« Squad Kill » Jack Campbell

Getting home alive will take everything they have…

Osiris “Oz” Aquino is an underprepared Navy officer put in command of seven castoff Marines on a research starship dispatched to an alien planet. His sergeant is hostile, his Marines have records full of infractions – not to mention that they’re plagued by old weapons and missing supplies due to budget cuts – and the crew and scientists would rather have nothing to do with him.

As the ship approaches the planet it’s investigating, they find plenty of signs of intelligent life in the form of ruined cities and skeletal remains. The only things living in the ruins are adorable aliens which the researchers dub squonks. It all seems run–of–the–mill, until it isn’t…

Sudddenly, the squonks get loose in engineering and go ballistic, the crew sent to investigate aren’t coming back, and Oz and his team have a fight on their hands. He must restore safe access to engineering before the crew on the ship run out of air all while figuring out what turned the squonks from cuddly to killer.

And if he doesn’t act fast, the people who’ve evacuated to the planet’s surface may not survive.