Page 3 of Primal Call

It was chaos all around him. Laser fire sizzled through the air, accompanied by the deafening roars and shrieks of the attacking Borraq. Jasper worked with grim determination, his hands moving on autopilot as he dragged the more severely wounded to relative safety, moving them out of the line of fire.

All the while, the Borraq kept advancing, trampling their way through the compound in an unstoppable wave. Jasper risked a glance over his shoulder and felt his heart plummet.

They were being overwhelmed, plain and simple. The aliens were too numerous, too powerful.

There was no way they could hold out much longer.

Jasper's gaze met Morrison's across the room. The sergeant's expression was grim, his jaw set in a tight line as he returned fire with his rifle. But his eyes... his eyes were filled with the same dawning realization that Jasper felt.

They weren't going to make it out of this one.

Morrison gave a short, sharp nod to Jasper. It was a sign-off, clear as day: it was good to work with you. Let's do what we can.

The soldier in front of Jasper went down, a blade buried through his body armor. The massive Borraq turned its terrible gaze directly on Jasper.

It was the one that had smirked at him.

The Borraq's sharp eyes burned with hunger as they locked onto Jasper, pinning him in place like a rabbit before a ravenous wolf.

"Perfect," he rumbled in a deep, grating growl. "You'll be perfect."

Jasper had no idea what that meant, but he knew with every fiber of his being that he didn't want to find out.

Panicked adrenaline jolted through his system, finally spurring him into action. He whirled and ran, trying to get to his remaining squadmates as he fled from that nightmarish grin.

He didn't make it more than a few steps before something slammed into his back with staggering force. White-hot agony blossomed through Jasper's body as he was driven face-first into the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs in a harsh wheeze.

Dazed, he tried to scramble back to his feet, only to feel something heavy pin him down with crushing weight. He thrashed weakly, but it was no use — whatever had him wasn't letting go. Through the ringing in his ears, Jasper became aware of a deep, rumbling chuckle reverberating all around him.

The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was that same terrible grin, fangs glinting as the world went black.

Chapter two

Jasper woke up in the dark.

For a long, disorienting moment, he didn't know where he was. Then memory came crashing back, and he groaned, pressing a hand to his aching head.

He'd been grabbed, but he wasn't dead — in fact, the floor beneath him was metallic, purring with the rumble of distant engines…

He was on a ship.

And he wasn't alone. He looked around the hold he was penned in.

The hold was packed with other people, slumped over in their own agonies. They were all human, just like him.

For a moment, Jasper's heart leaped, looking for any of his squadmates — but he didn't recognise any of them. These were all strangers.

"Hey," he said, leaning forward to grab the shoulder of the nearest person. "Hey, where are you from?"

The woman just whimpered, her face streaked with tears.

Jasper swallowed down his own rising panic. "It's gonna be okay," he lied, his voice coming out hoarse. "We're gonna figure this out. We're gonna get back home, okay? Just… just tell me where home is."

The woman just shook her head, staring down at the floor.

Jasper felt how pathetic his words were. He had no idea how they were going to figure anything out. He was just a medic, for god's sake. He knew how to patch up a bullet wound, not how to escape from… from whatever the hell this was.

He looked around the hold, his heart pounding in his chest. The other captives huddled together, fear and despair etched onto their faces. Some were crying softly, others stared blankly ahead, lost in their own private hells.

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