If All Else Fails (The Kurtherian Endgame - Out Of Time Book 2) by N.D. Roberts & Michael Anderle

If All Else Fails (The Kurtherian Endgame - Out Of Time Book 2) by N.D. Roberts & Michael Anderle

Author:N.D. Roberts & Michael Anderle [Roberts, N.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2019-12-04T22:00:00+00:00


Chapter Nine

Alexis closed the rear doors on the sleeping people and headed back into the cockpit of the ship, feeling like her soul had been soiled in some indescribable way.

Non-player characters or not, nothing about the activity she’d just partaken in made her feel like a good person. Not the terrified expressions on the faces of the ones too shocked to fight back, and definitely not that they’d been left with no choice but to use force on those who had been cognizant of the danger the team presented on their arrival in the town.

“We could have handled that better,” Gabriel agreed, feeling the same grubbiness deep inside he felt coming from his twin.

The town square was empty as they drove away, the remaining people having fled when they realized they had no chance against the fully-armored strangers who had appeared in a cloud of purple gas and taken their pick of the young and strong.

K’aia did what she could to comfort the others, despite her own feelings of ineptitude in the face of their inexperienced fumbling of the objective. “We don’t have to feel good about it. We just saved a bunch of lives. Doesn’t matter one bit that we did it by force.”

“Oh, it matters,” Trey countered. “It matters because we’re not heartless. I hope it never gets easier to bear than this because that will mean we’ve lost what makes us the good guys.”

That more than anything gave them solace as they worked their way through stopping points two and three. Two hours into the drive toward their final stop, the dash-comm beeped and SI Torrence’s concerned face replaced the route map.

“Stop where you are,” he instructed. “There’s been a development.”

Gabriel pulled over to the side of the road, and Gorrak halted the other ship beside them and opened the side window so they could all listen together.

SI Torrence’s voice had a strange quality to it, coming from both ships’ speaker systems at once. “Stay exactly where you are,” he told them. “The fighting has spilled over into this system. We’re pulling you out.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes at the unexpected news. “What do you mean, you’re pulling us out? Why?”

“The Seven have sent their soldiers down to the planet,” SI Torrence replied. “They know we’re here, and standard procedure is to abandon the mission and extract all specialists still on world.”

Alexis balked at the thought of leaving the people they hadn’t yet rescued to die at the hands—or tentacles—of whoever the Seven was using to hunt them. “Staff, we can fight them,” she told him. “This is what we’ve been training for.”

Gabriel nodded at the flickering holoscreen. “Yeah. It’ll sure as hell beat what we’ve been doing all day. Let us stay.”

“Please,” Trey finished for them all.

SI Torrence shook his head, his face set in firm lines. “Absolutely not. Even if you are capable of beating them, we’ve invested too much in your training. You’re too valuable to risk.”

“Screw that!” K’aia’s outburst was accompanied by exclamations of outrage from the rest of the unit.



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