Page 140 of Star Claimed Omega
The magnetic lock hissed as she tapped her code.
Inside lay her most precious treasures, a holo-frame of images that blinked to life.
A slow rotation of images filled the air in flickering light.
A woman, dark-haired, soft-eyed, with creases of mirth that deepened whenever she smiled, came into view.
Alina. Her mother.
Soleil exhaled and touched the projection.
The skin of the woman’s cheek glowed beneath her fingertips.
Alina’s voice echoed in her head, luminous and musical.‘Always brush your hair before sleep, my ray of sunshine. Dreams come easier that way.’
She remembered her humming lullabies.
The warm, citrus scent of her perfume, clinging to Soleil’s shirts and pillows.
The way her hands moved when she spoke was animated and graceful.
How she’d murmur songs from dead languages while stirring a spicy cacao drink she swore her life on.‘When you’re down and out, you need two mugs of it,’she’d say, laughing with joy in her eyes, her robe trailing behind her.‘One for the nerves, one for the soul.’
Alina had been an incarnate contradiction, sweet but scatter-brained, elegant but impulsive.
She’d paint her nails pink and wear lace and bows.
Yet curse like a pirate and pull firearms on the neighbors on a whim, then smile like it never happened.
Still, she was the chaos Soleil clung to in her formative years.
The wild softness that made a broken world feel survivable.
And then, she was gone, no blood trail, nor a note or charred trace.
She just vanished. Erased from this universe when Soleil was just fourteen.
Then her aunt Raissa had gone after Alina and never returned.
Worried she’d be disappeared too, she had run.
She’d forged a new identity, paying a school friend a handsome fee to get her fresh documents.
The decade that followed was a blur of encrypted dorms, backdoor identities, and traveling under names that weren’t hers.
She shaved her head once.
Changed her voice. Learned how to make her body disappear even in full daylight.
And every night, she whispered a promise to the empty stars above her cot.
I’ll make them pay, mother, aunt, for your stolen life.
She spent years tracking Vern and Varnok.
Uncovering their smuggling rings, black site deals, and any nefarious whispers of theRed Skulls’illegal activities.
Worse, the massacre at Vael’Na’ra, a trio of populated moons within the Thren system.
