If I’d blinked, I would have died.

The bullet whizzed past my ear as I jerked to the left, ruffling my fan of long, cream-white hair. A second bang of gunfire immediately followed the first, and I ducked. They were not aiming to maim. They were aiming to kill.

Five warriors dipped and spun around me in a dance of death. Their pale, blue-tinged skin was almost translucent beneath the golden glow of the Earth-sun, and their ghostly white eyes were fixed on the enemies before us. We were outnumbered. Twelve human soldiers advanced forward, pushing us back with streams of shots and sheer force. My A’li-uud kinfolk wielded swords and knives, but they were no offensive match for the lethal firearms and barrage of bullets the humans possessed. We had two options; fight until certain death or surrender.

A’li-uud did not surrender.

I wrenched my sword from the sheath on my hip. It was more of a scimitar than a sword with its thick, curved blade and hardy hilt, and it bathed me in brilliant fuchsia light as I lifted it over my head. The reddish-purple aura spread outward from the blade’s core in a display of raw beauty. Its masterfully-etched hilt weighed heavy in the palm to bless the holder with striking precision and deadly accuracy. The blade itself was made of lehran, a mineral blend of impenetrable strength found only at the center of my home planet Albaterra. The sword was a prize bequeathed only to those who were granted A’li-uud Elderhood—an honor I’d accepted a mere three months ago.

Another bullet rocketed toward me, careening toward the space between my eyes. I snapped the sword downward and heard a ping as the bullet ricocheted off the blade.

“What the hell is that?” one of the humans shouted. He was staring at my weapon in horror.

I breathed in a sharp breath of air and jumped. As I did, the wind caught my feet and tangled me within, and I was suddenly riding on the treads of the breeze. It was called wind travel, another gift solely allotted to Elders, and it allowed me to fly unseen at rapid speed. I hurtled toward the squad of soldiers. They continued firing on my warriors, but their eyes darted all around searching for me, alarmed at my unexpected disappearance. I dropped into a nosedive with my scimitar held aloft. Sweeping over the heads of the humans, I sliced my blade cleanly through the barrel of the gun that had been targeting me. The soldier holding it froze for a fraction of a second. Under normal circumstances, I would have killed him, but my goal was not to eliminate one of their numbers, which would cause them to become angry and panicked—it was to stop them from shooting at my men long enough for us to gain the advantage. I used the soldier’s shocked immobility as a chance to incapacitate him and slammed the butt of my hilt into the back of his head. In a graceful bend, his frame arced backward to the ground, and he collapsed in a dead faint.

“Holy fuck!” the nearest comrade bellowed. He leaped away, crashing into a fellow soldier and stumbling over his heels.

The pops and bangs of gunfire slowed as the humans realized one of their numbers had been knocked unconscious by my unseen force. Well-trained and highly skilled in combat, my warriors seized the momentary lapse of concentration as an opportunity to regain control. From the skies, I watched the fierce A’li-uud rush forward to their opponents, shrieking war whoops and bringing their swords slashing down. The soldiers were forced to use their large, black firearms as shields. Relief prickled at the nape of my neck. We had the upper hand now. Nothing could stand up to the A’li-uud of Montemba in hand-to-hand battle.

I twisted my body to swing behind my warriors and plunged toward the ground. My boots slammed into muddy soil as I landed, and I heard a distinct squelching noise as I unstuck my soles from the muck and broke into a run. There were no longer shots cracking in the air. Instead, I heard just a dull buzzing and my warriors’ cries in my ears. Those seemed to be the only things I could hear lately.

In our four months on Earth, I had grown deaf to everything but my people.

As if to question just how unaware my senses were, a massive boom exploded through the air. Within the same second, a godawful, gut-wrenching wail stemmed from the horrified mouth of Ki’lok, one of my men. He grew rigid in a contorted shape of unnatural angles, and then he tripped back, falling face-up. I saw deep, rich, mahogany blood blooming from a small circle in his abdomen, and a thin dribble of the same color leaked from the corner of his mouth.

