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apparently the aliens are here because their ship is damaged. They’re looking for a place to hunker down while they get some repairs done.’
    Maaka frowned. ‘How long will that take?’
    â€˜May not be ever. My sis reckons the Board is keen to keep them here. They want their technology and probably their weapons. Maybe you and your people should go someplace else. Find somewhere safer to live.’
    â€˜No.’ Maaka grinned fiercely. ‘Perhaps your Board should not delay. Because I also want the aliens’ technology. And I intend to do everything in my power to obtain it.’
    ***
    Transport Shuttle
    The shuttle zoomed over piles of rubble and ruined buildings in an area Bree referred to as suburbia. They had scoured the landscape for several hours searching for a point of reference. A familiar landmark, building, anything, until Bree thought she would jump from the shuttle if she had to spend one more minute with the Relic warlord who had reached new heights with his barbed comments.
    He’s such a jerk. I can’t believe I ever thought he was hot.
    Bree leaned forward as far as her harness allowed and tapped the flexiglass as the shuttle zoomed closer. ‘There! We’re home. I know it.’
    â€˜It looks like … wilderness. Are you certain?’ Kondo stepped forward and loomed over her, scowling at the scene depicted on the screen. An oval shaped field littered with damaged motor vehicles, an army tank with vines covering it, mounds of what looked like refuse and waist-high weeds.
    â€˜Rubbish. It’s a football field, or at least, it used to be.’ Bree snorted. She kept her gaze fixed on one white metal post leaning crazily to the side. ‘I’m sure that’s the goal post; or what’s left of it.’
    Curious, Kondo asked, ‘What is this football field?’
    How to explain her life before she’d left Earth? ‘It’s where men and women kick a ball around in a game to see who wins.’
    â€˜Sounds like a waste of time,’ Kondo drawled, making Bree long to smack his smirking face.
    Biting her lip, she rested back in her seat and turned her face away. A soldier who knew nothing but war probably had never heard of the word … ‘fun’ . But for her family, football had practically been a religion; especially after Bree’s eldest brother had been chosen to play college football. Tears burned at the back of her eyes and her throat clogged. What she wouldn’t give to see her family one more time.
    The engine stuttered.
    Coughed.
    Kondo slipped into the seat beside Bree and snapped orders over his shoulder for his men to strap down. The shuttle jerked sideways, then they were falling. Too terrified to scream, Bree hung onto the armrests and squeezed her eyes shut.
    â€˜Engine is failing,’ the pilot said.
    No sweat, Einstein.
    â€˜We are coming in too fast. Everyone hold on,’ the pilot shouted.
    Bree felt a hand close over her fist and she peeked through one slitted eye. Kondo. No time to make a fuss, no time to even blink. The shuttle slammed into the ground and kept rushing forward, jolting and shuddering as the pilot fought to maintain control. Bree, pitching back and forth in her seat from the shuttle’s momentum, opened her eyes in time to see the wall of dirt they were heading straight for.
    I never imagined I’d come home to die.

Chapter 5
    The Central Fortress
    When Sherise and the command team left the hospital and trooped next door into the Corporation’s Headquarters, Barid was still grumbling. They stood on the marbled floor of a spacious foyer guarded by no less than six soldiers, who were well armed, judging by the weapons hanging from their belts. There were no chairs, no counters, nothing but an expanse of space leading to a set of double doors, above which a red orb glowed.
    Sherise longed to ask questions about the strange man, but she sensed Rothe wouldn’t