Authors: Brian Falkner
Task Force
RECON TEAM ANGEL
The Assault
Task Force
A
LSO BY
B
RIAN
F
ALKNER
The Tomorrow Code
Brain Jack
The Project
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2012 by Brian Falkner
Jacket art copyright © 2013 by Alan Brooks
Map copyright © 2013 by Jeff Nentrup
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in paperback in Australia and New Zealand by Walker Books Australia, Newtown, in 2012.
Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Symbol art by snoopydoo
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Falkner, Brian.
Task force / Brian Falkner. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Recon Team Angel ; bk. 2)
Summary: The six teens of Recon Team Angel, having spent years mastering alien culture so that they can talk, act, and think like their enemies, now have their target in sight but time is running out to save humanity and themselves.
ISBN 978-0-449-81299-0 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-449-81300-3 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-449-81301-0 (ebook)
[1. Extraterrestrial beings—Fiction. 2. War—Fiction. 3. Undercover operations—Fiction.
4. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 5. Australia—Fiction. 6. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.F1947Tas 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012038142
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
For Kym, Roy, and Alyssa
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams
.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
CONTENTSTHIS IS NOT A HISTORY BOOK
.
The achievements of 4th Reconnaissance Team (designation: Angel) of the Allied Combined Operations Group, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, from November 2030 to July 2035, during the Great Bzadian War, are well documented by scholars and historians. Less well known are the people behind the myth: the brave young men and women who earned the reputation and the citations for which Recon Team Angel became famous.
These are their stories, pieced together from Post-Action Reports and interviews with the surviving members of the team. The stories of the heroes whose skills, daring, and determination changed the course of history.
Where necessary to gain a full understanding of the situations these soldiers faced, accounts have been included from
the forces they opposed: from interviews with prisoners and Bzadian reports of the battles.
The members of Recon Team Angel changed over time, due to injury and death, as happens in a combat arena. By the end of the war, over seventy young people had served in the unit. They were aged fourteen to eighteen—small enough to pass themselves off as alien soldiers, but old enough to undertake high-risk covert operations behind enemy lines.
At its peak, this remarkable group boasted a core of twenty-five specialist operatives. But only six “Angels” infiltrated Australia as part of the ill-fated Operation Magnum:
Angel One: Lieutenant Ryan (Lucky) Chisnall—United States of America
Angel Two: Sergeant Trianne (Phantom) Price—New Zealand
Angel Three: Specialist Janos (Monster) Panyoczki—Hungary
Angel Four: Private First Class Blake Wilton—Canada
Angel Five: Specialist Dimitri (The Tsar) Nikolaev—Russia
Angel Six: Specialist Retha Barnard—Germany
May we always remember the names of those who fell in the pursuit of liberty for Earth.
We celebrate our military victories,
but try to forget our failures.
Operation Magnum, however, will never be forgotten.
More than a failure, it was a glorious disaster
.
—General Harry Whitehead
THE ARMY CAMPED ON THE CHUKCHI PENINSULA IN FAR
northeast Russia was the largest assembled in the Bzadian War, poised for the greatest invasion in Earth’s history.