Occupation: A Post-Apocalyptic Alien Invasion Thriller (Rise Book 1) Read online

  OCCUPATION

  ©2020 NATHAN HYSTAD & DEVON C. FORD

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  Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Cole

  2. Alec

  3. Lina

  4. Dex

  5. Cole

  6. Alec

  7. Lina

  8. Dex

  9. Cole

  10. Alec

  11. Lina

  12. Dex

  13. Sw-18

  14. Cole

  15. Alec

  16. Lina

  17. Cole

  18. Dex

  19. Alec

  20. Lina

  21. Dex

  22. Alec

  23. Sw-18

  24. Cole

  25. Sw-18

  26. Dex

  27. Cole

  28. Sw-18

  29. Alec

  30. Cole

  31. Sw-18

  32. Lina

  33. Dex

  34. Alec

  35. Dex

  36. Sw-18

  37. Cole

  38. Lina

  39. Alec

  40. Sw-18

  41. Cole

  42. Dex

  43. Alec

  44. Lina

  45. Dex

  46. Sw-18

  47. Cole

  48. Alec

  49. Cole

  50. Alec

  51. Dex

  Epilogue

  FROM THE PUBLISHER

  About Nathan

  About Devon

  Prologue

  Tom

  The rumble of the hovercar’s engines rang loudly through the valley. Tom pressed his body against the thick base of the massive cottonwood tree. The ridge he stood on ran for three hundred yards, the drop descending at least twice that distance to the base of the mountain.

  From here, he could usually see for miles, but not today, since the rolling dense clouds brought a looming storm with them, reducing visibility. He didn’t need to see the hovercar to know it was there. Too close to their base. Too close to finding their hidden location.

  Tom scratched his silver beard and slipped a tablet from his pack, activating it from sleep mode. With two practiced swipes, a map materialized, revealing the location of nearby Occupation assets. Five seekers hovered in the skies around Cripple Creek. Not close enough for him to panic quite yet, but close enough for him to be concerned.

  Things were changing. After all these years, the Occupation was evolving. He sniffed the air, as if he could smell the alterations in the enemy’s objectives. Instead, the scent of ozone filled his nostrils as rain began falling from the sky.

  He stayed under the semi-reprieve of the tree line, watching, waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure.

  The map blinked another icon, this one green, the color for a Tracker. He frowned at the small icon; a mixture of fear and a burning anger at their enemy’s superiority.

  The Tracker hovered around the five-mile boundary of their base, pausing before moving again. It wasn’t unusual for one to migrate through this part of what had once been the mid-west, but it was the third catalogued this week, and Tom didn’t like what this might portend.

  He’d made a promise a long time ago and still felt the weight of his failure almost every day. With a heavy heart, the man turned, satisfied there was no impending attack. At least not today.

  A twig snapped behind him, and he spun, his 9mm in his grip faster than the eye could see.

  “Sir, it’s me,” a woman in camouflage similar to his own said quietly, her arms raised in the air.

  “Bailey, what is it?” he asked, annoyed she sought him out in person instead of using the radio.

  She seemed nervous. “We have confirmation. They’re moving in this week.” She flashed him a smile.

  He met it with a grin of his own. They’d been working for so long, fighting back in small ways. Finally, they were going to make the first real strike. He was going to fulfill that promise after all.

  “Very good.” Tom glanced over the valley, knowing he’d return tomorrow at the same time, just like every other day.

  Rain poured down on the two of them as they hiked through the dense brush toward their home.

  Home. The man almost chuckled at his thought. Maybe one day they’d have a home again. But first, they’d have to reclaim what was theirs.

  Chapter 1

  Cole

  Cole’s eyes snapped open, his mind electrified by the faintest hint of a noise his brain was acutely attuned to. His life depended on it.

  The sharp whine of the deadly drones, like mosquitos in summer, vibrated the small bones in his ear according to the scorched remains of the medical children’s book he’d been reading for the last few nights.

  He sat up slowly, bending at the waist and swinging his feet off the old, grimy couch he’d called his bed for nearly two weeks. He reached down, quickly tightening the laces of his boots, which he’d loosened as his only concession to comfort. He stood, stretching his arms upwards as far as he could reach with the shotgun held firmly in both hands, leaning forward to touch the gun to his toes before twisting sideways to articulate his hips.

