by A. G. Taylor
ALIEN
STORM
“Hey, look, it’s been great,” the biker stammered. “But me and my crew didn’t sign up to fight a war…”
Bright held up his hand, palm forward, fingers splayed. “Then you should go.”
There was a dull thud as the biker exploded in a puff of red-tinted mist. Eco wrinkled his nose at the burning smell that had filled the air. Without its rider, the Harley toppled over onto its side. A scrap of the biker’s leather jacket floated through the air and landed on the rear wheel. The other two bikers jumped off their machines and stumbled backwards, away from the major and Eco.
“Does anyone else want to disappear?” Bright asked mildly.
About the Author
A.G. TAYLOR was born in New Zealand and grew up in East Anglia. He studied English Literature at Sheffield University and teaching at Cambridge. For the last ten years he has worked as a teacher in England, South Korea, Poland and Australia. He currently lives in Melbourne with his partner, her whippet, his Italian greyhound and numerous computer games consoles.
ALIEN
STORM
A.G. TAYLOR
For my parents
First published in the UK in 2010 by Usborne Publishing Ltd., Usborne House, 83-85
Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8RT, England. www.usborne.com
epub edition © 2010
Copyright © A.G. Taylor, 2010
The right of A.G. Taylor to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
The name Usborne and the devices are Trade Marks of Usborne Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or used in any way except as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or loaned or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. This is a work of fiction.
The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781409532033
Batch no. 02287-2
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Book 3: Enemy Invasion Prologue
Book 1: Meteorite Strike
1
The nightmare had visited Sarah Williams every night for a week.
In her dream she was trapped in a burning plane, desperately trying to fight her way through people towards the exit – except the exit was a swirling mass of desert sand that jumped out to engulf her. It was when the red dust filled her mouth and nose, suffocating her, that she awoke, sitting bolt upright in bed and staring into the darkness. The dreams she shared with Robert, her brother, were growing in intensity. Breathing deeply, Sarah brought herself back to reality. She knew she would have little sleep for the rest of the night.
Sarah eased herself from under the duvet, slipped on a dressing gown and walked barefoot across the cool tiles of the bedroom. She brushed her long, dark hair back with her hands and fixed it with a tie from her pocket as she headed for the door. Sarah Williams was fifteen years old, but she had more to worry about than taking GCSEs or making friends – during the last six months she had become the leader of a group of kids on the run. If someone had told her a year before where she would be, Sarah would have laughed in their face.
How quickly things change.
In the corridor outside, Sarah paused at the doorway of the boys’ room. Nestor, Octavio and Wei were sleeping soundly, but Robert was not there. Looking round, she saw the outline of his head silhouetted against the balcony window in the lounge.
Although the late summer day had been unusually hot, a cool change had come to Melbourne that evening and now the night air had a real chill to it. As Sarah stepped out onto the balcony, the sound of a baby crying in the tower block opposite carried across the deserted car park. Robert looked round briefly and then back to the glittering view of the night city. He was a blond-haired, blue-eyed kid of ten. When he smiled, his eyes sparkled with humour, but that night his expression was serious.
Sorry, I guess I woke you, Robert told her, although he said nothing aloud. Communicating with their minds had become second nature to them over the previous few months.
You were dreaming about the plane crash, Sarah replied. She put her arm around his shoulder and gave him a squeeze to show it was okay. He smiled, but then his expression darkened again.
What’s it like? he asked. Living someone else’s nightmares, I mean.
For a moment, Sarah didn’t answer. Six months before, when they were just coming to terms with the death of their mother, the plane carrying them to Australia had crashed in the outback. Like thousands of others, their lives had been changed for ever by the meteorite that hit the desert that day – creating an electromagnetic pulse that knocked their plane out of the sky.
But the meteorite also carried with it a visitor from outer space: the fall virus.
Sarah and Robert had been among the lucky ones – rather than falling into the coma that adults exposed to the alien virus suffered, they had been gifted with extraordinary powers as a side-effect. Now, along with four other kids, they were on the run from anyone who might exploit them because of their talents. Sarah’s enhanced psychic ability meant that she shared the dreams and nightmares of her brother, the person closest to her.
It’s not so bad, she reassured him. At least I know you’re not going through it alone.
I sense you there, Robert said with a nod. Then he looked away, out over the city again. You’d never leave us, would you?
Sarah frowned. Leave you? Why would you think—
“Because you don’t need us,” Robert interrupted, speaking aloud for the first time, voice thin and strained. In the city-light Sarah saw tears forming in his eyes. “With your powers you could go anywhere or be anyone. All we’re doing is holding you back.”
