Marcus (20 page)
Authors: Anna Hackett
Tags: #alien invasion, #science fiction romance, #hell squad
She zoomed back to the Hell Squad. They were
moving now, led by the sniper and the tough-looking woman. The team
moved together like a well-oiled machine, something she knew took
practice. She’d been like that with her team. A pang hit her as she
thought of the men and women who’d been like family to her. Now all
dead.
Then she noted where Hell Squad were headed.
Toward the raptors.
She swung back to the raptors, and spied the
small dish set up near the top of their hiding place. She knew what
it was. A jammer. It would jam the feed from the drones Hell Squad
used to locate the enemy.
Hell Squad were moving right into a raptor
ambush.
Dammit.
Her heart kicked against her
ribs.
Standing, she slung her crossbow over her
shoulder, then grabbed the line she had tied to the top of the
building. With her Kevlar gloves on, she simply gripped the rope
and swung off the side of the building in a wide arc, sliding down
to the ground.
Her feet hit concrete and she bent to absorb
the impact.
A half-second later, she was sprinting for
her bike.
***
Cruz Ramos kicked his boot through some
rubble on the street. Under the pile was a small, tattered teddy
bear.
He crouched and picked up the toy. He
wondered what had happened to the child who’d owned it. Cruz looked
up and scanned the empty houses. Some splintered doors stood open,
the roofs damaged, windows broken, the walls smoke stained. Other
homes looked perfectly normal, like a happy family still lived
inside.
He wanted to believe the child had gotten
away, maybe made it to Blue Mountain Base. But inside, Cruz felt
the growing numbness. He dropped the bear. He knew what had
happened to the kid who’d loved the stupid bear.
Sometimes he wondered why the hell he and
the squad bothered. Fighting off the empty, dark feeling, he
focused on the rest of his team.
Marcus was nearby, alert for anything that
might crop up, and murmuring to the team’s communications officer
through his comms device. He was a hell of a team leader, always
had a plan B when shit hit…which it always did. Hell Squad got the
best missions.
In his own earpiece, Cruz heard their comms
officer, Elle, laugh at something Marcus said. Cruz almost smiled.
She did a hell of a job providing their intel…and she was also
officially the love of Marcus’s life. Cruz shook his head. He’d
watched the two of them dance around their feelings for months. He
would never have guessed slim, classy Elle—former society girl—and
rough, tough, battle-hardened Marcus Steele would be a match made
in heaven. But they fit.
The team’s sniper walked past Cruz, followed
by Hell Squad’s female team member. For once, Claudia and Shaw
weren’t bickering. A minor miracle. They were both quiet and
focused.
“So, we gonna whip some raptor butt?”
The voice from beside him made Cruz roll his
eyes. “Kid, you want to keep your voice down.”
A clearing throat. “Right.”
Sam Jenkins was on a trial run to fill the
empty slot on Hell Squad. The best soldiers were already on the
squads, so the pickings were slim for replacements. As far as Cruz
could tell, Sam was young, eager, but with limited experience. He’d
been in the United Coalition Military Academy when the invasion had
hit. His shininess would either wear off real quick and he’d quit,
or he’d get himself killed.
Cruz glanced at Gabe, who was just a little
behind them. He had a way of moving that was spooky and completely
silent. He could disappear into shadows in the blink of an eye. His
brother had been almost as good.
Jesus, Zeke
. Whenever Cruz thought of
their fallen teammate, he felt a flood of anger. But even that
flash of emotion faded quickly. Consumed by the growing deadness
inside Cruz that he couldn’t seem to shake.
Death. Destruction. Blood and fighting.
Sometimes, he couldn’t remember what he was
fighting for anymore.
Something tingled along Cruz’s senses. He
slowed, turning his head to study the surrounding buildings.
Nothing moved. Even the air was still.
He stopped and turned in a slow circle.
Marcus held up a closed fist. The team
halted.
“Cruz?” Marcus murmured.
Cruz couldn’t see or hear anything that
should have set off his internal alarm. “I don’t know,
amigo
.” But something was wrong.
“Marcus?” Elle’s voice. “We’ve lost the
drone feed. I can’t see you guys or what’s around you.”
As Marcus cursed, Cruz’s gut cramped. Yeah,
something was really off.
Then he heard a noise. Cruz spun, and
straight ahead, speeding toward them, was a slim figure in black.
Her black hair flew out behind her and he saw the tip of her
crossbow over her shoulder.
Santha
. Everything in him flared to
life.
Her sleek, black bike was electric and made
no sound. Perfect for sneaking around the city.
As she got closer, he saw her face, watched
her wave one arm at them madly.
Shit
. “Everyone, take cover!” he
yelled.
Seconds later, raptors streamed out of a
building ahead. Their weapons made a distinctive noise as they
fired. Dark-green ooze splattered the road in front of the team. It
sizzled and hissed as it ate through the asphalt.
He knew the damned stuff burned and
paralyzed. He ducked in behind an abandoned car.
Madre de
dios
, another thirty seconds and they would have walked right
into the raptor cluster fuck.
Looked like the aliens had fully recovered
their communications and were out for some payback.
Hell Squad dived for cover. Cruz watched
Santha coax more speed from her bike. Even with the gunfire, she
rode straight, heading for him.
She skidded the bike in a tight turn and
came to a stop beside him. “Ambush. Had to warn you.”
