Page 16 of Tamed by the Alien Warlord
GEORGIA
N akamura’s ship sits at the edge of Gur’s spaceport like a predator in wait—black-plated and bristling with retrofitted weaponry. Even at rest, it hums with menace. A refurbished Coalition cruiser, decades old, but clearly enhanced with bleeding-edge tech.
I run my hand along a heat-scarred panel near the cargo ramp, grimacing. “He bought this thing on the black market. Probably paid in blood and backdoor biotech.”
Lanz steps up beside me, his single arm twitching at his side. “This ship’s capable. Comparable to the Ravager. I’d rather not fight her in the sky. Not until we fill the gaps in our crew.”
I glance at him, catching the weariness in his expression that he tries so hard to bury. “So we hit him now. While it’s still docked.”
His growl is pure agreement.
We’re in and out within the hour, hidden under cloaking shrouds and pirate stealth tech. Lanz picks a crew of ten Reapers—lean, lethal, and far too eager. I tag along, clutching a datapad loaded with hacking subroutines and every dirty trick I’ve learned in a decade of journalism espionage.
The corridors of Nakamura’s ship are quieter than expected. No sentries posted. No alarms. Just the hum of the life support system and the low murmur of data lines pulsing through the walls.
Too quiet.
We split. Reapers peel off to create diversions—smashing conduits, locking down corridors, disabling automated defenses with precise bursts of plasma.
I make my way to the ship’s central console hub, the databank glittering in the low blue glow like a treasure chest. The security is sophisticated, but not too sophisticated. A few subroutines, a dummy handshake protocol, and I’m in.
Thousands of records flow across my screen.
Shipping manifests.
Patient logs.
Experimental trials.
Each one stamped with the Helios Combine insignia.
Each one naming a victim.
Humans. Hybrids. Aliens.
Some marked "salvageable." Others "expired."
I snap a full copy and send a compressed archive to a hidden node in the Holonet, just in case.
Just as I finish the upload, a distant boom rattles the walls. Gash’s voice cuts in over comms—half-laughing, half-cursing. “They know we’re here.”
“Good,” I mutter. “Let’s burn their house down.”
I turn to leave, still high on adrenaline, still hot with fury—and freeze.
Jasmine is standing in the doorway.
She’s holding a gun.
My sister. My blood.
Hair still disheveled from the medbay. Lab coat slipping from one shoulder. But her stance is steady. Too steady.
The pistol in her hand is pointed at my chest.
“Jasmine?” I whisper.
Her lips barely move. “Don’t call me that.”
My stomach twists. “It’s me. Georgia.”
“I know who you are.”
I step forward, slowly. “You’re safe now. We got you out. You were strapped to a table, remember? They were?—”
“I remember everything.” Her voice cuts sharp and flat.
I stop cold. The air between us feels like a blade’s edge.
“Why are you pointing a gun at me?” I ask, barely breathing.
“You left me,” she says. “You let them take me.”
“No,” I whisper. “No, I never would’ve?—”
“You gave them footage. You played your stories. You let them know where I was.”
My heart cracks. “I didn’t know they’d come after you. I didn’t know they’d?—”
“But they did,” she says. “And you were too busy falling into bed with your alien slaver to notice.”
The pistol doesn’t waver.
I can’t move. Can’t speak. Only watch my sister, broken and remade by pain, standing between me and the only way out.
And I know, if I take another step, she’ll pull the trigger.