Chapter 1 - Cara

She was so fucking hungry.

Cara spent the day combing through the dead brush around Dalewood, searching for food and hunting for escape routes to get back home. This had to be one of those levels of hell her dad told her about when she was a kid.

She’d been confident when she’d set out earlier, but an utter lack of anything edible caught her off guard. It wasn’t looking good. Sparse trees stood scattered through the area, their leaves yellow and withered. Most of them looked dead. Brush took over the ruins of old buildings—prime territory for a stupid rabbit or two, right? Apparently not.

No greens, no mushrooms, not a single weed worth chewing. She tied together some string to set snares in the brambles before heading to the rocks next to the river to check for fish. Though the water ran clear, there were no flashes of silver.

Not willing to give up, she got wet building a rock barricade, hoping to corral something. Since that would take time, she sat down to wait, keeping her hands busy using the tall grasses near the river and her string to make a basket trap. It might catch a bird. If one was dumb enough to go under it.

Dad had been better at making baskets. Her fingers turned red and raw, trying to construct something that would hold a rat or a rabbit. By the time it was finished, she still hadn’t seen any fish. No little minnows. The area outside of Dalewood was barren. As toxic as the town.

A sinking sun stretched her shadow across the ground like the long hand of a clock. It was time to go. Staying out after dark wasn’t an option—not unless she wanted to deal with alien patrols.

Dominating the planet long before Cara was born, invading alien forces had set curfew laws for all humans. Lawbreakers disappeared fast.

Once, when she was little, Dad forced her to watch what happened after dark from the window of an abandoned building. “So you’ll know,” he’d said.

Like starving wolves, the aliens dropped to all fours, running faster than any human. Attacking with terrifying speed, teeth flashing, and ears pointed sharply forward. Barricaded with Dad inside the building to escape a band of wankers, Cara had watched alien patrols appear out of nowhere and drag screaming men away like rag dolls. She wasn’t going to end up like that. Instead, she had every intention of following their hard and uncompromising rules. At least it let her avoid all the up close and personal with ugly, hairy armed aliens.

As she returned to camp, someone’s noisy sobs broke the quiet. Was that Brenda? Sounded like her. Cara was more familiar with the sound of her friend’s tears than she wanted to be. It had been a hell of a few days for them both—bad choices, broken trust, disgusting men, and terrible propositions.

Leaning against the foot of a tree, with her thin ash blonde hair snarled around her shoulders, Brenda wept as if her life was ending. Maybe it was. They were both in a horrible position now.

A few years older than Cara, lacking any survival skills, Brenda had grown up soft in an alien occupied town. Until now, Brenda had never lived outside the protection of a town or gone without factory sealed food packets and perfectly tilled community gardens. She was vulnerable in the free world, but Cara had left Brenda behind, thinking she’d be safe with the other people exiled from Dalewood.

Unfortunately, Brenda wasn’t thinking clearly. She’d lost her mind over another man. That man, Andy, turned around and betrayed them the first chance he got. Waiting for Brenda to react, Cara carried a boulder of impending doom between her shoulder blades. Had it dropped the moment she’d left her friend alone?

Before Cara could ask what happened, Mighty Joe—the self appointed leader of their sad little band—got up from his spot near and stomped toward her. He bragged about being forty years old, but deep lines around his mouth and bags under his eyes gave him the appearance of a man closer to eighty—a tired old rooster. He jabbed his finger at Brenda and screeched, “Your friend got into Dalewood somehow!”

Brenda didn’t look up. If anything, she sobbed louder.

“She did? What happened? Did they hurt you?” Cara took a step forward towards Brenda.

“Went to confront her boyfriend. She’s trying to get us all killed,” Mighty Joe got between them before Brenda answered.

“Brenda, you talked to Andy?” Cara’s voice shot up an octave. She couldn’t help it.

Why would her friend still want to do that? That scumbag had dragged them out of Springfield with promises of safety and better work. They’d come in his busted-up bucket of bolts—a farm-engine mash-up-vehicle that rattled with every crack in the road. Cara had been terrified the thing would break down, leaving them stranded. They’d survived all that to walk right into Andy’s trap.

Andy and his buddy had been so proud of that piece of junk. They bragged about hiding it from the local “bluey” in charge of the area. Cara didn’t know what the hell a bluey was, and honestly, she didn’t want to find out.

