Page 4 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
The rainforest hums quietly behind me, alive and unaware. Or maybe just uncaring. Bugs chirr and whir in their nighttime symphony, and something lets out a low, lazy call—like a yawn stretched into a song. I used to come here to think, to escape. But tonight, I’m not escaping. I’mstewing.
The memory of the square replays in my head like a faulty vid loop.
Kernal’s smug face. Hisvoice. That sanctimonious smile. “Cherished members,” he said. “Rewarded,” he promised. “Obedience,” he demanded.
And no one stopped him. No one even shouted.
Except me.
I curl my fingers around my compad until the casing creaks. The plastic flexes, protesting, but doesn’t break. Yet.
How is everyone socalm?How is it that I’m the only one who feels like her veins are full of lighter fluid? I’ve been elbows-deep in broken reclamation units, up to my eyebrows in coolant leaks and burned circuitry, chased off wild drexlings in the middle of diagnostics—and notoncehave I ever just stood there andlet something break.
And this—this is the biggest break of all. Not a pump or a drive coil or a frayed cable. Acolony.Mycolony. My team. My people.
We built this place. I remember hauling rebar through thigh-deep mud, running comms lines with only half a crew because the other half had jungle rot, staying up three nights straight because the filtration system was coughing up sediment like it had the flu. We bled for this land, this dream.
And now we’re just—what? Supposed tohand it over?Smile and bow and call ourselves grateful that the boot came down gentle?
“No,” I whisper, the word sharp enough to cut the thick jungle air.
I don’t want to be brave. I want to befurious.Brave feels like something you pretend to be when you’re already doomed. But fury? Fury burns. It builds. Itfixes.
Footsteps crunch softly behind me, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Eli. He’s one of the few who knows where I go when I need to breathe. Only tonight, I’m not breathing so much as smoldering.
“You planning on brooding yourself into spontaneous combustion?” he asks, voice low, not unkind. He crouches next to me, careful to keep space between us.
“If I do, maybe I’ll take the command ship with me,” I mutter.
Eli lets out a slow sigh. “You scared the shit outta people today.”
“Good.”
He doesn’t answer right away. I can hear him rubbing his hands together, dry skin rasping like sandpaper. “We’re not fighters, Josie.”
“I didn’t ask for soldiers. I asked forbackbone.” I twist my head and meet his eyes. “We’ve been here three years. You telling me no one’s got a spine left?”
“It’s not about spine. It’s aboutsurvival.You poke the beast, you get eaten.”
“Or you getfree.”
He huffs a breath, not quite a laugh. “You think the IHC’s gonna come riding in to save us?”
“I think,” I say, voice suddenly steady as a cooled weld, “that I’m done waiting for someone else to give me permission to fight back.”
Eli studies me. There’s something in his face—half pity, half awe. Like he knows I’m about to do something reckless and brilliant and absolutely irreversible.
“I should go,” he says finally, standing. “Curfew’s in ten. Patrols’ll be out.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I know,” he says. “That’s what scares me.”
When he’s gone, I let the silence return. It wraps around me like armor now. The stars begin to pierce the black sky, pinpricks of light that don’t seem to care about conquest or empire or fear. Somewhere out there, beyond this gravity well, beyond the reach of Vortaxian hands, is the Alliance. The IHC.Options.
I flick my compad on, and the screen glows dim gold against my grease-smudged fingers. The nav program is still installed from last week’s atmospheric scan. I flip through logs. Fuel levels. Emergency beacon codes. Docking registry tags. The ship I fixed last month, the one they parked in the hangar with a busted nav relay—it’s still there.
I could take it.
