Page 14 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

A bead of sweat tracks down her temple. I want to wipe it. Instead I step closer. “Explain how we—us—without a fleet and with limited support—do all this without vaporizing half the planet.”

She lifts a gauntlet: “The sabotage teams already disabled the eastern-orbit grid. We smuggle explosives into the orbital control hub—they’re powered by thrusters old enough to have rusted long ago. We fix one feed line. You know how to do that quietly.”

I exhale. “And ground?”

“We flood the eastern ridge with stolen plasma charges. The cannon’s arc can’t cover that angle. We pierce their hold as they scramble. It’s chaos. It’s speed. It’s audacity.”

She holds my gaze, daring me to blink.

I do—then smile. A slow, wicked curl of lips. “I like mad.”

An avalanche of cheers echoes through the hangar. Bones lengthen, backs straighten. Eyes shine.

Josie chews her lip: “We’ll gather teams tonight. Supply runs with decoys at dawn. Dayn, I need you leading the ground push.”

I swallow. “Will do.”

A hand slips into mine—Josie’s. Warm, steady, fire.

It humbles. It centers.

I look back at the fighters: “This plan is suicide. But if it works…” My voice softens: “We could break their empire right here.”

She squeezes harder: “Then we do it our way.”

I nod. “Then we’ll win.”

She laughs—quiet triumph, like metal finding its edge. “Then it’s time to finish this.”

We step toward the holo-table. My hand slides around Josie’s. The next move is ours. Tonight, madness becomes strategy. Defiance becomes victory.

And the war—finally—feels winnable.

Our nights have become torchlit routines of necessity and wild devotion.

I find myself counting secret heartbeat-moments more than the hours on the makeshift clock.

Between missions, I sleep with the smell of fresh prefab plastic still in the corners of our hideout—a scent that, bizarrely, makes me feel safe as Dayn's chest rises beneath me.

Our laughter is becoming part of the resistance’s soundtrack.

This evening starts with a steelier, half-smile. Dayn is lounging on a crate draped in spare wiring, sorting through plasma cells while I calibrate a remote-sensor lysing kit. The hum of welding arcs and townsmen’s shouts drift in—our world in motion. I glance at him.

“Your growl,” I tease, voice soft but steady like a cat stalking prey. “It’s... not scary.”

He rolls his eyes, not looking up. “You know, I could work on being more frightening.”

I lean over onto my hip, elbows touching the cool steel of the workbench. “Why would you want to? It’s more like a grumpy kitten that’s plotting world domination.”

He stops what he's doing and looks up, glacial eyes sparkling. “A grumpy kitten?”

“Oh yes.” I grin. “Tiny ears, claws snapping, but ultimately snuggly if you do it right.”

He sets aside the plasma cell and rises to full height—tall, powerful, alien and yet achingly familiar.

My breath skips. Without warning, he closes the distance, slams me against the cold metal wall behind me, and kisses out the breath in my lungs.

One arm pins me, fingertips digging into the curve of my waist; the other hand tilts my head back, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth.

His mouth is fierce, star-scorched, months of longing embedded in every heated breath. My knees weaken. I wrap my arms around his neck, pressing into the surprising warmth of his scaled chest behind human form. I can taste solder and salted tears—but also starlight.

When he finally steps back, I stumble but stay upright. His voice is thick. “Grumpy beginner.”

I brush my hair from my face with a soft laugh. “Potent kitten.”

He smirks. “Potent.”

A silent agreement drapes between us, warm and dangerous.

But there’s no time for stalling. Not now.

The lights hum overhead. Someone coughs. Our team is moving into position—trenches rigged, decoys laid, sensors arming.

I lick my lips, still tasting him. “These sound kits need redirection. The Vorts are adapting faster than we thought.”

He nods. “Change them. I’ll cover.”

I take a breath, reach for the control panel. Fingers twist dials, wires pass through gloved hands. He steps closer, murmuring tough-love critique and praise in the same breath. He’s tether and armor.

We work like that, moment by moment—passion and planning. Seamlessly connected. Weapons laid out like love letters between us.

Later, as I recalibrate the thermal trip-line on a prefab corridor, he appears at my side with a mug of sooty coffee. I take it with a smile, sipping gratitude and bitter resolve.

“You stay sharp,” he warns. “They’re already sending drones to sweep.”

“Wouldn’t be here without you.” I rest a hand on his chest. Four fiery eyes stare down, storm in the human ones. “Just... promise me we’ll still laugh tomorrow.”

He smiles—gentle, guarding. “Always,” he murmurs. Then, more quietly, “Always.”

Our hands linger.

During mission briefings, I find myself poking him mid-chart. “Hey, growly cat—repeater line needs tuning,” I tease while soldering the tip of a thermal detonator.

His elbow bumps mine, hard enough to sting. “Play with fire, engineer?—”

“Like you don’t enjoy it,” I answer, voice low. Our eyes lock. The room heats ten degrees.

After we rig explosives in the eastern tunnel, we retreat into a corridor lined with half-built barricades. I’m adjusting comm links when he wraps his arms around me from behind.

His chest against my back. Strong, warm. He kisses the edge of my ear. I gasp, pressing against him. He doesn’t stop.

I whisper, “Stop?—”

His lips brush my throat, voice breathless. “Not yet.”

The corridor walls seem to pulse with our heartbeat. I turn, toes slipping in grit. We fit together like puzzle pieces built from different galaxies.

“Damn it,” I murmur into his mouth.

And we descend again into that fierce union—kiss muffled by action brief, body tangled, felt in each marrow. Sharp reminders of what we fight for.

When we break apart, breath jagged, jacket open at collar, I grin with reckless delight. “Mid-mission makeouts. Hazardous but effective.”

