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

One vampire leapt from his spot in the plaza and flew through the air as if he had been lifted by an invisible wire. His legs bent in a way that enhanced the perception that he was more beast than man—hands up, fingers spread, claws flashing in the ambient firelight that surrounded them. He landed on the stage two meters from Maya, who stumbled backward a step, falling into an instinctual defensive stance, like a mouse when cornered by a cat.

He roared his rage at her, revealing his cuspidate fangs, and made a small dip backward before springing toward her, like the pulling of a slingshot.

Maya yelped and flinched, her petite hands rising to shield her face and neck from the coming assault. She felt a wet spray across her face and the rush of wind across her neck. When she heard the sonic boom catch up with the slug, she opened her eyes and saw her assailant separated into a half-dozen pieces that now lay spread across the stage and had already begun the slow but sure process of growing themselves back together. She thanked Carbine in her mind and rushed forward, flipping her back foot out and connecting it with a large chunk of the vampire’s head, sending it flying out into the plaza.

There would be more where he came from, and in short order. Maya found her resolve and began to sing again.

Hurry, Jon.

19

Jon heard the sonic boom a second after he let go of his hammer and watched it crash into the sentry’s chest. The blow lifted the man up off his feet and sent him crashing through the support post that he had been leaning against the moment before he spotted Jon throwing his colleague to his death.

Whoa. I still don’t know my own strength. Better rein it in a bit. I almost sent that guy flying. Don’t want to alert everyone.

Worried that he had been spotted, Jon ducked and spun around, half expecting the fourth guard to be training his rifle sights on him and half expecting the man to be no more. The latter expectation proved to be true.

Good job, Carbine.

Many things had changed over the last month, but Carbine's sharpshooting skill was not one of them. Jon turned back around and retrieved his hammer from the man he had smitten, then glanced up at the hillside and threw a nod and a salute in Carbine’s general direction before hopping off the landing to the city below.

He landed on the ground with a thud, kicking up a cloud of dust and surprising the hell out of a human passing by. The man froze and stared at Jon blankly. Jon rose out of his squat and chambered his hammer for a swing.

“Friend or foe?” Jon asked in the common language of Home.

The man, dressed in simple farmer’s clothes worn nearly bare, only blinked. In the background, Jon could hear screaming and hollering coming from the city square as well as the broken beat of the repeated but random sonic booms issuing forth from Carbine’s railgun. There was no time to waste; Jon repeated his question in different words.

“Look, I’m here to liberate you. I’m a friend.” Then, taking one hand off the hammer’s handle and placing it on his armor-clad chest, “Me amigo.” The man said nothing, nor moved at all. Frustrated with the language barrier, Jon rolled his eyes, then turned to go, leaving the dumbstruck citizen behind and making his way to the palace.

Jon heard the crack of a small-arms pistol, then felt first its impact, and second the wave of disappointment.

The bullet that struck him between the shoulder blades was the last thing he had expected from a slave he was working so hard to free.

Jon turned and frowned at the man, who held a pre-Storm 9mm pistol in his shaking hands.

Sheesh. Old-gen pistol like that has no chance of penetrating my armor. I should count myself lucky that this guy’s knowledge of armor and ballistics are about as simple as his wardrobe.

Upon seeing Jon’s display of invincibility, the man dropped his tiny pistol and ran. Jon let him go, shaking his head and giving thanks that he hadn’t been forced to kill another human. He was here to slay vampires and free the humans, and meeting violent resistance from humans who had pledged their service to the very power that oppressed them made his job morally difficult. Revolution was dirty, ugly work.

Jon watched the man disappear and then checked his surroundings for threats and opportunities. There, hanging on a clothesline that stretched across a bleak commons area in the center of an assembly of rough, poorly built adobe hovels, came a great opportunity in the form of laundry.

Jon snatched the poncho off the line and quickly donned it. Despite the chaos that had erupted across the city, he was a gringo and would stand out; he needed every edge he could get. Jon secured his hammer under the folds of his new garb and peered across the darkened skyline of the city.

Even from his location at street level, he could see the tip of the palace jutting up into the starry night, its smooth, blocky surfaces periodically flashing reflections of the sunbeams dancing below in the central plaza. Jon began to dash through the streets toward the palace and what was hidden deep inside it, glancing left and right as he went.

Every three or four strides, he could hear the sonic report of Carbine’s railgun, and he hoped that Maya was faring well. The closer he got to the palace and the city square, the more crowded and chaotic the scene became. Here, a small pack of vampires fled from the center, some screaming, others cursing, all running straight past Jon without so much as a glance; there, a vampire made of sterner stuff was organizing a counterattack party of human loyalists. Coming or going, all