Return. Морган Райс

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      Copyright © 2019 by Morgan Rice. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Jacket image Copyright By Sergey Nivens, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

      CHAPTER ONE

      For the longest time in the darkness that surrounded him, Kevin was convinced that he had died. It felt right somehow. Everyone had told him that he didn’t have long to live anyway, and then there had been the spacecraft drifting in the emptiness, the air running out little by little. After all that, shouldn’t this be the end of things?

      “Kevin,” Chloe’s voice called from somewhere in the space beyond that blackness. “Open your eyes.”

      “G’way. I’m dead,” Kevin mumbled, because a part of him just wanted to go back to sleep. It wanted to drift off and relax, letting the blackness overwhelm everything. He was so comfortable that… He winced as something pinched his arm. “Ow!”

      His eyes shot open to reveal a room that definitely wasn’t the ship they’d been floating helplessly in. This wasn’t a stolen Hive craft, where they were slowly dying after being winged by an Ilari craft and the wreckage of their world. This space was larger than that had been, and it looked almost like…

      “This is a hospital,” Kevin guessed. He knew what hospitals looked like by now. He’d spent so much time in hospitals, and labs, and other places that it was impossible not to recognize it for what it was, even though it only looked like a hospital in an alien way, with none of the devices looking like the ones he was used to.

      “You’re awake then,” Chloe said, from the spot where she stood beside Kevin’s bed. She looked faintly satisfied with her efforts to wake him up, smiling to herself in a way that suggested that she would be more than happy to do it again.

      “That hurt,” Kevin complained, and then a thought came to him. “Are you hurt? Are you okay?”

      “I’m fine,” Chloe assured him, sounding serious now. “They patched up the worst bruises when they brought us here.”

      Kevin looked her over anyway, wanting to be sure, and worried that she might be trying to hide how hurt she really was. Someone had given her a kind of silvery uniform to wear in place of her usual clothes, which looked a little like the silvery scales of a fish, reflecting the light in different ways as she moved. As Kevin looked down he saw that he was wearing the same thing.

      “How about you?” Chloe asked with obvious concern. “Are you hurt?”

      “No,” Kevin said. “I don’t think so.”

      He definitely didn’t feel any worse than he usually did, or at least, than he usually had before the Hive had chosen to make him one of them. He had pain running through his body, and dizziness threatening to rise up inside him when he moved too fast, but Kevin knew those feelings. They were so familiar that they were almost like old friends by this point. He couldn’t feel any of the sharper pains of anything broken over the top of it.

      Chloe came forward and hugged him tight. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

      Kevin held onto her, even though he didn’t feel like he deserved it right then. It was his fault that it had come to this. If it hadn’t been for him, Chloe wouldn’t have been stuck in a cell, undergoing experiments. She wouldn’t have the strange, alive-looking thing bonded to her arm, tight as a second skin, its bony, insect-like surface seeming completely out of place against the smoothness of her skin.

      It felt so good that she was safe that for a moment or two, Kevin didn’t even think about who was missing.

      “Where’s Ro?” he asked, looking around for the former member of the Hive. “Is he—”

      “Good, you’re awake,” a new voice said. Kevin turned to where a door had opened to reveal a blue-skinned Ilari woman in a dark uniform with military insignia. Kevin recognized General s’Lara from the com-cast he’d made trying to trick her and the rest of her kind. Just the thought of it made him sure that this must all be some horrible dream.

      “General, you saved us?” Kevin said. “But I… I tried to trick you.” That wasn’t the worst part of it though. “I… I played a part in blowing up your world.”

      Guilt flashed through him at the thought of all he had done, while he saw the general’s expression flicker to one of anger.

      “You also helped to warn us,” she said. “That gets you some consideration from us, and… well, we don’t want to abandon people in need. We are not like the Hive.”

      “That’s…” Kevin didn’t have the words. “Thank you.”

      “Don’t thank me yet,” General s’Lara said. She glanced up, and she seemed to listen to something only she could hear. “My AI tells me that the others are ready to decide what to do with you. You and that so-called ‘Purest’ you brought with you. Follow me, please.”

      “Kevin’s still weak,” Chloe argued. “He needs rest.”

      “He can rest all he wants once the trial is done. Now come with me.” The general was clearly used to having her orders obeyed, already walking without waiting to see if they would do it.

      Kevin looked over at Chloe, who shrugged. They knew that neither one of them truly had a choice. Hurrying to keep up, they followed the general out of the hospital room,

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