Read Finn: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Hell Squad Book 10) Online
Authors: Anna Hackett
Finn: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Hell Squad Book 10)
Hell Squad: Finn
Anna Hackett
Finn
Published by Anna Hackett
Copyright 2016 by Anna Hackett
Cover by Melody Simmons of
eBookindiecovers
Edits by
Tanya Saari
ISBN: 978-1-925539-01-1
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events or places is coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form.
Contents
What readers are saying about Anna’s Science Fiction Romance
What readers are saying about Anna’s Science Fiction Romance
At Star’s End – One of Library Journal's Best E-Original Romances for 2014
Return to Dark Earth – One of Library Journal's Best E-Original Books for 2015 and two-time SFR Galaxy Awards winner
The Phoenix Adventures – SFR Galaxy Award Winner for Most Fun New Series and “Why Isn’t This a Movie?” Series
Beneath a Trojan Moon – SFR Galaxy Award Winner and RWAus Ella Award Winner
Hell Squad – Amazon Bestselling Science Fiction Romance Series and SFR Galaxy Award for best Post-Apocalypse for Readers who don’t like Post-Apocalypse
The Anomaly Series – #1 Amazon Action Adventure Romance Bestseller
"Like Indiana Jones meets Star Wars. A treasure hunt with a steamy romance." – SFF Dragon, review of
Among Galactic Ruins
"Strap in, enjoy the heat of romance and the daring of this group of space travellers!" – Di, Top 500 Amazon Reviewer, review of
At Star’s End
“High action and adventure surrounding an impossible treasure hunt kept me reading until late in the night.” – Jen, That’s What I’m Talking About, review of
Beyond Galaxy’s Edge
“Action, danger, aliens, romance – yup, it’s another great book from Anna Hackett!” – Book Gannet Reviews, review of
Hell Squad: Marcus
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Chapter One
“Finn, get your ass down here!”
Finn Erickson heard Marcus Steele’s gravelly voice across the comm line. Finn fired at the alien vehicle on the ground below, and then pulled his Hawk quadcopter into a tight turn. Below, he saw Hell Squad and its leader, Marcus, battling a large raptor patrol. Even though the humans were clad in black carbon fiber armor, they still looked small compared to the giant humanoid aliens.
“I’m coming,” Finn said.
“Make it quick,” Marcus growled. “Gabe’s bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Finn touched the controls again, his Hawk responding in an instant. He spotted the big form of Gabe Jackson. The man was fighting with a brutal ruthlessness. He didn’t look injured, but Finn expected that as long as he was breathing, a man like Gabe would keep fighting.
Hell Squad had been fighting since the day the aliens had invaded. Finn knew the tough group of soldiers wouldn’t stop until the Gizzida were gone.
If they were ever gone.
Finn fired again at another big, ugly, squat alien vehicle. Then he spotted a good place to land, and started his descent.
He didn’t touch the skids to the ground. It was too hot. Instead, he hovered just above the grass. “Make it quick, Marcus.”
Ahead, in the distance, he saw more alien vehicles bumping over the now twisted and overgrown patch of road.
Damn, they just keep coming.
It had been almost two years since the world as they knew it had ended. The Gizzida—dinosaur-like aliens—had arrived out of the blue, in their giant ships. They’d wanted the Earth’s resources. The biggest one being humans themselves.
The side door of the Hawk was yanked open. Finn looked back, and saw Hell Squad jumping aboard.
“Finn?” A sweet, feminine voice sounded from his comm panel. “Drone feed is showing incoming pteros.”
Elle Milton was the comms officer for Hell Squad, not to mention, Marcus’ fiancée.
“I see them, Elle.” Finn tapped the screen on his control panel and saw the dots zooming in from the north. He yelled back over his shoulder, “Strap in!”
He sent the Hawk upward at high velocity. He heard a
thump
from the back, and then cursing.
“We have incoming pteros. A lot of them. I need someone on the autocannon.”
The alien ships were close enough now that Finn could make out the distinctive pterosaur shape. Large, fixed wings sharpened to a pointed cockpit at the front, along with a long, tail-like back end.
His hands danced over the controls, his Hawk responding instantly. As the raptor ships started firing their deadly poison ammunition, Finn threw the quadcopter into evasive maneuvers.
Flying had been his obsession since he was a boy growing up in Norway. It didn’t matter if he was under fire from aliens, or just out for a scenic glide. He loved it.
He heard the autocannon in the back returning fire.
He guessed it was Shaw Baird, Hell Squad’s sniper. The guy had a magic touch with any weapon and a hell of an aim.
As they raced across the sky, Finn tried to anticipate the pteros movements, guess where Shaw needed him to be. With some fancy flying, he got Shaw in position twice to take down the alien ships. Finn watched with a satisfied smile as the pteros hit the ground and exploded into balls of flames.
Soon, the remaining pteros turned back, and they were free.
Finn leveled out the quadcopter and turned them toward home base. The Enclave.
