If an Atlan Warlord was on this ship, and he was fully under Hive mind control, we were screwed. We’d need more than a couple ReCon units to bring him in.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Whoever he is, he’s not happy.” I did a quick sensor scan, made sure there were no more active Hive on this level, and clicked over to open comms. “ReCon Three, this is Breanna. Level five clear. Over.”
“Roger that. Level five clear. Took your sweet time. Everyone else took a ten-minute nap waiting for you two.” Lieutenant Wade Collins, our team’s second in command, loved to give us shit—as long as we stayed alive. He was big, had an Irish temper, the red hair to match, and in addition to being a former Army Ranger, he’d been a boxer in college. Good guy to have on our side. Even the Prillons respected him, after he’d knocked one unconscious over a shit order that nearly got one of our team members killed last year. Luckily, Commander Karter, the head honcho in this sector of space, agreed with Lieutenant Collins. Case closed. No demotion. No court martial. Nothing.
The Prillons didn’t suffer much in the way of politics when it came to war. They weren’t like humans on Earth, starting warsto justify massive taxes and corporate weapon development. This war with the Hive was about basic survival of every species, on every world in the Interstellar Coalition of Planets. If we lost, entire civilizations would be conquered, captured and “integrated” into the Hive mind collective. These things were literally likeThe BorgfromStar Trek,only worse.
They were real. They weren’t clunky or slow. Their tech was centuries beyond what the television show had imagined, some of it microscopic, hidden inside a person’s cells.
“You’re welcome to join us, Lieutenant.” I glanced back the way we’d come. Six more unconscious fighters littered the floor in the corridors behind us. “We’ve got eight on the ground.”
“Eight?” For a ship this size, eight was a lot of guards on a single level. Apparently, that fact was not lost on Collins. “You two be careful. They’re guarding something.”
Henry met my gaze. Collins was right. The question was, what the hell did they have on this ship that was so important? “All eight are Soldier class. Prillons.”
“What are so many Soldiers doing on this ship?” Our commander, Captain Seth Mills, interrupted, barking at all of us through the comms. It was a rhetorical question. Hive Soldiers were their biggest, strongest fighters, normally reserved for fighting on the battlefield. “Begin your prisoner sweep. Medical teams have been dispatched. Two shuttles. Heads on a swivel. I don’t like this.”
“Roger that, Captain.” Henry held his pistols in ready position and motioned for me to follow. “Let’s go find out who’s been trying to get our attention.”
I needed to give our people one more heads up. “Make sure medical has extra-large tranqs, Captain. We think we have an Atlan Warlord up here.” God only knew how much tranquilizer our medical team would need to inject to get an angry Warlord off this ship. Depended how much pain he was in, howintegrated, if his mind was his, or if the Hive had broken him. Hopefully, he wasn’t in his beast form. Based on the banging and roaring we’d been hearing, I didn’t think he’d accepted the Hive mind control. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t literally rip our heads off our bodies the second we entered his confinement cell.
I’d once watched our medical teams give an enraged Atlan beast enough tranquilizer to take down an elephant, and it still hadn’t been enough. They’d been forced to give him enough to risk killing him, transported him out, and then rushed him to a ReGen pod just as the drugs stopped his heart.
“A Warlord?” Collin’s shocked tone made me grin. He was a tough one to rattle. “There are no Warlords on this ship. Our scans were thorough.”
“Don’t know what to tell you, sir.” Henry walked over to check the pulses of the two downed Prillon males ahead of us. “Tell medical to hurry. I don’t know how long all these Prillons will be out.”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“What the fuck was that?” Collins’s question wasn’t quite a shout.
“That would be our not-Atlan saying hello.”
“Funny, Bree.” Captain Mills sighed. “Medical is ten minutes out. Find the Warlord and see if he can be reasoned with.”
“Yes, sir.” I knelt next to Henry as we secured the two unconscious Prillons’ arms and ankles in cuffs specifically designed for the task. Six more integrated Prillon warriors wore identical restraints in the corridor we’d just left, scattered behind us like breadcrumbs we could use to find our way home. Medical would haul them all out and transport them to The Colony. The doctors there would take out as much of the Hive integration tech as they could, help them live out a normal life.
Once they were bagged and tagged, our job was done. Rehabilitation was not a skill I possessed. I didn’t have the patience. I’d rather take out the bastards who hurt our fighters than try to help wounded warriors heal. Healing was not my forte. Vengeance, on the other hand? Justice? I was a soldier, not a nurse. It had taken a few years, and dealing with a lot of self-hatred, but I’d finally made peace with myself out here, in the endless darkness of space. Fighting pure evil helped. There was no grey area when it came to the Hive. No politics. No confusing their motives. Kill or be killed made things real easy for me. Maybe the black and white attitude was a cop-out. Maybe I was running from my past, from my mistakes.
Didn’t matter. Not out here.
I stood over the two Prillon warriors and kicked at a pair of cuffs, confident they weren’t going anywhere, even if they did wake up. The Hive Integration Unit didn’t move, but I wasn’t taking any chances. He was a Hive original, one ofthem.There was nothing our doctors could remove from his body that would change him into anything but what he was, the enemy.
“You gonna get that?” Henry asked, staring at the unmoving form of the creature who had probably tortured and killed more Coalition fighters than I could count. Listened to them scream and beg for mercy.Enjoyed their suffering.
The thought made the backs of my eyes burn, my chest tighten, my throat swell until I struggled to swallow the swell of hatred that flooded every cell in my body. An unnaturally strong reaction? Yes. Did I fight the grief-fueled need for vengeance? No.
I took aim at the creature’s head and fired. At close range, the hole my shot burned through the Hive’s skull was the size of my palm. I could see the floor through the center of the monster’s cranium. Nothing would survive that. “You know I always double tap.”
“Amen.”
Double tap. My number one rule. The Hive were vicious, tough bastards. My first week in outer space, a Hive asshole I’d thought dead almost killed me. Rule number one was pretty much myonlyrule out here. Well, that and don’t date anyone on the team. When I’d needed some personal attention over the last two and a half years, there were plenty of willing fighters on Battleship Karter who knew the score. I didn’t want a relationship. That wasn’t why I volunteered to fight. I sure as hell didn’t need to worry about falling in love with someone who might die in my arms.
Once was more than enough.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