But she should have asked Brenda more questions. She should have asked so many questions.

Now, because of the nighttime curfew and no transportation of their own, they were stuck. Andy had known it would happen, as had Danov, the pig of a mayor of Dalewood. They’d been tricked and dumped here, where the promise of easier work involved trading their bodies for food.

When they refused, Danov kicked them out, cutting off their rations and health supplies. No food. No shelter. Nothing.

“That’s right. He caught her in his room and threw her out. Saw him drag her out past the gates. They know we’re here. But we ain’t supposed to be here. I don’t think you understand how much borrowed time we’re living on,” Mighty Joe ranted, his voice rising with every word.

“We won’t be here long. I told you I was looking for a way to leave,” Cara snapped back.

“You’re shortening the ticket, missy. I’m a good guy, but I can’t let you two pretties get us killed!” His jabbing finger struck the air between them like a dagger.

Cara tried not to roll her eyes. Mighty Joe’s group had to be the saddest collection of people she’d ever seen. It was obvious why Dalewood had tossed them out. They couldn’t work in the processing plant, couldn’t pay the alien tax, and didn’t fit the mayor’s twisted idea of “sex slave material.” Their rations had been stolen, their belongings stripped away, and they’d been left to rot.

“He said I couldn’t come back until you come back too,” Brenda said.

Cara wasn’t surprised. “What about these people here? Did you ask about them?”

“They can’t work. Do they look like they could work? The mayor has to have more people to make the tax. They’ve been short,” Brenda said, pushing herself upright and wiping her face.

“You know that’s not what they want from us. Did you tell Andy about the baby?”

Brenda shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes again. “It’s all a mistake, Cara. It must be a mistake. Andy wouldn’t do that to me. I know how he feels about me. A baby needs its father, right? What am I going to do?” She wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach.

Cara could picture the scene all too well—slimy, no-good Andy yelling, demanding to know why Brenda was in his room, calling her names, and throwing her out.

“If you can’t feed yourselves and you’re gonna make all this noise and nonsense, then just move on,” Mighty Joe muttered, tossing a stick onto the fire.

“I didn’t plan to stay here. What do you think I’ve been doing all day?” Cara’s voice came out sharper than she intended. She hated the edge in her tone but couldn’t help it.

Mighty Joe acted like she hadn’t spent the entire day trying to fix their mess.

His group had cobbled together a flimsy shelter from tax day boxes and scraps. The walls sagged, the whole thing stank of cheap biodegradable plastic, but it kept the worst of the cold out. It wasn’t much, but it was still better than what Cara and Brenda had before stumbling on the camp.

“I’m a good guy. I gotta take care of me and mine. Muzzle faced grumblers are everywhere, doing what the mayor tells them now. That’s bad enough.”

Cara frowned. The muzzle heads—alien foot soldiers—didn’t answer to any human. They followed orders from their alien masters, patrolling towns, collecting taxes, and enforcing their version of order. Their thick, guttural noises barely passed as language, and they didn’t care about the politics of humans. Mighty Joe had to be rambling again.

Her gaze flicked toward the makeshift camp. Stacks of garbage and leftover scraps surrounded the sagging shelters. The group’s thin, hollow eyed faces haunted the edges of the firelight. None of them looked strong enough for a single day’s work. Somehow, they’d managed to avoid being dragged off by patrols. Maybe the aliens ignored them because they stayed hidden after dark. Or maybe they weren’t worth the trouble.

Her stomach tightened as the knot of frustration grew heavier. Dad would’ve called this a waste of time. He used to say that humans had lost their fight long before Cara was born. “Don’t resist. Just survive. Keep your head down. Avoid people. Avoid aliens. Find your own place and don’t get involved.”

He’d lived by those words. Cara hadn’t. After he died, the peace and quiet of going it alone lost its appeal. That felt like a mistake now. He’d be so disappointed in her.

“What do you mean the mayor has a deal with the muzzle heads?” What kind of crazy talk was that?

Mighty Joe shook his head hard, waving his hands as if brushing away the question.

Figures. He never made sense for long. She let it drop, but unease pressed against her ribs. The invaders didn’t make deals with humans. They cared about two things: taxes and order. So long as humans paid and didn’t cause trouble, the aliens left them alone.

The real danger wasn’t the aliens—it was the wankers. Those killers thrived on chaos, prowling the freedom lands outside the towns. They raided, they murdered, and they fed on the scraps of human misery.