The secret human hideaway was built in an old underground coal mine south of Sydney—the former capital of the United Coalition of Countries. The Enclave hadn’t been their home for very long. They’d barely been there a month. Their previous base—an old military installation in the Blue Mountains to the west—had been attacked by the aliens. It had sent the Blue Mountain Base survivors on a wild race out of the mountains to find sanctuary. Thankfully, the Enclave had taken them in.
Finn liked the place. It’d been specially designed for the purpose of safely housing people, and was way more luxurious than the retrofitted base in the mountains had been. And, although it had taken a little time, the people of the Enclave were finally warming up to the Blue Mountain Base survivors.
Together, they were stronger. Together, they had a far better chance of driving the Gizzida away.
Finn raised his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, turbulence has ended. Enjoy the rest of your flight, and thanks for choosing to fly with Erickson Air.”
“Can it, Finn.”
Finn grinned to himself. The accented voice belonged to Cruz Ramos, Hell Squad’s second-in-command.
“Lousy service, though. Where are my drinks and complimentary peanuts?”
That cocky voice belonged to Shaw.
So much had changed in the last two years. Finn had been part of the Coalition Air Force before the invasion, and while he’d flown some combat missions, it had been nothing like what he was doing now. Now, he flew Hell Squad around—the toughest squad that they had. And that was both a privilege and an honor.
Since the invasion, he’d seen too many friends and colleagues die. He had no idea about his family. Pain speared through him briefly, like raptor poison to his chest. His mother, father, and siblings lived in Norway, and to this day, he had no way of knowing what had happened to them. He’d heard Norway had been bombed…but the limited communication they’d had in the early days had been unreliable. And since then, the aliens had found a way to block it.
Finn took a deep breath. He liked to believe that his family was still in their village, way up in the north. Safe.
Soon, the site of the Enclave came into view. From the air, there was nothing to indicate that thousands of survivors were living below the surface. It was all overgrown, rolling hills, the rotted remains of some old coal mines, and the broken ruins of some abandoned towns.
He slowed the Hawk and brought it to a stop, hovering in the air. He reversed the rotors and started lowering. On the control screen, he saw the ground beneath the Hawk open up. The doors of the hangar were opening, creating a gaping hole in the ground.
Soon, the Hawk’s skids touched concrete. He powered down the engines, undid his straps, and left the cockpit.
The blood-spattered Hell Squad started to leave the Hawk. He slapped Cruz and Shaw on the back. The men lifted their chins in response.
As Marcus argued with a silent Gabe about heading to the infirmary, Finn watched Shaw toss an arm around Hell Squad’s lone female soldier, Claudia Frost. Somehow, Shaw had convinced the deadly, dark-haired woman to take a chance on him. The two were crazy in love, and the sight of them made Finn grin.
While Hell Squad’s job was over, Finn’s wasn’t. He had to take care of the love of his life. He circled his Hawk slowly, running through the mental checklist of things he needed to inspect.
In the air, she was hidden by a state-of-the-art illusion system that blurred her visually, and made her near-invisible on raptor scans. She ran on a small thermonuclear engine, and with her four rotors shrouded, she was virtually silent.
He moved around to the front of the Hawk, and gave the metal an affectionate pat. “Good job today, baby.”
Then he frowned, noting a small patch of what looked like melted metal. Raptor poison must have touched it. He made a mental note to get maintenance to check it out. The damn stuff could burn through anything. Luckily, this looked like a tiny, manageable spot. They only had a limited fleet of Hawks left, and they couldn’t afford to lose another. He’d already had the displeasure of crashing one.
He heard footsteps crossing the hangar, in a familiar, crisp, purposeful rhythm. Finn turned his head, and zeroed in on a redheaded woman heading to the office area.
His mouth went dry. Lia Murphy didn’t look his way—probably on purpose—so he took his time to study her.
The head of the drone team—the tiny quadcopters they used to gather their intel and spy on the aliens—was of average height, but that’s where average ended. She had red hair—not a vibrant wine-red, but a softer red that made Finn think of sunsets. She had a downright beautiful face, and the creamiest skin that Finn had ever seen. She was slender, but there was no missing the full breasts and the gentle curves under her clothes.
She was also annoying, opinionated, and not to mention a hell of a kisser.
For a second, Finn was tossed back to that adrenaline-fueled moment that took place on his Hawk on a previous mission two weeks ago. Hovering over an alien warship, having just taken out the drone killer that had been attacking their drones, Lia had kissed the hell out of him.
“Erickson? Erickson?”
Finn blinked and focused on a stocky, older man in baggy coveralls standing in front of him.
“You want your baby fueled?” the man asked.
“Ahh, sorry. Yes, sure thing, Keith.”
The old man shot him a strange look and ambled off, and Finn shook his head, trying to focus. He had work to do. He shouldn’t be thinking of luscious redheads, no matter how beautiful they might be. He patted the side of his Hawk again. She was the only woman he needed. She didn’t argue with him, she didn’t twist him up in knots, and she always did as he asked. That was everything he needed.