Chapter 1

Josie

The midday sun is warm on my shoulders, a big, soft hand pressing me down into the soil like it’s trying to lull me into a nap I don’t have time for. Sweat beads at my temple, slipping past the edge of my welding visor and crawling like a lazy beetle along my cheek. The faint scent of heated polymers and jungle moss mingles in the air, thick and heady, clinging to the inside of my lungs like syrup. There’s a soft clink as my hydrospanner slips against the pump’s valve collar.

“Son of a slag-eating—” I mutter under my breath, biting down on the curse before I can teach the birds any new vocabulary. Not that they’re listening. The avian fauna out here doesn’t care about my struggle. Somewhere behind me, one of the native dewfinches trills like it’s auditioning for opera, and I resist the urge to hurl the wrench at it. The pump gurgles back at me like it’s in on the joke.

The colony’s a mile back, snug on the lip of the rainforest, where prefab modules huddle like gossiping old ladies and our four ion cannons point skyward like they might mean something. Out here, where I’ve got nothing but my tools and the slap-happy sun, it’s easy to forget how precarious everything is. I shove the wrench back into position and throw my shoulder into it. The bolt gives with a groan that feels personal.

“There you go, sweetheart,” I whisper to the pump like it’s a particularly stubborn lover, brushing grease from its flank with an affectionate pat.

And then it happens.

The sun vanishes.

Not like a cloud-rolled kind of gone, but snuffed out. Erased. A shadow bigger than anything has any right to be rolls across the earth, swallowing my warmth whole. The birds fall silent. The insects stop their buzzsaw dance. My skin prickles with a wave of static, and the hair on the back of my neck stands like it’s getting ready to run. I lift my head slowly, every nerve in my body already screaming what I haven’t let myself think.

No. No no no.

I know that silhouette. Even from this distance, even from underneath the foliage of a Drexari summerbloom tree, I know the cruel, jagged lines of a Vortaxian capital ship. It's not just a ship. It's the kind of ship they send when they're not interested in negotiations. The kind that smells like domination and the echo of crushed planets.

I yank my visor off and stagger backward, my boot catching on a root. My ass hits the dirt, but I barely notice. My breath stutters. I can feel my pulse in my throat, in my fingertips. The ship descends like a god descending from judgment, casting a rolling shadow all the way to the colony.

I’m running before I know I’ve moved. Tools clatter to the ground. My boots slam against the soil with every heartbeat. The jungle blurs past—bright green, sweat-slick trunks and sharp-leaved shrubs grabbing at me like they want to keep me from what’s coming. Or warn me away.

The Vortaxians don’t come for diplomacy.

They come for surrender. Or worse.

When I break through the final line of trees, the colony stretches before me in stunned stillness. The children aren’t playing. The miners aren’t cursing over faulty drills. The guards near the ion turret—bless their calloused hands and sad little security grid—stand frozen, their weapons trembling.

I follow their gaze.

The ship has landed.

Or hovered, really. The ground beneath it vibrates, even from a hundred yards out. A ramp descends with the grace of something that doesn’t think it’ll ever need to hurry. A squadron of black-armored soldiers marches down in perfect formation, their boots pounding the dirt with synchronized menace.

And at their center, waddling like a tyrant in a parade, is Colonel Kernal.

The man is—no, the thing is—round and glistening in his decorative armor, the color of dried blood. His face is a sneer stretched over jowls, his tusks polished, his eyes glinting with self-satisfaction. I’d read the briefings. I’d seen the reports. But nothing does justice to the man’s aura of smug authority.

He stops in the middle of the town square and lifts a gauntleted hand.

“Citizens of Drexar Seven,” he booms, his voice amplified through a personal drone hovering behind him, “rejoice! You have been selected for elevation. From this moment forth, you are proud citizens of the Vortaxian Empire.”

Gasps ripple through the crowd like a stone tossed into still water. A woman near me clutches her child. Someone drops a crate of supplies with a clatter that echoes off the prefab walls.

“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”

Kernal continues, gesturing like he’s doing us all a favor. “Your colony, your resources, and your humble lives shall now serve a greater purpose. Obedience will be rewarded. Resistance will not be tolerated.”

My fingers itch for a wrench. A detonator. Anything.

And yet no one moves. No one screams. No one fights. I can feel the collective weight of their fear pressing the breath from their lungs. Even the militia, trained for exactly this, just… watch.

I take a step forward.

A hand catches my arm. It’s Eli, the colony’s quartermaster. His eyes are wide, his voice low. “Josie, don’t. Please. Don’t make this worse.”

I shake him off. “It’s already worse.”

He grabs me again, harder. “You’ll get us killed.”

“They’re going to kill us anyway.”

“No. They want us compliant, not destroyed.”

“Same thing,” I snap.

But still, I don’t move. Not yet. I need a plan. I need a ship.

And most of all, I need someone who doesn’t scare easy.

Because if no one else will fight—then I will.

Even if I have to do it alone.

It takes exactly six minutes and seventeen seconds for the colony to fall apart.

I count them. Each breath shallow and stuttering. Each heartbeat a drumbeat behind my ribs.

