Page 41 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
She spins the holo: “They think this is just a coup. Vector strike, reclaim underground, maybe a hit-and-run in orbit. But I have a better idea: we drive them off-planet.”
Silence ripples through the hangar. A captive aerogel soldier scores low chatter. I lean in.
Josie’s gaze skips over me—steady and fearless. “We hit hard, on two fronts. Sabotage the orbital cannons. Then stage a reclamation strike from the east ridge—with you leading. We force them to choose between ground and sky.”
“Mad,” I whisper. Because that’s what it is. Lunacy.
She grins. “Militants call me that a lot.”
I rise and pace. The rest watch like prey. “Orbital cannons are fortified. Vortax controls the station orbiting Drexar Seven. You’re suggesting we—what?—repel spaceborne forces from a planet-side strike.”
She nods. Voice steady: “Exactly. Drive their fleet off-station, then reclaim the colony. We send a message to the Alliance that Snowblossom isn’t expendable.”
A bead of sweat tracks down her temple. I want to wipe it. Instead I step closer. “Explain how we—us—without a fleet and with limited support—do all this without vaporizing half the planet.”
She lifts a gauntlet: “The sabotage teams already disabled the eastern-orbit grid. We smuggle explosives into the orbital control hub—they’re powered by thrusters old enough to have rusted long ago. We fix one feed line. You know how to do that quietly.”
I exhale. “And ground?”
“We flood the eastern ridge with stolen plasma charges. The cannon’s arc can’t cover that angle. We pierce their hold as they scramble. It’s chaos. It’s speed. It’s audacity.”
She holds my gaze, daring me to blink.
I do—then smile. A slow, wicked curl of lips. “I like mad.”
An avalanche of cheers echoes through the hangar. Bones lengthen, backs straighten. Eyes shine.
Josie chews her lip: “We’ll gather teams tonight. Supply runs with decoys at dawn. Dayn, I need you leading the ground push.”
I swallow. “Will do.”
A hand slips into mine—Josie’s. Warm, steady, fire.
It humbles. It centers.
I look back at the fighters: “This plan is suicide. But if it works…” My voice softens: “We could break their empire right here.”
She squeezes harder: “Then we do itourway.”
I nod. “Then we’ll win.”
She laughs—quiet triumph, like metal finding its edge. “Then it’s time to finish this.”
We step toward the holo-table. My hand slides around Josie’s. The next move is ours. Tonight, madness becomes strategy. Defiance becomes victory.
And the war—finally—feels winnable.
Our nights have become torchlit routines of necessity and wild devotion. I find myself counting secret heartbeat-moments more than the hours on the makeshift clock. Between missions, I sleep with the smell of fresh prefab plastic still in the corners of our hideout—a scent that, bizarrely, makes me feel safe as Dayn's chest rises beneath me.
Our laughter is becoming part of the resistance’s soundtrack.
This evening starts with a steelier, half-smile. Dayn is lounging on a crate draped in spare wiring, sorting through plasma cells while I calibrate a remote-sensor lysing kit. The hum of welding arcs and townsmen’s shouts drift in—our world in motion. I glance at him.
“Your growl,” I tease, voice soft but steady like a cat stalking prey. “It’s... not scary.”
He rolls his eyes, not looking up. “You know, I could work on being more frightening.”
I lean over onto my hip, elbows touching the cool steel of the workbench. “Why would you want to? It’s more like a grumpy kitten that’s plotting world domination.”
