Page 32 of Taken By the Alien Killer
“Station alert,” a bored speaker says, trying to sound like it says this every day. “Remain calm and?—”
The windows bloom red.
It starts as a smear—like a child has dragged a brush loaded with blood across the glass—and then the whole dome washes in it, a furious glow from beyond the docking ring. People stand mid-conversation, mid-drink, mid-lie. Someone knocks a stool over and no one laughs.
A kid near the rail says, “What’s that light?”
A miner at the bar answers with a word that arrives low and mean and undeniable: “Reapers.”
The cantina doesn’t scream. Itcompresses.Sound drops, then explodes—metal chairs scraping, boots on the deck, a dozen different prayers in a dozen different creeds, the bartender shouting for everyone to keep their heads while she kills the gas line in the kitchen.
CynJyn is suddenly at my elbow, breath fast, eyes wide and very, very awake. “We’re going.” Her hand clamps my wrist, hard. “Now.”
“What about?—”
“The ship's hidden,” she snaps. “We get to it before the hidden stops mattering.”
The siren changes pitch, a long, low moan that gets under my skin and drags my nerves like a net. I catch another flash of the viewport and see shapes—far off, black against red, engines like coals in a forge, hungry and coming fast.
“Cyn,” I whisper, even though she’s right there, even though the word is useless. “Cyn?—”
“Move,” she says, and the station agrees by tilting the lights to emergency red, washing every face into a horror version of itself.
She gets no argument from me.
CHAPTER 8
RAYEK
Two days stretch like wire. I stand posts, walk routes, run the drills my body knows the way lungs know air, but everything I touch rings wrong. The house sounds too clean. The corridors smell too much like lemon and not enough like living. At 0600 a “status irregularity” pings my slate with the bureaucrat’s favorite sin: vagueness. By 0615 I am in Sneed’s office because vagueness around her is a bomb with a silk ribbon.
“Where is she,” I ask, no titles, no sugar.
Sneed peers over his slate like he’s inspecting a smudge. “Lady Star has engaged in a brief excursion, Commander. CynJyn accompanies. They are… decompressing.”
“Where,” I repeat.
“Away,” he says, and manages to make the word three syllables long. “Communications are intermittent. The situation is monitored.”
“By whom.”
“By those tasked to monitor it.” He sets the slate down with the sort of care that breaks furniture. “I will remind you that the Lady is an adult and the social weather of the household has been inclement.”
“I don’t care how you describe the sky,” I tell him. “I want coordinates.”
He folds his hands. “The official assessment is that this is a rebellious jaunt. Your continued calm is noted.”
“Your continued evasions are also noted,” I say, and the room tightens. He does not blink. I do not sit. We both perform restraint like we are being graded for it.
Wynona and Martin make me wait outside their study for five full minutes while voices low and quick pass behind the door. When it opens, Wynona wears the look she saves for cattle crises and grown children who think consequences are optional. Martin’s smile is the kind that keeps men from breaking by giving them something softer to hit.
“Commander,” Wynona says, and she is Mother, Lady, and General in equal measure. “We’re aware. We have it in hand.”
“With respect, you don’t,” I say. “If you did, you would not be saying ‘in hand.’ You would be giving me a vector.”
Martin spreads his hands. “We will not escalate a private rebellion into public drama. They took a car; they’ll bring it back. Star is not stupid.”
“She is also not safe,” I say, and Wynona’s eyes flash because she agrees and hates that I said it out loud.
