Page 11 of Command

“Tell them to be a little more careful,” Threxin told Renza when he had reported the ordeal.

Renza lifted his chin, but gave him a look of resigned helplessness. “They are so fragile.”

“Try,” Threxin sighed, slumping back into his seat in the command center.

His eyes roamed the shellshocked workers on shift that morning. They were indeed extremely breakable.

“Renza,” Threxin called after him as his brother turned to leave. He paused, head lolling to the side. “The ship’s recordssay Orion Halen has a sire whose death has not been recorded. I suspect if anyone has more information, it will be him.”

Renza’s apertures twitched in acknowledgment. “I will find him.”

CHAPTER 7

ALINA

Alina decided she had to get back to work two days after the invasion.

Invasion.

It was a big word that should have felt weightier when it came to her mind, but Alina found it difficult to feel the gravity of the situation. Part of her thought it still couldn’t be real… Uhyre were the stuff of legends and nightmares. Scary stories their parents told them in the dark. It was hard to process that this was happening.Colossal, her home, was the greatest and best-armed colony ship in existence. The thought that it could not only be breached but by actual monsters seemed too far removed from reality to internalize.

Alina had spent the entire day prior cooped up in her cabin, bundled defensively in her mother’s old rainbow quilt. She binged Old Earth sitcoms while waiting for a knock on the door to escort her down to the CRD. The chime never came, which for Alina was a sign that Kaia either forgot about her or still wanted her services after all.

It was the one glimmer of light in this entire situation. The glimmer only lasted a moment as Alina remembered she still had no idea what Threxin’s decision on their fate would be.Hadhe decided? When would they know? When the aliens came to take them away for slaughter?

But for now Kaia had chosen to keep her around, so Alina was determined to keep her head down and do her job to the best of her ability. That started with bringing Kaia her breakfast for their morning triage.

Alina came face to face with an uhyre guard patrolling her hallway just as her cabin door hissed open. The sudden proximity of the armed and armored monster made her breath hitch and her spine go rigid.

“I… I need to get to work,” she said as the uhyre glared at her—she couldn’t quite tell this one’s gender.

The glowing yellow skin slits running along its face and neck, disappearing into the neckline of its bulky armor, narrowed.

“I’m assistant to Kaia Halena, the com… Orion Halen’s wife,” she pressed. “I’ve got to bring her breakfast. She needs me.”

A stretch, but what else was she supposed to say?

“You are her food fetcher?” the uhyre gurgled.

“Well, that’s justoneof the things I do for her. It’s more of atriage,” Alina huffed. Or it would be, if Kaia ever let her do anything else. She hadn’t really done much for Kaia since first getting her acclimatized to colony life. She’d tried, of course, but Kaia… Well, Kaia was Kaia.

The uhyre let out a little snort that Alina didn’t like, but it stepped aside. There was something chilling about the way the alien motioned her past with its gun so casually. “Go fetch then, human.”

Alina tried to just be happy with being allowed to do her job and see Kaia, forcing down the defensiveness at her work being minimized like that by one of the invaders. It didn’t matter.

The inability to check where Kaia was or communicate with her made Alina feel blind. The invader would probablyhave taken the commander’s quarters for himself and relegated Kaia and Orion elsewhere… But where? The only way to find them was to look, but how far would the uhyre let her get?

She slinked past more uhyre patrolling barely lit halls to the nearest canteen. The hallway lighting, usually bright and clinical, was now dim and sporadic. Maybe the uhyre saw in the dark, or maybe the eerie glow of their apertures was enough to light their way.

Alina retrieved Kaia’s breakfast box and headed toward what used to be their quarters. Each step filled her with dread at the likely possibility that she’d come across the invader—the cyan one—instead. The uhyre were like beacons in the near empty halls, burning slits of different colors shifting in the shadows as Alina crept with her head ducked to the floor. Each sighting sent a shiver down her spine and arms. They tracked her steps with glowing eyes and tightened skin slits as she passed, disdain roiling off their bodies as if they were looking at an Old Earth bug under their boots.

Alina clenched the box in her hand more tightly, resisting the urge to pick at the coral polish flaking on her index finger as she navigated their glares. She tried to focus on her breathing. But Dr. Pertin’s calming strategies weren’t exactly designed to deal with the realities of being surrounded by uhyre.Living, breathing uhyre.

Shit. They’re really real. This is really happening.

Alina’s insides were numb, but her skin was pins and needles. Her heart hammered through her chest, leaving little space for breathing. She didn’t even feel herself putting one foot in front of the other anymore, all she felt was her pulse and the growing pit in her stomach.

Alina turned into the main passage past the command center, which she had to cross in order to reach the commander’s residential wing. She jumped, stifling a yelp when another uhyre stopped her as she turned the corner. Itsmacked the length of its rifle across her chest so hard that it knocked the air out of her.

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