Chapter 1 Adam

  Patience is a virtue – William Langland.

  Not that Sergeant Pierce cared. Mad grin stretched over his face, he fondled his rifle like a loved one as we bounced down the dust-choked road. “Whaddya think it is, Cap’n? I reckon Egyptians. The Ancient ones, though. Animal heads and all that stuff.”

  Used to his constant twitter of bullshit, Captain Brooks didn’t even blink at the question, which left Private Morris to offer a measured reply.

  “We’re in the Middle East, you twat. How’s it gonna be Egyptians?” He hawked and spat through the gap in the canvas cover, then flashed a grin of his own. “And it’s obviously gonna be aliens. Only thing that makes any sense.”

  “Sense?” Pierce laughed. “It’s hotter than Satan’s arsehole after a chicken Phaal. Why would an alien want to come to this shithole?”

  Morris tapped his temple like he was privy to some great secret. “Experiments.”

  Pierce cracked his neck, then took one hand off his rifle to scratch at his crotch. “Whatever it is, I’m just ready to kill something. Two months of base life with my dick in my hand? I’m losing it.”

  This was my first tour, my first real action, and I was regretting joining up purely on the basis of having to deal with these two idiots. I shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench, which was a huge mistake. The movement put me in Pierce’s sights, and his eyes gleamed with mischief.

  “You looking forward to this, Rocky? Don’t forget to use your gun, eh? Fists won’t do shit out here.”

  “I’ll try to remember,” I replied as deadpan as I could, hoping my short answer would put an end to it.

  “Dunno why you’re out here anyways. Shoulda stuck with the boxing. By all accounts, you’re as good as your brother, just without the crazy.”

  The mention of my brother landed like a sucker-punch. Unexpected and sickening. A small part of me wanted to dive over the truck and pummel him. Granted, he was a mean-looking son-of-a-bitch, heavy shouldered, ham-fisted, with a scar down his jaw that completed the fearsome look. None of that bothered me, but I smothered the whisper of violence all the same and turned away to stare out across the barren desert.

  Pearce laughed like he’d told a joke, and Morris joined in, the pair of them braying like donkeys. I didn’t need this shit, but I expected it. Earl’s shadow followed me everywhere.

  The captain’s radio crackled to life with orders. The words cut through the tense laughter. “ETA to drop-off: one minute. Four more squads en route to assist.

  “Your mission is to facilitate extraction with covering fire only. Do not get pinned down. Repeat, do not get pinned down. A secondary defensive perimeter is being set up one mile out. If things get too hot, retreat and reform there. Over.”

  Brooks grunted, then thumbed the radio button with the kind of disgust reserved for a vending machine that swallows your money without giving up the goods. “Casualties so far? Over.”

  There was a pause. It was hard to tell over the radio in the back of a noisy truck, but I had the sense that the speaker was building up to delivering bad news.

  “Currently, all thirty scientists at the site were killed outright when the Anomaly opened. Eighteen soldiers are down. Condition unknown. A further eleven have been captured.”

  I didn’t think Brooks’ brow could furrow any deeper until that moment.

  “Anomaly?” he snapped. “What the hell are we facing?”

  “Unclear, Captain. The enemy are using some kind of energy weapon that we will need to study, but… for now, focus on defense and extraction. Over.”

  With a grimace, he shoved the radio back into its pouch and scanned the truck. The silence that followed was heavy. “You all heard that bullshit. None of it matters. All that matters is that you stay calm and follow orders.”

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  He jabbed a finger at me and then two others in quick succession. “Henshaw, Morris, Forta—you’re Alpha team. You go first. Get to cover when we arrive. We’ll cover you from the truck. Pierce, Stanton, Barnes—you’re Beta. Once they’re in position, you move.”

  It was as if I was listening from a great distance. All I could think about was how much I needed to piss and how much of a bad idea joining the army was.

  The truck swerved hard, jolting me from my own thoughts. The moment had come.

  Brooks tore the canvas open and barked out like a neglected bullmastiff, “GO, GO, GO!”

  My mind blanked, but my legs moved of their own volition. Thank god they knew what they were doing as they carried me over the edge and set off running at full speed toward the ruins ahead. Sand-colored walls were barely visible against the backdrop of endless desert.

  I hit the first low wall hard, beating Morris and Forta by a few seconds.

