It’s been a while since I did one of these, so I thought I’d share a quick excerpt from my current WIP. This one is from chapter 2, where Khalil Al-Marikh is introduced. He and Estee are the two major viewpoint characters of this book.
This excerpt hasn’t been edited yet, so any typos or other mistakes will be fixed before I publish the book.
Paradise Found
Lieutenant Khalil Ibn Yusef Al-Marikh tapped his earpiece with one hand and held onto his seat with the other as the lightly armored rover bounced on the uneven, rocky ground. His driver, Private Andre Cernovich, seemed to be in a great hurry to arrive without even knowing their destination. That, or Cernovich was simply joyriding.
“Sergeant Peters, this is Khalil. What do you have for me?”
“We’ve found what looks to be the scientists’ expedition compound two klicks out from the space elevator. Our heat sensors show that it’s inhabited. What do you want us to do?”
On the display screen just below the windshield, a green dot blinked to show the sergeant’s. Corporal Cernovich swerved and headed in that direction.
“Are they armed?” Khalil asked.
“Not from what we can tell. Though they may be armed with bows and arrows like those natives who shot at us on the way in.”
Khalil remembered the look on their shuttle pilot’s face as the arrows had clattered against the cockpit window. His men had proceeded through the brush with caution, though thankfully, the natives hadn’t shown up since.
“Hold your ground and wait for us to join you. We’re about five minutes out.”
“Copy, Kali. We’ll establish a perimeter and await your arrival.”
The connection cut out. Khalil focused his attention forward as the roar of the rover’s engines not quite managed to drown out the sound of the native wildlife. The ground, though rocky like his Martian homeworld, was covered in high grass and patches of thick brush. The mountains, which had appeared red from orbit, weren’t yet visible in the pre-dawn twilight.
There was no denying the alienness of this world. From the large double moons and the strange constellations to the thick, musty scent of the air, the inescapable sense of otherness seemed to permeate everything. It set Khalil on edge almost as much as Cernovich’s driving.
The rover hit an unusually large bump, and the resulting bounce nearly flung his gunner, Private Vance, into the air. A chorus of angry profanity was the predictable result.
“Dammit, Andre, you drive worse than my drunk grandma!”
“Stay frosty,” Khalil ordered, scanning the horizon with his heat sensors. The wheels of the rover cut through the grass like a hot knife through butter, and the dry, dusty air blasted Khalil’s face. The landscape was so full of life, it was difficult to tell which targets were harmless and which posed a potential threat.
As they rounded a large rocky outcropping, a swarm of enormous insects took to the air. Vance immediately opened fire. The crack of laser fire mingled with a shout of surprise, which gave way to whoops of victory as dozens of the bugs exploded in a shower of splattered guts.
“Hold your fire,” Khalil ordered. “It’s just the native wildlife.”
“Damn, Kali. Did you see the size of those things?”
“Get used to it, private.”
He glanced up at the trigger-happy teenage marine. Khalil was barely eighteen Terran years himself, which still put him ahead of most of the soldiers under his command. Any older, and the forty years of crysostasis they’d undertook to get here would have significantly reduced his probability of surviving the voyage. Even the main force, which was still on the outskirts of the system, was staffed almost exclusively by teenagers.
Unlike most of them, though, Khalil had never had the luxury of a childhood. His parents were refugees twice over: first from Iraq, and then from Earth. Khalil had never been to his family’s ancestral homeland, but he did have memories of their Syriac Orthodox Church in Los Angelos burning as the Sharia police looked on.
He drew a sharp breath and put such thoughts from his mind, refocusing on the mission.
“There, Cernovich,” he said, pointing to a spot on the map near Sergeant Peters’s current positon. “Drop us off there.”
“Got it.”
A few minutes later, Cernovich brought the rover to a stop behind a small hill. Khalil checked his rifle and dismounted with Vance and Cernovich. Tensions were high, but none of them said a word as they took up positions in the waist-deep grass and prepared to move out. Khalil checked his earpiece.
“Are you there, Lieutenant?”
Sergeant Peters’s voice sounded uncannily loud in Khalil’s ear, now that they’d left the rover. Even the buzzing of the native insects seemed quieter.
“We’re here, Peters. Where are the others?”
“Spread out to the east of the target, with a good overlook position on the right. Hold your position; we’ll come to you.”
“I copy.”
A few moments later, Sergeant Peters materialized from the shadows with Specialists Mikhailov and Martinek. Green and black streaks of face paint covered their faces, making effective camouflage in the high grass. Peters was the taller one.
“What have we got?” Khalil asked quietly.
“It’s the scientists, all right. The dome gives it away. Gilbert and Baier are in position on our right flanks, with Matheson on our left and Ahiga on the far side of the compound.”
“Good work,” Khalil praised his noncom. “Got a vantage point?”
“Right this way.”
He followed his sergeant into the high grass, switching his goggles from infrared to heat signatures. Almost immediately, he could make out the rest of the platoon. They had spread out over a distance of almost a hundred yards, some of them prone, others creeping forward.
Up ahead, on the other side of the rise, he made out structures. Most of them were made of clay and native mud, and still radiated traces of heat from the previous day. A couple of them were dome-shaped, though, and clearly not made from native material.
“How long have you been monitoring this compound?” Khalil asked quietly.
“Only since we arrived. Should we wait until daylight, or move in now?”
Khalil looked skyward, as if to seek out their eyes in orbit. If they’d deployed their probes first instead of sending out the marines, his men might have had advance notice of this compound. Then again, with a mysterious alien structure towering above what appeared to be an otherwise virgin planet, he couldn’t blame his superior officers for wanting to establish a beachhead first. Speed, not stealth, was their chief advantage now.
“Move in,” he said softly. Peters nodded and made a quick cutting motion with his hand. All around them, the marines moved quietly forward as they began to converge on the compound.
