Free Apex 2: Rise of the Super Soldiers by Adam Moon Page A

want to discuss details of future military endeavors in front of Jack and Melanie. “Who wants to see the aliens?”
    Delacourt rolled his eyes. Jack looked at Melanie but neither of them replied.
    “Your enthusiasm is contagious,” Watson said sarcastically. “Come on then.”

 
    The Grey Prisoners
     
    “What have you been feeding them?” Melanie asked as they made their way to the holding cell.
    “We’ve tried to offer them everything from meat to veggies but they won’t eat even when we leave them alone with the food.”
    “They must be starving.”
    “They don’t look that way. None of them have lost an ounce. All they’ll accept is water but I have no idea where they’re depositing their waste. I think it must just evaporate from them or something.”
    Delacourt concurred. “Our prisoners won’t accept anything but water either, even under duress.”
    Watson wanted to ask him what he meant by that but he had a sinking feeling he already knew. Delacourt seemed like the type to use torture as a means to an end. The realization served to sour his feelings even further towards the spry old man.
    Watson approached the singe sentry posted outside the door and told him to take a five minute break.
    Then he pulled a key out and turned the tumblers inside the lock.

Stand Down
     
    Her men were ready to pounce. They hadn’t spilled blood in a long time now and it showed on their snarling faces and in their clenched fists.
    These men had committed the ultimate cowardice in order to secure victory but now that reinforcements weren’t coming, amends had to be made to clear their consciences. Surrender was only acceptable among her people if it was a tactical surrender. It had seemed that way at the time, but the deadline for a second wave had passed , meaning their surrender was simply that; they’d given up. That could not stand. Wrongs would be righted with spilled blood and entrails. Even if they were forsaken, stranded on a planet not their own, they could at least stand tall knowing they had fought back and won.
    They stood together and listened intently to the key entering the lock from the other side of the door. They heard the crude tumblers falling into place. They watched the door open and, to a man, coiled in preparation to strike quickly and mercilessly.
    But when the Captain recognized one of the human visitors, she whispered for her men to stand down immediately. None of them knew what to make of her reversal until the young female human walked inside.
    They’d personally surrendered to her when they saw what unnatural abilities she possessed. She was a weapon unlike anything they’d witnessed in all the time they’d be battling alien creatures. Her powers defied common sense. She might’ve killed them all had they not given up to her on the spot.
    The sight of her made the Captain’s heart sink. That human female was a physical reminder of her own cowardice.
    The young, heavily built man with her might have been the human that destroyed their mother ship. There was no way to be sure since none of them had been on it when it happened, but he exuded an odd aura that left her ill at ease.
    The sight of their orbiting ship blowing up, along with the sight of the girl’s strange powers had been enough to convince the Captain that the only way to eradicate the species was to surrender and wait for the inevitable reinforcements.
    She wanted nothing more than to rush forward and snatch the girl’s throat in her fist and squeeze the life from her but that would be a mistake, especially if the young male was who she thought he was; superior, just like his female counterpart.

Anticlimax
     
    Watson pointed and said, “This is all they do all day long. They just sit there silently brooding.”
    Delacourt shook his head. “I wish I had some suggestions for you, but our captives are the same way and nothing we’ve done has broken them.”
    Melanie stared intently at the taller one in the center. The