  “Let’s hope you shoot as well as you run,” Morris said, breath ragged, dropping to a knee and raising his rifle.

  “No one’s fired on us,” Forta added, mirroring the position Morris took on my other side.

  I clambered up and raised my rifle just in time to welcome the rest of our squad. As they settled against the wall to our right, all I could hear was distant rifle fire and Pierce’s damn voice.

  “Anyone spot any Ancient Egyptians yet?”

  Captain Brooks’ gravelly voice followed as he arrived at the wall, dropping into position with the grace of an old predator. “We’re still three hundred yards out from the site.” He pointed over to where the sparse ruins increased in height and number. “Alpha team, push to the next section. Sixty yards. Go.”

  This time, I waited a beat for Morris and Forta to get moving before I followed, matching their pace.

  Perspective is a funny thing. Exposed, and with the dusty ground seeming to suck at every step like quick sand, that sixty-yard dash felt like one of the longest runs I’d ever done.

  Sweat streamed from under my helmet, stinging my eyes. It was all I could do just to keep them open as I scanned for danger, but a sudden gust of hot wind swept grit up into our faces, and my resolve broke as I blinked to clear them.

  When my vision returned, panic struck. Figures were up ahead.

  On instinct, I dove to my left, screaming, “Get d—!” My warning to the others was cut short as I thumped into the rocky ground.

  “Down!” I screamed again, before rolling to a pile of rubble for some meagre cover.

  Gunfire from behind us told Forta and Moris what I couldn’t: the enemy was here.

  Kicking at the ground, I scrambled into a better position, lining up my rifle to join the fight. Finger on trigger, I froze for a moment as I looked down the sight.

  Like some high-budget, fantasy horror movie come to life, two hulking, black-armored figures with horned helmets trudged toward us. Both carried shields, one brandished a huge sword, the other a spiked mace.

  Their armor gleamed like crude oil, impossibly dark yet catching the firelight of exploding rounds. They moved with an unflinching, remorseless calm that made my blood run cold.

  “It’s not fucking hurting them!” Forta shouted. He was only a few feet ahead of me, but his voice was barely audible through the sounds of chaos.

  For some reason, his words prompted me to action, and I finally fired. My chest tightened in despair as my bullets sparked uselessly off their shields.

  These definitely weren’t cosplayers. This wasn’t an elaborate nightmare. This was real, and something was very wrong.

  The air grew heavier with every step they took, as if the world itself was caving in around them. I forced myself to reload, hands trembling, yet I still risked a glance back to the rest of our team. Relief surged like that first swallow of cold beer after a long, hot day. The captain was waving like a madman, beckoning us back.

  “We’re retreating!” I shouted, motioning to Forta and Morris.

  Forta wasted no time in shuffling back toward me, but Morris was still firing wildly. Forta shouted after him, but the words couldn’t reach.

  I sure as shit wasn’t going closer to let him know, so I fired a shot just past his leg and into the ground in front of him

  His head snapped back toward me, eyes wide with shock and anger. Finally, he registered the retreat and scurried back to our position. The moment he reached us, we all set off running, the rest of our squad an oasis in this hellhole.

  With half the distance covered, a heavy thud to my right caused the ground to tremble. Barely keeping my footing, I still managed a glance over my shoulder, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  Morris didn’t scream. Didn’t even register fear. In a single, sickeningly precise stroke of a giant sword, his head simply left his shoulders to spin off in a twirling spray of crimson.

  My mind reeled, trying to make sense of the impossible. How had that thing covered the distance to us so fast? How was it so big? How…

  My instincts screamed, and once again, I dove to the side. Better to move and look an idiot than stay still and end up cut in half.

  It was the right decision. The massive blade thunked into the ground where I’d just been, sending up a plume of dirt rather than my blood.

  A close-up look of the monster didn’t improve my opinion. Its agility was unreal, its armor silent and offered no hindrance to its speed or movement.

  I rolled again, barely dodging the spiked boot that followed up its attack, but not the painful truth that Forta was nothing more than a bloody stain in the sand.

  The mace wielder that crushed him was already heading toward the rest of our squad at speed. And selfish though it may be, my first thought was that it was one less problem for me to deal with.

  My second thought was to move and keep moving. Every step my attacker took shook the earth. Every swing of its sword whistled through the air with merciless precision and a promise of death.

  To stop moving was to die.