  Fully awake and flexed, he threw his heavy pack over one shoulder and draped the bandolier of red shells across his torso. He screwed the cap on his battered canteen and stuffed it into a leg pocket of his threadbare cargo pants before stooping above the map laid out on the dusty kitchen counter.

  Cole muttered to himself. His eyes weren’t as good as they’d been a couple of years before, and having to all but press his nose into the map was troublesome.

  “Truth or Consequences,” he muttered to himself, stumbling through the four consecutive syllables of the last word in spite of the time he spent reading. He huffed to himself at the name of the town, running his finger to the east on the map.

  “Too far,” he said to himself. “Too hot to be away from the river.�
� He ran his finger to the nearest town to the isolated house he’d been living in, narrowing his position from the few remaining road signs and the shape of the river that couldn’t have changed too drastically in the course of his lifetime.

  He did the same to the west, fussing again, as it meant crossing the river within a very tight timeframe. He chewed his crusted lower lip for a second before stabbing a red circle daubed on the green patch. Folding the map quickly, he stuffed it away and shrugged his arm through the bag straps before carefully sliding open the rear porch doors. He slipped out of the house without a backwards glance.

  The whine sound was louder now as the drone headed in his direction and it spurred his feet to move. Cole looked up, turning to place the morning sun on his right, and he began to run.

  He stopped after a quarter mile, resting under the sparse cover of a copse of trees, and pulled the broken but valuable contraption from a pocket on the side of his pack. Lifting half a set of binoculars to his right eye, he found the rear of the house he’d been living in and caught the glint of bright silver as the smooth, bulbous body of the Seeker drone hovered around the patio door.

  Cole’s lips mouthed the word “dammit,” having learned the hard way how well the drones could hear from far distances. He knew he should have closed the door because they’d be inside soon and would know a human had been there when none of their ID tags showed an authorized presence. The drone darted upwards and to the right so fast that it mimicked the natural behavior of a housefly as it was joined by a second Seeker.

  Cole stiffened, forcing his breathing to stay steady. If there was more than one Seeker drone, there was likely to be a pack of Tracker drones not far behind. If there were Seekers and Trackers, a Hunter might follow. If there weren’t, then it could be them coming for him.

  He had to keep moving.

  Stepping backwards without looking, his boot caught a patch of dead leaves and rustled loudly. The whine changed in pitch as the two Seeker drones were joined by a third. They spread out into a line, heading straight for him.

  He ran. No attempt to move stealthily or slowly to avoid detection because there was no way they would pass him by if he hid. They’d find him if he remained still, and if they thought they were onto a wild human, they wouldn’t stop until they located him.

  He didn’t want the Seeker drones shooting him with sedative darts, and he didn’t want the Trackers tearing him apart with their mechanical pincers. He certainly didn’t want them to rain fire down from their ships and scorch the whole town he was hiding in, which he’d seen them do in the past.

  His only hope for survival lay in either outrunning the Seekers or destroying them.

  Three, he thought to himself as he ran. Only three. You can handle three.

  Cole ran toward the only buildings ahead of him, angling for the narrow gap between two broken-down houses. He hurdled a flaking once-white wooden fence and forced his way through the mess of rusted bikes and trash cans until he reached the rear of the houses. He threw himself against the wall as he held the shotgun against his chest, sucking in deep breaths to steady himself.

  One, two, three… One, two, three… The whine of the drones grew louder, changing pitch as the first entered the narrow gap.

  He stepped around the corner and lifted the shotgun up to trigger off the first instinctive shot and obliterate the lead drone.

  “One,” he whispered, allowing himself a slight grin.

  Behind the falling, sparking shards of the destroyed Seeker, a second flew at him fast. He racked the pump of the old but well-maintained weapon to chamber another shell as the smoking spent casing spun out of the ejection port. A twitch of the barrel adjusted the aim to blot out the sight of the attacking machine, and a second pull of the trigger turned the shiny flying ball into shrapnel.

  “Two,” he said, scanning left and right, desperately searching for the third drone. He could hear it, and he wanted to kill the Seeker before it realized it was at risk. A sharp buzz to his left made him spin to trigger off a third shot, which blew away a chunk of roof.

  “Thr–” he began to say until he realized that the whine was still there. The Seeker had taken cover before he could shoot. Cole racked the gun to replenish the spent shell and ran.

