Hostile Genus: An Epic Military Sci-Fi Series (Invasive Species Book 2) Ben Stevens (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

Maya’s tone betrayed her feelings—worry, fear, the need for haste. She leaned forward in her chair, her round eyes wide with apprehension.

Lucy reached the front of the cabin, where Ratt remained strapped into the pilot’s seat, Jon floating nearby. She pulled herself into position, straddling Ratt’s lap, and began to examine what was left of the controls.

Jon frowned, struggling to comprehend Maya’s explanation. Before he could inquire further, the ship lurched once more, and a sound like a torrent of hail on a metal roof filled the cabin. Maya, Jon, and Carbine all flinched. Only Lucy retained her calm demeanor, flicking her eyes toward the window for a second before resuming her examination of the control panel.

“What now?” Carbine said, his tone betraying exhausted annoyance.

Jon looked around the cabin in a vain attempt to track the source of the noise, but it seemed to come from all sides at once: the ominous crashing of a thousand fists knocking into the ship. Gooseflesh rippled across Jon’s skin as he looked out into the smoky silt-storm. Shapes of half-men coalesced out of nothing, screaming their rage and beating on the hull before melting back into smoke-stuff.

“They know we are here. Lucy, can you turn the ship around? The Drop might still be open!” The urgency in Maya’s voice made Jon feel impotent.

“No, my lady, the systems aren’t responding. I am attempting to repair now, or at least reboot the system off my own fusion unit,” Lucy shouted back over the bang, bang, tap that was growing in intensity.

Dammit! Jon continued to glance around the cabin, frantically looking for something, anything he could do to help. Useless.

“What do they want, Maya?” he asked.

“They want us gone, Jon.”

Bang! The ship lurched.

“They are a defense mechanism.”

Bang! Bang! The ship lurched again.

“They are to this bardo, this place, this…”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

When the ship rocked this time, Jon could hear the ship’s frame twisting and groaning under some intense pressure. The hairs on his neck stood at attention as straight as any New Breed soldier ever did.

“They are to this no-place like white blood cells are to your body!”

Bang! Groan! Bang! The sudden shriek of crumpling metal was deafening.

Jon, still listening to Maya and the tumultuous storm of ghost-fists, snapped his head in the direction of the nearest wall, and in shocked awe watched it buckle and collapse inwards as if it were being crushed from the outside in the fist of an enormous Heavy Mech.

Just as quickly, he turned his stare back to Maya.

“They know we’re here! And we are the foreign body!” She closed her eyes, centering herself. A moment later, she began to sing softly to herself.

Come on! Come and get some! Jon pushed off the wall to shoot across the cabin toward the stairwell. As he passed Carbine, he noticed his friend was loading a magazine into a Lawnmower rifle, retrieved from its storage place beneath the seat. Jon didn’t stop his drift or even look back, but hollered back to Carbine as he floated on, “No shooting, bud! Melee weapons only!”

He pushed and pulled his way through the zero-gravity environment with the ease of a seasoned astronaut, though he lacked the grace. This ability was not born from any training, experience, or even natural talent. His ability to get from the cabin to the cargo bay with such speed was simply the result of his serum-heightened reflexes and his body’s newfound ability to take quite a punishment, enhanced by a full-blown, panic-induced adrenaline rush. Jon nearly bent the last rail he pull-pushed off of. He bounced and smacked his way down the corridor, leaving a trail of dents in his wake. He felt zero pain. Nothing slowed him down or even caused him to blink, but he was far too preoccupied with the events of the next few minutes to appreciate his new stamina.

The spaciousness of the cargo hold amplified the horrific shrieks of the buckling ship’s structure. Focused as he was, Jon didn’t pause to look around or stop. He shot straight for the locker he knew contained his hammer and armor. Maybe, just maybe, he could don his armor and helmet, go out the airlock, and ward off these white-blood-cell bastards.

No sooner had he had finished the thought, he stopped as suddenly as if he had impaled himself on an enemy spear or invasive beast’s horn. His heart and hopes sank.

There is no airlock. There is just the door…

His carefully aimed last push and drift had brought him to his destination, and he collided with the locker with surprising force, smashing the door partway in.

If I open the door, all our air will leak out into the vacuum. And if I do nothing, then the creatures will break through, and all our air will go out into the vacuum anyway. If only there weren’t a vacuum!

Jon punched the locker in frustration, his knuckles nearly breaking through it. He pulled back a fist and went to swing again.

What if there isn’t a vacuum? The thought came from somewhere, he knew not where, but it made sense. Did he actually know that this bardo, this no-place, was a vacuum? Yes, they were floating in what seemed to be zero-gravity, but did that have to mean zero-atmosphere?

Not necessarily! There was still hope, no matter how slight. With that thought, his fist relaxed, and he began to savagely rip and tear open the defunct locker door. A large chunk came off its hinge in Jon’s hand. Without looking, he tossed it over his shoulder and reached inside the locker to withdraw his hammer, its stars glowing in all their might and glory. He would protect the goddess or die trying.

When he returned to the cabin, he could see that it had further crumpled in on itself and continued to collapse with every passing second. Carbine had pulled a knife, his other hand gripping his chair, waiting and ready to push off in whatever direction he and