Dalewood’s camp sat far enough from the town to avoid muzzle head patrols but close enough to dodge the wankers. Wankers didn’t usually mess with tax paying towns; the aliens had too much firepower, and none of the gangs wanted to risk it. Still, Cara had spotted groups slipping in and out of Dalewood as if they belonged there.

If mayor Danov had made any deals, it wouldn’t surprise her if they involved a wanker gang. The brothel he ran in Dalewood stank of sleaze and exploitation, just the type of treat that would draw that skanky crowd here.

“I’m not sure what could be worse than this situation.” The stink of filth and sweat clawed at her nose as she scanned the camp. This wasn’t just poverty—it was decay. The people huddling near the shelters weren’t just poor; they’d stopped trying. When someone couldn’t clean themselves, it meant they’d given up. These people were already dying, they just didn’t realize it.

Brenda’s sniffle broke through the silence. “Cara, don’t you know about the commander?”

Cara turned toward her friend, the sudden question catching her off guard. “A commander? The big, hairless ones who are supposed to boss the muzzle heads?”

“You ain’t seen him if you talk like that.” Mighty Joe spat into the dirt, his voice a low grumble.

“My dad told me there were different types of aliens. He had an old radio when I was a kid. Traded information over the wire for a while. But I’ve only ever seen the muzzle heads.”

“Different types?” Mighty Joe snorted. “Is that what your daddy told you? You think you know everything, don’t you, Pretty Miss Freckles? Acting like you’re ready to take on the world, like you can do anything. But I tell you what—you don’t know shit. If you’ve never crossed paths with one of the blueys, you don’t know anything.”

“They are huge, Cara. All angles and teeth with more muscles than any creature needs and solid black eyes. If you saw one, you wouldn’t forget it. One came to Springfield before you did to set up a new mayor.”

“Did anyone die then?” Mighty Joe asked, as if death was a foregone conclusion with those guys.

Brenda shook her head. “Not in town. Outside. Wankers had tried to steal some of our tithe and got into the horses and goats.”

“Stupid wankers. Bet he put them on pikes.” Mighty Joe sounded to Cara like he relished the idea.

“We could smell them.” Cara made a face.

He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “It’s worse than that. Not just them wank-off bastards, that commander kills his own guys. I’ve seen it. Strung ‘em up and left ‘em hanging outside his base like it was nothing. Did you know that?”

Cara shook her head, unease crawling up her spine. What kind of leader killed its own men? Why would he do that?

“They are a vicious lot. My parents saw one of them wipe out the Southern Resistance Army like they were plastic green army men. They had stores, nuclear shit, didn’t use any of it. Cut them down like death walking with a scythe.”

Mighty Joe’s description filled Cara’s head. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Brenda listening as the old man wound himself up.

“You have no idea do you, woman? Where you been hiding yourself?” He shook a finger at Cara.

Cara hadn’t been hiding. She’d just kept her head down. She wasn’t going to explain herself to a crazy man. “I told you we came from Springfield. No blueys there. Just the muzzle heads picking up taxes.”

“That’s his land too. You must have had a better mayor.” His bitter laugh sounded like a cackle.

“We didn’t have anyone like you guys. Who would elect a man like you picked?” Brenda asked.

Mighty Joe’s face closed down at the reminder that the towns elected their own leaders and alien go between representatives. He didn’t appear to Cara like he wanted to take responsibility for picking the man who’d kicked him out.

“The blueys are from the mother ship,” Brenda told Cara, showing a bit of her old helpful self.

“And they like things to be quiet. We gotta keep quiet, see? What do you think he will do to us when he finds us?” Mighty Joe interrupted her.

“Blueys,” Cara repeated the strange term. Testing it. The two of them made the commander sound like some sort of demon monster out of legend.

“That’s damn right. We gotta be quiet. Your friend’s gonna get us caught by the base commander. And I don’t want that trouble.”

Dalewood’s refugees shifted nervously, their wide eyes fixed on Cara. Their faces — pale, sunken, and smeared with grime—looked like melting skeletons. They hadn’t been ready to leave the town’s safety. They didn’t know how to survive out here.

Hunger gnawed at her ribs. She didn’t like it, but at least she knew how to fight it.

She crouched to pull out her basket before taking a place on a log. The string she’d used to weave her floppy creation felt rough under her fingers, stiff with dirt. Dad would have told her to toss that one and start over. He was always more exacting when they had time for a lesson.