He huffs, flicks a stray paint fleck from my temple. “Very effective.”

A crackle in my earpiece. Mara’s voice—urgent, raw: “They’re moving. Patrols are redirecting toward the east gate. They’re... coming fast.”

My pulse spikes. I press the mic. “Team A to central—code Ouchie is live. They move in.”

I spin away—rigid focus resumed. We rush to commands that matter more than kisses. The corridor buzzes with low, determined shouts. The kids scramble behind barricades. I lace into orders: sensor calibrations, team deployments. The world slides into strategic machinery, leaving only purpose.

But as I walk away, I hear Dayn's voice—deep, steady: “Pounce when ready.”

It echoes in my veins.

And even as the grid warns of advancing Vortax threats, I carry his promise—and the heat of his arms—into the fray.

This war is fire and laughter and revenge. It’s love.

And we’re ready.

I discover the first disappearance while dusting a supply crate in the hidden safehouse.

The room is unnervingly silent, but that’s not unusual—quiet is protest’s shrine.

Until I see the cracked holo-pad on the floor, shards of its shield clouding the dim floor-light.

The blood-red smear trails toward the door.

Hands reach forward—digesting the scene with ice-cold claws.

Empty mattresses. Ripped-open packs. A chair swiveled on its back legs. Uneaten rations rotting in open crates. The air tastes stale and heavy, rich with fear.

“Mara?”

My voice echoes back, thin and afraid.

No reply.

A bootprint deeper than the rest, dragged to the wall. I crouch and run a fingertip along the groove. The plaster crumbles under my nail. No supplies. No living breath. Just vacancy carved in panic.

It hits me like a railgun shock. The colonists are vanishing. Kid by kid, tech by tech—extracted in the dead of night as warnings for those of us still bold enough to fight back.

I step back, hand pressed to my throat, lungs twisting. This is the cost. Every choice, every spark of resistance carries a blood-price. I taste copper regret. The guilt tastes like swallowed acid.

My fingers itch for solder, for tools, for anything I can do . Because that’s who I am — the fixer. The retorter. The engineer who channels grief into machinery.

I turn and bolt for the door, falling into the night as night falls on fragile hope.

The blast doors hiss shut as I enter our command bunker.

It’s warm with urgency, monitors flickering defiant glow across lean faces.

Hargon’s eyes are hollow pools. Tessa only shakes her head in the corner.

Even Dayn—he radiates storm-tempered steel, but this fracturing is more dangerous than any Vortaxian drone.

I drop into the holo-table—my tools clank against wood.

“Tell me what happened,” I demand.

Dayn stands. His eyes lock with mine. “Safehouse #3. We found it emptied at first light.”

Tessa blurts it out: “ mattresses stripped. Hoses cut. People gone.”

I press my palms into the glossy table, muscles burning. “No traces? No bodies?”

He slides a hand through his hair. “Just this.”

He taps the table. A flicker of comm-scan audio: the static-twist of panic, the scrape of boots, then silence.

My heart lodges in my throat. “He’s using terror to silence us.”

Dayn steps forward. “It’s not your fault.”

“Not my fault?” My laugh comes brittle, cracked. “This is my fight. My design. They’re vanishing because we dared to rise.”

He reaches for me, voice quiet: “They vanish because he’s afraid of us. Not because of something you did wrong.”

I shove my palms into the table, eyes burning. “They vanish because of us.” My voice breaks. “I built weapons. I built traps. I made devices to hurt the Vortaxians—and these people paid.”

Heat erupts in my chest—rage and guilt snaking until my legs tremble. I lunge for my toolkit. “Then we build something they can’t ignore.”

Dayn grips my arm. Patience in his touch, but steel in his eyes. “We’ll build it. Together.”

I yank a crate open. Tools scatter: drills, capacitors, bearing blocks. I inhale the tang of oil, the promise of metal reformed.

“We need noise,” I say, voice frantic. “Louder. Brutal. Obvious. A blaze in the night that says: This is who you’re fighting.”

I pound my fist into the crate. “Flares in the corridors. Siren-traps in the supply shafts. Plasma nets that fry the first boot that dares cross the eastern ridge corners.”

My voice trembles, but Dayn presses closer—let’s the fire burn, but plants a steady hand. “Good. But we don’t get blooded tonight.”

I glance at him, eyes shining. “I don’t plan reckless. Just visible .”

He nods, fists flexing. “Then start building.”

The lab explodes into frantic creation. My hands work faster than I can think—wiring salvo triggers, tweaking audio loops, reprogramming decoys for maximum chaos. Each device is born from grief, fear, and fierce defiance. They’re horror shows for Vortaxian souls.

Dayn stands by the bench, feeding tools, monitoring wire integrity, offering quiet corrections: “Cover that cruise gate. Cam sensor on the ground.” His voice is partnership wielded as armor.

I glance at him, furious and focused. “You sure you want to play this wild?”

He meets my eye. “You make me want to be wild.” He grins. “Besides…it’s brilliant.”

I bite back a smile. Even in the dim of post-raid fear, his faith steadies me.

As dawn cracks, we haul box after crate out into prepped hideaways. Sweat drips in salty ropes down my collarbone, oil stains cinch to my gloves. I slip a final homemade siren sensor under the supply hatch.

The first crate touches the earth.

I step back and swallow.

Dayn lifts me into a hug—warm and alive. “If this fails…”

I cut him off in a whisper. “If.”

We stand together in silence—the war-wound of missing people a chord we hate, a tremor that drives our resolve harder.

Rain clouds gather on the horizon, heavy with threat and release.

And I—messy, furious, brilliant—hold my toolkit like a vow.

Because this night…the one they’ll not forget.