Excerpt From my Sci-Fi Novel

This is an excerpt from a SCI-FI piece I'm writing. I hope its entertaining so I'm inspired to finish the book!
Its a little out of line from my usual gloomy writing style of heart-breaks and life changing epiphanies (hehe) but its just something that I want to put out there and see what response I get.

I could go on and on about why I'm writing it, etc. etc. But I'll just cut myself short and let you read this first!

Happy reading :



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"Squadron Alpha online", "Squadron Beta online", "Squadron Gamma online", "Squadron Delta online", "Squadron Epsilon online"….. "Where the hell is Squad Kappa!?" crackled the commander's voice through the radio phones.
That was the fifth squad we'd lost to the 'Hellderichts" within the past three months that we were trying to clear out 'Sector 17'.

"It was high time we started doing something about it." said Heracles, he was the part of the new unit that had just arrived from Earth IIV. These guys were huge, almost as big as the Extirpators. Ben said it was the air and gravity on Earth IIV. "No one wants to pick up the grave yard shift now" muttered Ben. "I hear that these Hellderichts are immune to our plasma cannons, is it true?" it was one of Heracles unit members. That's all that everyone spoke about on the ship nowadays, the Hellderichts and how to defeat them. "Wish Squadron Qoppa was here, I want to sign up with them" Heracles' said. Squadron Qoppa was still out fighting those colossal bugs, Coleopterans of some sort. Squadron Qoppa was outfitted with new electric hammers. Amazing piece of technology, these hammers; there were tiny cones in the head of the hammer, when the hammer struck anything or anyone the cones released a hundred thousand volts of electricity each, completely decimating anything that stood in its way. We were all anxious to see how it would affect the Hellderichts. As our thoughts raced through our heads we ate our stew, finally some meat tonight. Hopefully it wasn't one of the sick animals from sector 17. A cold metallic voice came through the PA system in the mess, "Knight-Lieutenant Boe, report to main deck immediately." No more time for meat stew. Maybe later on I would be able to pick something up from one of the food-bots. "Keep us updated, don't you forget!" yelled Ben as I left for the main deck. I don't know why but I always felt out of place in this high-tech environment. Being frozen for more than fifty years doesn't make you feel right at place as soon as you are unfrozen, and five years later, I still crave for the grass and pollution of the twenty first century sometimes. The only other time soldier on the ship was Ben and he was only frozen for seventeen years. "Sir!" I saluted the commander chief. Behind him, I could see the holographic representation of the planet we had been orbiting for the last few hours. We hadn't even scanned that area for Helldericht presence yet. This was going to be extremely risky to say the least. "The electric hammers Mark II have just arrived. You and your men will be armed with these. You will lead a small squad of men armed with these to sector 26 and explore these ruins. I am sending you because you are the best we have at tackling planet side recon missions". Who would have thought being a marine would come in handy at this time.

I headed back to my team and gave them the brief. Ben, Heracles and the rest were eager for action, ironically if we did our job well, we wouldn't see any in this mission. Regardless, I hoped these boys wouldn't scare easy and the eagerness to be out there in the field would push them enough. Hopefully we wouldn't encounter any of these Hellderichts. Within hours we were ready to set out for sector 26. While the rest of the crew favored the new plasma pistols, I had the techs in the ship's armory dig up an old chainsaw sword and a photon pistol. I've always been old-fashioned.




We were dispatched quickly and quietly to the surface on a landing ship.
The planet was lush green, with pools of sparkling blue water dotting the landscape. High humidity and a tropical temperature ensured this planet's evolutionary process would be rapid and diverse. The ship dropped us off and quickly returned to the Mothership. "Squadron Omega online" I reported into the microphone. No reply. "Squadron Omega online" I repeated myself. Damn it, the radio was offline. Something must have scrambled the frequency during the landing. "No radios, good old hand signals. No one disconnect life support systems. You have six hours of power. If you stray away from the unit, head back here directly. You, stay here and set up a defense perimeter." I selected the smallest of the lot to stay back. I wasn't taking any chances with this mission. Hopefully I wouldn't cross paths with those dreaded Hellderichts.


I couldn't see the sky. The tree canopy was thick. It reminded me of the rainforests of my time. I almost took my helmet off so I could breathe the air. And see the true colors of the surrounding, and not the computers displays and infrared sights from inside the helmet. It was an extremely necessary precaution against fauna in an unknown area. I saw a small life form ahead. It was barely as big as my forearm. Heracles tried to shoot it with his plasma pistol. It was jammed. The fool forgot to charge his weapon. This was going to be tougher than I expected. We walked through the forest for an hour, suddenly I heard a thud, I looked behind. Heracles had fallen inside a pit. His visor was smashed, he was bleeding. It was a trap, the likes of which that hadn't been seen for a long, long time now. I had to risk it and go down in there. But before I could Ben jumped down and picked Heracles up. I would never have imagined that wiry Ben had the strength to lift that mammoth of a person. Heracles must have weighed at least thirty stone without the bio-suit. I took my helmet off, but made a sign to the rest of the team to keep theirs on, we still needed the infrared vision. Ben took his off too we spoke in hushed tones. Ben, being the designated medic of our squad, got to work and patched up Heracles as best he could, but his leg had been hurt bad. We decided it was best to take Heracles back to the ship. I would continue scouting for another hour before we turned around. I took Heracles hammer with me, just in case we needed it. I noticed another strange thing. My photon pistol was also discharged. Weird. I felt a little better with the helmet off though, must be the fresh breath of natural air for a change.

