Last Of The Nighthawks – Greg Dragon (1)

Was the ship in trouble, or had something happened to the message? Cilas went over the protocol to see who could have dropped the ball. The comms officer was Genevieve Aria, and though they had history, they remained friends. She would have eagerly passed it on to the CAG, Adan Viles. Cilas had never liked the man, not since graduating from the academy. Viles was the son of rich settlers that had property on Traxis, and Cilas believed that he bought his commission. Outside of talent like Helga Ate, Adan Cruser, and Kyden Ahmad, the space power of the Rendron was the weakest in the Alliance.

The infiltrator wings were developed because of this weakness, housing an elite group of pilots, each independent of Viles’ blundering. The Marines were exemplary only because their commander wasn’t Viles, but it was one of those things that only officers at his level had noticed. Now that he thought about it, Cilas began to wonder. If Viles had somehow forgotten to send them help—he closed his eyes and bit his fist.

“Thype me,” he whispered. “Thyping Viles.” He didn’t have a personal grudge against the man, and had only ever done what he was ordered to do. If Viles meant to keep them out here alone, it would have little to do with how he felt about them. So it made no sense to speculate on his actions. The CAG would have sent the message up to Retzo Sho. Would the captain leave them stranded?

Brise Sol seemed to think that he would. But Cilas had broken bread with his leader on many occasions. Sho was beyond proud of the work that they did. This meant that the message had to have been intercepted or lost. “I need to send another SOS,” he said, looking around at the equipment. “Can’t do it from here, though; there’s no FTL communication.”

He sighed and ran his hand through his thick crop of black hair, annoyed at how much it had grown. He liked to keep it high and tight, but now it just looked like a mess. There were no shears on the ship, and nothing remotely close to a pair of scissors. Weapons, he thought suddenly, remembering the predicament that they were in. If they got boarded by whomever was tracking them, they would need something with which to fight.

The auto rifles and starguns they had brought with them to Dyn were still in that crater along with the bodies of his men. Maybe I should have listened to Ate, he thought, regretting their situation. We would be down on the surface, with shelter, weapons, and supplies.

Plus we’d have Cage and the guys to take back to the Rendron for a burial. He marveled at how smart the young recruit had been, and he chided himself for being so trusting of Amatu.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recorded or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. Cover Art by Tom Edwards For more books by the author GregDragon.com OceanofPDF.com 1 Helga Ate kept her body steady by gripping the sides of the bench while she used her upper back as a form of anchor.

This was not what she expected after receiving a formal invitation to the glorious Nighthawks, the first Special Forces squad on the battleship, Rendron, and third in the galactic Alliance military. Two spacemen worked at pulling on her second layer of protective gear but it didn’t help that it was a size too small. Though she was small in frame, the Rendron’s outfitters couldn’t find a 3B XO-suit in her size. “May I suggest a diet, Ate?” said the man on her right leg, an E-4 named Adan Cruser who she knew from the academy.

She made a face at him, something between amusement and frustration, but they made progress and suddenly she was up to her waist in an ill-fitting pressure suit. “See Cruse, you got it,” she said, exhaling, as if from some relief. “Here you had me worried that I’d have to cut back on that delicious protein paste.”

“First time?” said the other man, who didn’t seem amused by her joke. “Hey, you have your hands on my legs and that’s what you choose to ask me?” she said, forcing her face into a scowl. “I’m ready enough, if you perverts could just get me into this suit—sheesh! I can’t believe that they don’t have a size smaller than a three.” “You may want to take this serious, ma’am,” the man said, unamused by her humor. “You’re about to fight real lizards, not simulated ones on our machines.

I don’t know if they told you this, but women your size don’t make it back too often.” Cruser shot him an angry look. They were up to her torso now, strapping her in, and Helga saw him mouth a string of expletives at the giant. “Don’t mind Nanda, Ate. He’s just giving you schtill. Plenty of our women do fine—just like the men. Even the tiny ones.” When he said tiny, his eyes shot up to Nanda, who she swore looked frightened of the shorter man.

Though she didn’t like it, Helga still had to wonder about Nanda’s words. He didn’t say much, and it had taken all this time for her to catch his name. Experience told her that the quiet ones were always the most sincere, and he really didn’t have to volunteer that information. When she was strapped in, they backed away, and she looked down at herself and then up at Cruser.

It was all so tight that her skin was screaming, and she struggled against demanding that they pull the thing off. “It’s okay,” he said, as if he could read her mind.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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• Title: –
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• Pages: 258
• Language: English (en)

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• Total Words: 97,978
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