Irrevocably.
Chapter 2
No Shelter from the Storms of Life
Lily
"Although the intergalactic government, the IMPERIUM, strictly forbids the abduction of Unregistered Species from their natural environment, unscrupulous smugglers still commit this crude, barbaric act."
Statement from a Commander of the Intergalactic Legion’s Cosmic Observation and Response Division, a military umbrella organization under the IMPERIUM.
Two universal chrono-years earlier (approximately 2.5 Earth years)
Lily’s world shattered in that instant.
The ship carrying her was moving at unstoppable speed toward an unknown destination. The alien who had torn her from her homeworld, Earth, lay collapsed on the cold metal floor, cooling in its own blood. Lily had managed to break free of the makeshift restraints the smuggler had used on her, but the console’s shrill warnings in an alien language were an impossible puzzle.
She sucked in a long breath. Then another. Anything to fight the nausea rising with the stench of the creature’s remains. Panic clamped around her throat in an invisible, merciless grip. She needed a solution, fast, yet her mind refused to cooperate.
Like a grotesque theater reel, the events of the last hours kept looping behind her eyes.
She had been walking home when an amorphous, greenish-gray alien with stalked eyes snatched her.
At first she thought she was lying on some kind of ritual altar. Then she realized she was strapped to a surgical platform.
The nearly ten-foot-tall creature examined her with an array of tools resembling scanners and lights. None were invasive or painful, yet the horror of it pinned her in place. She stared at the ceiling’s reflective surface and watched her own terrified green-brown eyes, her bloodless skin, her brown hair splayed beneath her, while the alien’s grotesque form moved above her.
When the creature finally left, Lily acted.
She twisted, rubbed, and yanked at the synthetic restraints until one fastening gave way. Guided by instinct, she freed all her limbs, then folded the restraints back into place to make it look as though nothing had happened. Every second felt like torture, but she knew stepping off the platform would give her away.
The next minutes were the longest of her life.
When the door slid open with a soft hiss, Lily went completely still, bracing for the inevitable fight. The alien approached with measured steps and lifted a tool from the tray: a scalpel-like blade that caught the light in a cold, predatory glint.
Even then, Lily did not move.
The creature’s thin, mottled arm descended toward her skin, casting a warped shadow under the overhead lights. When the blade was about to touch her, Lily tore her hand free, burst upright, and grabbed the most lethal-looking instrument within reach.
The device, perhaps a bone cutter, connected with the alien’s head with a sickening crunch. Thick black blood exploded outward.
The creature collapsed. It tried to crawl away, panic twisting its crumbling voice into gurgling screams.
Another blow.
The floor around them turned black with blood.
Another blow.
The liquid began draining through the grate surrounding the platform.
Another blow.
The alien fell silent.
Lily did not trust chance. She kept striking the greenish-gray mass until it broke apart beneath her hands. Who knew how fast these things could regenerate? She only stopped when the once-towering creature had been reduced to a sludge-like heap of blackened pulp.
She stumbled back, careful not to let the blood touch her more than it already had. The weapon remained clenched in her fist, fingers white around the handle.