There wasn’t time for that now. A basket snare wasn’t her best option, but it might catch a bird. Maybe a rat. She’d brought back supplies to make two more, maybe three. Getting something she could cook to snag the trap and stay under a basket was a different problem. She’d worry about bait tomorrow.

“We’ll be quiet, I’ll go out again tomorrow and look for food. I just need to catch something so we can start making our way back to Springfield. On foot, or something.” She tested the basket as she talked, turning it in her hands, folding the flat soft grass into the weave. It wouldn’t hold water, but it might stop a pigeon from taking flight.

Mighty Joe laughed at her, sharp and bitter. “Catch something. I doubt that.”

“I’m so hungry,” Brenda murmured, her voice trembling. Her swollen nose and tear streaked cheeks made her look fragile. If Cara had even a crumb of food, she would’ve given it to her.

Brenda always chose men who let her down. Andy was the worst of the lot. Cara had never trusted him, but Brenda clung to him like he’d been her last chance at happiness.

“That’s ‘cause you ate the last of it, bitch,” Mighty Joe growled, mood turning. He kicked a rock toward Brenda.

Cara was ready to step forward if he tried anything. She wasn’t going to trust him just because he was old and senile. “Hey. Don’t. There’s no reason for that. I’ll get food. I’ll do something. But I can’t do it right now.”

Mighty Joe muttered something under his breath and shuffled toward his hut. The others followed. Brenda, sniffing, took a new seat by the fire.

Cara let out a slow breath, her chest tightening as she turned back to the basket in her hands. Something had to change. Things had to get better. There had to be a way to save Brenda, to save herself—and, just maybe, help these people too.

Dropping her pack near the fire, exhaustion settled like a fifty-pound bag of grain across her shoulders. Damn. She’d left Springfield to escape that kind of long, dirty backbreaking day.

Brenda had nothing to say as she made a space for a makeshift bed, cocooning herself in Cara’s extra coat and closing out the world.

That was fine. Cara had baskets and snares to make before she could sleep. She needed a plan, a real solution, not this dead-end camp and its hopeless inhabitants. Tomorrow, she’d start before sunrise. She’d find food, a way out, a path back to something better. She had to.

Chapter 2- Cara

Dawn crept up, arriving before Cara noticed it. She opened her eyes and sat up, her mouth dry and tasting of smoke. The fire had dwindled to a bed of glowing embers. Brenda still slept, her face buried in the folds of Cara’s coat, oblivious to the growing chill.

“About time you woke up. Sun’s already thinking about showing its face. You best be about your business.” Mighty Joe said, his rheumy eyes fixed on Cara, a mixture of suspicion and expectation in their depths.

Cara ignored him, her gaze sweeping over her friend before shaking her shoulder to wake her. “Hey, I need to go. I need to see if there’s anything in my traps.”

Brenda stirred, her eyes fluttering open with a dazed expression. “It’s still dark. I’m cold. Hungry.”

“We’re all hungry. You young people should help with that,” Mighty Joe griped.

“The baby,” Brenda started to protest.

“You could have brought something back when you were in there.” Mighty Joe pointed in the direction of Dalewood.

“In where?” Cara asked

They heard a noise, the sound of wood breaking, interrupting the answer. It wasn’t entirely out of place, but everyone in the camp turned and looked in the same direction as if they knew something bad lurked there. What else could it be but bad?

Over six feet tall, dressed in black pants and a black vest with a utility belt, one of the muzzle headed aliens lifted a branch out of its way so it could stare at them.

“Fuck, you did it now,” Mighty Joe grumbled, stumbling back toward the rest of his sleeping group.

The alien lifted its head, its nose moving as it sniffed the air, bared its teeth, and then opened its mouth so a pink dog tongue flopped out, as if trying to lick something up. In all her years traveling with her dad, Cara had never been so close to one of them.

Her heart stilled in her chest. Shit, shit, shit.

Brenda whimpered.

It seemed to count them, sorting them out. Cara felt its gaze land on her, shift to Brenda, and then return to her. It licked the air again, focused on Cara’s eyes. An ear twitched, then it snorted.

Brenda let out a scream before she covered her mouth.

The creature dropped the branch and disappeared.

“Now you done it. Oh, no. Now you have done it, girl,” Mighty Joe muttered.

