Scorpio by Marko Kloos EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Marko Kloos
- Language: English
- Genre: War & Military Action Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2.2 MB
- Price: Free
Lanky-occupied colony planet, 18 Scorpii system
46.1 light-years from Earth
17NOV2124, 0000h Standard Colonial Time
Eight years, three months, and eleven days since the Lanky invasion
At the precise moment when Alex officially turns twenty-one years old, she
is sitting in the back of a Spaceborne Infantry mule that’s rolling across the
gravel fields of the southern plateau, three hundred kilometers from home.
She touches her wrist computer to turn off the vibration alarm she had
set for 0000 hours. It’s an arbitrary marker, of course—she knows she was
born at 0447 Standard Colonial Time, not at the stroke of midnight—but the
law says that midnight marks the transition. And according to the law, she’s
a full-fledged colonial citizen now, with all the rights and responsibilities of
that status.
Happy birthday to me, she thinks. Wish you could be here, Mom and
Dad.
Alex looks around in the mission module of the mule. The armored
eight-wheeler is a military machine and not designed for comfort. There are
only four people in here with her, sharing a space that can hold a dozen SI
troopers in battle armor, so there’s room for them to spread out a little.
Private Lopez is sleeping on the other side of the module, stretched out over
four seats that he turned into a makeshift bunk with an insulated mat and a
sleeping bag.
Sergeant Frye is sitting in his seat in the space between the
troop compartment and the cockpit, scanning the displays in front of him
with bleary eyes and sipping from a plastic cup of long-cold instant coffee.
Up front behind the forward armor bulkhead, Private Harris is driving the
mule, leading their little two-vehicle column south at fifty klicks per hour.
To the rear, a colonial all-terrain cargo tractor is following a few hundred
meters behind, close enough to stay under the protection of the military
transport’s gun turret but far enough to get to safety if the mule runs into
trouble.
Ash, who is curled up by Alex’s feet, stirs from his snooze and looks
up at her with dark, soulful eyes.
“Good boy,” she says softly and rubs the top of the dog’s head. Ash
settles back down with a content little grunt. The black shepherd is the
reason she’s riding in the military vehicle instead of back in the tractor with
the other civilian colonists on this expedition.
He’s small for his breed, the
runt of his litter, and he’s useless as a regular military dog because there
isn’t a gram of distrust or aggression in him. But out of the three dogs the
colony has left, he’s the best at sensing approaching Lankies. Ash is a
biological early-warning system that works even in poor visibility, and he
has never failed to detect a Lanky coming their way.
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