Necrue: Stryker Team, #8

By Frank Carey

Can Stryker Team 1 stop the beings that are taking over the living crew of an Earth Survey Ship?

Stryker Team 1 faces a new enemy when they discover beings that can merge with the living and along the way the team learns more interesting facts about their AI teammates..

If you like tech-heavy sci-fi, relatable characters, and stories of family and redemption, you'll love the eighth book in Frank Carey's Stryker Team series. 51 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Carey
• Release date: Apr 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781540117663

Frank Carey

Frank Carey has been formally writing and publishing works of science fiction since late 2013. Over the years prior, he had dabbled in various forms of writing including haiku poetry, but that all changed when he and his wife, Jo, decided to try their hand at writing and self-publishing. Since then, he has written and published a collection of flash fiction and short stories, two anthologies, a pentalogy, and a trilogy. All his work, to date, has been in the science fiction genre. Most of his stories take place about two centuries in the future when Earth joins the League of Planetary Systems. Many of his protagonists are strong females. He is an inveterate pantser who believes the story will go where the story wants to go. Frank’s background includes degrees in physics and extensive work as a scientific programmer and technologist.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The colonists slept while the robot crew watched over them as the mammoth ship slowly made its way to their new home. Somewhere in the darkness of space, an alien ship veered off course to intercept the ship and its precious cargo.

By now, the crew of the alien ship had been taken over by the creatures released from one of the weapons they were transporting.

Captain! The creatures have breached the outer barriers. What do we do? a crewman screamed at the commanding officer.

Hold them off as long as you can. We are about to dock with that ship out there. Once we're inside, we'll set our ship's engines to self-destruct after we've sent her off into the void! Get the crew ready to transfer!

Aye, sir, the crewman replied while hoping against all hope that they weren't too late.

Moments later, the smugglers hard-docked to the mammoth ship. The crew opened the lock and streamed into their new home as something pounded on the last hatch standing between them and the horror that infested the rest of their ship. When the last crewman was through, the captain ordered the autopilot to pull the ship away. Nothing happened. He looked at the controls and saw the computer had been destroyed by the weapon. He looked up and saw the remaining hatch crumple as the horror stepped inside.

Only the vacuum of space muffled the screams of the remaining crew as they were overcome by a weapon too terrible to name.

CHAPTER TWO

Captain Kalana Grenor, elf, trauma surgeon, member of Elf Marine Expeditionary Force Stryker Team 1, and cyborg, lay on the gym floor and wished death to overtake her as she tried to remain conscious and breathe. Around her, the other members of her team lay on the floor and stacks of mats as they wished the very same fate, all that is except for their commander, Colonel Titus King, a human from Earth, and their torturer, Gunnery Sergeant Mersa, a basili from the planet Sokuhl. Those two looked barely winded.

I didn't realize the EMEF were recruiting wusses, King said.

Neither did I, Mersa replied. I take this as a personal failure.

I hate you both, Kalana said. No, make that the three of you, she said as Glean, their Weck scout, walked in with a tub of bottled water. Even though he had just finished the same workout as the rest of them, he seemed unfazed.

I was born and raised at what would be considered high altitude. Living on Degreb is like living in a swimming pool of oxygen, he explained.

Kalana and the others just moaned.

Gunny, I think we need to make this a daily workout, don't you? King asked.

Yes, sir, a fine idea. What about 4:00 AM?

Works for me. Team 1, I will leave you in good hands. Don't get up on my account, he said as Mersa and Glean stood at attention and saluted. He returned the salute as he walked out.

Staff Sergeant Trent, the team's Alue electronics expert, kept fading in and out of existence as his lock on corporeal form slipped due to exhaustion. This must be what death feels like, he whispered.

The remaining two organic life form—Corporals Nana Tor and Marcus Wen, the team's genetically engineered life forms—were sitting in yoga poses as they attempted to center themselves in spite of the aches, pains, and exhaustion they were experiencing. Trent looked at them and moaned.

Hit the showers, folks, Mersa ordered. The day is still young.

Yes, ma'am, they responded as they helped each other up to a standing position so they could make their way to the showers. The day looked to be a long and painful one.

What are you waiting for? Mersa said to Glean. The two of them were the worst kept secret on the planet.

You, of course, he said with a bow and a smile. They walked out of the gym on a heading which would take them to his private quarters. Like I said, they are the worst kept secret on the planet.

###

Colonel King sat down at his desk