“They knew you were here.” Cara watched the branch shake in its wake, forcing calmness through the chill in her veins. That was really odd. She reached up and smoothed down the hairs on the back of her neck.

“Borrowed time!” The old man yelled back at her.

“You are going to die here, one way or another, if you don’t do something. I’m going to find us food, and we are going to get out of here. This damn place is toxic.” Cara pointed at the trees.

“You’re not going to find anything, baby girl.” A smooth, amber toned voice emerged from the trees. Andy was not a big guy, but he had a big guy voice, and it was a nice voice. Too bad it didn’t match the rest of him.

“Andy.” Brenda sat up.

“Good morning, Red. How’d you sleep?” Andy’s gaze raked over her, lingering on the curve of her hips and the swell of her chest beneath her worn jacket. His calculating interest made Cara’s skin crawl. She tugged the jacket tighter, wishing she could blind the bastard.

Had Brenda noticed the action? The woman never seemed to see. She’d clung to Andy since they met, as if the things he had done to her in her bunk to make her moan turned him into something special.

Cara didn’t see it. Didn’t care. How could two orgasms in a row from a nasty pile of steaming crap like Andy be worth an exchange of her dignity?

“Andy, I’m so hungry. You can’t make me stay here. You know I can do my part. You didn’t tell me how it would be.” Brenda climbed to her feet, rubbing her mouth.

“I’m not in charge of things. That’s Danov. You know that, right, honey?” Andy said.

Cara couldn’t tell who he was selling that line to. “Honey? You knew what the pig planned. That’s why you brought us here.”

“Andy, how could you do this to me? You know how I feel about you. What has happened to you? You have to leave those other dirty bitches in that town. I’m the mother of your baby.” Brenda’s voice rose as she rushed Andy and threw her arms around him.

“I told you I care about you, honey. But it’s out of my hands. You can’t come into town again, either. Danov had a fit when he found out. If you come, you have to bring Red and be ready to work.”

Red, Andy called her. Cara hated the nickname and the way his eyes lingered on her skin, as if imagining it flushed with something other than anger.

“I can’t do that! You don’t want me to do that. I’m pregnant,” Brenda shouted.

“If you take them back, you should take us back,” someone called from Mighty Joe’s direction.

“You lot had your chance. None of you could pull your weight,” one of Andy’s men called back.

The men with Andy held clubs, and Cara didn’t doubt they’d use them.

It was a mess. Brenda hung on Andy like moss on a tree while his shoulders grew straighter and his eyes gleamed as if he liked the attention she gave him.

“Cara, maybe we can make this work?” Brenda asked.

“You know why they need more people to work? Because half of them have taken jobs that don’t pay any alien tax. I told you what that disgusting pig said to me, Brenda.” Cara shouldn’t have to remind Brenda, but the woman must be so afraid of being alone in this world while she was pregnant that she would do anything to find protection. That had to be why she was climbing over Andy.

“You said you wanted an easier job,” Andy said over Brenda’s head at Cara.

“We’ll make it easy on you, Red. Can’t wait to see if you get red and pink all over,” one of the men said, a grin splitting his pimply face.

“Danov told you that you and Brenda could take the lay-down job, which would free up someone else to work in your places for the alien tax. We’ve got a real treaty with the muzzles. They won’t bother us as long as we pay their tax, right? We have a fair rotation for our tithe—three months a turn.”

“You’ll love it,” the other guy leered.

“It’s easy work. You’d do it for me, wouldn’t you, honey?” Andy tipped his head down and wheedled at Brenda.

“After. I said after the baby. If you still really wanted that. But I know you won’t.” Brenda rubbed her face against his chest as if she were sure.

In Springfield, none of this type of stuff happened. There was no tithe, no rotation, no lying on your back having sex with whoever someone told you to have sex with. This was the type of wanker, asshole stuff Cara’s dad had wanted to save her from.

“What do you say, ladies?” Andy tried to push Brenda away from him.

She clung. “Take me with you. You have to take me with you, Andy.”

It devolved from there. Brenda wouldn’t let Andy go. When Cara tried to help, one of his men came around to push her away. She grabbed a stick from the fire to make him back off. Brenda started screaming, and Mighty Joe began yelling.

Cara clenched the burning stick tighter, the glow of embers warming her hand. Around her, Mighty Joe’s group muttered quietly, their eyes darting between the three men and the woods where the muzzle head had been.