He fell silent. For a while neither of them said anything at all, but Sarah didn’t move her arm from around his shoulder. The power she’d been gifted by the fall virus was the ability to read and even control the minds of others, so the thoughts and
motivations of those around her were often an open book. In the months since the change, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be unsure of people around her – to not know their plans or ambitions. She gently pulled her brother round and looked into his eyes.
“I’ll never leave you,” she replied softly. “That’s a promise.”
Robert finally cracked a smile. Sarah patted his arm. Now, it’s time you got some sleep.
Robert nodded. Thanks, sis. You always make me feel better.
She was about to say something in reply, but Robert disappeared in that instant – his own special ability. Teleporting from one place to another around the apartment was second nature to him, but it could be disconcerting to her and others. She made a mental note to remind him about it again as she stepped back into the lounge.
On her way through the apartment, Sarah looked into the boys’ room. Robert was already back in his bed. She closed the door quietly and returned to her room.
What’s going on? Louise, her nine-year-old room-mate, asked sleepily as Sarah climbed into her bed. Are we okay?
Sarah pulled the covers over herself and said softly, “Go back to sleep. We’re all fine.”
Louise smiled and turned over. Sarah sensed the younger girl’s thoughts overtaken by sleep once more, but as she had expected, it was a long time before she slept herself.
We’re okay, we’re fine, she thought as she stared at the ceiling, but it was impossible to escape the dark feeling that had come over her during the past few weeks.
Something bad was coming.
And if they didn’t all get out of Australia soon, none of them would be safe…
2
Dr. Rachel Andersen removed her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. She hadn’t slept much that night, but she hadn’t slept much at all since being made head of HIDRA Asia–Pacific, the international task-force in charge of containing the fall virus in the region. Rachel’s background was as a scientist, but that morning she had to deal with the military operations of HIDRA – something that always left her feeling drained. She stifled a yawn as a communications screen opened on her computer desktop. In the window, Commander Craig appeared. He was the young officer who was in charge of HIDRA’s military operations in Australia. He kept his fair hair slightly longer than the ordinary soldiers – a privilege of rank – and was dressed in the black and gold uniform of the HIDRA elite.
“Dr. Andersen?” he snapped with typical military bluntness. “Are you there, sir?”
Rachel turned on her camera. “Yes, Commander. Sitrep, please.”
Sitrep – military terminology for “situations report”. She was getting used to throwing a few bits of army jargon into conversations – it seemed to make the soldiers more comfortable with her. As a scientist, it was taking a long time to win their respect, but she was getting there. And at least she had persuaded them to stop calling her “Colonel Andersen”. She had been given the honorary rank after taking over HIDRA Asia–Pacific to sort out the mess left by Colonel Moss.
“Very good, sir,” Commander Craig said on the other end of the video link-up. Behind him, Rachel could see the desert and blue sky flying past the windows of his vehicle. “We’re ten minutes from the enemy base. We’ve got four hovercopters moving in from the east. I’m in the lead copter. There’s also a ground convoy of thirty soldiers being deployed from the south.”
Rachel nodded approvingly. She picked up the satellite photograph of the enemy base – a collection of caravans and trucks parked in the middle of the Australian outback, three hundred kilometres north of Adelaide. This was the hiding place of Major Bright, the right-hand man of Colonel Moss, the former director of HIDRA’s military operations. Bright was the only member of the old HIDRA military command that hadn’t been arrested for his actions following the meteorite strike. Together, Moss and Bright had imprisoned the children who had developed powers from the fall virus. Bright had been responsible for torturing those children to expose their powers and he had been the first and only person to be given the serum developed from their blood. As a result, he had developed an amazing mix of powers that made him very dangerous.
And now he was hiding out in the desert with his own little army of followers – mostly thieves and outlaws.
“I hope you understand what you’re going up against, Commander Craig,” Rachel warned, looking back at the camera. “Major Bright’s powers combine the strengths of all the virus-altered children.”
“If he still has those powers,” Craig added. “He’s probably run out of serum by now.”
Rachel considered it, but shook her head. “Colonel Moss created enough vials of serum for almost a dozen doses. We never found those vials, even after he was arrested. We can only assume that Major Bright has them.”
“And if he has the serum,” Commander Craig said, “he has his powers.”
“You should be ready for a fight.”