  The third Seeker would be flying higher now, following programming to get out of range and call in reinforcements.

  “Didn’t get the third,” he repeated a few times. “Trackers coming… Trackers coming…”

  Cole sprinted until the noise of the drone had gone, and carried on for longer to make sure he was away. The Trackers wouldn’t be far behind, another hour at most, but when they arrived, they’d follow him relentlessly. They didn’t need to sleep, didn’t need to stop and eat, didn’t need to find fresh water and carry it with them. He’d never seen one run out of charge and he thought of the solar panels he’d seen once, recalling the old man’s claim that he’d pulled them from the wrecked carcass of a Tracker drone.

  “Just run,” he told himself. “Cross the river, change direction, and run.”

  Chapter 2

  Alec

  Sweat poured down Alec’s face as he pressed the metal sheet against the half-hidden structure. Another man used a large rivet gun, holding it into place before the welder took his position. Alec covered the joints with flux and stepped out of the way as the wide-shouldered masked-man started his torch. He’d worked in this plant for ten agonizing years, and this was the first time he’d seen the curtains come up.

  Most of whatever it was they were constructing was sheltered by long, draping canvas sheets, and only the parts being worked on currently were exposed. The change made him uncomfortable, even more so than usual. The constant gnawing in his gut turned to real pain when he arrived before the sun rose to announce the day, and saw the overnight modifications.

  “What is it?” Alex asked the welder when he was done. The man flipped up his mask and grimaced.

  “Who cares?” he replied gruffly before walking the line looking for the next seam to weld.

  “You!” a voice carried across the plant floor, and Alec shuddered.

  “Ah, crap,” he muttered to himself. He couldn’t afford any more altercations with the floor supervisors. He turned to see the balding worm approaching.

  “What are you doing? Talking during your shift, standing here like a lost puppy. Get to work or it’s your ass,” Simon shouted.

  Alec hated the man with every ounce of his being. He stood three feet away, and Alec fought the urge to clench his fist, to throttle the scrawny-necked traitor. Instead, he forced a smile. “Sorry, sir. I noticed we were running low on rivets and wanted to see if we could obtain a refill.” The lie was simple enough the man would have to buy it.

  He looked at Alec suspiciously, peering over his shoulder to see their workstation. “Fine, but today’s nearly done. We’ll pick it up tomorrow.”

  Alec let out a tense sigh as Simon walked away, scanning his tablet before yelling toward another group of workers. Workers. They could call them that, but Alec preferred to think of them as what they truly were. Slaves.

  The entire floor echoed with a piercing alarm. No matter how many times Alec heard the shift-ending notification, he couldn’t help but feel terror at the dreadful sound. It was the same noise they used when they were on the search for Roamers in the city. Without realizing it, Alec rubbed his wrist where his locator chip was implanted under his skin.

  The alarm ceased, and Alec got in line with the other two hundred slaves in the old car assembly plant. No one spoke, let alone gave each other eye contact. They were beaten. There was no coming back for any of them.

  When it was his turn to walk through the turnstiles, he stretched his hand out for the meal chit. The glossy-eyed woman reached for a full chit, but Simon was there, shaking his finger a moment later.

  “Not for this one. He gets a half-chit only,” Simon said, grinning at Alec.

  The little man took pleasure in his minuscule appoin
ted power, but still… Alec was hungry, and he couldn’t argue, or he’d get nothing.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll be better tomorrow,” Alec said, hating himself with a passion.

  “That’s more like it,” Simon said, handing him the half-chit. It was a cut coin, an old penny from a world that had ceased to exist.

  Alec forced his feet onward, wiping his dirty hands on the pants of his overalls before he arrived at the mess hall. He stayed in line, scanning for Beth at the tables. It took a few tries, but he spotted her by herself at the far-right table, staring down at her plate of bland oats. Seeing her made it all worth it.

  Someone shoved him from behind, and he locked eyes with the welder.

  “Move it,” the man said, and Alec forged ahead, broken from his reverie.

  He passed his cut coin to the middle-aged woman behind the glass and was handed a small serving of gray gruel in return. He smiled at her, knowing he’d receive nothing but a blank stare in response.

  A minute later, Alec was sitting in the cold plastic chair opposite Beth.

  “Tough day?” he asked.

  “Better than the alternatives,” she said.