Page 23 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
Outside, the stars stretch like silver threads against the void. Hyperspace curls around us, blue and endless. I keep one eye on the nav, the other on the anomaly ahead—the gravitational knot near Drexar Seven’s dead moon. It’s risky, but it’s our best chance to punch through without lighting up every Vortaxian scanner from here to the central system.
“I’ve got three rerouted paths,” I say. “A short one that risks full detection, a long one that could fry the shields, and this one.”
He nods once. “The third.”
I don’t even ask if he’s sure. His confidence is infuriating. And addictive.
We drop out of FTL with a jolt that knocks a curse out of me. The ship stutters, groans again. Dayn doesn’t move.
“Gravity eddies are pulling at the stabilizers,” I say, hands flying over controls. “Hold on?—”
I correct, twist, override. My fingers are sticky with sweat, pulse loud in my ears. The ship shudders again, like it’s being pulled into the planet’s gullet.
Then we’re through.
Just like that, space opens up again. Drexar Seven looms ahead, its curved surface catching the first cruel fingers of sunlight.
I exhale, chest aching. “Still breathing back there?”
“Wasn’t worried.”
“Liar.”
I risk a glance over my shoulder.
He’s looking at the planet.
Not like a soldier surveying enemy territory.
More like a ghost seeing home for the first time in years.
I turn back to the controls, heart doing something stupid and fluttery. I hate it. I want it again.
“I haven’t felt this...” I trail off, then swallow. “Not alone. I haven’t felt not alone in weeks.”
His voice is barely a whisper. “Me neither.”
And that—that’s too much.
I focus on the landing sequence. The colony is just a dot now, tucked in the warm folds of the one livable continent. Snowblossom. My Snowblossom.
I grip the throttle tighter.
“I don’t trust you,” I say, honest and sharp.
“Good,” he replies. “Don’t.”
“But I want to.”
He says nothing for a moment. Then: “That’s worse.”
Yeah.
It is.
We breach the atmosphere low and fast, nose down, cloaked by sunrise and guts and a ship that might fall apart any second.
I don’t know what we’re landing into.