“You’re causing more trouble than you’re worth. Put that stick down, Red. You don’t want to make this worse.”

“My name’s Cara,” she bit out. She didn’t lower the stick.

Andy’s lip curled in a smirk, his casual stance that of a man who thought he held all the power. “Alright, Cara, but you’re the one causing waves.”

“You can leave any time,” Cara added as much mock sweetness to her tone as she could manage. She could almost choke on it.

“Keep poking the giant, and it’ll be real hard to stay under the radar.” Andy gestured broadly toward the woods.

Was he talking about the muzzle head? It was strange that he’d appeared right after that thing. That wasn’t normal at all.

She held her stick firmly, ready to fight. If this group thought she’d surrender to them and give up, they were wrong. “We were just trying to survive. No one asked to be part of monthly rotations. Find someone else. Or better yet, handle your mess of a town instead of dragging us into it.”

Andy barked a laugh. “Brave words for someone with zero leverage.”

As they spoke, sunlight brightened the morning further, and Cara felt time slipping away. She needed to get rid of them and resume her search for food before the chance to set traps and range farther away vanished completely.

“Brenda. Come on. He hasn’t changed his terms.”

There was hesitation in every line of Brenda’s body. She kept her eyes trained on Andy, as hopeful as an animal waiting for its master to give it orders. “Why are you doing this to me? What happened to you?”

“Honey, this isn’t what I want. You believe me, right? The mayor has a plan. We have to get the taxes in. This is how we do it here. Convince Red. I’ll come back tomorrow when you all are hungrier. I’ll bring you something. Would you like that? We’ll talk again.” With one last look at the group, Andy turned and left. His thugs gave Cara and Brenda one last leer before following him.

Cara was happy to see them go. “We don’t need them.”

“I can’t believe he’s really just leaving me here. I told him he was the father of my baby.” Her body sagged.

Brenda—all sharp angles and lean lines—was as skinny as Andy. The hardships of the past few days had clearly taken a toll. Beside her, though only slightly taller, Cara felt thick and solid, like she should be immune to the gnawing hunger. Her breasts and ass still bounced more than she wanted them to. A sharp, unwelcome stab of guilt pierced her.

Brenda was visibly wasting away, and Cara…wasn’t.

“He’s no good.” Cara put her hand on Brenda’s shoulder. It couldn’t be healthy to be pregnant and so thin at the same time.

Brenda shook her off, her mouth hardening. “Here, I want to give you something. I found it in his house. He was hiding it under the bed.”

“Why were you looking under his bed?”

“I was hungry. Since he shares that house with those other guys, I thought I’d find boxes of rations there or something—you know, to keep other people out of it.”

That made sense to Cara. Brenda went on, speaking as she walked over to the tree where she had sat the day before. “He had all kinds of stuff under there he wasn’t supposed to have. But this has got to be worth something. Maybe you can find a market?”

“A market? There’s no pop-up market around this place. What would they sell?” Cara asked.

Brenda reached up into a vee in the branches and pulled out something wrapped in a dirty T-shirt. Folding the cloth away, she revealed a swath of silver that glinted in the morning light—a huge silvery blade. It looked ancient and new at the same time, with an edge as long as Cara’s forearm and a hilt set with jewels.

“Geez. Where did that come from?” Cara asked.

“I told you,” Brenda answered.

That wasn’t what Cara had meant. That didn’t look like anything Andy had found lying around in an old ruin, untended. It was well crafted and very sharp. Cara didn’t want to touch it. Although money had no value anymore, it was the type of thing that people would covet.

“I don’t want it,” Cara said.

Brenda wrapped it up again and went to where Cara’s backpack lay next to the coals of the fire. She shoved it inside. Her mouth had firmed, as if she’d found her backbone again, but her eyes were tearing up. “Take it. Trade it. Sell it. Throw the fucking thing into the river. It was hidden, so he will go looking for it, and we can’t have it, can we? What do you think his boss will do?”

Cara didn’t want to argue. She had already wasted enough daylight. She wanted to set her traps as far away from this area as possible, then circle back through the old ruins to see if she could find something edible there.

Chapter 3 - Bastian

There was nothing left of the long, yellow edged shadows of dusk when he stepped out the doors of Corrections and descended the concrete steps to the asphalt. Other than the sentries, he saw no one outside the building, which was how he preferred his evenings to go.

