Domination (A C.H.A.O.S. Novel) - By Jon Lewis Page 0,20

he was enjoying Jonas’s discomfort. “Her official name is Prototype A-F-6, but I call her Fang.”

“What’s she doing here?” Colt asked.

“She’s part of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Alien Extermination Initiative. She tracks ’em, we kill ’em.”

“Most aliens do not require tracking or killing, Cadet Pierce Bowen,” Glyph said.

“Whatever. You know what I meant.”

“That doesn’t make it any less offensive. Besides, the vom-eronasal organ in the roof of my mouth makes me eminently more qualified to track scents than the primitive canines on this planet—including your prototype.”

“Get off me!” Jonas shouted. Fang was standing on her hind legs and licking his face.

“Heel!” Pierce yanked on the dog’s collar and she walked over to stand next to him, but her eyes were locked on Jonas.

“She’s a beauty,” said a voice behind them.

They all turned to see a creature that looked like it was part Bigfoot and part robot walking toward them. At well over seven feet tall, its massive body was covered in fur the color of rust. It had broad shoulders, muscles like iron cables, and a second head made out of metal and bolted over its left shoulder. If that wasn’t strange enough, its left arm and right leg had been replaced by mechanical prosthetics, making it look like some kind of freak experiment gone bad.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Pierce said.

“Let’s hope she’s as good in the field as she was in those tests.”

“She will be, sir. Guaranteed.”

Lieutenant Lohr smiled, revealing a wicked set of incisors as his second robotic head turned to stare at the dog. The cadets went quiet. “All right,” he said. “By now most of you have heard that there was a second attack just outside of Philadelphia. Before you start asking questions, I’ll tell you what I know.

“At least one Hydra slipped through the portal, and there are conflicting reports that one and possibly two transports made it through as well. That means we have up to one thousand unwelcome guests causing havoc up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

“Local authorities did their best,” he continued, “but those six-armed lizards made it all the way to New Brunswick before soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division engaged them. They’ve managed to slow them down, but the fighting is still hot and heavy. Reinforcements are on their way from as far away as Fort Bragg and Shaw Air Force Base, but things are a little dicey at the moment.”

“Are we going to New Brunswick?” a cadet from Anvil Squad asked. He was strong, with black hair and matching eyes.

“Next time you interrupt me, Cadet Johnson, you’ll be on skid patrol.”

“Skid patrol, sir?”

“It means you’ll be scrubbing tighty whiteys by hand until your fingernails start to bleed. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jarrod Johnson on skid patrol? That would be hilarious,” Ethan said.

“You looking to join him?” Lieutenant Lohr asked.

Ethan gulped. “No, sir.”

“That’s what I thought.” Lohr turned back to the rest of the crowd, but his robotic head kept staring at Ethan. “Now, thanks to the stupidity of youth and those fancy battle suits, most of you think you’re invincible. But don’t fool yourselves. War is hell. Do you hear me? I can promise that the second one of those lizards comes charging at you, you’re going to want to ball up in a fetal position and call for your mamas, but there’s only one problem. Your mamas won’t be there to protect you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” a few of the cadets said in chorus.

“Again!”

“Yes, sir!” they all shouted.

“Better,” Lieutenant Lohr said. “Since most active duty military east of the Mississippi are on the front lines trying to stop those lizards from reaching New York City, we’ve been asked to pick up the slack. I need each squad leader front and center. The rest of you, sit tight. Your rides will be here any minute.”

: :

CHAPTER 13 : :

A Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter took Phantom Squad to Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant outside of Shippingport, Pennsylvania, where an engineer claimed he’d seen strange shapes emerge from the river near the plant. He said that one of them even scaled the Shippingport Bridge like a giant spider.

“That’s just about far enough,” a man wearing what looked like riot gear said. He was short and plump and had a thick mustache that had grown over his lip, and even though he wasn’t very intimidating, he was holding an assault rifle with a grenade launcher mounted under the barrel. So were the two men who stood behind him.

“We’re with the Department of Alien Affairs,” Colt