Page 8 of Alien Assassin's Heir

“I want you to go where no one else wants to. Keep eyes on the settlement. Report anything strange. You won’t have backup. No reinforcements. If you’re caught, you’re disavowed. Same old story.”

He pauses, then adds, “But she’s there, Kraj. She’s alive. Works the shipping yard. Lives in a unit near the west outpost.”

Her scent hits me like a blade to the gut. Fresh fruit, warm skin, electric fear.

“And you think I’ll say yes because she’s there.”

Targen shrugs. “I think you never stopped thinking about her. Even with half a unit vaporized around you.”

He’s not wrong.

Stars help me, he’s not wrong.

I take another drag from the flask. The fire doesn’t burn as much this time.

“Fine,” I say. “But I’m not there for her.”

“Of course not,” Targen replies, smiling like a liar. “Just business.”

I’m soon on a transport to the frontier. To Luna. The stars are too quiet.

I sit strapped into the back of the long-range shuttle, boots braced against the steel floor, arms folded tight across my chest as if I could squeeze out the past through sheer pressure. Outside the porthole, the void stretches—black and silver and full of secrets. The kind of silence that doesn’t soothe. The kind that stares back.

I’ve spent years trying not to think about her. Three, to be exact. Three years of mud, blood, and orders barked through static while my claws were slick with someone else's guts. The front lines were hell—but hell is honest. This job? This “assignment?” It stinks worse than the piles of burnt viscera I left on that battlefield.

A cushy job, Targen said.

Surveillance. Wildwood settlement. Minimal resistance. Watch a civilian fabrication hub and report anything odd.

Sure.

I wasn’t born yesterday. I know what this is.

They’re testing me. Again. Seeing if I’ve still got it, or if the war’s ground me down into nothing but callus and spite. I gave everything for the Coalition. Then they tried to erase me. Now they’re calling me back with promises like rotten meat wrapped in gold foil.

And her name.

Luna.

I say it in my mind and my throat goes dry. She was the first thing I ever wanted that wasn’t part of the mission. And the last thing I destroyed before they tossed me to the wolves.

My claws flex.

“She’s still there,” Targen had said like it was a lure. Like I’d leap at it with my tail wagging.

But he doesn’t understand.

This isn’t about curiosity.

It’sneed.

I can smell her in my dreams. That mix of rain, warmth, and command-station ozone that used to drive me half mad. She’d walk into the room and my bones would hum like tuned glass. Not because she was soft—not Luna. She was sharp and precise, even when she whispered. Especially when she whispered. And when she laughed, the whole damn station felt smaller. Like maybe there was still something in the universe worth breathing for.

And I ruined it.

Used her. Lied to her. Left her.

I growl low in my throat and turn from the porthole, unable to stomach the endless expanse.