The
Latina Book Club starts off Hispanic Heritage Month with an excerpt that is out
of this world.
We congratulate author
Stephanie Diaz on her latest novel and look forward to more exciting books in
her Extraction Series.
EXCERPT
FROM
EVOLUTION (St. Martin’s Griffin)
EVOLUTION (St. Martin’s Griffin)
by
Stephanie Diaz
I
scurry off the boarding ramp. Flames in the grass lick at my boots, and I have
to swerve to the left to avoid another laser from the sky. There’s smoke
everywhere. Beechy told me to find Dean, but I have no idea where he is. All
the soldiers look the same in their armor.
Sam’s
soldiers launch another missile and take down a raider. If they had more
visibility and better protection from the raider fire—if they’d had time to dig
trenches—they might actually have a chance of bringing down most of the swarm.
But I don’t see how they’re going to survive for long the way things are. Soon
there won’t be any part of the ground not covered in flames.
Already,
some of the soldiers are giving up, trying to escape to the trees for cover. A
man not far ahead of me stumbles into the path of a Mardenite laser, and he
doesn’t have time to scramble out of the way. He lets out a horrible shriek and
falls to his knees as the fire sears through his armor.
Bile
rises in my throat. I tear my eyes away and race around him.
I’m
almost to the forest, but many of the trees on the edge of it are alight with
flame. I search frantically for the safest path in—there, on my right-hand
side. There’s a massive piece of ship junk in my way, a chunk of the hovercraft
hull that tore off during the crash. I duck my head from another laser and
scurry around the debris.
That’s
when I see Dean running toward me through the smoke. He has an arm over his
head to block his helmet from the rain, and his other hand clutches his pulse
rifle. He yells at me, “Clementine, get to the trees!”
“I’m
trying!”
He
reaches me and grabs my sleeve, wrenching me out of the way of another laser.
The two of us keep running toward the clear spot between the trees.
Twenty
more feet. Fifteen.
Ten.
Out
of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of light. The lights on the wings of a
raider soaring overhead. I look up just in time to see an object drop from a hatch
in the warship’s underside—something that looks like a grenade. Aiming right
for the trees ahead of us.
Every
part of me seizes in terror. I try to scramble away from the grenade, but there
are too many pieces of debris in my way, and I can’t get anywhere quickly
enough.
Dean
pushes me to his right, so hard I fall to the ground. I feel his weight press
on top of me as he crouches over me, shielding me from the explosion.
There’s
a thump as the grenade hits the ground. I brace myself for a BOOM!
But
the explosion doesn’t come.
There’s
a hissing sound. I lift my head and see the object that fell a few feet away
from us. It’s a round object made of some sort of metal, almost like a cam-bot
but bigger. Whitish vapor streams from openings in the metal ball, seeping in
every direction.
The
gas engulfs my body and I feel a burning sensation all over, like someone’s
stabbing me in a thousand points with needles.
The
vapor is poison.
EVOLUTION
An Extraction Novel, #3
by Stephanie Diaz
St. Martin’s Griffin
BOOK SUMMARY: Clementine's
world is on the brink of destruction. An army of aliens from the distant planet
Marden has arrived with a massive fleet of battleships, intent on finally
putting an end to the war Kiel's old rulers initiated. With the Alliance
headquarters reduced to rubble and one of the rebel leaders close to death,
Clementine and her friends have no choice but to retreat to the Core to escape
the alien ships attacking the Surface. But safety in the Core means forming a
temporary alliance with their sworn enemy, Commander Charlie. He's a ruthless
man and a liar, but striking a bargain with him—his pardon in exchange for
their help defeating the Mardenites—is the only way the rebels might survive
the war. And Charlie needs their help too, for Marden's force is more powerful
than anyone anticipated, with weapons and technologies never before seen on
Kiel. Unless old feuds can be set aside long enough for a diplomatic solution
to be found, all of Kiel's people will be destroyed, and everything Clementine
and her friends have sacrificed in their fight for peace will have been for
nothing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Twenty-one-year-old
Stephanie Diaz wrote her debut novel, Extraction, when she should've been
making short films and listening to college lectures at San Diego State
University. When she isn't lost in books, she can be found singing, marveling
at the night sky, or fan-girling over TV shows. You can visit her online at www.stephaniediazbooks.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Website: http://www.stephaniediazbooks.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StephanieEDiaz
Instagram: https://instagram.com/stephanieediaz
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month
Read Latino!
Comments