Page 3 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

DAYN

T he body twitches once—reflexive, nothing left behind the eyes but static—and then it’s done.

My blade disappears just as fast as it appeared, a whisper of steel now folded back into my sleeve like it was never there.

Blood beads across the man’s throat in a lazy arc, bright against the rust-stained walls of the service tunnel.

The station’s air recycling hums like an indifferent witness, piping in piss-scented oxygen that carries the memory of ten thousand bad decisions and even worse deaths.

I wait, one breath. Two.

No alarms. No sudden pounding boots. Just the low moan of overloaded pipes and distant arguing from the upper decks.

No one saw. No one ever sees.

The corpse slumps against the grated wall with a heavy clunk.

His eyes—yellowed, unfocused—stare at nothing as a trail of spittle seeps from his lips, mixing with the blood pooling at his collarbone.

I don’t feel anything. No thrill. No guilt.

No pulse of righteousness or disgust. Just a spreading numbness behind my sternum that I’ve mistaken for comfort for far too long.

I mop the blood with a fiber rag I brought for this exact reason. Precision is everything. No spray, no stains, no trace of the clean slice I left through windpipe and carotid. I leave the body where it lies. Someone will find him eventually. Or not. On Nix-37, corpses are just part of the scenery.

I step out of the maintenance corridor and into the artery of the station—a half-lit, metal-clad passage reeking of spilled fuel, overcooked noodles, and unwashed bodies.

Overhead, an old propaganda banner flutters from an oscillating fan, its once-proud slogan faded into ironic nonsense.

Unity through strength. If that were true, this place would be a holy sanctuary.

Instead, it’s a carcass of a station, kept alive by black-market trade, under-the-table contracts, and the false bravado of men with too many scars and not enough brains.

My boots make no sound. I move through the chaos like smoke—part of it and apart from it.

The mercenaries here notice me, in the way animals sense the approach of a bigger predator.

Eyes flick my way and then quickly flick away.

Posture stiffens, but no one reaches for a weapon. That would mean commitment.

I round the corner into the station’s watering hole.

“The Screaming Nebula.” A name more dramatic than it deserves.

The place is half-broken plastiglass and backlit grime, reeking of spilled rotgut and dreams left to ferment.

The music is low and pulsing, like a dying heart.

Laughter rises here and there—too loud, too sharp, forced like a blade into soft flesh.

I slide onto a stool at the far end of the bar, the one with a perfect line of sight to the exits and the reflection of the room cast in the mirror behind the rows of dusty bottles. The stool wobbles under my weight. I let it. I deserve that much instability at least.

The bartender’s a droid—old model, carbon-stained plating, one optic dimmer than the other. “What’ll it be?” it croaks, voice modulator crackling.

“Whatever’s strong and doesn’t make me blind.”

A bottle with no label and a chipped glass appear. I nod. Payment is a silent transfer of credits through my wristchip. No questions. That’s why I come here.

I lift the glass, sniff, and sip.

It tastes like fire and regret. Good.

Around me, voices swell and ebb—liars and killers, cowards puffing up their feathers for one another, all pretending they’re not afraid of the next job.

I’ve heard it all before. “Blew up a transport full of IHC scouts,” one says, too loud.

“She begged me, man. On her knees. I still lit the charge.” Another brags about a bounty collected on a woman who’d run off with her kids. I don’t listen for long.

Because I know the truth.

The ones who talk the most are the ones who shot last. The ones who did the things—truly did them—they sit silent and drink their poison like it’s communion. Like me.

I should feel something. Victory. Satisfaction. That was a clean job, executed without error. My handler will be pleased. Credits incoming.

But all I feel is the same cold vacuum that’s followed me from system to system. It wraps around my ribs like an old friend. I used to fear it. Now, I let it hold me.

I swirl the liquid in my glass and stare into the mirror.

The face that looks back is tall, lean, scar-slit above one brow.

My features are human enough—for now. The image inducer masks the truth, reshapes the edges, darkens the eyes.

But I see it. The parts that don’t belong.

The flicker of my real skin trying to claw through the deception.

A jalshagar doesn’t forget what he is. Even when the galaxy begs him to.

I finish the glass.

The bartender doesn’t ask if I want another. It just pours.

Good droid.

I sip slower this time. Try to pretend the burn fills the void.

It doesn’t.

Nothing does.

Not the jobs. Not the credits. Not the chase. Not the silence after.

