Page 6 of Alien Assassin's Heir

CHAPTER 2

KRAJ

Ash sticks in the cracks of my palms.

I kneel in the crater where my unit used to be, digging through blackened armor plating and the slick, oily remains of men who followed me into hell and didn’t make it out. My fingers scrape metal, bone, something soft that squishes under pressure—don’t think about it. Just move it aside. Keep going. Keep doing something.

The mech's still burning. Two-legged behemoth. Alliance issue. Twin cannons still smoldering, bent like the arms of a dead god. My charge did that. I crawled under fire, planted the explosive with my own damn hands, felt the shockwave tear through my chest before it dropped like a dying beast.

And still… I’m the only one breathing.

Again.

The ash chokes the air. Smells like charred skin and polymer—hot and chemical and thick. It clings to my scales like a second skin. I taste blood, soot, and bile on my tongue. My head rings, every pulse a hammer strike against my skull. The left side of my face is slick—cut from shrapnel or bone or both.

Doesn’t matter.

They’re gone. All of them.

Again.

My breath rattles. I drop what’s left of Corporal Jennik’s dog tags into the scrap-heap of his ribcage and close what’s left of his helmet. His blood’s on my chest. My arm. My teeth.

"You deserved better,” I mutter, voice rasping low.

Nothing answers but the hiss of cooling metal and the crackle of a fractured sky. Storms brewing again. Arkanti electrical fronts love the dead.

I stagger to my feet. My legs protest. Something in my left thigh is definitely cracked. Doesn’t matter. I walk.

Through the torn battlefield, scattered with burnt-out husks and still-smoking wrecks. The whole place reeks of old blood and stale regrets. Drones still buzz overhead, tracking movement. Probably recording everything. Feeding it to someone safe and warm behind glass and screens.

My comm crackles in my ear—finally.

“Coalition Echo Two-One, stand by for evac.”

I don’t answer.

Not right away.

I try not to think of anything. Not Luna. Not her voice in the dark. Not the way she looked at me when she realized what I’d done.

Especially not that.

The drop-ship descends like a ghost.Silent. Sleek. Too quiet for a field pickup, which tells me something’s wrong before the bay door even opens.

And then I see him.

Targen.

That bastard's still alive.

He steps out like he owns the battlefield, gray-brown cloak flapping in the hot wind, goggles gleaming with a dozen HUDlayers. His grin is wide and sharp, like he never stopped being the predator and we all just forgot.

“Still the last one standing,” he says as I limp up the ramp, blood slicking the grating beneath my boots.

“Targen.” I rasp his name like it’s a curse.

He holds out a flask.