Page 1 of Grumpy Alien Lumberjack
Chapter One
Jeneva
The trees were beginning to glow.
Jeneva narrowed her eyes, stunned. The forest pulsed with faint shades of neon silver and blue. It started at their roots as a soft blue heartbeat and spread upward like the veins in a pressed leaf. The neon became more brilliant with each pulse, and one by one each tree lit up like someone had flipped a switch and turned Christmas lights on.
"Incredible," she whispered, slipping the straps of her backpack off her shoulders.
She had found it—the bioluminescent forest that existed only in rumors and whispered stories at the human colony. Every night from the window in her cell, she had watched a faint silver glow line the horizon, separating the darkness of the forest from the night sky. It had given her something to look forward to, amystery that called to her. She had promised herself that if she ever got out, she would find the source of that ethereal light.
And now, on what was supposed to be her last day of freedom before being shipped back to the asylum, she stood in its midst.
Slow to break through the shock of her discovery, Jeneva ran a shaking hand over her mouth. Her legs trembled, partly from excitement, partly from the neurological damage that had plagued her since the accident three years ago. But somehow, the weakness that usually slowed her hadn't stopped her today.
She had seized her chance this morning when Section Leader Rusik grudgingly released her from the cell, following orders he clearly despised. While he had been distracted by paperwork, she had slipped into a supply room, grabbed an expedition pack, and walked straight out of the colony through an unguarded back gate. All she had wanted was one perfect day of warmth and freedom before returning to the ice planet where the asylum was located.
Awed, Jeneva walked in a careful circle, her walking stick providing balance as she took in the spectacle around her. Everything was lit with an ethereal glow. Even the grass beneath her feet held a hint of spectral white. She lowered the pack and set it on the ground beneath a tree. A group of small flowers blinked and turned neon coral. The ground erupted in electric violet, then shifted through shades of pink, orange, and blue-green.
Trembling with excitement, she sat beside her pack and withdrew her sketchbook. This moment was why she had risked everything to sneak aboard the transport vessel from her home to Asemsa. To experience life and adventure again, to be more than a broken artist trapped on a desolate world.
Studying the tree directly in front of her, she dug a pencil from the pack's front pocket. A familiar ache shot through her right hand and wrist as her fingers wrapped around it. The painspeared up her arm to the curve of her neck—a cruel reminder of the falling rocks that had crushed her spine during that research expedition on Kepler-442b.
With a hiss, she switched the pencil to her left hand—the clumsy one she had been trying to train since the accident. She made a few tentative lines, adjusting her grip. The marks came out uneven, childlike, nothing like the precise botanical illustrations that had once been her signature, the ones that had gotten her commissioned for exploratory missions across three solar systems.
But it felt good to try. The art seemed to welcome her back, asking where she had been.
The trees' pulsing glow evolved into soft, intricate patterns. Transfixed, she could almost feel the rhythm syncing with the rush of blood through her veins. According to the chart in the colony's dining hall, it was autumn on Asemsa, though it looked nothing like the Maine autumns of her childhood. Those had been beautiful, but this was transcendent.
Her wrist com beeped for the fourth time since she had left. Rusik again, no doubt furious that she had disabled tracking. She didn't owe him a response. Once he had discovered she had arrived without proper authorization, he had thrown her in that cell without a second thought.
The back of her neck suddenly prickled.
Jeneva's fingers tightened around the pencil as she scanned the glowing forest. When had it gotten so dark? She could have sworn twilight had just begun when she had started sketching.
The forest had gone silent.
Not quiet. Silent. The complete absence of sound pressed against her eardrums. According to the safety briefings she had watched this morning, Asemsa's only predators lived in the high mountain elevations, far from here. It was the only reason shehad felt safe venturing out alone. She couldn't outrun danger. Hell, she could barely walk ten steps without stumbling.
But every instinct screamed that she wasn't alone anymore. Whatever had joined her was dangerous enough to silence the night creatures.
Drawing her knees to her chest, Jeneva kept one palm flat on the ground, ready to push herself up. Adrenaline flooded her system, urging her to run even though her damaged body couldn't comply.
She slid her hand into the pack's interior pocket and withdrew a bracelet-sized ring shield. Pressing the red activation button, she waited for the protective force field to envelop her.
Nothing happened.
Heart lurching, she pressed again. Blue lights flashed across the device's surface, then died.
"You've got to be kidding me."
A shuffle to her right. Through the bioluminescent haze, she could only make out the dark outlines of trees. Fear raised goosebumps along her arms as she fumbled for the knife in the bag, setting it on her thigh with trembling fingers.
A low, rumbling growl rippled through the air, seeming to come from everywhere at once. Moving closer. Getting louder.
In the slip of darkness between two softly lit trees, two round yellow eyes materialized.
Jeneva bit back a scream as something crept from the shadows—low to the ground with a long snout and a form so dark it seemed to absorb light. Only those predatory eyes blazed with color. As it fully emerged, she saw its long, muscular body, a crocodile-like head with four dagger-like fangs protruding from its upper jaw and diamond-shaped scales running along its spine.
