Finn: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Hell Squad Book 10) (2 page)

***

Lia Murphy sat straight in her chair, listening to the jumble of talking going on around her. It was one of their daily meetings in the Command Center. Marcus from Hell Squad was talking in his deep rasp that made Lia think of gravel and smoke.

“There were more raptor vehicles out on this last mission,” the man said. “They’re hitting us hard.”

General Adam Holmes—the man in charge of security and military operations—nodded. “Our intel is suggesting that. The intel team, with help from the drone team, is slowly increasing our intelligence picture on the aliens. And you’re right, we are seeing more alien vehicles on the ground.”

“And pteros.” This came from Finn Erickson.

Lia didn’t look in his direction. The Hawk pilot had confidence down to a fine art. Lia had been a commercial pilot before the invasion, and had met a few combat pilots. Finn fit the mold. Confidence bordering on arrogance.

“So where are they building all these vehicles and pteros?” Cruz asked. “On their mothership?”

The aliens’ huge mothership was sitting at Sydney Airport. It was an enormous monstrosity, but Lia couldn’t see them manufacturing large vehicles inside of it.

Nikolai Ivanov stepped forward. The dark-haired man was the civilian leader of the Enclave. “We don’t know yet. We need to keep looking.” The handsome artist looked in Lia’s direction. “Lia? Report?”

She cleared her throat and stood. “We have more drones coming online, and we’re focused on training more drone pilots.”

From behind her, Finn snorted. She ignored him. The man didn’t believe flying a drone made you a pilot.
Idiot
.

“The two flight simulators we’ve set up for training are working out really well. We’ve asked for volunteers with any sort of flying experience, and we have a good-sized group we’re running through the simulations for flying both the drones and the Hawks.” She took a breath. “Out in the air, we’re slowly covering all the area across Sydney and the regions beyond with the drones. Getting a picture of raptor numbers and their infrastructure.” She frowned. “We do have an area where the drone feed is getting jammed frequently. It’s happened several times.” She looked over at Elle Milton, who was seated behind a comp. “Elle, could you pull up the map for me, please?”

The brunette nodded, and a map appeared on one of the many screens on the wall.

“The area is north of the city, what was originally the Central Coast. Every time we send drones into that area, they get jammed. I suspect the aliens are protecting something.”

“What was there before the invasion?” Niko asked.

“It was resort towns, and weekend homes for people who lived in Sydney. Nothing I can think of that would be that interesting to the Gizzida.”

Holmes stroked his chin. “Okay, Finn, can you please plan a mission to get up there? We need eyes on the ground to see what’s going on.” The general’s laser-blue gaze circled the room. “I don’t need to remind you all how important it is that we fill in all the gaps in our intel grid.”

Lia knew it was vital. They needed to have a full picture of the aliens, so they could plan out a strategy to drive the raptors away for good.

“Our other priority,” Niko added, “is establishing reliable contact with the other human bases around the world. We already know of the underground base at Groom Lake in Nevada, and a few smaller ones scattered around the globe. But the aliens have been jamming our contact with them for a long time now. We get partial messages that aren’t very clear. We don’t know their status, if they’re still functioning.”

Still alive. Lia heard the unspoken words echo in her head.

And following that thought, the familiar sting of grief flowed through her. She knew the people most important to her hadn’t made it. It still hurt, even after two years.

“How?” Roth Masters asked. The muscular man was the leader of the almost-all-female squad, Squad Nine. “How can we stop the aliens jamming our long-range communications?”

“The tech team is coming up with a plan,” Holmes said. “Noah?”

Noah Kim stepped forward. The tall man always made Lia think of a pirate, with his long, dark hair combined with an intense, narrow face, and a near-permanent scowl. The man was a genius. “The aliens have blocked our long-range comms because they’ve managed to destroy the infrastructure between us and the other havens. My team is working to devise what we’re calling an amplifier. It’s a device that can boost the signal. We are designing it to be watertight, so it can be dropped in the ocean and stay hidden beneath the water. It’ll do its job, and hopefully remain invisible to the aliens.” He looked around the room. “Anyone want me to go into the technical details?”

“No!”

“Nope.”

“No need.”