Night had fallen while Commander Bastian interrogated a rebel and his accomplice. Two humans had been caught last week outside the closest town, moving illegal contraband. Using one meat sack to encourage honesty in the other, Bastian asked his questions. Their series of unsatisfactory answers left him in a dark his mood.

Where had they gotten the contraband? Who were they working with? Where were the rest of the rebels?

Screaming empty inanities, the tiresome human created a pathetic mess as he died. The man hadn’t had any information to give, it seemed, and his friend spent too much time crying to talk. Bastian didn’t mind fresh human blood. But when it dried it turned sticky. He needed a change of clothing.

A high-pitched noise stopped his progress. Sounds of distress bounced off the old buildings and metal warehouse walls of the command base in discordant notes, snapping at his ear membranes.

Coming in from the northeast, the grunts held a new captive between them. She writhed and twisted, fighting to escape inevitable destruction. Like a fly caught in a web, the poor little thing didn’t appear to know she was already dead. Bright red hair haloed a round, terrified face and stubborn pointed chin as she struggled against their grip.

What a reckless creature to be out so late. The local rural imbeciles were nothing but trouble. His people owned this planet and everything on it. All the sentient population had ample notice of the law: obey or die.

He heaved his shoulders in a dramatic put-out sigh, broadcasting his displeasure.

The sentry next to him took a warry step to the left, out of his hitting range.

“Simple extermination would have simplified everything,” Basitan said to the grunt.

Its eyes widened, but it said nothing back.

“Unfortunately, the lesser-elevated, over-educated minds running Sarrian Control disagree. They sent me your lot so I wouldn’t waste resources.”

The red hat took another cautious step to the side.

Bastian ignored it, focusing on the duty bringing in the law breaker. With her scent in their noses, they slobbered with hunger for their chance at her. They appeared to have forgotten every protocol he’d ever tried to teach them.

The little female fell to her knees, broke their hold, rolled, and flipped herself into a stand. She took three steps toward escape.

“Good show.” Bastian said out loud. He barely withheld applause at her efforts. Face glowing with the strain, the color from the smattering of spots of her cheeks seemed to darken. Not spots. Humans called them freckles.

Recaptured easily, the red hats called to each other in throaty barking sounds of triumph. She yelled unintelligible slurs as they brought her down again.

“You fucking nasty, rot! Let me go! Bastards! Dog breath. Do you eat ass for dinner?” she shouted.

Girl had quite a colorful vocabulary.

Like any prime battler, he enjoyed the scent of prey. The male captives in Corrections had fed his primal senses with their terror. But this female’s outrage and fear tickled at something unexpected in his body, a little feather teasing across the back of his neck.

Curious, he opened his secondary senses to take in the full, salty, warm musk of sweat beading on her skin and dripping down between her tits under her layers of clothes, picking up the edge of flavor that wanted to suck them up with his lower tongue.

The very idea surprised him. A prime battler controlled himself. One did not slobber over local flora and fauna.

Her fear had interesting tones. A direct invitation to bite and see if she was the perfect combination of fuckable and edible. Commander Bastian did not fuck. Where had that notion come from?

He narrowed his eyes. Sniffed the air again, letting it roll over his senses. What was she? Why was she different?

Different was interesting. But not good. Anomalies had a way of coming around to causing him trouble.

He hadn’t been exposed to many human females. Males he’d encountered smelled like dirt, rotting wheat, and shit. Not this human. Not her.

He should kill her now.

The red hats had managed to tear up the outermost layer of her clothing. A tight, inner, dark layer thwarted their efforts to get to her skin. She’d sourced soft armor manufactured years ago by humans. Earth women appeared in a fascinating variety of shapes and sizes. Bastian appreciated their soft curves, a change from his own species’ sharp edges. The redhead had a slim, delicate neck and a clean, stubborn jawline. Easily hooked. Cut. Broken.

She escaped the grunts’ hold once more and hit the ground like a dead weight. Playing with their food, they kept letting her escape, shifting and wiggling like an eel until she slipped right out of their hands and hit the ground headfirst.

The sound echoed. He smelled her blood. Salty. Hot. Sweet. Velvet. He wanted to slide his tongue through that smell in a slow, careful examination of all its notes.

With a small, practiced twitch of his neck and shoulders, he shook himself, forcing control.

