Page 5 of Enslak

That conversation changed everything. Chloe told me about Asad Intelligence and the mission to rescue someone who'd been held captive for over a century. They needed someone my size who could handle themselves in a dangerous situation. She was honest about the risks, this wasn't a safe job and there was a very real chance I wouldn't make it back, but it was a choice, a chance to matter again, to be more than just another rescued human drifting through a mundane existence.

"Yes," I said before she'd even finished. "Whatever it is, yes."

She smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that."

Three days later, I touched down on planet Calpa.

The Alliance capital was beautiful in a way that made Earth's cities look like crude sketches, with soaring architecture that seemed to defy physics, streets glowing with bioluminescent plants, and species from across the galaxy moving together in organized chaos. I barely had time to absorb it before Chloe whisked me away to a medical facility that looked more like a luxury spa.

"The implants are necessary," she explained as technicians prepped me for the procedure. "Ocular and auditory enhancements. You'll see in multiple spectrums and hear frequencies humans normally can't detect. You'll be able to record what you see and hear just by thinking it, thanks to the neural interface."

"Will it hurt?" I asked, trying not to sound nervous.

I felt like they were turning me into some kind of cyborg, but when in Rome.

"You'll be sedated. When you wake up, there'll be some disorientation while your brain adjusts, but nothing permanent."

She was right about the disorientation.

When I came out of sedation, the world looked wrong, too bright, too detailed, with strange overlays of color I couldn't process. Sounds bombarded me from every direction, conversations three rooms away, the hum of electrical systems in the walls, the rhythmic pulse of someone's heartbeat nearby.

It took two days before I could function without wanting to crawl into a dark, silent room and never emerge.

But then, gradually, my body adjusted. The overwhelming sensory input began to normalize as my brain learned to filter and prioritize the flood of information. By the third day, I could walk through the facility without wincing at every sound. By the fourth, the strange color overlays had faded into something my mind could interpret naturally.

Within a week, I felt almost normal again.

The enhancements became background noise, integrated so seamlessly into my perception that I barely noticed them anymore. I could still hear better than before, catching whispered conversations if I focused, but it no longer felt like an assault. The visual enhancements were even subtler, except for one thing. I could see a hell of a lot better in the dark.

That part was pretty damn cool.

The training, though? That was worse.

Not the physical training. I actually excelled at that. Years of running down perps in New York had kept me in decent shape. The obstacle courses, the hand-to-hand combat drills, the endurance runs, I devoured them all. Warriors twice my size watched me with something that looked like respect. One of them, a massive Vaktaire named Krell with arms like tree trunks, even nodded at me after I flipped him during a sparring session.

"You fight dirty," he said, my translator rendering it with what sounded like approval.

"I fight to win," I replied.

No, the physical stuff was fine.

It was the technology training that made me want to put my fist through a wall.

Alien tech didn't work like Earth tech. There was no intuitive logic to it, no familiar interface I could puzzle out. Everything was backwards, sideways, or operated on principles I didn't understand. And the stakes were impossibly high. One wrong move and I wouldn't just fail the mission. I'd blow someone's head off.

Literally.

They gave me a replica of something called a qhoma collar, the explosive device locked around my target's neck, and a metal probe no thicker than a pencil. The collar was DNA-coded, they explained. Any organic matter touching it other than the wearer would trigger detonation. I had to use the probe to manipulate a series of internal mechanisms in a precise sequence, applying exactly the right amount of pressure at exactly the right angles.

I practiced for hours every day, my hands cramping, sweat dripping down my back despite the climate-controlled room. The instructors were patient but firm, making me repeat the sequence until I could do it blindfolded, until my hands moved through the motions automatically even when I was too exhausted to think.

"You'll only get one chance," a slender Andurian with six fingers reminded me. "And you'll be doing this under combat conditions, possibly with guards nearby, possibly with the prisoner panicking. You need to be perfect."

No pressure.

A week into my training, I received a summons to the Alliance Prime's private chambers.

I'd never met royalty before, not Earth royalty and certainly not alien royalty. I spent twenty minutes trying to figure out what to wear before settling on the simple black uniform Chloe had provided. When the guards escorted me through the palace corridors, my heart hammered so hard I was certain everyone could hear it.