Page 22 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

I pivot, roar fluid as battle-laced wind, and imagine blood painting his cheek in slow motion. But the trigger never breaks. He melts away instead, chains of primal fear dropping him to the ground where he trembles and weeps.

Kernal stands amid us both—humanity breaking beneath a storm he thought he could command. It all goes quiet, sound dull and distant. Everything slows; I feel the heartbeat of the planet in my ribs.

I slide back, breathe ragged. The Shorcu glow fades. My hands stain red, and my uniform is cracked open along my shoulder, soaked in his sweat and my intent.

He looks up, face pale, voice a broken thing. “What are you?”

I rest a hand on my heart. “I’m the end of this,” I say, voice low and deliberate. “Stay on this rock, or leave it. But you cannot remain.”

His eyes shift down to the churned water-pump base, broken pipes hissing. I realize I’m standing on the drained heart of Snowblossom—and he’s the final poison it could have birthed.

He nods, crestfallen. Without waiting for a command, his guards crouch and remove his cuffs. He stands, hunched—a dethroned emperor stripped of luxury and threats.

I hesitate. Then turn my face up the hill, as the first whisper of sunrise stains the sky orange. I feel the warmth on my face and salivate at morning-grass hope.

I motion with a wide arc toward the colony’s edge, toward safety and healing. “Go.”

He looks at me—lost, disintegrating. Then he turns, broken, and walks away. His guards follow like fallen generals.

I pivot to Josie, who’s just arrived at the water reclamation site, apron torn, eyes shining with something fierce and tender. She sees me and steps forward, taking my hand. Without speaking, she kisses my cheek—raw, fierce, grateful.

My blood-stained fingers curl around her wrist, and I pull her close to the place we both swear to guard—our colony, our home. The hum of water returns as repairs begin. The forest edges flicker in daylight.

And I realize there’s a vast, broken future in front of us—but we aren’t alone. Because we’ve killed fear, forged hope, and held this colony in our hands.

And now? Now we heal.

I’m carved from tension—fingers tensed on the hilt, pulse locked on Kernal’s retreating form—when a roar splits the tension: a metal shriek, sparks cascading.

Josie appears, welding torch in hand, blue flame dancing across her face.

She wedges herself between me and the Vortaxian guards.

Heat from her torch punches the night air, sizzling on Kernal’s armor. My breath stutters, heart thudding.

She sweeps in—"Over here, big shot!"—voice razor-wrapped in defiance. It’s insane. It’s perfect. Her bravado pulses through me like adrenaline.

Kernal’s armor plate fractures where her torch's heat seeps. Sparks spatter, strobing light across his mask. He staggers—blinking through data-vision filled with fire-tone fuzz. His guards raise weapons, but Josie’s blade arcs toward the lead soldier’s rifle barrel, weld igniting metal into molten tears.

He stumbles back. The rest freeze, indecision boiling.

Time fractures. I see her blue torchlight, smell molten metal and sweat mixing in the night air. The battlefield hums, colonists behind us, fire-lit faces caught between worship and fear.

And then I snap: instincts rip open. Claws elongate, illusion falls; my Shorcu form blooms—sleek, feline menace, muscular and jagged. My hands fan open, blades shimmering like polished obsidian. Everyone gasps—mother, child, miner—the shock sending ripples across the clearing like a rock on glass.

I step forward, each stride predatory precision.

Kernal turns—just in time. I drive my claws forward and feel the armor yield with a deep, guttural sound like a collapsing cathedral.

Flesh and metal splinter. He crashes backward, screaming.

His helmet hits the ground and cracks with a sickening crack—shattering his commander’s visage.

Silence hollows across the clearing. No wind. No chatter. Just Josie's welding torch still sizzling, spittle-sweet on the concrete, and the blackened drip of blood rolling from the Vortaxian’s chest. He’s slumped, broken, shaking, light failing in his eyes.

I sheath my claws, flesh tenting under their removal. The illusion snaps back with a pulse of ache behind my eyes. Blood seeps into the dusty earth. I look up: eyes train on mine—not with relief, but revulsion. Shock peers from their heart-shades.

It hits like ice: victory born of violence never feels triumphant in daylight. Not when you’ve torn the veil away.

Josie scrubs the torch back inside its fuel pouch. “Day—” her voice wavers on a wounded thread, but she claps a hand to my shoulder. “It’s done.”

I swallow, voice wobbling: “It had to be.”

She takes my hand and steps forward to face the crowd, her firefight voice bridging silence: “He’s not what you think. He’s why you’re free.”

They swallow. Murmurs twist dark around me. “Monster.” “Alien.” "Murderer."

My chest clenches. They’re not wrong. I clear my throat and speak around the ache in my voice: “I did what had to be done so you could sleep tonight. So no more children get hurt, no more shuttles launched with hostage screams.”

Silence steels them. Then an old woman pushes forward—white-haired, eyes burning. She says in cracked voice, “You kept us safe… but at what cost?” Her question drags inside me like a blade.

I feel Josie’s hand squeeze mine. She lifts a brow. I don’t stop her. Let her handle it.

The old woman moves back, but her words echo.

Between the puddles of dark blood and the blackened torch stains, I realize the final blow was never against Kernal—it was against a dream. The illusion. The hope that we could win and keep our clean hearts. Now every colonist views me as a monster; a savior who kills without mercy.

I close my eyes—taste copper blood at the edges. “I’m... sorry,” I whisper. Not for killing Kernal, but for what I became.

Josie steps closer, pressing her body into mine; her voice is quiet, redemptive: “I don’t care what they think.” Her lips graze my ear. “And neither do I.”

I inhale her—sweat, torch-smoke, fierce warmth. “We needed to win.”

She smiles, fragile and feral. “And we did.”

Her faith hums through me. But still: the colonists recoil. We backed them to safety, yes—but they see the beast who built it.

Night whistles from the treetops. The survivors gather to tend wounds, clamp bleeding, salvage bodies. The field is littered with jagged rib-cages of water pipes and fractured tools—a mosaic of survival and cost. We helped them stand—but now they stare at us as foreign gods.

I drop to one knee by Kernal’s side, pressing a hand to the pulse that’s gone. No humanity. Only a corpse. My claw-nails tint red. I close my fist.

I stand slowly and uncover a hand over the fallen commander’s face—the last flicker of power reduced to stillness.

I whisper: “You’re gone.”

Josie wraps her arms around me, her voice steady: “And you’re not.”

I let her hold me. My chest heaves, each breath a vow—not to the victory, but to what it cost.

In the forest-edge night, smoke and heat still rise from sabotage fires. The golden embers of the capital ship sparkle above. Dawn cannot come soon enough.

But as long as the colonists see fear in my eyes, I know—they’re not free yet.

And neither am I.