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Somebody had shot the alien bastard dead. Chin-to-chest, gray and unmoving, it slumped against a denuded oak on a bed of frosty dead leaves. A red, frozen stain encircled a hole in its chest.

“Score one for the home team. I hope it suffered,” Laurel said with satisfaction.

There’d been several “gunshots” in the night, which she had attributed to branches breaking after the ice storm. Rain, followed by a deep freeze, had coated trees in heavy ice.

Icicles formed by the freezing rain dripped from its ears and nose, and the bristly hair on its head looked like it would snap off if she touched it. Not that she would. The very idea of touching the thing gave her the creeps.

After many months of self-imposed isolation, she’d ventured from her hideaway. Stumbling across the alien revealed it still wasn’t safe to move around. The area between her shoulder blades prickled with wariness.

The Progg are like cockroaches. If you see one, there’s more you don’t see. I’d better leave.

And keep my mouth shut! After a solitary year, Laurel had begun talking to herself. It had become a habit, but in the quiet, sound would carry. A whisper could be heard like a shout. At the tail end of winter, no birds or insects sang yet—assuming they were still alive.

Better get out of here.

But macabre curiosity had her peering closer. She’d never seen a Progg in the flesh. No one had and lived to tell about it. She’d only seen images and videos on the internet, taken from afar, early in the invasion before the world went dark.

She eyed the bloodied chest wound. They bleed red. Huh.

Careful not to touch it, she bent to study its face. It had heavy, brutal features, its savagery etched into flesh and bone. The head was bald, except for the mohawk band of bristles. In the pictures, they’d had silvery, almost-glittery skin, but death had dulled this one’s to gray.

Craaack!

She jumped as a tree broke under the weight of ice. Or maybe another one got shot. One can hope.

But that would mean there were more of them in the area. Did they return to the places they’d vanquished?

If she’d been home the day they vaporized Springfield and the surrounding area, she would have perished along with her parents, her brother, friends, and former coworkers at the tiny rural hospital where she’d been a nurse.

She studied the woods for movement and listened for the crunch of footsteps on frozen leaves but detected only the distant snap and crack of breaking branches. Even if there weren’t aliens in the vicinity, walking in the woods when trees were snapping wasn’t the brightest idea.

But she couldn’t stand the cabin fever anymore. She’d had to get out of the cave and figured right after the extreme weather would be the safest time.

She eyed the alien balefully. It appeared to be male. She patted her dad’s gun holstered to her hip. If it wasn’t already dead, she would have shot it. Her former caring nurse-self would have been horrified at the idea of taking a life, any life, but that was before the Progg had decimated an entire civilization.

The creature’s presence and the implication there could be others in the area compromised her hideout. Camouflaged by brush, the cave wasn’t visible to the naked eye—not the human eye, anyway—but that didn’t mean the genocidal bastards didn’t employ heat-seeking technology to root out survivors. They hadn’t missed a single individual in her hometown she’d discovered when she’d mustered the courage to search a few weeks after the massacre.

I need to get back. She had to decide whether to bug out or hunker down and wait it out. Unfortunately, a decision had to be made without any information. Were the aliens passing through or settling in? It had appeared from internet images that when they attacked a city, only people and other living creatures got vaporized. Buildings and infrastructure were left intact, giving her the impression they intended to occupy the world they’d conquered. But she could only guess. Without people to keep the electrical grid up and running, communication systems and electronics had gone kaput months ago.

Would this one’s buddies come looking for him? He’d been felled by a bullet, so there had to be at least one other human in the area, which could be problematic in itself.

She couldn’t assume all survivors were good guys; some weren’t. Human colluders had assisted the Progg in finding stragglers. They’d sold their souls to save their skins. The alien might have been killed by a colluder who’d turned on him. It should have known better than to trust someone who’d betray his own people. If they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you.

She kept a bugout bag packed and ready to go. She’d return to the hideaway and decide whether to leave or stay.

“Sweet dreams in hell, asshole!” She kicked the alien’s body.

It groaned, and the head shot up. Bluer-than-blue eyes met hers.

Laurel screamed.

She tore through the woods, slipping and sliding on frost-covered pine needles and oak leaves. Alive, alive. It’s alive!

Shit! Shit! Shit! Run! Run!

* * * *

Bleary-eyed, Grav watched the human flee. She must have been the one who’d attacked him. He’d been passing through the woods when there’d been a loud crack, and then his chest lit up on fire.

Zok , he hated this planet.

The GM should have passed on this one. The Governing Ministry knew that now, but that didn’t help those left behind. He’d been told he would be extracted after the plague no longer posed a threat, but he had his doubts. Too many months had passed without a word. The GM might have decided sacrificing a few individuals would better benefit the empire than coming back for them.

He fumbled for his vaporizer and found it gone. She took it. He cursed.

I need to get up. She might decide to finish the job. He’d noted a firearm strapped to her leg. She should have killed him when she’d been standing over him. A Progg wouldn’t have hesitated.

Do it once. Do it right. Leave no survivors. The principle ingrained in childhood had enabled the GM to expand the empire to more than twenty-six worlds.

His chest hurt. He assumed his body would expel the embedded foreign object, but what if it didn’t? Was this how he would die?

He wiped his face, knocking loose icicles. He had no idea how long he’d been out here. Hours at least. He eyed the bright sky through the tree branches. The day star had been on the rise when he’d set out through the woods to avoid the icy roads.

I have to get up. She might come back.

Although primitive, if Earth weapons hit a vital organ, it could be fatal. The humans’ primitive defense systems had been no match for the Progg’s advanced technology. Unfortunately, no one had counted on Earth’s secret weapon. The plague.

Most of the humans had been eliminated, leaving their planet ripe for the taking, except it had been contaminated, rendering it unlivable. Worse, the contagion had been carried to Progg-Res, killing untold numbers.

Do it once. Do it right.

This campaign had been an abject failure. If the responsible parties survived the plague, they would be executed. A Progg pitied no one, but Grav thanked Zok he wasn’t on the scouting team that had identified Earth for takeover.

He touched the wound on his chest. His life fluid had frozen when it hit the frigid air, which probably had prevented him from bleeding out, but his body couldn’t expel the object until he got warm.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he forced himself to his feet. His vision grayed, and his knees wobbled. He clung to the tree trunk for support and waited for the dizziness to subside.

He should track the woman down and eliminate the threat, but he doubted his ability to do so. Do it once. Do it right. Better to wait until he could see better, walk straight.

The best he could do was widen the distance between him and her. Letting go of the tree, he staggered away.