My hero starship for sal.., p.28
My Hero (Starship for Sale Book 8),
p.28
We were too late. Hiro wasn’t Hiro anymore. An Aleal had already devoured his essence and taken his form.
The Spiral was screwed.
“Ben?” Emerald said, her voice as stone-cold and serious as I had ever heard it, concern thick in her tone. She had read my shell-shocked expression.
Shouts and incoming gunfire yanked me out of it. I pulled my hand away from Hiro, turning my attention to Quasar, Ixy, and Emerald. Zar was firing back from behind the door frame, forcing the Marines pouring through the demolished blast door to hunker down and concentrate their fire. Emerald squatted behind the door, leaning out occasionally to add her fire to Zar's. Shaq was now on Ixy’s back.
I closed my eyes, visualizing the portal and doing my best to stay calm. I had no idea what we were supposed to do now. All I knew was that we couldn’t do it here.
“Stand down, Marines!” Quasar shouted. “We’ve got Prince Hiro here. You’re liable to hit him.”
“Put down your weapons and surrender,” a gruff voice replied. “Your ride home already left. There’s no other way out of this alive.”
I smiled. Matt had escaped. The sense of relief nearly ruined my concentration as I began opening the portal.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Quasar shouted back at the Marines, nearly at the same time the rip in spacetime appeared. I made it large enough to spread into the Aleal nursery, using the tear to destroy as many baby Blorbs as I could. The sudden hole in space and time also blocked the Marines from shooting at us or reaching us.
“What the hell is that?” the gruff Marine growled. “Is this some kind of trick?”
“Em, grab Hiro,” I said, already beginning to tire from the attempt to transit. “We’re leaving.”
“But—” she started to argue. I knew what she was going to say. This wasn’t Hiro. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t leaving him, or it, behind.
“Now!” I snapped.
Emerald scooped Hiro up, holding him fast. “Let me go!” he screamed as he tried to wriggle free.
“Stop squirming, you little puke,” she hissed. “Or I’ll let the xixitl eat you.”
His gaze landed on Ixy. Her menacing mouth open, one foreleg reached toward him. He immediately stopped struggling.
“The portal’s open,” I said, fairly confident I had gotten the transit right. “Everybody stay in contact with me.”
Quasar put her hand on my shoulder. Shaq jumped down from Ixy's back and climbed into his pouch on my sling. Ixy wrapped a forelimb around Quasar’s waist, and Emerald begrudgingly took hold of one of Ixy’s pedipalps. I started forward, flinching when the echo of gunfire crackled from the other side of the portal. Of course, the bullets couldn’t get through the rip in spacetime, but gunfire didn't bode well for what awaited us on the other side of it.
I reached the rip, shivering with anxiety and fear at the thought of what came next. With Hiro gone, catastrophic war seemed inevitable.
It was my final thought as we entered the void.
Thank you so much for reading My Hero! For more information on the next book in the series, please visit mrforbes.com/starshipforsale9.
OTHER BOOKS BY M.R FORBES
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View my complete catalog here
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Forgotten (The Forgotten)
mrforbes.com/theforgotten
Complete series box set:
mrforbes.com/theforgottentrilogy
Some things are better off FORGOTTEN.
Sheriff Hayden Duke was born on the Pilgrim, and he expects to die on the Pilgrim, like his father, and his father before him.
That's the way things are on a generation starship centuries from home. He's never questioned it. Never thought about it. And why bother? Access points to the ship's controls are sealed, the systems that guide her automated and out of reach. It isn't perfect, but he has all he needs to be content.
Until a malfunction forces his wife to the edge of the habitable zone to inspect the damage.
Until she contacts him, breathless and terrified, to tell him she found a body, and it doesn't belong to anyone on board.
Until he arrives at the scene and discovers both his wife and the body are gone.
The only clue? A bloody handprint beneath a hatch that hasn't opened in hundreds of years.
Until now.
Earth Unknown (Forgotten Earth)
mrforbes.com/earthunknown
Centurion Space Force pilot Nathan Stacker didn't expect to return home to find his wife dead. He didn't expect the murderer to look just like him, and he definitely didn't expect to be the one to take the blame.