Her self-inflicted blow dazed her, eyes going wide and white, then fluttering shut. When they opened again, he saw disappointment and dread flatten her mouth and harden her expression. She hadn’t saved herself from her fate.

Maybe if she’d bothered to read the signs he posted, she would understand her situation. Better to die here under her own volition rather than at the hands of the duty.

If she was that smart, why had she broken the curfew? What would drive her out of one of the gated laborer communities and into the inevitable hands of red hats?

“Red! Where are the other four of you?” Bastian barked, getting the duty security’s attention. Duty teams went out in groups of eight or twelve. He didn’t see the others following.

The woman’s gaze shot to where Bastian stood. He could smell her spicy fear ratchet up, like someone turning up the heat on a gas burner. No doubt she’d never seen a prime battler before.

“Dead. With human rebels. Dead,” the security head replied in his guttural language.

The useless grunts had been killed by rebels? Her companions then. She hadn’t been caught alone.

If she was with those irritating rebels, he wanted a chat. He wanted to find that vermin nest and clean it out. The last two were an independent team working for themselves.

Maybe this female knew more.

The rebels never bothered his base. As a rule, they avoided direct conflict, scurrying about like cockroaches in the dark, scrabbling around towns—bothering other humans. The duty chased them in circles.

Since Bastian wasn’t on good terms with Control, they refused him access to aerial information so he could hunt them down himself.

“You left behind a mess of bodies then?”

“No, Prime. Met new duty as we bring this one in,” the security head answered.

“Did you complete a search of the area? Which direction did the group of rebels come from? Where were they hiding? Have they bothered the town?”

It glanced at the others over the girl’s head. “We return once she’s in Correction.” Their callers and headsets seemed forgotten in their eagerness to get her into a cell.

“Bind her and leave her on the floor of room twelve. Don’t fucking touch anything. And then take a fresh duty and go clean up your mess. Clear those dead bodies away. File a report. Unless you are too stupid to manage and need me to do it?”

The girl’s eyes went wide with understanding. She was going to have to talk to Bastian. Her face held an expression he couldn’t quite read. Human faces were so mobile and expressive he was always guessing at their intended communication. But she didn’t smell happy—she smelled terrified.

He used the native tongue here, having learned it and all the other planet-related languages and information before taking his landside posting. The sounds were crude and ugly, but he liked that the locals could understand him. It helped turn up the dial of their fear.

This human female’s fear was an exceptional scent, indeed.

Whines through muzzled faces answered his order, but the look in his eyes shut the red hats right up. A grunt was a grunt. Nothing to him. He wouldn’t waste time with complicated disciplinary measures. Instead, he’d have them bleeding out their last down a drain, and they knew it.

“Ten human males? Rebels? Was she with them?” Bastian didn’t move, letting them bring her closer.

“No, no. No,” the girl cried out in her struggle. It had a pleasant ring, perfectly scratched with terror.

“Running from humans, Prime,” the red hat answered, drool dripping down its chin. It wanted her badly.

“Running from them, eh?” He gave her a once over. She looked like she’d been on the losing side of a war—which she had, of course—but had humans done that to her or the duty?

Two of the grunts had gotten into some human blood, too. He could see it in the way their eyes rolled and watered as they dragged her to Correction’s main entrance. Worthless mongrels. That was a blatant disregard for his rules. Human blood dulled their faculties.

Bastian had requisitioned better stock repeatedly but just kept getting shit. He was beginning to think someone in the higher echelons of Control didn’t like him very much.

This was reasonable. His hatred for every one of the fucking, privileged, high-tier assholes was not a secret.

Not looking back to see if the red hats obeyed, he crossed the courtyard to his apartments. He needed to clean up the goo from his last talk with a prisoner. The grunts would do what they were told, reluctantly, leaving the human girl tied up like a gift.

Watching her fluid movements as she tried to end her own life any way she could, her odd human face fixed with resolve, ignoring everything but her goal, was an intriguing sight. Did she have a secret worth dying for?

He was drawn to this girl. One way or another, she’d find out just how dangerous his attention was. The early Sarrian survey corps traveled with world seeders that tampered with planetary evolutions by adding Sarrian DNA streams to any hardy, compatible lineages they discovered. Not all humans would carry the ancient seed, but some of them might. She could be one of them.

As far as Bastian was concerned, all those seeds were corrupt. Cursed. They should be eliminated.

He’d find out if she was one of them before he finished.

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