One: The Vortaxian ship finishes its descent, displacing air so violently that the cloud cover shifts like curtains being drawn. The golden sheen of the hull gleams under Drexar Seven’s twin suns, a breathtaking mockery of grace and beauty, as if it's not here to subjugate but to bless. The reflective surface throws distorted sunlight across the colony, warping shadows into twisting snakes that crawl up the prefab walls.

Two: Their commander plants his foot on colony soil like it’s his birthright. His gait is the strut of a man who’s never known consequences, a walking monument to hubris. He smiles—a vile, oily thing that stretches wide beneath polished tusks. Sweat trickles down my spine in time with his descending soldiers. Their armor hums, black and gold plates shifting with mechanical precision. These aren't brutes—they’re calculated terror dressed in ceremonial threat display.

Three through six: Panic. Murmurs ignite like static on old radios. I see a mother pull her toddler back from the main square, her eyes wide and unfocused. The baker from quadrant three drops his morning rations onto the plastcrete and doesn’t notice the crunch beneath his boots. The militia tries to organize—a handful of underpaid, overcaffeinated volunteers fumbling with sidearms that were obsolete five decades ago. I hear one of them yell, “Form up!” but no one does. We’re too scattered. Too stunned.

I shove my way past them, the back of my shirt soaked with sweat, the air already tainted with something acrid—burnt ozone, or maybe just my rising bile. Someone grabs my elbow, but I shrug them off. I don’t want comfort. I want a plan. I want a reason to punch something, someone, anyone.

The square is packed with bodies now. We weren’t ready for this. No drills. No prep. Because nobody believed it would actually happen. The idea of the Vortaxians showing up was always a boogeyman tale, a political tool to keep us cooperative. We thought we were too remote to matter. Too small to conquer.

We were wrong.

The Vortaxian commander lifts a hand, and the booming silence is shattered by his voice, broadcast from that floating drone that hovers just behind his shoulder. “People of Snowblossom Colony, rejoice!”

I nearly gag. His tone is syrupy, full of counterfeit warmth. I want to bottle it just to smash the container later.

“You are now cherished members of the glorious Vortaxian Empire.” He stretches his arms wide, like he's welcoming us into a family barbecue instead of a hostile annexation. “Your contributions to galactic prosperity shall be honored. Your continued compliance shall be rewarded. Your resistance, while understandable, will be... discouraged.”

He says it like he’s offering us tea and cake.

Around me, the air thickens with fear. I can smell it—salt and musk and the sharp tang of adrenaline. A man to my left is hyperventilating. A woman ahead of me mutters prayers under her breath, words spilling out in a rhythm only her ancestors understand. The crowd tightens, like we can make ourselves smaller and less noticeable if we just press together hard enough.

The commander gestures behind him. A holo-projector flares to life, casting the image of an idealized colony under Vortaxian rule—gleaming spires, families smiling under artificial sunlight, children laughing as drones deliver food rations.

I know propaganda when I see it.

“We offer you advancement. Protection. Integration,” he says. “All you must do is obey.”

He lets that word sit there, fat and final.

And then he gives us his name.

“I am Colonel Kernal, and from this day forward, you are my responsibility.”

I bark a laugh.

I can’t help it—it just bursts out of me. “Kernal? Like a popcorn kernel?” I say, louder than I mean to, still grinning like I’ve lost my grip on reality.

The silence afterward is deafening. Not a soul joins in. The fear is a physical thing now, smothering, wrapping around everyone’s throats like a choking vine.

The commander’s—Kernal’s—head swivels toward me. Slowly. Deliberately.

A drone whirs close. Too close. I feel the pulse of its field brushing against my skin like static, the hairs on my arms rising in warning.

I take a step back.

He smiles at me.

It's the smile of a man who sees every person as a pawn, and every dissent as a delicious opportunity to demonstrate consequences.

“A dissenter already?” he asks, voice oozing like sap. “How refreshing.”

The crowd ripples. Some step away from me. Cowards.

“I have a name,” I snap, lifting my chin.

He hums, amused. “Of course you do. And a family, no doubt. Friends. A place here.”

My stomach flips. I know what this is. Psychological warfare dressed as faux-courtesy. Threats polished into diplomacy.

“You think you have power,” I say through gritted teeth, aware now that every eye in the square is on me. “But this colony—these people—we earned this place. You don’t get to walk in and play overlord just because your boots are shinier.”

For a moment, silence again.

Then he laughs.

The sound is monstrous—low and wet and triumphant.

“My dear girl,” he says, “I don’t play at overlord. I am one.”

He turns back to the crowd.

“Let this be your lesson. Integration can be peaceful. Or... painful. Choose wisely.”

I feel the shift then. Not in him—but in them. In the crowd.

They aren’t rushing to join him, but they’re pulling away from me.

Because standing next to the one person yelling at the Vortaxian colonel with a murder squad behind him is dangerous.

I am the spark, and no one wants to be caught in the fire.

I want to scream. I want to cry. But I don’t. I fold my arms tighter and keep my mouth shut—for now.