I don’t dream anymore. I used to. Back when I still believed in things. In honor. In the bond of blood. In something greater than shadows and whispered contracts. That part of me died a long time ago. Probably on a slab somewhere, another ghost with no name.

The only thing I still do well is kill.

And even that’s starting to feel more like maintenance than purpose.

Outside the bar’s filthy viewport, the stars smear like bruises across the black. Somewhere out there, entire civilizations pulse with light and noise and hope. I used to care.

Now I sit here, anonymous, invisible, sipping rotgut and listening to men sell pieces of their soul for half the price they’re worth.

Maybe this is all I’ll ever be.

Maybe that’s all I deserve.

The glass is halfway to my mouth when the disturbance happens.

Not unusual, not here. The Nebula plays host to bruised egos and barely restrained violence like it’s a stage performance.

Screaming, shoving, threats hissed through clenched teeth—these are just punctuation marks in the conversations of this place.

But this voice?

It cuts clean through the mire.

Sharp. Human. Female. Bold in a way that’s not performative. Not desperate. Honest.

It snaps through the fog in my head like a blade through fabric.

I turn slightly, letting the warped mirror do its work.

I see a woman—short, curvy, dark hair pulled into a messy bun like she hasn’t slept in a day or three.

She’s wearing boots better suited for engineering work than diplomacy, and her stance is pure, feral challenge.

There’s grease on her sleeves, a stubborn smudge across her cheekbone. Brown eyes full of lightning.

And she’s yelling at a group of mercs three times her size.

The laughter around her is mocking, but there’s something different about her voice—it vibrates with conviction. She’s not trying to bluff her way through. She believes every godsdamned word she’s saying.

“—don’t care how many medals you’ve got rusting in your drawers, you overgrown windbag—if you’re too scared to stand up to the Vortaxians, then sit down and shut up!”

I see the crowd stiffen. The name Vortaxian doesn’t get tossed around lightly.

Especially not in this sector. Some of these grunts have probably watched an entire unit vanish under Vortaxian fire.

The fact that she said it out loud, here, like a dare.

.. well, she might as well have slapped them all with her compad.

“You calling us cowards?” one of the mercs growls, standing. He’s built like a cargo hauler and smells like one too. Shiny scalp, broken nose, eyes narrowed with the kind of mean that’s grown sour from years of losing.

Josie doesn’t flinch. She tilts her head, hands on hips, eyebrows arched like she’s a queen addressing unruly subjects. “No. I’m calling you gutless, tick-ridden meat puppets who talk big and die small.”

Someone snorts. Someone else says, “Oh, damn.”

But the big one doesn’t laugh.

He moves.

I see the swing before it happens. He grabs her shoulder and flings her like he’s taking out the trash. She’s airborne, all flailing limbs and surprised cursing, and the entire bar erupts in noise—cheers, shouts, the shriek of a chair flipping.

I don’t think.

I just move.

One step from the bar. Half-turn. Arm out.

She lands in my lap like fate planned it, tucked against my chest with the kind of weight that feels inevitable. Her breath whooshes out against my neck and her eyes—those ridiculous, fire-filled brown eyes—lock with mine.

Everything else stops.

The noise. The light. The smell of cheap liquor and sweat and static. All of it vanishes.

It’s just her. Her heat against me, her stare drilling straight through the walls I thought were permanent. I hear the echo of her heartbeat in the hollow chamber where my own should be.

For one suspended second, I forget everything I’ve done.

Her mouth parts. “Uh… hi?”

Her voice is a little dazed, a little breathless, and absurdly charming. There’s blood at the corner of her lip where it split on impact, and she tastes like cinnamon and fury.

“Hello,” I say.

She blinks. Her lashes are long. She smells like ozone and machine grease and something else—warm, human, alive.

“You caught me.”

I nod once. “Seemed rude not to.”

A shadow looms over us—the merc with the cannonball fists, snarling now, fists clenched like he thinks he still owns the room.

“Get your own lap, brute,” Josie mutters without looking at him, fingers curling into the front of my coat.

I stand, shifting her gently aside, and face the merc.

He’s bigger than me. Bulkier. That kind of barroom strength earned from years of being the biggest bully in the pen.

But I don’t fight with mass.

I fight with precision.

“You want to hit someone,” I say softly, “try me.”

He sneers, taking a step closer. “You her keeper now?”