With nothing else to do, Layla put on the VR glasses she’d been given by the ship’s attendant-bot, the very same glasses she’d managed to grab—along with her now-dead link-band and cabin luggage—when she’d evacuated the Malachi.

A familiar scene unfolded before her, appearing so real she could almost reach out and touch the leaves of the lush exotic plants that lined the crystal-clear waterway.

This was her personalized introduction. Along with seven other humans, Layla had been en-route to her new home.

Miridian-7. The warm, lush planet had become a secret enclave for Earth’s wealthiest citizens. Those that wanted to escape the hassles of everyday life on Earth—crowding, pollution, criminals, Federation surveillance, pain-in-the-ass jerks—they went to Miridian-7.

“Welcome to Miridian-7, a premier lifestyle destination.” Calming music played, a series of relaxing chimes blending with the sweet tones of a harp. The view zoomed in on the creek bed, revealing purple stone formations that glittered beneath the pristine water. Silver creatures darted beneath the surface. Not fish, but something other.

“Untouched. Unpolluted. Uncrowded. The air is clean, the sky is clear, the climate perfect. Infinity-8 Developments is proud to present this unique settlement opportunity.” A gentle female voice filtered through her ears, the slight lack of inflection telling her the speech was AI-generated. “As an elite member of our growing human colony on Miridian-7, you will be offered prime land in one of our stunning skydomes. Enjoy total environmental protection, along with the freedom to explore the unspoiled outer environment at your leisure. Layla dela Cruz, you have worked hard to achieve success on Earth. Now is the time to broaden your horizons and reward yourself with your very own piece of paradise. You deserve it.”

The view panned out to a series of green, undulating hills. A double rainbow stretched between them, curving across an impossibly blue sky. If Layla hadn’t known better, she might have thought the whole thing was digitally enhanced, but she’d seen the raw footage. She’d paid an independent exploration company to scan Miridian-7 with their drones, and they confirmed that the jungle planet’s terrain was the real deal.

“Miridian-7, the closest livable planet to Earth, is uncolonized and completely removed from the frantic pace of old world life. Your lifetime residency permit will grant you membership to an exclusive club, where total peace and privacy is only a spaceflight away. Suspend time and aging as you enter light cryosleep shortly after departure, and wake up perfectly refreshed, feeling exactly the same as you did when you left Earth.”

“So much for the dream,” Layla sighed, switching off the VR glasses. It was all out of reach now. The verdant landscape of Miridian-7 disappeared, revealing the grim interior of the escape pod. To one side, there was the automated storage facility that held the supplies. All she had to do was ask for food, water, medical supplies, or whatever, and the bot would take care of it, dropping the items into a small clear-walled cabinet. On the other side of the pod, there was a closed off compartment with a toilet facility and a stash of spare bedding, along with some oversized cabin-jackets that seemed to have been stuffed in there as an afterthought.

Really, Layla had everything she needed for survival.

But there was no shower.

No goddamned shower.

And stars knew she needed one.

Layla was still wearing the same garment she’d had on when she’d entered the cryosleep sling—a custom-made suit that consisted of a fitted long-sleeved jersey and comfortable leggings. Made of a permeable new-tech fabric that felt like a strange cross between silk and warm gel, it was designed to allow near-freezing bioliquid to coat every pore of her body while she lay in the sling.

Impregnated with millions of sensors, with several nanoscopic nodes extending directly into her bloodstream, the suit had monitored her body’s activity right down to the tiniest flicker, allowing the AI to perfectly regulate the environment inside the sling.

All that fancy tech was pointless now, because her suit was disconnected from its AI.

But it was comfortable, and it kept her warm, and it had saved her life. When all that debris came flying through the cryosleep bay, when something heavy smashed into her chest, jolting her out of a dreamless sleep, her suit had momentarily hardened, protecting her vital organs.

Layla ran her fingers over her ribcage, hissing and wincing as she grazed the exquisitely tender spot on her right side. No doubt there were a couple of broken ones there. They’d healed a little, but they were still fucking sore.

“It’s definitely a curse,” she groaned, her voice sounding strange to her own ears. “I just can’t get a break, can I?”