Lia hid her smile. The squads had been subjected to Noah’s tech talk in the past, and they weren’t fond of it.

Holmes gave a faint smile. “I don’t think that’s necessary. Thank you, Noah.”

Finn was frowning from where he stood, leaning against the wall. “How far out does this thing need to be dropped?”

Noah’s face darkened. “At the moment, far. As in, middle-of-the-Pacific far.”

Oh, no.
Lia straightened. “That’s impossible.” She knew the Hawks weren’t designed to fly that kind of distance. They were made for short-range combat. “We don’t have any aircraft that can fly that far.”

During the invasion, the Gizzida had very purposefully destroyed airports and aircraft. There were no supersonic craft left that could make the journey in a fraction of the time. Lia’s fingers twitched. She’d flown supersonic jets before the invasion. For a second, she let herself think about that moment when you went supersonic. The slight jerk, the feeling of speed. God, she missed it.

“Once we’ve finished making the amplifier, I’ll let you know.” Noah shrugged. “We’re still working on the prototype, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to devise a way for it to travel itself. That way we can drop it offshore and let it do its thing.”

Lia didn’t think the man looked particularly hopeful.

“Well, if we keep drowning in pteros, we won’t be able to get even one kilometer offshore to drop this thing,” Finn said.

The general nodded. “Let’s find out where the aliens are manufacturing their vehicles. Make that a priority.”

There was a flash of movement, and Lia saw a handsome man in dark trousers and a crisp white shirt step forward. She knew Devlin Gray was a key part of the intelligence team. “Santha and I will make it our team’s priority.” He glanced at the head of the intel team.

Santha Kade nodded.

“Okay, everyone.” Niko shoved his hands in his pockets. Lia noticed a streak of blue paint on his jeans. “Remember, enjoy your downtime. We don’t want anyone to get burned out.”

The meeting was over. As everyone started to move out of the Command Center, Sakura—one of Lia’s best drone pilots—fell into step beside her.

“Enjoy your downtime. You know why he says that?” the tiny woman asked with a smile.

“Because we’re in the middle of a stressful fight for survival? Because it’s important to stay sane and find some pleasure where you can?”

Sakura shook her dark head. “The man is snuggled up with Mac from Squad Nine.” The woman waggled her eyebrows. “I can only imagine what kinds of things a sexy man like that gets up to in his downtime.”

Lia shook her head with a smile. She pictured Mackenna “Mac” Carides. The second-in-command of Squad Nine was a tough, no-nonsense soldier. “I’m not sure Mac snuggles.”

Sakura watched Niko stride out of the room. “I bet she does with him.”

Lia had to admit, his jeans did great things for his ass. And walking right behind Niko was Finn. He was dressed in black cargo pants, and they did equally good things for the pilot’s ass.

She felt a traitorous curl of heat in her belly. Finn might be overconfident and arrogant, but he was good-looking arrogant. He had tousled blond hair, painfully blue eyes, and a body he honed to muscled precision. Hawk flying could be demanding, and Finn made sure he was in peak condition for his job.

Lia blew out a short breath. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Finn Erickson. She stomped down on her desire. Getting attached to people in this crazy world of theirs made no sense. She’d already had a vital part of her ripped open, broken, and smashed. She would never, ever risk caring for, or loving someone, again.

She looked at her watch. Besides, she had a date to train potential new pilots. That’s all she could care about.

Chapter Two

Finn stood at the back of the room, watching the flight simulations. He leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. When he’d entered, Lia had given him one long look, then she’d ignored him.

He listened as she talked the two potential pilot trainees through the simulations. Two Hawk seats had been rigged up in front of large comp screens, and several trainees had flown through various sims. Lia was giving them suggestions and constructive criticism, and praise when they deserved it. She was good with them.

A few of the trainees had promise, and the pair in the simulator now were really good.

Finn watched the screen and it was eerie how good the sim was. It was like they were really piloting a drone through the ruins of Sydney. The slim man on the left with some Asian heritage was doing outstandingly well.

“Good, Leon.” Lia leaned over to talk to the man, and it gave Finn a perfect view of her ass.

Shit
. Finn told himself to look away, but he couldn’t. Her khaki slacks pulled tight over her sweet curves.

