Walking home through the empty abandoned streets of the Outpost, I felt the bittersweet loneliness that had come to be a regular companion. Most everyone was indoors now as the temperatures were starting to plummet. Wrapping my overcoat tighter, I closed my eyes and took in the cold silence of a Vaxivian night. Except it wasn't silent.

My heart started to race at the unexpected sounds of combat. I raced along the streets, seeking out the source. Vaxivia was my home, and whether I was on duty with the militia didn't matter. If there were something going down, then I was all-in for the action. There was no shortage of people insisting, Andie, relax. Take off the blinders. But where was the fun in that?

As I neared the block housing the Vaxivian Free Clinic, it took a minute to process what I was seeing. Demons were not exactly the most common of sights around here. We were told to be ready for hostile visitors. We had heard the stories from other sectors about the demonic looking Infernians disguised as humans insinuating themselves into communities only to incite death and destruction.

My unit had trained for it, sure, but still, the reality of seeing an alien battle in the middle of the main road of a nowhere town like this was pretty jarring. We might be a colony of humans living 2.9 million light years from Earth on a planet with two suns, but Vaxivia was a relatively small, rocky, sparsely populated planet with few commercially viable natural resources—not exactly a prime target for political chaos . . . or a vacation, for that matter.

On the outer reaches of the Triangulum Galaxy, Vaxivia had come to serve as a sort of haven for the outcasts, dissidents, and refugees of the oppressive Earth Federation, and any violence, with a rare few exceptions, tended to come from homegrown sources.

My feet carried me on a mission of their own while my mind was still processing the situation unfolding. I grabbed for my hadron pulsor as I spotted Jennifer Walker, the local practitioner and the only familiar face. She was valiantly fighting against a motley assortment of rough-looking mercenaries, indicated by the triple-headed Joker patches they wore.

Beside Jennifer, a burly man with dark red hair was taking the brunt of the beating from three wicked looking demons as well as another handful of mercenaries. From where I was, he seemed to be holding his own, at least temporarily.

I aimed at a squat little man lunging toward Jennifer right as she landed a side kick to his ribcage, followed by a swift punch to his throat, which sent him reeling backward. Apparently, her extensive knowledge of human physiology had its uses in a fight. Fortunate that, as I was still too far away to be sure of my accuracy.

Suddenly, three more men materialized from out of nowhere, rushing at the group of attackers. The first of their group to charge let out a chilling, predatory sound that I couldn't place. Leaping impossibly high through the air at the men surrounding Jennifer, he went to swift and lethal work punching, kicking, and hurling them, despite being severely outnumbered.

The other two rushed toward the demons, who were taking turns attacking from the air and the ground. The red-haired man in the middle was struggling to hold his ground, landing a blow for every two of theirs. His technique was clean and precise, but his opponents’ sheer number and dirty tactics were winning out until the newcomers joined him.

Still racing to get within range to help, I watched as the tallest of their number glimmered and changed, shifting into something else. Add another thing to the list of shocking and unexpected events for the evening.

I didn't know what I was seeing except that where there was a man a nanosecond before, there now loomed a huge black dragon with scales so obsidian, it was hard to separate his shape from the night sky behind him, making him all the more impressive as he seemed to merge with the night sky.

Engaging mid-air with a sickly looking demon, spindly and gray with red horns and translucent wings, the two creatures battled high above, the demon retreating and then diving at the dragon, pummeling him with stun charges. The dragon, in turn, scorched the demon with bursts of impossibly orange fire, so bright I could almost feel the heat of it.

As the aerial battle waged, the third man to arrive squared off against a golden-horned demon. The two were close in height but otherwise in stark contrast. The golden-horned demon had monstrous, disproportionate features and scaly black-brown skin whereas the man facing him was unnaturally beautiful with platinum flowing hair that framed a flawlessly sculpted mossy green face set with steely calm and focus.

Colliding with unbelievable speed and force, I could barely make out their movements, and though I was close enough to aim, I couldn't fire on the demon without hitting the gorgeous stranger. As I finally caught up to the unfolding drama, one of the hired thugs ran at me.

