by N. W. Harris
“The Anunnaki must die,” the gentle voice continued. “Half of human DNA is Anunnaki, but the other half is from a species with a higher capacity to express love than any we’ve encountered. The trial to decide if too much of the human species is Anunnaki and therefore, must be extinguished, begins now.”
The greenish haze vanished. One by one, the birds resumed chirping in the forest. The breeze blew once again.
Shane looked at Steve and at Jules and Tracy. Then he looked at Jones. Everyone wore a blank expression as they struggled to process what had happened. They glanced at each other as if to check to see if everyone else had seen and heard it too.
“What was that?” Shane finally spoke, looking at Jones.
“I don’t know,” Jones replied, sounding stunned. “It seems to be a race of beings far more advanced than the Anunnaki. Perhaps my people finally pushed too far and attacked a superior species. It was inevitable.” He shook his head and looked at the ground.
“Well, she said the Anunnaki must die, and I agree with her. Since they are still alive, it seems like she expected us to carry out the sentence,” Jules said, anger seething in her voice. Walking out of the back of the transport, she pointed at the front windshield toward the aliens who looked out at them. Their eyes widened, and they seemed to realize her intention though he doubted they could hear her. “There’s three left in the cockpit of the transport I’d like to start with.”
Jules picked up a rifle and fired at the transport’s windshield. The bullet ricocheted, unable to penetrate the vessel. Tracy and the Russians approached the craft with vengeance burning in their eyes. Shane doubted they’d be so aggressive if it weren’t for the voice, but the green haze had given them permission. They wanted to unload all the anger and hatred built up in them from the loss of their parents and all the horrible shit they’d been through. The total annihilation of their enemy was the end goal from the day those pyramids landed on the planet. He wanted to join them. First, he turned toward the back of the transport, going to get Kelly out so they could blast it open to get at their prey.
“Wait,” Maurice said. “They’re not a threat to us at the moment. Are we going to just kill them in cold blood?”
“You don’t know what they made us do while we were on their ship,” Jules snarled.
They paused and looked from him to Jules. Maurice looked to Shane, who had been ready to watch his friends execute these criminals. As far as he was concerned, they’d earned their deaths a million times over. Maurice’s eyes pleaded with him. Without saying a word, the preacher’s son conveyed that this sort of killing would do his friends more harm than good.
“He’s right,” Shane said, trying to keep his cool.
The green haze represented something more advanced than his imagination could conceive. Jones had hinted that he’d traveled all over space and had seen hundreds of races of intelligent species, all inferior to the Anunnaki militarily. Whatever owned the voice freaked the captain out. He seemed to believe that his people’s executioner had finally come.
“We need to discuss what to do with them. Meanwhile, the cockpit appears to be an adequate prison,” Shane said and stepped onto the transport’s ramp.
“And what about the recruit ship that went down south of here?” Tracy asked, stopping him again. “There’s probably thousands of Anunnaki spilling out of it right now.”
“But the transport appears to be without power,” Jones said. He picked up a plasma rifle and pulled the trigger. “And their weapons aren’t working either. That recruit ship looked very dark as it came in, as if its reactor had been shut down. Maybe whatever the green entity was deactivated all the Anunnaki technology so it would be easier for the humans to get their revenge.”
“So you’re saying we should kill them?” Jules looked at the prisoners again.
“The voice said we are being tested,” Maurice countered. “If we start slaughtering Anunnaki indiscriminately, then we’re proving we’re no better than they are.”
“No one touches them until we hold a meeting and make a decision as a group,” Shane ordered. He looked in the transport at Kelly lying unconscious on the floor. He needed to put everyone else on task so he could scoop her up and take her to the barracks. “We need to think about our next moves carefully.”
Shane noticed the grimy kids in rags who’d been enslaved by the Anunnaki appeared released, and they seemed disoriented but talked to each other and behaved normally. They didn’t act crazy anymore or appear to want to attack him and his friends. Not only had the entity ended the Anunnaki control over the humans, but it also seemed like it had undone the damage done to their minds by the slave gene.
“First,” Shane said, glancing back at his friends, “we’ve got to get these kids fed and cleaned up. Then we’ll figure out what to do about the Anunnaki and our new visitors.”
You don’t have to wait for the conclusion to The Last Orphans Series! Get your copy of Book 4: Darkest Days today!
I want to thank my wife Amanda, who reads everything I write and cheers me on through the joys and tribulations of being a writer. Thanks to Emily and Logan, my beautiful children, who constantly remind me that we are born with imagination abound, that we just have to remember to listen to our inner child and creativity will come naturally.
Thanks to the amazing Clean Teen Publishing team. Thanks Rebecca Gober, Marya Heiman, Melanie Newton, and Courtney Nuckels. And thanks to Cynthia Shepp, my editor.
Thanks to Jennifer Anne Davis, my writing partner from the beginning and my friend of many years. And thanks to Celso who continues to review my rough drafts and offer enthusiastic encouragement. Also thanks to the beta readers at Clean Teen Publishing and Melanie Newton and the Clean Teen Publishing Street Team for reading and promoting my book—you are integral to the success of all CTP writers.
Born at the end of the Vietnam War and raised on a horse farm near small town north Georgia, N.W. Harris’s imagination evolved under the swaying pines surrounding his family’s log home. On summer days that were too hot, winter days that were too cold, and every night into the wee morning hours, he read books.
N.W. Harris published his first novel—Joshua’s Tree—in 2013. It was no wonder, with his wild imagination and passion for all things word related, that N.W. Harris was named a quarter finalist in Amazon’s Break Through Novel Award Contest. In early 2014, N.W. Harris joined the ranks with Clean Teen Publishing when they signed his new young adult apocalyptic adventure series—The Last Orphans.
In addition to writing, N.W. Harris has been a submarine sailor, a corpsman, and business owner. His studies have included biology, anthropology, and medicine at UCSB and SUNY Buffalo. He is an active member of SCBWI and lives in sunny southern California with his beautiful wife and two perfect children. He writes like he reads, constantly.
The Last Orphans Series
Book 1: The Last Orphans
Book 2: The Harvest
Book 3: Enslaved
Book 4: Darkest Days
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