Page 32 of Claimed by the Alien Assassin

DAYN

I wake before the sun—if you can call the dim glow seeping through the shuttle’s viewport a “sun.” It threads through the dusty window like a promise.

We’re orbiting Pyrax Theta, a raw, metal-kissed world where corporate drip drills have replaced forests and the air smells of hot iron.

Dowron’s voice crackles over the comm, clipped and urgent.

“Intelligence confirms Vortaxian ideological cells embedded in the mining corp’s eco-mining units.

Your task: expose and dismantle their propaganda pipeline.

Sabotage, transmit. Minimal combat.” His words echo in my skull like a cold briefing, but when I look at Josie—curling her fingers into mine—the tension eases.

Two thieves leaving before the alarm. We’ve pulled off worse.

I shed my Hellfighter armor for chainmail-jacketed overalls and a battered cap, gray stubble etched into my jaw artificially.

Dockworker Dayn—no image inducer, no claws, just scars and grit.

Josie, in contrast, blossoms in her role.

She wears grease-smudged overalls cinched at her waist and a smirk that scares people into trusting her.

“Ready?” I murmur in her ear as we disembark through the shuttle’s hatch, dropped onto the rusted ramp by a gang of yawning guards.

Her voice is a whisper that tastes like honey in a dark alley: “You bet. Now watch me bake brain-warfare into their morning.”

Locals eye us with suspicion, but she carries herself like sun after months of rain. She introduces herself as “Josephine McClintock, freelance systems specialist.” They laugh at her accent—some western colony dialect—and her banana muffins disappear faster than contraband in a tariff-free zone.

I bury myself in paperwork and crane duty, dangling around the unloading docks, eavesdropping.

I watch her from distance—her laughter ringing like bells, the way she grips the edge of a console to steady herself, oily hair tucked behind her ear.

She’s not performing; she’s alive , and the crates of muffins are her secret weapon.

When she winks at me across a cluster of miners and I pretend not to see, I know we’re in sync. Because this isn’t us bending roles—it’s us becoming the people we’re here to save.

Late that second night, we find the server room—narrow corridor of humming racks and flickering LEDs. I guard the door in case the officials patrol. The air tastes of recycled coolant and red tape. Josie grips her datapad, fingers flying across encrypted panels.

“Dayn,” she whispers when I lift my mask, “they’re running Vortaxian identity streams—videos—happy children reciting pro-empire slogans, smiling faces.” Her voice clenches at “children.” “It’s brainwashing.”

I feel it too—the wound in my ribs and gut twisting. “Broadcast?”

“Full-frontal.” Her grin lights the cavern. She never falters. “You ready to give them hell?”

I grin back. “Only if it’s through your high priest sermon.”

She snorts, then heads back to the console. The bleep of her hack is sweet music. I slip on my commmic. “Dowron, we have the files.” Through me, he hears the broadcast begin—flicker in every screensaver, holo broadcast on every mining rig.

The reaction is immediate. The corridors outside the server start chattering.

Footsteps pound. Guards shout and scramble.

But we slip through locked doors, weaving through civilian crews pushing over crates while shouting at megaphones.

People pause, glue their eyes to glowing tablets showing footage of Vortaxian-sponsored doctrine—smiling instructors urging loyalty, fracturing individuality.

“That’s Dayn!” one miner shouts as I help a veteran lug a malfunctioning excavator’s part. Josie corrals them. “Check your own minds, people! We’re not livestock!” Her voice carries over clanging metal, visceral as a pulse.

I grab her elbow. “They’re rising,” I murmur as dozens crowd around the main atrium holo. Sparks of defiance ignite in every glance.

The strike team moves in—five of us armed—not to kill but to direct the uprising, stand between miners and Vortaxian enforcers. There’s tense glower of facecam crews; they flash riot stun batons sputtering at their sides. Oversized helmets.

I feel Josie’s chest against my side. “You terrified?” she whispers. I grip her hand. “Electric.”

A miner behind me roars, fist raised. The base manager, a corp flunky, shrieks Vortaxian slogans, his voice cracking over amplification. Josie's step toward him is hurricane calm. “Power to the people, not dictators,” she says. Her words land like blunt force.

The Vortaxian cell breaks. Helmeted officers retreat, trainees scattering. We don’t fire weapons—nothing lethal today—just show solidarity. It's good violence: shouting, pushing bodies, but no death.

I hug Josie around the shoulders once the dust settles. “See?” I whisper. “Your voice is louder than any bullet.”

She squeezes back. “And yours steadies my arm.”

We don’t mention how the server room’s broadcasting system is now streaming rebel forums across hundreds of drones synced to every colony feed in the sector.

Back in the shuttle, engines vibrating into orbit, Josie looks out at the rusting planet below.

