Marauder Fenrir: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars) Read Online Free

Bane. ”
    I bite my lip. Fenrir really seems to have it in for Great Brother Cygnus. If the rumors are true, Cygnus and Aegus are fighting against the invaders who want to exterminate humanity. I used to think their faction just consisted of the two Great Brothers, but from the way Fenrir spoke, it sounds like there are more of them, and they’re dispersed among the invasion fleet itself.
    I decide it’s best to obey Fenrir for now. He’s so arrogant that he may continue spilling useful information like this. If I somehow manage to escape unscathed, I could give everything I figure out to Mars-Venus...or to the Great Brother himself.
    “So,” I ask, “what is your plan once we are in Martian orbit? You know this ship can’t enter the atmosphere or land, right?”
    “Of course I know this,” he snaps. “I have everything planned out, you need not concern yourself with this. How far to the red planet?”
    “Twelve hours or so,” I say.
    Through the window, Mars looks about as large as the moon does from Earth’s surface.
    “So take us there!” he shouts, looking through the cockpit’s window. “It looks close, it cannot take twelve of your hours to reach it!”
    “We’re at war with Mars,” I say. “I’ll need to boost us hard and fast, just enough to get us moving, then cut the engines. We’ll have to float into orbit to get there undetected.”
    “This sounds like a cowardly approach,” he says.
    “We’re one garbage gunship against the full defense forces of Mars. Do you want to be cowardly and alive, or brave and dead?”
    He starts to grumble under his breath in an alien language, but he finally says, “I agree to the cowardly Fiona plan. Another small amount of shame debt pales to my great burden.”
    The cowardly Fiona plan. The nerve of this guy! I pull out an ancient tablet from the main console and start programming in the stealth orbital approach. It’s a very delicate maneuver, and there will only be one chance for us to do it. If our thrust vector is off by even a single degree, we’ll miss the Martian orbit entirely. And if we make an adjustment burn near Mars, they’ll see it’s an Imperial ship and blow us apart.
    I finish the calculations, and the computer starts to run its proofing algorithms. It will spit back any possible wrinkles and a percentage margin of error. With the Broom Closet’s-- no, Cygnus’s Bane’s-- shitty computer, it usually takes two or three polishing runs to get a safe flight path.
    From looking over the report it prints out, the main issue with this flight path is the intense g-force required on initial burn. It will use up most of our fuel, and I’ll have to use an acceleration couch, as the pilot’s seat isn’t rated to handle anything above 3gs for more than a few seconds.
    Fenrir’s shadow looms across the console. “What is a thrust vector?” he asks.
    “You can read?” I ask, taken aback.
    “Yes, your writing system is primitive, just like everything else about you.”
    “Okay,” I say in disgust, shoving the tablet into his hands. “If you’re so damn advanced, you do it!”
    He takes one look at the screen, then jams his finger into it.
    The engines rumble.
    Oh, shit.
    The burst is huge, and Fenrir’s armor launches tendrils in all directions in response.
    The long projections grasp tightly to the handrails on both sides of the ship, and they hold him in place like some big, purple and ripped-as-hell spider.
    The tablet flies out of his hands and shatters into hundreds of pieces when it lands against the back wall.
    My seat is facing backward toward Fenrir, and it locks in this position as a “safety” precaution against the intense g-force.
    The restraints tear into my skin as my body pulls against them, and as the acceleration intensifies, I hear the straps begin to tear. If they break open, I’ll slam into the back wall and be mashed into a pulp.
    Fenrir launches out a tendril that grabs hold of my seat, spinning it to face