Page 5 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
Iwilltake it.
Even if I don’t have all the right codes. Even if the shields are glitchy and the transponder pings like a drunken sailor. I canfixthat.
I can fix anything.
My jaw tightens as I look back up at the parasite in the sky. That gilded monster. That golden threat. I can see the reflections of the colony’s floodlights dancing along its hull like ghosts. It doesn’t belong here.
I’m not going to roll over.
I’m not going to stay silent.
If no one else will fight, then I will.
Even if I have to do it alone.
CHAPTER 2
DAYN
The body twitches once—reflexive, nothing left behind the eyes but static—and then it’s done. My blade disappears just as fast as it appeared, a whisper of steel now folded back into my sleeve like it was never there. Blood beads across the man’s throat in a lazy arc, bright against the rust-stained walls of the service tunnel. The station’s air recycling hums like an indifferent witness, piping in piss-scented oxygen that carries the memory of ten thousand bad decisions and even worse deaths.
I wait, one breath. Two.
No alarms. No sudden pounding boots. Just the low moan of overloaded pipes and distant arguing from the upper decks.
No one saw. No one ever sees.
The corpse slumps against the grated wall with a heavy clunk. His eyes—yellowed, unfocused—stare at nothing as a trail of spittle seeps from his lips, mixing with the blood pooling at his collarbone. I don’t feel anything. No thrill. No guilt. No pulse of righteousness or disgust. Just a spreading numbness behind my sternum that I’ve mistaken for comfort for far too long.
I mop the blood with a fiber rag I brought for this exact reason. Precision is everything. No spray, no stains, no trace ofthe clean slice I left through windpipe and carotid. I leave the body where it lies. Someone will find him eventually. Or not. On Nix-37, corpses are just part of the scenery.
I step out of the maintenance corridor and into the artery of the station—a half-lit, metal-clad passage reeking of spilled fuel, overcooked noodles, and unwashed bodies. Overhead, an old propaganda banner flutters from an oscillating fan, its once-proud slogan faded into ironic nonsense.Unity through strength.If that were true, this place would be a holy sanctuary. Instead, it’s a carcass of a station, kept alive by black-market trade, under-the-table contracts, and the false bravado of men with too many scars and not enough brains.
My boots make no sound. I move through the chaos like smoke—part of it and apart from it. The mercenaries here notice me, in the way animals sense the approach of a bigger predator. Eyes flick my way and then quickly flick away. Posture stiffens, but no one reaches for a weapon. That would mean commitment.
I round the corner into the station’s watering hole. “The Screaming Nebula.” A name more dramatic than it deserves. The place is half-broken plastiglass and backlit grime, reeking of spilled rotgut and dreams left to ferment. The music is low and pulsing, like a dying heart. Laughter rises here and there—too loud, too sharp, forced like a blade into soft flesh.
I slide onto a stool at the far end of the bar, the one with a perfect line of sight to the exits and the reflection of the room cast in the mirror behind the rows of dusty bottles. The stool wobbles under my weight. I let it. I deserve that much instability at least.
The bartender’s a droid—old model, carbon-stained plating, one optic dimmer than the other. “What’ll it be?” it croaks, voice modulator crackling.
“Whatever’s strong and doesn’t make me blind.”
A bottle with no label and a chipped glass appear. I nod. Payment is a silent transfer of credits through my wristchip. No questions. That’s why I come here.
I lift the glass, sniff, and sip.
It tastes like fire and regret. Good.
Around me, voices swell and ebb—liars and killers, cowards puffing up their feathers for one another, all pretending they’re not afraid of the next job. I’ve heard it all before. “Blew up a transport full of IHC scouts,” one says, too loud. “She begged me, man. On her knees. I still lit the charge.” Another brags about a bounty collected on a woman who’d run off with her kids. I don’t listen for long.
Because I know the truth.
The ones who talk the most are the ones who shot last. The ones whodidthe things—trulydidthem—they sit silent and drink their poison like it’s communion. Like me.
I should feel something. Victory. Satisfaction. That was a clean job, executed without error. My handler will be pleased. Credits incoming.
But all I feel is the same cold vacuum that’s followed me from system to system. It wraps around my ribs like an old friend. I used to fear it. Now, I let it hold me.