With a nod, he sprung to his feet and leaped
on the back of bike.
She swiveled. “What the hell are—?”
“Ride.”
She did. They raced through the raptors.
Cruz aimed his carbine and pulled out his secondary weapon, a
smaller laser pistol. He fired both weapons, taking down any raptor
in range.
Santha turned the bike again and Cruz held
on his with knees. They moved through the aliens again and Cruz
kept firing. His team members were firing as well.
He and Santha did another loop. She
anticipated his needs, slowing down, speeding up, tuning to avoid
the raptor gunfire. Even in the middle of hell, he took a second to
appreciate her lean body pressed back against him.
Then he saw a huge raptor, over seven feet
tall, dragging Sam across the ground by his ankle. The young
soldier was struggling and had lost his weapon.
Dammit.
“Slow down!”
She did and Cruz leaped off the bike.
He unloaded his carbine into the raptor. It
took a rain of laser fire, but the giant raptor finally tumbled to
the ground like a felled tree.
Sam lay writhing, his right leg bent at an
odd angle. Cruz yanked the kid up and hefted Sam over his shoulder.
The kid probably weighed more than Cruz, but the slim-line
exoskeleton in Cruz’s armor helped him lift heavy loads. He ran for
cover.
Behind an overturned minivan, he set Sam
down. The kid was moaning, his eyes wide and jittery. “T-thanks,
Cruz.”
Claudia appeared. “He okay?”
“Leg’s broken.”
“I’ll take a look.”
The team didn’t have a field medic, but they
all had basic training. As Claudia splinted Sam’s leg, Cruz ducked
out of cover to check on Santha.
She was still on the bike, riding toward the
remaining raptors. She held something in her hand.
He frowned, and then, when he realized what
it was, he grinned. Damn, she was his kind of woman, a queen among
warriors.
She tossed the grenade into a group of
raptors then made a tight turn on the bike. She rode back, standing
up to make a small jump over some rubble. Behind her, the grenade
exploded, flames reaching into the sky. The screams and grunts of
wounded and dying raptors filled the air.
“They’re retreating.” Marcus’s gravelly
voice came through Cruz’s earpiece.
The last of the raptors slipped away through
the ruins in full retreat. Warily, gun up, Cruz walked into the
middle of the street.
Santha stopped her bike with a skid. The
rest of Hell Squad came out of cover.
“Thanks for the warning and the help,”
Marcus said.
She nodded. “You should get going. Their
usual MO is to come in with a larger force, and a pack of
canids.”
Cruz grimaced. He hated canids. The alien
hunting dogs were vicious and relentless.
Marcus cursed. “We were supposed to check
for some survivors our drones spotted in a school about a block
from here.”
Santha shook her head. “They left three days
ago. Don’t know where they are now.”
Marcus nodded. “Thanks.” He touched his ear.
“Elle, can you send a Hawk our way and have the doc meet us back at
base? Jenkins is injured.” Marcus glanced at his team. “Hell Squad,
let’s move out. Gabe, carry Sam.”
The armor’s exoskeleton meant that carrying
a team member, even for several hours, wasn’t hard, but Cruz knew
Gabe probably didn’t need the help of the exoskeleton.
Cruz stepped close to Santha. “Come with
us.”
Another shake of her head.
He moved closer until his body was just a
whisper from hers. He smelled her—sweat and a fragrant woody scent.
“Come back to base. There’s a place for you there.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Dammit.
Cruz barely resisted the urge
to kick something. He hated the idea of her out here, alone. “Why
not?”
Her green eyes flashed. “I have work to
do.”
He leaned closer and saw her stiffen. “Don’t
you get lonely?” he asked quietly.
“You think being with a bunch of strangers
will help with that?” She tilted her head. “You’re with people all
the time and you’re still lonely.”
Cruz felt his muscles tense. He stepped
back. “What are you going to do?”
She revved the bike. “Keep fighting.”
With frustration like a noose around his
neck, he forced himself to nod. “Don’t get yourself killed.”
She flashed him a smile. The first he’d ever
seen from her. “Sure thing, soldier.”
She gunned the bike and shot away.
Cruz watched her disappear from sight. Yeah,
she was right. Even surrounded by his team, he was lonely as
hell.
Dr. Eos Rai has spent a lifetime dedicated to
her mother's dream of finding the long-lost
Mona Lisa
. When
Eos uncovers tantalizing evidence of Star's End—the last known
location of the masterpiece—she's shocked when her employer, the
Galactic Institute of Historic Preservation, refuses to back her
expedition. Left with no choice, Eos must trust the most notorious
treasure hunter in the galaxy, a man she finds infuriating,
annoying and far too tempting.
Dathan Phoenix can sniff out relics at a
stellar mile. With his brothers by his side, he takes the
adventures that suit him and refuses to become a lazy, bitter
failure like their father. When the gorgeous Eos Rai comes looking
to hire him, he knows she's trouble, but he's lured into a hunt
that turns into a wild and dangerous adventure. As Eos and Dathan
are pushed to their limits, they discover treasure isn't the only
thing they're drawn to…but how will their desire survive when
Dathan demands the
Mona Lisa
as his payment?
The Phoenix Adventures
Hell Squad
Marcus
Cruz
Gabe
Reed
The Anomaly Series
The Phoenix Adventures
Perma Series
The WindKeepers Series