Good. I was ready for a fight. Things had been quiet lately around the outpost with the recent pressure out of Steel City on the outlying crime lords. There hadn't been much action for the local militia.

He was already bloodied at the mouth and sneering as he came at me. I waited until he was an arm’s length away and dropped low, sweeping his legs out from under him and sending him down hard, his head bouncing off the packed dirt. Straightening, I stretched out my arm in time to clothesline the second creep coming at me.

This one rebounded quicker, getting up and pulling out a rusted switchblade, “I'm gonna enjoy slicing up that pretty face of yours, bitch,” he sneered at me, the putrid smell of his breath so strong that it reached me instantly even in this chilled air.

“Aw, you think I'm pretty?” I taunted, waiting for the right time to strike and also not really wanting to get any closer to that smell.

Wiping at the sweat on his leathery face, he decided to flirt some more. “Not as pretty as you'll look when I'm fucking your corpse.”

For that, he wasn't getting the luxury of a quick hadron charge. I was going hands-on.

“Gosh, that's a swell offer, stinky, but no thanks. I'm not into kinky shit with dick stains like you.”

Faking right, I landed a hard sidekick to the left side of his head, followed by a blow directly to his solar plexus and an open-palm upward strike to his nose. He struck out with his blade, but I blocked his forearm and the blade plunged into his torso. Spurting blood, he staggered backward into the night.

Just then, I turned around and saw Jennifer pinned against the side of the clinic by a chubby looking mercenary. He grinned sadistically as he strangled her and her face turned a deep, frightening red.

Launching myself at his back, I wrestled him into a submission hold. He dropped Jennifer, who fell to the ground gasping, her cheeks dotted with bright red spots from his stranglehold on her.

Locking my arms around his neck, I gave the asshat a taste of his own methods. When he finally slumped down, I turned to help Jennifer up but she had made her way to the receded doorway of the clinic where the first stranger, a tall, hulky dude with wavy auburn hair, was still kicking ass and shredding what remained of the mercenaries.

“Pavar!” I spun around in time to see the platinum hunk regaining his footing as one of the demons, black with orange horns and shocks of orange-red hair, swung a blade toward the wounded figure of a man on the ground. Reflexes taking over, I aimed and fired a hadron charge at the demon. The impact of the charge sent him sailing into the street. Screeching, he awkwardly took to the air, one wing badly shredded, and fled.

The golden horned demon already gone and the mercenaries obliterated, the wicked wraithlike demon who was still locked in heated battle overhead saw the tide of the battle changing. Landing a series of swift stun charges to the dragon, he maneuvered deftly away, disappearing into the night with his comrades.

Relaxing somewhat, I looked back to see the last of the human attackers flee on a hovercraft, leaving behind his cohorts without a second thought. Gotta love their loyalty.

“Jennifer! Talk to me—are you hurt?”

The man who had defended Jennifer held her to him tightly with one arm. The other arm, cradled between them, seemed to be bleeding profusely. Her petite curvy frame fit snugly against his muscular body, their red hair, hers light and his dark, blending together as they touched foreheads.

“I'm okay, just sore and banged up a bit,” Jennifer rasped, hoarse from the attack.

I went to the figure of the man on the ground, preparing to assess the damage. Crouched over him, long, silvery hair framing angular features, was the man who had shouted out moments before. The black dragon landed with silent ease, sending a great rush of air toward me.

Clearing the dust from my eyes, he stood again as a man who looked only slightly ruffled, no sign of battle visible on him. He, too, approached the fallen man.

“Pavar will heal,” said the platinum-haired man as he lifted his head, speaking to the other man but locking his eyes on me. For a moment, I felt caught, trapped by his piercing grey gaze.

My skin felt tingly and hot. I couldn't breathe and just stood there transfixed by the otherworldly beauty of his features and his gaze—raw, searing, and unsettling. The air felt thick and electric, and somehow, I felt more excited and aware than I had running toward a fight between dragons and demons.