But his wife had control of a powerful secret. A secret that stretches across the light years between two worlds and could lead to the end of both.
Now that secret is in Nathan's hands, and he's about to make the most desperate evasive maneuver of his life -- stealing a starship and setting a course for Earth.
He thinks he'll be safe there.
He's wrong. Very wrong.
Earth is nothing like what he expected. Not even close. What he doesn't know is not only likely to kill him, it's eager to kill him, and even if it doesn't?
The Sheriff will.
Deliverance (Forgotten Colony)
mrforbes.com/deliverance
Complete series box set:
The war is over. Earth is lost. Running is the only option.
It may already be too late.
Caleb is a former Marine Raider and commander of the Vultures, a search and rescue team that's spent the last two years pulling high-value targets out of alien-ravaged cities and shipping them off-world.
When his new orders call for him to join forty-thousand survivors aboard the last starship out, he thinks his days of fighting are over. The Deliverance represents a fresh start and a chance to leave the war behind for good.
Except the war won't be as easy to escape as he thought.
And the colony will need a man like Caleb more than he ever imagined...
Starship Eternal (War Eternal)
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Complete series box set:
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A lost starship...
A dire warning from futures past...
A desperate search for salvation…
Captain Mitchell “Ares” Williams is a Space Marine and the hero of the Battle for Liberty, whose Shot Heard ‘Round the Universe saved the planet from a nearly unstoppable war machine. He’s handsome, charismatic, and the perfect poster boy to help the military drive enlistment. Pulled from the war and thrown into the spotlight, he’s as efficient at charming the media and bedding beautiful celebrities as he was at shooting down enemy starfighters.
After an assassination attempt leaves Mitchell critically wounded, he begins to suffer from strange hallucinations that carry a chilling and oddly familiar warning:
They are coming. Find the Goliath or humankind will be destroyed.
Convinced that the visions are a side-effect of his injuries, he tries to ignore them, only to learn that he may not be as crazy as he thinks. The enemy is real and closer than he imagined, and they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent him from rediscovering the centuries lost starship.
Narrowly escaping capture, out of time and out of air, Mitchell lands at the mercy of the Riggers - a ragtag crew of former commandos who patrol the lawless outer reaches of the galaxy. Guided by a captain with a reputation for cold-blooded murder, they’re dangerous, immoral, and possibly insane.
They may also be humanity’s last hope for survival in a war that has raged beyond eternity.
Man of War (Rebellion)
mrforbes.com/manofwar
Complete series box set:
mrforbes.com/rebellion-web
In the year 2280, an alien fleet attacked the Earth.
Their weapons were unstoppable, their defenses unbreakable.
Our technology was inferior, our militaries overwhelmed.
Only one starship escaped before civilization fell.
Earth was lost.
It was never forgotten.
Fifty-two years have passed.
A message from home has been received.
The time to fight for what is ours has come.
Welcome to the rebellion.
Hell’s Rejects (Chaos of the Covenant)
mrforbes.com/hellsrejects
The most powerful starships ever constructed are gone. Thousands are dead. A fleet is in ruins. The attackers are unknown. The orders are clear: Recover the ships. Bury the bastards who stole them.
Lieutenant Abigail Cage never expected to find herself in Hell. As a Highly Specialized Operational Combatant, she was one of the most respected Marines in the military. Now she's doing hard labor on the most miserable planet in the universe.
Not for long.
The Earth Republic is looking for the most dangerous individuals it can control. The best of the worst, and Abbey happens to be one of them. The deal is simple: Bring back the starships, earn your freedom. Try to run, you die. It's a suicide mission, but she has nothing to lose.
The only problem? There's a new threat in the galaxy. One with a power unlike anything anyone has ever seen. One that's been waiting for this moment for a very, very, long time. And they want Abbey, too.
Be careful what you wish for.
They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. They have no idea.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.R. Forbes is the mind behind a growing number of Amazon best-selling science fiction series. He currently resides with his family and friends on the west cost of the United States, including a cat who thinks she’s a dog and a dog who thinks she’s a cat.
He maintains a true appreciation for his readers and is always happy to hear from them.
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M.R. Forbes, My Hero (Starship for Sale Book 8)
