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Behind me, Lazar’s voice is ice-fucking cold – and his aura matches it. There are no cracks in his aura – he knows that he and I have the responsibility for clearing our path of any asteroids Otho can’t navigate us past.

All three of us act in perfect synchronicity – and any doubt by any of us threatens to derail our seamless unity.

Doubt – like the flash I’d had of my Fated Mate, when I’d wondered if my Orb-Beam would strike true; or if our lives had been about to end.

I’m not afraid of death. Death comes to us all, and I could have been on Colossus instead right then – with a dozen gorgeous women bringing me drinks and massaging every inch of my body.

To me, they’d be a dozen gorgeous, empty husks. I’m out here in space because death has the same inflection whether it’s earned in luxury, or toil.

Besides, no Aurelian has ever found his Fated Mate among the droves of women who flock to join Aurelian harems on our home world. Why waste time fantasizing that the one woman my battle-brothers and I seek would ever come to us by chance.

That’s why we’re here, out in the depths of space – undertaking a mission given to us by the Queen of our people herself.

And, if that mission fails?

There might not be a home world to return to. Colossus might be lost.

My stomach clenches as Otho veers our Reaver hard to the left. The grav-stabilizers are currently cut off - so we can divert all power to weapons, shields, and engines instead.

As a result, we feel every g-force of Otho’s skilled maneuvers.

Life support is set to a minimum for the same reason – and that means the air is thin in this cockpit. I take careful breaths as our Reaver dances around a hurtling asteroid. I can see flashes of white in front of us – barely visible through the flying maelstrom of rock and debris.

“I’m picking up something…” Otho takes his eyes off his tracking scanner – instead glancing at the external sensors that detect powerful energy sources ahead.

The distraction costs us sorely. Suddenly, we’re hit.

Hard.

The Reaver tumbles through the air, spinning out of control.

It had all happened in an instant. A rock the size of hover-car punched right through our shields – hitting our vessel like a missile.

Alarms instantly sound out. There’s a deafeningcrackas the entire side of the ship crumples inward. Behind me, Lazar is thrown out of his gunnery station – his restraints snapping under the pressure.

I glance behind me – and for a moment, I see the emptiness of space through the hole punched in our hull.

The AI repair systems seal off the hole – filling it with hardening foam that our repair bots will later replace with rebuilt alloy.

Behind me, lying on the deck, I sense that Lazar is alive. His aura is stunned, but determined in my mind.

“Back to your position!” I bark at him – and Lazar doesn’t think; he just acts.

My battle-brother moves by instinct, returning to his seat and grabbing the controls. He fires out lances of Orb-Beam at the other oncoming asteroids – still aiming true from his damaged gunnery station. With faultless precision, he cuts down the next asteroid a mere instant before it ends us.

Otho remains cold as a glacier at the helm – thrusting our Reaver forward. Finally, we break through the storm to a pocket of empty space.

Now, there’s one huge moon looming before us – or an asteroid practically as large as a moon, floating through space spun by the momentum of its own enormous gravity.

The three Scorp eggsacs we’d been pursuing are ahead, veering towards the semi-moon.

Glancing at my sensors, I see that the surface of this moon has dozens of mining camps being set up across it.

Of course. It’s as if those mindless eggsacsknowwhich planets will be occupied. That’s why they’re drawn there.

If any of those eggsacs land, Scorp will pour out of them like wriggling, snapping, red-eyed death. The creatures will cut down anybody on that asteroid – miners, underequipped security officers, or personnel and staff.

“Gods! My sensors are off the charts!”