AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Back home in Chicago, Serenity had been a cop. And a damn good one at that. Now, however, living among hundreds of former criminals, it was a career choice she would have preferred to hide.
There was just one little problem—her tattoo.
Actually, every single human refugee in the ukkur camp had at least one tattoo. The one put there by the nith. A barcode on the left hip. To the nith they were nothing more than a commodity. Livestock. Meat.
But Serenity had another tattoo, and it was one she had come to regret. A shield on her right shoulder with a winged image of St. Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of law enforcement. She had never thought of herself as a tattoo kind of girl, but most of the other cops on the force wore ink—in fact, it was something of a rite of passage in the academy—and Serenity had been eager to fit in, especially considering her already marginalized status as a female.
Now that tattoo just signaled to everyone in camp that she was a cop, a pig.
It did not win her any friends. The other humans were former criminals, after all. The tattoo earned Serenity more than her fair share of ugly looks.
It was ironic, considering what she had really done back on Earth.
Serenity was not an ordinary cop. She had worked in Internal Affairs—a job that didn’t make her popular in the Chicago PD either. Serenity was used to getting ugly looks. She had spent her career watching the watchmen, as it were, rooting out crooked dealings inside the department.
That was how she had ended up here.
In her final months on Earth, Serenity had been investigating a conspiracy.
Trading human criminals to the nith was a lucrative business. As a result, cops were given a monetary bonus for catching more criminals. It was a bad incentive. A conflict of interest. Corrupt cops were framing and arresting innocent people just so they could make more money. And it wasn’t just a few isolated bad seeds. It was a far reaching conspiracy that extended all the way to the highest echelons of the city government.
The police force wasn’t about justice anymore; it was a business, a farm.
Serenity received plenty of warnings. Late night phone calls telling her to lay off the case. Anonymous notes slipped under her door. Bullets with her name written on them in her mail box.
She probably should have listened, but she hadn’t.
In the end, it wasn’t a bullet that did her in.
It was a frame job.
Phony charges of embezzlement of police funds. It was total bullshit of course, but the entire process was rigged right from the start. Everyone was against her, from the cops who arrested her to the judge who presided over her trial.
And now here she was, a refugee on an alien planet, with no hope of returning to Earth.
Oh well, at least she was alive.
In her hiding place, Serenity held her breath as she listened to the ukkur guard’s heavy footsteps receding into the distance as the massive alien moved farther down the canyon. Only when she was sure the brute was out of earshot did she let go a sigh of relief.
Her pulse was pounding. Perhaps this late night excursion had been a mistake. If she got caught out past curfew, she would be in hot water. She had not gone too far yet, and she could easily return to her sleeping tent without being detected.
Then again, the rush of adrenaline surging through her system meant there was zero chance of falling asleep tonight.
Screw it. She decided to stay out.
But where would she go? She couldn’t very well spend the night wandering around the darkened encampment. There was too much risk of getting caught. She needed to go someplace where there would not be ukkur guards prowling around.
Suddenly the air grew still around her, as if the warm night breeze was holding its breath, and Serenity got another whiff of her body odor. She rumpled her nose in disgust and embarrassment. Good thing she had been downwind of that ukkur, otherwise the alien certainly would have smelled her.
But it also gave her an idea.
There was a cavern nearby with hot springs that had been designated as the women’s bathing area. There was also a communal supply of natural handmade soap. The place would be empty at this hour, and the ukkur watchmen probably wouldn’t check in there. Plus, a nice hot bath would be just the thing to soothe Serenity’s frazzled nerves.
Without another moment’s hesitation, Serenity set off in the direction of the hot springs. Having a destination boosted her mood. And the anticipation of that deliciously warm water didn’t hurt either.
But as Serenity threaded a path between the tents, another sound made her stop in her tracks.
Apparently she and the guards were not the only ones who were awake tonight.
