Okay, Silver.” He opened his muscular arms. “Pretend I’m a raptor. Take me down.”
A trickle of unease ran through Naomi. Oh, great. He wanted to wrestle with her?
Her and her big mouth.
What the fuck was he doing?
Dak Vaughn stepped into the center of the mats, feeling the weight of all the recruits watching him.
He had a reputation as a hardass around Groom Lake Base, because he was a hardass. He never let himself forget the fact that the thousands of survivors at the base depended on him for their survival.
He was head of security, which meant he had to make sure the Gizzida never got close enough to hurt the people here. He shouldn’t even be running this class today. He had a damn bomb to find and he practically heard the clock ticking in his head.
A bomb that could end them all.
Dara owed him for this.
Naomi Silver stepped onto the mats in front of him and licked her lips.
And just like that, his cock went hard. Dak didn’t know what it was about this woman, but she got under his skin. Just being in the same room as her made him itch.