Free Defying The Alliance: INFERNO (Novokin Alliance Invasion 2) by Bobbi Ross Page A

flickered off leaving only the murderer and his massive instrument of death on our screen. Liam's small light cruiser, the Vorce must've fired its thrusters on maximum. Before Asmot's people had a chance to react, the small ship drove itself into what appeared to be the main engine of the Novokin warship.
    "Noooooo!" I heard someone yell, so far away, it couldn't have been me.
    My hands lifted to shield my eyes. The initial explosion lit up my bridge like the mid afternoon sun on a New Astorian summer's day. A chain of smaller reactions lit the sky white, then red. Half of the monstrous ship in front of us went dark. Liam had given us a chance, and I wasn't about to squander it.
    Refusing to look down, lest I saw the gaping hole in my chest where my heart had been ripped out, I managed to choke out one last command through my tears. "Get us the hell out of here."

 
    Episode 4

Prologue
     
     
     
     
    The large, muscled man tried in vain to wedge his thick fingers underneath the ill-fitting body armor. He swore the barrack's bunks were rife with bedbugs. None of the other soldiers ever complained like him. He snorted in frustration. Rounds were boring and tedious. Especially this early in the morning with no one around to talk to.
    Fortune smiled on Victol. He spied one of his comrades at the entrance to the shipyard. The well-toned young soldier with the light purple hue to his skin doubled-timed his steps down the base hall. "Hey Marlek, anything to report?"
    The grizzled, old warrior rubbed his bald head from back to front, seemingly unable to accept the loss of the epic battle with his hair early in life. He flashed the younger guard a narrow stare. "Are you serious Victol? Nothing ever happens out here or will ever happen out here." Fishing in his pocket, he paused to chew on a piece of dried Garnick tail. It had been last night's dinner. Some kind of indigenous mammal. The cook had guaranteed it was edible. Victol did not believe it.
    "We won't see any action now that we liberated this sector of space. I doubt there's anyone left here stupid enough to attack a Novokin shipyard."
    Rat, that's what the pink-skinned Terran chef had called it. Victol grinned to himself in approval, then drew a dour look across his face to speak in earnest. "That's not what the latest chatter says."
    "You need to get your head out of your ass, lest you want to squeeze the purple off!" The older guard guffawed. "And stop listening to that cook Jaspers. Sure he can make a mean meal, but his stories read like children's fairy tales. " He spat out coarse hairs between strained bites.
    The younger guard let his rifle drop to his side as he raised both hands up in surrender. "Whoa Marlek, it wasn't him this time. Got this from a lieutenant on one of those Drengr class heavy fighters. He was in here for repairs last week."
    "Really, go ahead and enlighten me," the older male murmured, smacking his lips over a particularly tough section of his leftover meal.
    Victol cast a suspicious gaze up and down the hall before he leaned in to his friend and whispered, "The Lieutenant said there was some rogue ex-Protectorate Captain. She has been attacking ships on the outer rim. Even managed to go toe to toe with Red Sky." His eyes went wide, like he had just found trilornium fungul gold in his under dressings.
    Marlek laughed, "Yeah, I’ll believe that one when Kalliorian pigs fly." The ground shook and the air shuddered in the distance. He cast a speculative glance at the door he was guarding. "Must be another solar storm brewing."
    Another loud rumbling rubbed at the soldiers' nerves. Victol put his ear to the door. As if he would actually be able to detect something through the thirteen inches of solid Desinite steel. He stood there, like a child trying to secretely listen to his parents’ argument before he turned back to his friend. "I know we're pretty far out, but a shipbuilding yard is a fairly strategic position, isn't it? Do you think there's a