All she’d wanted to do was escape Earth for a while. Five years, ten years, even twenty. Most of that time would be spent in spaceflight, and Layla would hardly age, because she would be in cryosleep.

“You are injured.” A familiar cold voice cut through her thoughts, sounding so perfectly clear that she almost felt he was right there in the pod with her.

Layla stifled a gasp. “How do you know?” She hadn’t told him anything about her injuries.

“The sound of your breathing changed.”

A tiny little shiver coursed through her. It was half fear, half curiosity, and all shock. “You can hear even that?” Maybe these aliens just had really, really good sound detection technology. “Who are you, exactly? Are you part of the Infinity-8 Alliance?”

Come on now, he had to give her something.

“How badly are you injured?” He countered her question with his own, and Layla didn’t know if he was asking out of concern, or for strategic reasons. Perhaps a nearly-dead passenger wasn’t worth all the time and effort to rescue.

She had no choice but to be honest. “It’s nothing that’ll kill me. I have a couple of broken ribs and a black eye. An annoying cough that won’t go away. A nasty bruise on my stomach. A twisted ankle. I’ll survive, if I don’t die of boredom first.”

“You find your current situation boring?” Okay, so now he sounded irritated. At least he was capable of feeling some sort of emotion, even if he wasn’t able to appreciate her sarcasm. Maybe Kordolians didn’t do sarcasm.

“Sorry. I was being flippant. Being alone for extended periods of time makes us humans a little bit crazy. Well, most of us.” Layla switched her tone, trying to sound as respectful as possible. Sleep deprivation and not speaking to single soul for weeks had made her a little bit delirious, and more than a little desperate. “Why won’t you tell me who you are, Captain?”

Arctic silence.

Did I piss him off? For a moment, Layla thought he might have even cut the transmission, but then he spoke.

“I work for Darkstar. You may call me Enki… and I am not the captain.”

“Okay. Y-you’re…”

“Kordolian.” No mention of his rank, or station, or whatever. What the hell was Darkstar? What kind of name was that, anyway? It sounded like an organization headed by an evil supervillain… or something.

Kordolian. Now it was Layla’s turn to go quiet. Her stomach flipped and her mouth went dry as the realization struck her. She stared at the transmitter unit in shock.

Somehow, it made perfect sense.

Now she could put a face to the voice. She didn’t know exactly what he looked like, but she knew he would be tall, lean, and rather ethereal looking. She’d seen Kordolians on the newsfeeds back on Earth. They all shared certain similarities, with that unmistakable skin—a luminous shade of silver—pale hair, fire-colored eyes, and pointed ears.

Layla tried to remember everything she knew about Kordolians. Big changes had happened in the Kordolian Universe, but Layla didn’t know much about their current situation. She’d been too busy dealing with her own clusterfuck back on Earth to follow Inner Sector politics.

Still, one couldn’t avoid knowing something about them. The Networks had been saturated with news—and gossip—about the intimidating silver aliens. From all accounts, they were dangerous… and searching for new worlds to inhabit, new ways to ensure the survival of their race. There was even a rumor that they were biologically compatible with humans.

It seemed implausible that they would go out of their way to rescue her just because they were kind and charitable and all-round good guys.

Why are you helping me? That’s what Layla wanted to ask, but she didn’t want to push the envelope; didn’t want to drive him away. Her only lifeline was a mysterious grumpy Kordolian called Enki, and he was impossible to read.

And now he’d gone quiet again.

Layla looked away from the transmitter. She stared out the narrow port-hole, awed and terrified by the infinite Universe that made her feel so fucking small.

He was out there, somewhere.

Coming for her.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, but her lids quickly snapped open again as an intense blue light filled the cabin. Something was blocking the port-hole. The blue light moved across the interior in a narrow, focused beam.

It looked like it was… scanning.

“Uh, Enki?”

“What is it?”

“There’s this weird blue light shining through my port-hole. You know anything about that?”

If it was something to do with Enki’s rescue plans, then that was damn quick.

