Page 84 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
The reaction is immediate. The corridors outside the server start chattering. Footsteps pound. Guards shout and scramble. But we slip through locked doors, weaving through civilian crews pushing over crates while shouting at megaphones. People pause, glue their eyes to glowing tablets showing footage of Vortaxian-sponsored doctrine—smiling instructors urging loyalty, fracturing individuality.
“That’s Dayn!” one miner shouts as I help a veteran lug a malfunctioning excavator’s part. Josie corrals them. “Check your own minds, people! We’re not livestock!” Her voice carries over clanging metal, visceral as a pulse.
I grab her elbow. “They’re rising,” I murmur as dozens crowd around the main atrium holo. Sparks of defiance ignite in every glance.
The strike team moves in—five of us armed—not to kill but to direct the uprising, stand between miners and Vortaxian enforcers. There’s tense glower of facecam crews; they flash riot stun batons sputtering at their sides. Oversized helmets.
I feel Josie’s chest against my side. “You terrified?” she whispers. I grip her hand. “Electric.”
A miner behind me roars, fist raised. The base manager, a corp flunky, shrieks Vortaxian slogans, his voice cracking over amplification. Josie's step toward him is hurricane calm. “Power to the people, not dictators,” she says. Her words land like blunt force.
The Vortaxian cell breaks. Helmeted officers retreat, trainees scattering. We don’t fire weapons—nothing lethal today—just show solidarity. It's good violence: shouting, pushing bodies, but no death.
I hug Josie around the shoulders once the dust settles. “See?” I whisper. “Your voice is louder than any bullet.”
She squeezes back. “And yours steadies my arm.”
We don’t mention how the server room’s broadcasting system is now streaming rebel forums across hundreds of drones synced to every colony feed in the sector.
Back in the shuttle, engines vibrating into orbit, Josie looks out at the rusting planet below. She sips synth-coffee—bitter, dark, reassuring. I watch the monitor: newsfeed showing miners pledging autonomy, tearing down Vortaxian propaganda posters, raising banners of Snowblossom’s Phoenix emblem. A shaky message flashes:We choose ourselves.
She half-laughs. “Not bad for a spark engineer.”
I catch her smirk. “High priest origin story?”
She swats my arm. “Assassin origin version, don’t steal my thunder.”
We lean into each other. My jacket smells like sweat and victory. Hers like muffins and defiance. I taste the same coffee—shared.
She murmurs softly, “Mission accomplished?”
I press my forehead to hers. “Defeat won’t spread by fleets alone. It’ll spread by people who decide they matter. Tonight, we showed them they do.”
Her hand weaves through mine. “We did good, partner.”
Always. I don’t say it—I let the silence do. We orbit onward, heading for the next star. A bigger threat looms, Dowron told us that. But right now, in this moment, it's enough.
And if we face tomorrow together—no matter what comes next—we’ll still be the spark in the storm.
And suddenly, stranger, bigger, somehow wilder than ever, the galaxy feels like a place worth fighting for.
I’m halfway through tightening the last hull panel on our extraction ship when alarms splinter the cockpit—red flashes in the doorway, the distant roar of riot shields clashing. Our mission on Pyrax Theta spirals from covert sabotage to all-outrevolution faster than a flash convulse in the night sky. I sprint down the corridor, my image inducer still on human mode, but that glow in the lights hints at something sharper beneath.
Josie rams the door open, hands smeared with blood and grease, eyes blazing like polished obsidian. "Dayn, now!" she shouts, voice thick with ash from the riots outside. I grab her by the wrist, steel-blue gaze locking with hers. In those microseconds, everything settles—danger, elation, relief coiling in our veins like wildfire.
We vault into the shuttle’s hold just as the dock erupts behind us. Sparks crackle like tiny fireworks as Vortaxian riot drones crash and succumb to homemade EMP bursts. Flames lick at metal scaffolds, reflecting red in our eyes, heating the air like a geyser behind our backs.
Josie slips out of my grasp and into my arms. She tastes of smoke and adrenaline, lips crushed to mine in the fast-burn way that says no time for safety, no time for doubt. Our tenth time together is a singular explosion: quick blades of sensation—tongues, teeth, breath, the war-crack spirit of survival. It's rebellion made flesh.
I hold her over my shoulder while she hits the launch lever. The ship rumbles, thrumming with life, and we stagger into our bunks like lovers returning from a battlefield. Josie collapses against me, breath coming in jagged laughs. She grabs my face, forcing me to meet those fierce brown eyes. "You're insane," she pants, grin split across soot-smudged cheeks.
My palm sweeps along her spine, nudging her closer. "Right where I want to be."
We kiss again, too soon, in the heat of engines and aftershocks. When we break apart, she gasps, and I chuckle low, the sound rumbling in my chest. She pushes me down onto the bunk and climbs between my legs, urgent and wild. Our bodies move faster than thought, hearts hammering against ribs. Theafterglow is tactile—her breath on my throat, my hands braced on skin flush with blood and triumph.
When we finally lay quiet, the shuttle’s engines hum beneath us. We’re tangled soft, intervals of warmth amid the aftershocks. She traces my scarred shoulder, finger catching on rough edges. "You okay?" I ask, voice low and vulnerable. The world feels vast and fragile again.
She presses a kiss to my chest. "Better than okay. Alive."