Craig grinned at the camera. “Don’t worry, sir. HIDRA Special Forces are always ready for a fight.”
Major Bright sensed them coming as an image in his mind’s eye – four hovercopters moving almost silently through the skies above the Central Australian desert. It was part of the psychic early-warning system he’d inherited from Colonel Moss’s experiment with the fall virus. He was supposed to be the leader of a new generation of superhuman soldiers, but now there was only him – stuck in the outback amidst outlaws almost as wanted as himself. The forces of HIDRA were coming to capture and imprison him, just like they had Colonel Moss.
Swinging his legs off the bed, he reached into the water bowl on the nearby table and splashed the lukewarm liquid on his face. Looking in the cracked shaving mirror on the table, he ran his hands over his closely-cropped hair and stroked a finger down the old battle scar that ran the length of his cheek. He frowned at his reflection. After six months of hiding out in the desert he’d put on a little weight in the face, but his body was still hard and muscular – barely a gram of excess fat. Bright flexed his bicep and nodded approvingly. He was ready to go to war.
At the doorway of his caravan, Eco stood to attention in readiness for any command. Eco – the eighteen-year-old kid who’d become his ostensible second-in-command at the camp during the past few months. When Bright had an order to give to the collection of almost a hundred crims and misfits who lived around him, it was Eco who delivered it.
“Is there anything wrong, sir?” the teenager asked, his thin face almost invisible in the darkness – the window shades had to be kept down during the day against the searing heat of the desert.
Bright dried his hands on a towel and looked round. “Wake the camp. We’re going to be attacked. Tell them we’ve got about ten minutes.”
Even in the darkness, Bright could see the kid’s mouth fall open stupidly. Months of rage and frustration bubbled away under the major’s calm exterior, but he suppressed it. Bright was used to commanding highly-trained men (the very type of men who were being sent to capture him), but here he was reduced to living with common criminals and ordering around a teenage misfit looking for a father figure. Eco continued to gawk as if he’d just spoken in Latin.
“Well?” Bright snapped, just as he would at one of his underlings when he had been in control at HIDRA. “Wake the camp! Get to it, soldier!”
“Yessir!” Eco yelped, giving some kind of half-salute as he stumbled into the blinding light of day.
Major Bright shook his head as the gangly kid exited the caravan, and then went to the cupboard near the bed. He removed a single item on a hanger and tore off the protective plastic. Even in the dimness of the caravan the brass on his old uniform sparkled – the rips and tears from his last battle with Sarah Williams and the other children had been repaired so it was almost as good as new.
Soon he would be a commander of men once more, not boys or criminals.
Laying the uniform down on the bed, Major Bright took a plastic case from the cupboard and flipped it open. Inside sat a syringe-gun a
nd glass vials, each containing a sample of the virus serum that gave him his powers. Every few weeks he felt his enhanced strength draining, and that was when he had to inject more of the serum. He counted the vials – only two left.
Bright placed one of the precious vials in the gun and held it against his left arm. With a pull on the trigger, the serum shot into his bloodstream like molten iron. He gritted his teeth to stop from crying out in pain and gripped the side of the bed as his entire body was racked by muscular spasms.
One more vial, Major Bright thought as the pain subsided. I need more serum.
Luckily, he knew just where to find it: the original children from Colonel Moss’s experiment – Project Superhuman. He sensed them in the east with his attuned psychic sense: Sarah and Robert Williams, the Colombian twins and the two younger ones. Their blood was the key to their powers. When Bright had their blood, he could make serum on demand. When he had that, he would be truly indestructible.
With a smile, he began to dress for battle.
Meanwhile, Eco ran around the camp, unkempt blond hair flying around his face as he went.
“Wake up!” he yelled, banging on the door of a caravan. “We’re under attack! Get to your defensive positions!”
Before he reached the next vehicle, someone caught his arm, almost pulling him off his feet. Eco looked up into the eyes of a bearded biker with tattoos on his face.
“What are you shouting about, Shrimp?”
Eco gritted his teeth. Shrimp. He hated that nickname, but people didn’t use it when he was around Major Bright.
“HIDRA is coming,” he said, pulling his arm free. “Time to show your loyalty to the major.”
The biker gave him a look like he thought he was crazy. He turned and signalled to two of his mates, who were dressed in jeans and leather and sporting full beards despite the crushing heat. They walked in the direction of their bikes.
“Hey, where are you going?” Eco demanded, running after them. All around the camp people were emerging from vans and caravans, blinking in the sunlight.