Immediately, grief, so great it ached erupted from my belly. The A’li-uud were a close-knit race, and to see a warrior fall was a moment of wicked sorrow. As an Elder, however, I was bonded to my people like a mother to a child, physically connected at the soul. The very place from which Ki’lok bled seared on my own body as though I had been the one to be shot. My brother, Duke, who had been my predecessor as Elder for the Montemba tribe, had many years to practice control over his Elder abilities. But I was new. I hadn’t even gone through the Elderhood ceremony or mentorship. The pain of Ki’lok’s death was too great to bear, and rage surged through my veins as viscerally as adrenaline.

With a roar like an untamed beast, I sprang into the wind again. This time, I didn’t bother circling the soldiers to find the best vantage point. I torpedoed toward my warrior’s murderer with my sword outstretched. The tip of the blade slid through his sternum like a hot knife through butter, but I didn’t stop there. As I landed within inches before him, I jammed my hand further until the sword burst out of his back and the hilt was pressed against his chest. The soldier let out a choked gurgle, his eyes wide and stunned. I watched the light in his gaze dim until, a split second later, he was unseeing and unmoving.

There was an outcry of fury from the ten remaining humans. In slow motion, I saw those unhindered by my warriors turn their guns toward me. I was a vicious fighter in the worst of times, the personification of Death in the best, but my ability to deflect an onslaught of bullets from all sides was nothing short of a risky gamble with very poor odds. If I were going to go down, it wouldn’t be without a fight, but the fight would likely be futile. I was likely facing my last moments.

“No!”

The yell did not come from one of my A’li-uud kin, as I would have expected. It came from a tall, burly soldier near the back of the group. His scrubby, dusty-brown beard was so grizzled that I couldn’t see his mouth and didn’t realize it was he who’d spoken until the other soldiers turned to look at him.

For the first time since meeting the squad, there was no movement. My warriors—stunned by the man saving my life—looked at me for instruction.

“Wait,” I said tersely to my warriors, speaking in A’li-uud.

The human nearest me swung around, jerking the barrel of his gun at my nose. “What the hell did you just say?”

“Willard! Stand down!” ordered his bushy-bearded leader.

“Sir, he’s saying something to the others!” the soldier replied urgently. “I heard him doing that clicking thing!”

“I don’t care. Stand. Down.”

The unwavering firmness in the leader’s voice made it clear his word was law. Had he been A’li-uud rather than human, it would have been a trait admired amongst my tribe. As he was neither A’li-uud nor ally, however, I felt only edgy anticipation for his next command.

With a hateful glare at me and obvious resentment simmering beneath his skin, the soldier lowered his gun from my face and took a stiff step back. I held his gaze for a brief second before swiveling my eyes to the left. Lokos, my second-in-command, still had his sword raised and his chin tilted upward in haughty defiance of the unexpected peace. I narrowed my eyes slightly at him and jerked my head almost imperceptibly, indicating my desire for him to stay alert and strike at the first sign of aggression. He returned the gesture with one of his own.

“You!” The gruff, thickly-muscled man jabbed his finger toward me. “You’re in charge here?”

I stared at him warily and did not respond.

He snickered, but there wasn’t a hint of a smile on his meaty face. “Don’t act like you don’t understand me, alien. I know you freaks speak English. I know a hell of a lot more about you than you think.”

Lokos made a low growling noise in the back of his throat, and I knew it was out of anger for the human’s disrespectful approach to me. New or not, I was an Elder, and A’li-uud culture dictated that Elders receive the highest level of respect at all times. There were some who failed to uphold the tradition, but Lokos was not one of them.

“Yes,” I said. My voice sounded louder than I’d intended, carrying over the ambient sounds of breeze and rustling trees. The pleasant, serene atmosphere of the abandoned small town we’d found ourselves in seemed like the ultimate contradiction to the dense tension between the humans and us, but I nonetheless felt the blood pumping in my ears wane as the pain of Ki’lok’s death finally ebbed to a dull ache. “I am an Elder.”

The leader nodded once, a sharp snap of his head. “Great.” He waved a finger in the air, turning away from me. “Round’em up, boys.”