The ruins were about two hundred meters away, there was something familiar about it. I just couldn't put my finger on it. Suddenly I heard a whizzing sound, I turned around to see what kind of bug just passed me, such samples were welcome on the mother-ship. I was shocked to see a spear stuck in one of the soldiers armor. It did as much damage as an arrow would do to a knight in armor. The question was who threw the spear? Were these ruins actually ruins? Or was it a settlement that we were disturbing. I pulled out the spear and looked closely at it. It had some writings on it. Maybe it was a ceremonial spear of some sort, because it was made of wood and had a sharpened stone head attached to it with some kind of rope. I held the hammer up over my right shoulder, ready to smash anything that came out of the bushes. I gave the hand signal to spread out in a line and slowly sweep the area. We spread out at a distance of about fifteen meters each and started advancing slowly in a long line. Like a comb in the forest, we swept the area for ten minutes. Nothing. Everyone's pistols were depleted, well at least we had our hammers. Somehow the power packs that were supposed to last us for a few more hours were down to the last twenty five percent. Something was draining out our energy, and fast. The best thing to do now would be to head back, recharge and radio out for a drop ship. We turned around and started heading back, when all of sudden I heard a muffled explosion of some sort. I turned around, no mushroom of smoke or fire. Suddenly one of my men fell face down. The back of his helmet shattered. That must have been a sniper of some kind. We spread out immediately, and started towards where the sound had issued from. I saw something move far ahead, I started out at a dead run towards it. Dodging through the trees and jumping over bushes, this humanoid was fast, whatever it was. I dropped the hammer, too heavy. I slowly started gaining on him. He dropped the weapon he was carrying. It looked like a .50cal 1890's Sharps rifle as I passed it, plenty of time for that later. In the time of photon and plasma pistols and I see a Sharps' .50cal being used. I was hot on the snipers heals, almost had him. The sniper turned around and leapt at me. We hit the ground hard. He was wearing leather and some kind of coarse cloth. I hooked my right fist to his head, I manage to stun him for long enough to get up on my feet. We circled around each other. I had pulled ahead of Squadron Omega, no backup. I still had my chainsaw-sword, I pulled it out and started it. I couldn't see anything of his face because of his hood, but those glowing purple eyes told me that whatever this was, it wasn't human. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand, something wasn't right. Out of the corner of my eye I saw more figures appear out of the thick green wall of leaves. And they were not my squad. This just keeps getting worse. "Omega Squadron – HOTEL ECHO LIMA PAPA" send co-ordinates with that message out on all frequencies. Hopefully someone would catch that. I backed up against a tree and held out the sword in front of me, well if I was going down, I was going to take the first few with me.





Ben finished bandaging Heracles head. He would have to wait to get back to the mother ship before he could get into the 'red bath' and get this wound all fixed up. Ben rechecked the perimeter, set up motions sensors, it was getting dark. Where was everyone? After setting up the UV lights, Ben sat down and lit a cigar. One of the few times when you could actually smoke; outside the ships and domed cities of the empire. Time was running out, everyone should've been back ten minutes ago. They were running out of power. It would be near impossible to carry that suit without power. Ben dozed off, Heracles was keeping watch. A crashing sound awoke Ben. There was something in the bushes. "Who goes there, identify yourself" yelled Ben into the darkness. Suddenly one of the Omega Squad fell into the spotlights around the ship. It was amazing that he had carried the suit back to the base camp without power, that man must be exhausted with the exertion. As soon as Ben had taken of the power suit, the man stood up and saluted, then reported the events that happened earlier. More units were stranded near the ship without power. Ben and Heracles wore their suits and went looking for the others. Twenty minutes later, everyone was back in the camp, all except Squadron leader Boe. Ben was now squadron leader in Boe's stead. He didn't know whether he should stay put and try to get back or continue with the mission. "Sir, what are your orders? Sir" said Heracles. "For now we stay put and try to get our radio working." replied a worried Ben. "I want a man directed toward every single direction. No one leaves the clearing. If you absolutely have to then you take someone with you to watch your back." Ben said. Then Ben headed into the tent to try to get that damned radio working. Even the sun was down, no solar power. This was going to be one long night.