The silence was the first thing that told me I was fucked.
Not the screech of tortured metal, not the violent shudder that threw me against my restraints, and not the final, bone-jarring impact. It was the silence that came after. A dead, absolute stillness that my ears, accustomed to the constant hum and whir of the Stardust Drifter, simply didn’t know how to process.
My head throbbed in time with a frantic, panicked pulse. A thin trickle of something warm and wet slid past my temple. Blood. My own.
Assess. Analyze. Survive. The mantra of every solo surveyor in the Outer Quadrants. I repeated it in my head, a desperate anchor in a sea of rising panic.
My fingers fumbled with the release on my five-point harness. The buckle clicked open and I half-fell, half-slid out of the pilot’s chair. My left leg screamed in protest, a sharp, white-hot pain lancing up from my ankle. I bit back a cry and leaned against a buckled bulkhead, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
The exploration pod, my home and lab for the last six months, was a wreck. The cockpit was a spiderweb of shattered composites and sparking wires. Through the fractured viewport, I saw a sky the color of a deep bruise, dominated by two suns. One was a searing white-hot pinpoint, the other a swollen, angry red giant. Their combined light baked the cracked, ochre-colored earth outside into a shimmering haze.
I was alive. That was step one. But I was also alone, injured, and stranded on an uncharted rock a dozen light-years from the nearest shipping lane. Fucked. The word echoed in the crushing silence.
I took a deep breath, the air tasting of ozone and burnt insulation. Analyze. Comms were dead, the panel a mess of melted circuits. Long-range distress beacon? Offline. Life support was running on emergency power, but the hull was breached. I had hours of air, maybe. After that, I’d be breathing whatever toxic soup this planet called an atmosphere.
My reflection stared back at me from a dark, dead console screen. Zofia Nowak, xenobotanist, age twenty-eight. A smudge of grease cut a dark line across one high cheekbone. My gray eyes, usually sharp and focused, were wide with shock. My body, kept lean and athletic by years of fieldwork and zero-G conditioning, felt fragile and breakable. The standard-issue gray jumpsuit I wore was torn at the shoulder.
Survive.
Gritting my teeth against the pain in my ankle, I pushed myself upright. I had to move. Salvage what I could. Find water. My mission parameters were a joke now. I wasn’t here to collect samples of alien flora; I was here to not die.
The emergency locker was surprisingly intact. I pulled out the standard survival kit: med-pack, water purifier, high-energy nutrient paste. My multi-tool, a sleek piece of advanced tech that was more a part of my hand than a tool, was still clipped to my belt. I checked its power cell. Eighty-seven percent. A small, pathetic victory, but I’d take it.
The pod’s outer hatch hissed open reluctantly, complaining with a groan of stressed metal. I shielded my eyes as the brutal heat of the twin suns hit me like a physical blow. The air was thin but breathable, carrying a dry, dusty scent, like hot rock and something vaguely metallic.
I limped out onto the alien soil. The landscape was a desolate panorama of rust-colored canyons and wind-scoured mesas. Strange, skeletal plants with black, thorny branches dotted the terrain, their leaves like shards of obsidian. Nothing moved. The silence out here was even more profound, broken only by the whisper of a hot wind that did nothing to cool the sweat beading on my forehead.
My ankle was definitely sprained, maybe broken. I used the med-pack to inject a localized painkiller and wrapped it tightly, the synth-fabric brace giving me just enough support to walk with a heavy limp. According to the pod’s last sensor readings before it went dark, there was a geological formation about two klicks east that indicated a possible subterranean water source. It was my only chance.
Every step was an exercise in pain management. The twin suns beat down relentlessly, their light casting strange, overlapping shadows that played tricks on my eyes. I kept my head down, focusing on the cracked earth in front of me, on the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. The solitude pressed in, a physical weight on my shoulders. In space, you’re always alone, but you’re connected. Here, I was severed from everything. A ghost on a dead world.
I’d been walking for what felt like an hour when the feeling started. A prickle on the back of my neck. The primal, animal instinct of being watched.
I stopped, my hand tightening on my multi-tool. I scanned the ridge of the canyon I was following. Nothing but rock and shadow. I told myself it was paranoia, my frayed nerves getting the better of me. I took another step.
And then they were there.
They hadn’t made a sound. One moment, I was alone. The next, shadows detached themselves from the canyon walls, resolving into towering figures that blocked my path. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. There were at least a dozen of them.