He did not need complications. He had no interest in getting tangled up with a woman.

Finally, Lia straightened, and the screens went blank as the simulation ended. “Okay, let’s try the Hawk sim now.”

A second later, the screens flickered to life. Now, Finn could see a view of mountains covered in trees. He could also see the raptor ptero ahead on the horizon.

“Evasive maneuvers,” Lia said. “Do not engage, and get out of there safely.”

The two trainees hunched forward over their comp controls. The knuckles of the woman on the right had gone white.

Finn knew, from lots of experience, that flying a Hawk was a different skill set from flying a drone. For the Hawk, you needed bigger moves and needed to take in more of your surroundings, plus, you needed offensive capabilities when the situation called for it.

The woman on the right looked like she was maybe in her mid-forties, with brown hair pulled back in a tight bun. She had good control and was killing the sim, breaking away and avoiding the ptero.

The mountains gave way to green rolling hills and the sim ended.

“Well done, Marie.” Lia lifted her head and green eyes looked Finn’s way. She lifted one of her russet brows in silent question.

Finn cleared his throat. “Not bad.” He pushed away from the wall. “Marie, if you’d like, I can organize a Hawk flight for you.” He smiled. “I mean the real thing. Strapped in the bird, and going fast.”

Lia sniffed. “Despite the flyboy’s views, flying is flying—whether you’re strapped into the aircraft or not. Leon and Marie, I’d love for you to spend some time with my drone pilots.”

The two Enclave members jumped up, their faces alight, thanking Lia profusely. Soon, they filed out, and Lia started tidying up the room and going through the steps for shutting the simulator down.

Finn found himself inexplicably reluctant to leave.

“Must be good knowing that the drone killer is gone and the drones are safe,” he said.

For once, he hit on the right thing to say to this woman. Her pretty face lit up. “Absolutely. It was hard losing the few we lost, but the tech team has scrounged up enough parts to replace most of them.”

“I wish we could do that when we lose a Hawk.” It was a hell of a lot harder to replace the larger quadcopters. If they lost the Hawks…well, it would severely limit their combat capabilities. They needed the aliens gone sooner rather than later.

“You’ll just have to fly better,” Lia said with a half-smile.

He thrust a thumb against his chest. “I’m damn good. As you saw for yourself, when I saved your butt on that alien battleship.”

Her eyes fired. “I was doing fine recovering my drone and saving myself.”

Now Finn pretended to polish his nails on his shirt. “Uh-huh.”

She thrust her hands on her hips. Finn tried not to notice how the movement pulled her shirt tight across her breasts.

“I was fine. And your flying was…okay.”

“Okay?” He took a step closer. “I seem to recall that your ‘thank you’ was a lot more than okay.”

A faint flash of pink appeared on her cheeks. Yeah, they both remembered that kiss. The damn thing was sitting between them, bigger than the bloody alien mothership.

“I told you never to bring that up.” Lia stepped closer until they were toe to toe. “Ever. And you’re a good pilot. We have a few around here.”

He felt something hot flood his system. “You think you can fly better than me?”

She lifted her chin. “Any day, flyboy.”

“All right then.” He stabbed a finger toward the simulator. “Pull up a sim. You and I are having a fly-off.”

Her brow creased. “A fly-off?”

“Yep. One flight in a drone sim. One flight in a Hawk sim. Winner can claim a prize from the loser.”

Her eyes narrowed. “A prize? Like what?”

“Winner’s choice. Loser can’t say no.”

She swallowed, staring at his face. “Okay, Erickson. You’re on. And when I win, I get both those trainees, Leon and Marie, for my drone team.”

“Done.”

She tilted her head. “What do you want?”

Finn didn’t let himself think or hesitate. “You. In my bed for one night.”

***

“What?” Lia’s skin flushed hot, and her heart started doing some sort of crazy dance in her chest. She must have heard him wrong.

“One night,” he said again. “In my bed.”

He wasn’t joking. Although, from the look on his handsome face, he was a little surprised, himself.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “If you think—”

The cocky, confident look reappeared on his face. He shrugged his shoulders. “Guess you’re afraid you’ll lose.”