Page 2 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
I shake him off. “It’s already worse.”
He grabs me again, harder. “You’ll get us killed.”
“They’re going to kill us anyway.”
“No. They want us compliant, not destroyed.”
“Same thing,” I snap.
But still, I don’t move. Not yet. I need a plan. I need a ship.
And most of all, I need someone who doesn’tscare easy.
Because if no one else will fight—then I will.
Even if I have to do it alone.
It takes exactly six minutes and seventeen seconds for the colony to fall apart.
I count them. Each breath shallow and stuttering. Each heartbeat a drumbeat behind my ribs.
One: The Vortaxian ship finishes its descent, displacing air so violently that the cloud cover shifts like curtains being drawn. The golden sheen of the hull gleams under Drexar Seven’s twin suns, a breathtaking mockery of grace and beauty, as if it's not here to subjugate but to bless. The reflective surface throws distorted sunlight across the colony, warping shadows into twisting snakes that crawl up the prefab walls.
Two: Their commander plants his foot on colony soil like it’s his birthright. His gait is the strut of a man who’s never known consequences, a walking monument to hubris. He smiles—a vile, oily thing that stretches wide beneath polished tusks.Sweat trickles down my spine in time with his descending soldiers. Their armor hums, black and gold plates shifting with mechanical precision. These aren't brutes—they’re calculated terror dressed in ceremonial threat display.
Three through six: Panic. Murmurs ignite like static on old radios. I see a mother pull her toddler back from the main square, her eyes wide and unfocused. The baker from quadrant three drops his morning rations onto the plastcrete and doesn’t notice the crunch beneath his boots. The militia tries to organize—a handful of underpaid, overcaffeinated volunteers fumbling with sidearms that were obsolete five decades ago. I hear one of them yell, “Form up!” but no one does. We’re too scattered. Too stunned.
I shove my way past them, the back of my shirt soaked with sweat, the air already tainted with something acrid—burnt ozone, or maybe just my rising bile. Someone grabs my elbow, but I shrug them off. I don’t want comfort. I want aplan.I want a reason to punch something, someone, anyone.
The square is packed with bodies now. We weren’t ready for this. No drills. No prep. Because nobody believed it wouldactuallyhappen. The idea of the Vortaxians showing up was always a boogeyman tale, a political tool to keep us cooperative. We thought we were too remote to matter. Too small to conquer.
We were wrong.
The Vortaxian commander lifts a hand, and the booming silence is shattered by his voice, broadcast from that floating drone that hovers just behind his shoulder. “People of Snowblossom Colony, rejoice!”
I nearly gag. His tone is syrupy, full of counterfeit warmth. I want to bottle it just to smash the container later.
“You are now cherished members of the glorious Vortaxian Empire.” He stretches his arms wide, like he's welcoming us into a family barbecue instead of a hostile annexation. “Yourcontributions to galactic prosperity shall be honored. Your continued compliance shall be rewarded. Your resistance, while understandable, will be... discouraged.”
He says it like he’s offering us tea and cake.
Around me, the air thickens with fear. I can smell it—salt and musk and the sharp tang of adrenaline. A man to my left is hyperventilating. A woman ahead of me mutters prayers under her breath, words spilling out in a rhythm only her ancestors understand. The crowd tightens, like we can make ourselves smaller and less noticeable if we just press together hard enough.
The commander gestures behind him. A holo-projector flares to life, casting the image of an idealized colony under Vortaxian rule—gleaming spires, families smiling under artificial sunlight, children laughing as drones deliver food rations.
I know propaganda when I see it.
“We offer you advancement. Protection. Integration,” he says. “All you must do is obey.”
He lets that word sit there, fat and final.
And then he gives us his name.
“I am Colonel Kernal, and from this day forward, you are my responsibility.”
I bark a laugh.
I can’t help it—it just bursts out of me. “Kernal?Like a popcorn kernel?” I say, louder than I mean to, still grinning like I’ve lost my grip on reality.