They were huge. Easily seven feet tall, maybe more. Broad-shouldered and impossibly muscular, clad in what looked like piecemeal armor of dark metal and cured hides. They carried crude but lethal-looking weapons—heavy, bladed pikes and thick-headed clubs. Their skin was the color of weathered stone, and their faces were harsh, brutal arrangements of heavy brows and wide, unforgiving mouths.
I froze, my survival training screaming at me to show no fear, to not make any sudden moves. But my body wasn’t listening. A tremor started in my hands, my breath catching in my throat.
They formed a semi-circle, their presence an overwhelming wall of intimidation. They watched me, their dark eyes unblinking, unreadable. They smelled of sweat, leather, and that same strange metallic tang that was in the air.
Then, the warriors parted, creating a path for one who had been standing at the back.
He was even bigger than the others, a monster of a male who had to be close to eight feet tall. The armor he wore was more ornate, etched with jagged symbols. Scars crisscrossed his exposed arms and a particularly nasty one cut through his left eyebrow, giving him a permanent scowl. A thick, dark braid of hair fell over one massive shoulder. He moved with a predator’s coiled grace, each step radiating absolute authority. This was their leader.
He stopped a few feet in front of me, his shadow falling over me like a shroud. I had to crane my neck to look up at his face. His eyes, a startlingly intense shade of black, swept over my body, a slow, appraising gaze that felt like a physical touch. It wasn’t a scientific assessment; it was an inventory. He was cataloging my worth.
I lifted my multi-tool, my knuckles white. A useless gesture, I knew, but it was all I had. “I mean you no harm,” I said, my voice coming out as a reedy croak. The words were pointless. He wouldn’t understand.
His eyes flickered down to the tool in my hand. A low sound, something between a grunt and a chuckle, rumbled in his chest. Before I could even react, he reached out. His hand, huge and calloused, wrapped around my wrist. His grip was like iron. With his other hand, he took the multi-tool from my grasp.
For a moment, I thought he was just disarming me. He examined the tool, turning it over in his massive palm. It looked like a child’s toy. Then, with a casual, almost contemptuous flex of his fingers, he snapped it in half. The crack of advanced alloys breaking echoed in the canyon. The two halves of my best and only tool fell to the dust.
My breath hitched. He had just destroyed my symbol of control, of competence. He had done it effortlessly.
His gaze returned to my face, and then he moved. His hands were on me, rough and unapologetic. One hand clamped onto my shoulder, holding me in place, while the other began a crude, thorough pat-down. He wasn’t gentle. His palms swept down my sides, over the curve of my waist, his fingers digging slightly into my ribs. He ran his hand down my thigh, checking the cargo pockets of my jumpsuit. His touch was impersonal, yet shockingly intimate. When his hand cupped my ass, squeezing firmly, a jolt of pure, terrified shock shot through me. It wasn’t sexual, not in a way I understood. It was possessive. He was checking his new property for flaws.
I stood there, rigid with a mixture of terror and white-hot fury, forced to endure the violation. He found the med-pack, pulled it from my belt, and tossed it to one of his warriors. He was stripping me of everything, leaving me with nothing but the torn jumpsuit on my back.
When he was done, his hand came up to my face. His thumb, rough as sandpaper, wiped the streak of blood from my temple. He studied the red smear on his skin for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
Then he looked directly into my eyes. His lips parted, and he spoke. It was a single word, a guttural, harsh sound that vibrated with power and finality. I didn't understand the language, but the meaning was as clear as the twin suns burning in the sky. It was the sound of a lock clicking shut, of a cage door slamming. It was the sound of ownership.
“Mine.”
Before the full weight of that word could even settle in my shattered mind, he moved. He bent down, and in one fluid motion, he hooked an arm under my knees and threw me over his shoulder.
My world turned upside down. The air rushed out of my lungs as my stomach slammed into the hard wall of his shoulder. My head swam. All I could see was the cracked earth moving away below me as he began to walk. All I could feel was the brutal strength of the arm clamped around my legs, holding me like I weighed nothing. All I could smell was him—musk, dust, and the scent of an alien male who had just claimed me as his prize.
I was no longer Zofia Nowak, xenobotanist. I was cargo. And as he carried me deeper into the alien canyon, away from the wreckage of my ship and everything I had ever known, a single, terrifying thought screamed through my head.
This is how my life ends.
No. This is how it begins.