But I won’t forget this. The way their silence felt like betrayal. The way my name became a warning in someone’s mouth.

And I sure as hell won’t let him win.

Not while I’m still breathing.

The night bleeds red-orange over the rainforest, like the sky itself got wounded and doesn’t know how to stop leaking light. The last rays of the twin suns skim across the treetops, casting long, warped shadows that stretch over the colony like fingers trying to strangle it from above.

And that gods-damned ship is still there.

It hovers silently above us, suspended like an arrogant golden parasite, its underbelly lit with cool, artificial floodlight that throws the colony into two tones: too-bright and too-dark. The Vortaxian capital ship doesn’t need to fire a single shot. It just exists, a constant reminder that we’re under the boot of something massive and merciless and smug.

I sit at the edge of the rainforest, legs tucked up under me, spine pressed against the smooth bark of a native duskroot tree. The bark smells faintly sweet, like burnt sugar and damp moss, and usually that’d calm me—bring me back to center. But tonight? The scent makes my stomach turn. Everything I used to love about this place feels twisted, like the ship above us distorted reality just by being here.

The rainforest hums quietly behind me, alive and unaware. Or maybe just uncaring. Bugs chirr and whir in their nighttime symphony, and something lets out a low, lazy call—like a yawn stretched into a song. I used to come here to think, to escape. But tonight, I’m not escaping. I’m stewing.

The memory of the square replays in my head like a faulty vid loop.

Kernal’s smug face. His voice. That sanctimonious smile. “Cherished members,” he said. “Rewarded,” he promised. “Obedience,” he demanded.

And no one stopped him. No one even shouted.

Except me.

I curl my fingers around my compad until the casing creaks. The plastic flexes, protesting, but doesn’t break. Yet.

How is everyone so calm? How is it that I’m the only one who feels like her veins are full of lighter fluid? I’ve been elbows-deep in broken reclamation units, up to my eyebrows in coolant leaks and burned circuitry, chased off wild drexlings in the middle of diagnostics—and not once have I ever just stood there and let something break.

And this—this is the biggest break of all. Not a pump or a drive coil or a frayed cable. A colony. My colony. My team. My people.

We built this place. I remember hauling rebar through thigh-deep mud, running comms lines with only half a crew because the other half had jungle rot, staying up three nights straight because the filtration system was coughing up sediment like it had the flu. We bled for this land, this dream.

And now we’re just—what? Supposed to hand it over? Smile and bow and call ourselves grateful that the boot came down gentle?

“No,” I whisper, the word sharp enough to cut the thick jungle air.

I don’t want to be brave. I want to be furious. Brave feels like something you pretend to be when you’re already doomed. But fury? Fury burns. It builds. It fixes.

Footsteps crunch softly behind me, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Eli. He’s one of the few who knows where I go when I need to breathe. Only tonight, I’m not breathing so much as smoldering.

“You planning on brooding yourself into spontaneous combustion?” he asks, voice low, not unkind. He crouches next to me, careful to keep space between us.

“If I do, maybe I’ll take the command ship with me,” I mutter.

Eli lets out a slow sigh. “You scared the shit outta people today.”

“Good.”

He doesn’t answer right away. I can hear him rubbing his hands together, dry skin rasping like sandpaper. “We’re not fighters, Josie.”

“I didn’t ask for soldiers. I asked for backbone.” I twist my head and meet his eyes. “We’ve been here three years. You telling me no one’s got a spine left?”

“It’s not about spine. It’s about survival. You poke the beast, you get eaten.”

“Or you get free.”

He huffs a breath, not quite a laugh. “You think the IHC’s gonna come riding in to save us?”

“I think,” I say, voice suddenly steady as a cooled weld, “that I’m done waiting for someone else to give me permission to fight back.”

Eli studies me. There’s something in his face—half pity, half awe. Like he knows I’m about to do something reckless and brilliant and absolutely irreversible.

“I should go,” he says finally, standing. “Curfew’s in ten. Patrols’ll be out.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know,” he says. “That’s what scares me.”

When he’s gone, I let the silence return. It wraps around me like armor now. The stars begin to pierce the black sky, pinpricks of light that don’t seem to care about conquest or empire or fear. Somewhere out there, beyond this gravity well, beyond the reach of Vortaxian hands, is the Alliance. The IHC. Options.

I flick my compad on, and the screen glows dim gold against my grease-smudged fingers. The nav program is still installed from last week’s atmospheric scan. I flip through logs. Fuel levels. Emergency beacon codes. Docking registry tags. The ship I fixed last month, the one they parked in the hangar with a busted nav relay—it’s still there.

I could take it.

I will take it.

Even if I don’t have all the right codes. Even if the shields are glitchy and the transponder pings like a drunken sailor. I can fix that.

I can fix anything.

My jaw tightens as I look back up at the parasite in the sky. That gilded monster. That golden threat. I can see the reflections of the colony’s floodlights dancing along its hull like ghosts. It doesn’t belong here.

I’m not going to roll over.

I’m not going to stay silent.

If no one else will fight, then I will.

Even if I have to do it alone.