Page 25 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
The sun climbs slowly, filtered through Drexar’s thick atmosphere into something the color of old bruises. Light that never quite warms. I watch it paint the prefab rooftops in violet and gold, and I wonder how long this colony can last under a yoke they pretend not to see.
Josie might be their only shot. But even she can’t do it alone.
I check the scanner again. Still no distress signal. Still moving. Probably talking. Probably lighting fires with nothing but her voice.
I close my eyes, trying not to picture it. Failing.
She’s going to change everything.
And I’m going to be there when she does.
It starts small.
A busted turret near the colony’s northwest perimeter—a rust-gnawed relic meant to discourage native fauna more than Vortaxian infantry. Still, it’s there, slumped like a sleeping guard too long forgotten. I find it during a perimeter walk, and instead of ignoring it like I should, I take a knee and crack the casing.
Wires inside snarl like angry worms, charred at the nodes. The kind of rot that speaks of neglect, not sabotage.
I patch it.
Quietly. Efficiently.
No one sees me do it. But someonenotices. A day later, I catch murmurs at the market stand near the supply depot. “Turret’s humming again,” an old miner says. “Like it remembers how to bark.”
They don’t know it was me.
They don’tneedto.
Josie’s the face of this thing.
I’m just the shadow with teeth.
She’s everywhere now—slipping between prefab units with the ease of someone born to dirt and duct tape. People gravitate toward her like moths to a reactor coil. Her voice carries low and warm when she speaks to them, always casual, always safe. She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t demand. She offers.Hope, wrapped in sarcasm and pastry.
Literally, in some cases.
Where she got access to the colony’s old yeast stock, I have no idea. But damned if she doesn’t bribe half the engineering deck with sweet rolls that smell like cinnamon and rebellion.
I watch from a distance as she sits cross-legged on a cargo crate, chatting up a group of mining techs. One’s missing two fingers. Another has a scar across his throat like he lost a bar fight with a plasma cutter. They look like people who've been stepped on too long. But around Josie, they sit straighter. Laugh more.
It’s unnerving.
She doesn’t make people fearless. That would be a lie.
She makes them remember theycanbe.
And I…
I follow her.
Not because she needs protection. She can hold her own, even if she throws punches like someone who’s learned from holonovels instead of combat drills. No. I trail her because being near her makes the weight in my chest easier to carry.
And when she leans in close to whisper a new meeting location, her breath brushes my neck and I forget how to breathe.
“You’re tall,” she murmurs, tone half-amused.
“Disguise,” I answer, voice tighter than I’d like.
“Still counts.” She nudges me with her shoulder. “You make a great wall to stand behind.”