“What is behind the light? Can you see anything?” His sharp questions made her heart sink, and instinctively she knew the strange light had nothing to do with him.

Layla squinted as the beam rose, becoming momentarily blinded as it shone directly into her eyes. She blinked furiously, shielding her gaze with one hand as she tried to make out what was beyond the light.

“I-It looks like some sort of machine—a robot. There are wavy metal arms coming off it, like an octopus. Crap, one of them just brushed against the window just now. It has little claws.”

A narrow beam of blue light danced across her body. It slid over her breasts and her stomach before insolently lingering over her lower belly—where her reproductive organs were.

As if it were trying to determine her sex, or something.

Creepy. Like, alien horror-movie creepy. Layla shuddered as she thought of probes and crazy experiments and captivity and all those fanciful stories humans had concocted about aliens in the pre-contact era, before the real thing had shown up on Earth.

She rose to her feet and darted to the far corner of the pod, where she retrieved an oversized thermal cabin jacket. For a brief moment, its silver reflective material flashed blue beneath the light’s eerie glare. Terrified, she ran to the port-hole and pressed the jacket against it, obscuring the machine’s view.

“What are you doing?” Enki sounded tense—was he actually worried?

“I think it’s trying to scan me.” Her voice rose as panic set in. “I’ve covered the window so it can’t see me.” A jolt of realization struck her. “You know what that thing is, don’t you?”

“Exploration drone,” he growled. “Layla, go into the most secure part of the pod and barricade yourself inside. I am coming.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“I have to cloak my frequency now. They can’t know that we’re coming. If they take you, don’t fight back, whatever you do. I am telling you this for your own safety. They will kill you.” Impossibly, his tone softened, yet it also seemed to carry the dark promise of vengeance against whoever—or whatever—was coming to get her.

It was relieving to know that he was capable of feeling some sort of emotion.

“But who are they?”

“Enemies.”

A series of dull thuds made her peek beneath the edge of the makeshift thermal jacket curtain. At the very corner of her view, she saw several of the creepy exploration drones drift inside the damaged body of the SS Malachi.

“Layla…”

“Yes, Enki?”

“Endure a little longer. I am coming.”

Silence.

He was gone.

All of a sudden, she was alone again, and the brief contact she’d had with Enki made it all the more painful. To hear a voice—any voice—was like walking into a rainstorm in the desert.

Utterly refreshing.

She craved contact, but at the very moment she needed it most, he took it away. Not because he was cruel, but because the Universe was cruel.

And now monsters were coming to get her, and Enki—who she really knew nothing about, apart from the fact that he was Kordolian—was coming for them.

Layla could only hope that he could fucking teleport or something, because she was trapped and defenseless and running out of time.

Taking one last look at the menacing looking drones as they floated through the wreck of the Malachi, their searchlights penetrating the inky darkness, she did the only thing she could.

Hide.

She fled to the rear compartment—which was practically just a storage unit—activating the automated door. It slid shut behind her with an ominous click, leaving her in cramped silence.

At least the drones couldn’t scan her anymore, but now she had no way of knowing what was happening outside.

Suddenly, her insides dropped.

Momentum. It was the same sensation she’d felt when the Malachi had gone into rapid acceleration.

The escape-pod was moving. Fast. Something was causing it to move.

How the hell…?

From the compulsory safety training they’d undergone, she knew the pod could be towed or propelled by small spacecraft. She was tempted to go back and look out the port-hole, but she didn’t want to risk being scanned by the drone again.

And even if she looked outside, it wouldn’t make any difference.

There was literally nothing she could do.

“Here we go,” Layla groaned. In that instant, her whole life flashed before her eyes.

How she’d gone from a dirt-poor nobody to obscenely wealthy in half a lifetime.

How she’d been forced to escape Earth, her reputation in tatters, an angry mob baying for her blood over something she didn’t even do.

Layla never thought she’d enjoy the privilege of being one of rare humans who had actually experienced space travel. Too bad she was just trying to escape all the bullshit.

And now here she was, trapped, alone, hunted.

Waiting on a man she’d never met.

An alien who might never find her.

Considering her luck, that sounded just about right.