She sips synth-coffee—bitter, dark, reassuring.

I watch the monitor: newsfeed showing miners pledging autonomy, tearing down Vortaxian propaganda posters, raising banners of Snowblossom’s Phoenix emblem.

A shaky message flashes: We choose ourselves.

She half-laughs. “Not bad for a spark engineer.”

I catch her smirk. “High priest origin story?”

She swats my arm. “Assassin origin version, don’t steal my thunder.”

We lean into each other. My jacket smells like sweat and victory. Hers like muffins and defiance. I taste the same coffee—shared.

She murmurs softly, “Mission accomplished?”

I press my forehead to hers. “Defeat won’t spread by fleets alone. It’ll spread by people who decide they matter. Tonight, we showed them they do.”

Her hand weaves through mine. “We did good, partner.”

Always. I don’t say it—I let the silence do. We orbit onward, heading for the next star. A bigger threat looms, Dowron told us that. But right now, in this moment, it's enough.

And if we face tomorrow together—no matter what comes next—we’ll still be the spark in the storm.

And suddenly, stranger, bigger, somehow wilder than ever, the galaxy feels like a place worth fighting for.

I’m halfway through tightening the last hull panel on our extraction ship when alarms splinter the cockpit—red flashes in the doorway, the distant roar of riot shields clashing.

Our mission on Pyrax Theta spirals from covert sabotage to all-out revolution faster than a flash convulse in the night sky.

I sprint down the corridor, my image inducer still on human mode, but that glow in the lights hints at something sharper beneath.

Josie rams the door open, hands smeared with blood and grease, eyes blazing like polished obsidian.

"Dayn, now!" she shouts, voice thick with ash from the riots outside.

I grab her by the wrist, steel-blue gaze locking with hers.

In those microseconds, everything settles—danger, elation, relief coiling in our veins like wildfire.

We vault into the shuttle’s hold just as the dock erupts behind us. Sparks crackle like tiny fireworks as Vortaxian riot drones crash and succumb to homemade EMP bursts. Flames lick at metal scaffolds, reflecting red in our eyes, heating the air like a geyser behind our backs.

Josie slips out of my grasp and into my arms. She tastes of smoke and adrenaline, lips crushed to mine in the fast-burn way that says no time for safety, no time for doubt.

Our tenth time together is a singular explosion: quick blades of sensation—tongues, teeth, breath, the war-crack spirit of survival. It's rebellion made flesh.

I hold her over my shoulder while she hits the launch lever.

The ship rumbles, thrumming with life, and we stagger into our bunks like lovers returning from a battlefield.

Josie collapses against me, breath coming in jagged laughs.

She grabs my face, forcing me to meet those fierce brown eyes.

"You're insane," she pants, grin split across soot-smudged cheeks.

My palm sweeps along her spine, nudging her closer. "Right where I want to be."

We kiss again, too soon, in the heat of engines and aftershocks.

When we break apart, she gasps, and I chuckle low, the sound rumbling in my chest. She pushes me down onto the bunk and climbs between my legs, urgent and wild.

Our bodies move faster than thought, hearts hammering against ribs.

The afterglow is tactile—her breath on my throat, my hands braced on skin flush with blood and triumph.

When we finally lay quiet, the shuttle’s engines hum beneath us. We’re tangled soft, intervals of warmth amid the aftershocks. She traces my scarred shoulder, finger catching on rough edges. "You okay?" I ask, voice low and vulnerable. The world feels vast and fragile again.

She presses a kiss to my chest. "Better than okay. Alive."

I stretch one arm out to cradle her head, stare up at the viewport where stars bleed past in hyperspace—long streaks of light and possibility. It's terrifying, gorgeous. I wonder if I’m still enough of a killer, a weapon forged in darkness. But now… the fear is different. It’s hope.

I bury my face in her hair. "I want to do more than survive," I say so softly I’m not sure she hears. But she shifts until our eyes reconnect in the pale glow. "I want to live it. With you."

Her grin is slow but fierce. "That’s all I ever needed to hear."

I tuck her shoulder to mine, wrap both arms around her like a promise.

Outside, the war we stoked still burns, and bigger threats loom—Dowron’s new mission, the rising Vortaxian factions.

But in this moment, I’m not just Dayn the assassin.

I’m Dayn who loved, who lost, who chose conviction over closure. Dayn who is learning to live.

Josie sighs. "Next time we riot, remind me to pack coffee."

I laugh, the sound gentle in the pressurized hush. "Deal. Now… rest. Big fights tomorrow."

She nods, eyelids fluttering shut. I hold her until she drifts. Then I do the same, the stars outside now not just witnesses but companions. Tonight, I know—I’m not just surviving. I’m beginning to live. And for once, I can’t wait for dawn.