Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

ALINA

A lina had been in the laundry room all day, supervising the folding. There wasn't much to it—the machinery did all the hard work for her—but it was hot. The sandgrinders scrubbing away at batches of clothes were just in the next room, and they may as well have been ovens.

After the sand scrub got most of the grime and dust out of the clothing, each piece would be sprayed with minimal amounts of H 2 O to freshen whatever was left and run the silicone granules into a central drain for recycling. The fabrics would then be air blasted for drying and, finally, placed into the folding machines.

Alina hauled the stack of folded clothes from the output bin and distributed them between the chute slots that would bring them up to relevant parts on the upper decks.

It was boring, menial work. The kind of work Alina thought she wouldn't be doing again when she was assigned as a dedicated assistant to Orion Halen's wife-to-be. She had been excited about the opportunity, even more so when she realized Kaia wasn't from Colossal . Hers really was an Old Earth fairy tale—a downtrodden commoner getting spotted by a wealthy prince. Like Cinderella in those old animated vids, minus the crappy shoes.

Alina figured Kaia was around her age. She'd pictured them growing close over the course of her service. They could share secrets. She had been assigned a cabin across from Kaia's own, before Kaia had moved to Orion's quarters. But she hadn't even bothered telling Alina she was changing cabins until Alina spent hours trying to find her one day.

At least Alina got to keep her cabin up on the command deck.

She paused, realizing she'd been shoving folded clothes into their chutes a little more aggressively than they deserved. She was meant to have finished her shift half an hour ago, but her replacement hadn't showed up. The machinery of Colossal's laundromats waited for no one, so Alina had no choice but to bear it.

The shift disruption was pretty understandable. It was the day, after all. They'd finally be arriving at X1s Galaxy. Alina wasn't sure what the plan was from there. From what she'd gathered, Orion Halen intended to abandon the mission as soon as his late mother's override instructions deactivated upon their arrival. Why, Alina didn't know. They were already here. Might as well scope out the planets for something like Earth, right?

Alina smoothed down the collar of a sweater. She wasn't really qualified to have an opinion on the matter. She'd caught snippets of conversations in her infrequent errands for Kaia, but not enough to have any understanding of what was going on. Alina thought there was something bad at X1s that Kaia and Orion Halen meant to avoid. Whatever it was, she was glad they were dealing with it. It wasn't for her to worry about.

Alina glanced at the time in her Neurosync augmented vision. Her replacement, Tristan, was now forty-seven minutes late .

She subcommed the man. Hey, everything okay?

Alina wasn't expecting such a quick reply from a guy who was skipping out on his shift. She'd figured Tristan got distracted in one of the viewing theaters, probably lost track of time in the commotion.

No. Don't come up.

Alina barely had time to wonder about the ominous instruction when the floor beneath her feet trembled with a faint vibration that soon escalated into a reverberating shudder. The only time she'd felt such a full-body shake before was after a jump, but that was always preceded by deactivation of gravity and the awkward sensation of her body dispersing into thin air before waking up reconstituted. A good jump mech made the sensation as subdued as possible, but you always felt something . You always knew you jumped.

What's going on?

I don't know, Tristan subvocalized. Just stay there .

Alina paced the room, her duties forgotten. The folding machine kept working, spitting out neat bundles of clothes that had begun spilling to the floor as they overflowed.

She looked down at her hands. Her coral-painted fingers were shaking, but she felt nothing—not even the beating of her own heart as another tremble rocked the ship. It culminated in a lurch all around her, this time followed by a deep, pervading rumble that grew deafening in her ears.

Something was hitting them. And it sounded close.

The laundromat was deep in the bowels of Colossal . There wasn't much between Alina and the empty space outside. A hole could just appear right under her feet—or in the wall. There could be explosions as it opened up and sucked Alina out to nothing.

She couldn't stay there.

Alina was at the maintenance elevator just as soon as the thought crossed her mind. She punched the buttons, but they wouldn't work. She wheezed a short, high-pitched whine, rushing for the emergency stairs. It was going to be a long climb.

"New Commander authenticated…"

Alina faltered and lurched forward on the third flight of stairs. Her grip on the narrow railing barely stopped her from falling face first into the metal grill of a step.

A subcomm alert came moments later, instructing everyone to shelter in place and get away from the halls.

Orion Halen was dead.

Kaia. Alina's thoughts went immediately to her charge—Orion had been the only person she cared about on this whole ship. How the hell was she going to get through this?

But Orion hadn't had an heir. Who could his replacement—this new commander —possibly be? If Orion were dead, the ship should have no commander at all. And that meant they were dead too. All of them.

And yet the calm voice overhead was insisting, repeatedly, that there was one.

Something had gone horribly wrong.

Alina picked up her pace, pushing her protesting legs well beyond their limits.

Kaia? Are you all right? I'm on my way.

No reply came, but whatever tragedy had befallen Orion would be taking Kaia's full attention. Besides, ignoring Alina's comms wasn't exactly a rare occurrence for Kaia at the best of times. But as Kaia's official assistant, Alina had access to her location, pulling it up in her NS: the command center.

When she finally climbed the stairs up to the Common Residence Deck, Alina tried the elevators again, and thankfully this one worked. She rubbed down her burning thighs and gulped a few steadying breaths as it took her up to the command deck .

When she got there, the deck was eerily quiet. Silent alarms flashed overhead, flooding the hall with intermittent flares of red and yellow. Every little hair on Alina's body stood on end as she walked, her skin buzzing with pins and needles.

She saw blood in a passage crossing the main hall. A big smear of it that blended with the red light of an overhead alarm. Orion's blood? Alina spurred her feet from a brisk walk to a run. All she could do was focus on her charge. Damn it, if Alina would have just insisted harder for Kaia to let her do her job, she'd be there right now instead of clambering through half the ship to get to her. What if, for once, Kaia needed her? What if she was too late?

The door to the command center was already open, and Alina took a sharp running turn inside.

"Mrs. Halena?" she called, expecting the need to shout over a mass of commotion.

The first thing she spotted was Kaia, standing beside the commander's chair where Orion sat, very alive. "Are you all?—"

A massive black arm slammed into her chest, stopping her dead in her tracks and knocking the air from her lungs.

Everything was a blur as Alina was tossed back against a wall, and it took her a few seconds too long to get her bearings and process what her eyes were seeing.

A giant stood before Orion in an exosuit, long legs raising him to the commander's platform. He wore a black helmet, which was cocked to the side as he stared down at Orion Halen in the seat.

The wall behind her shifted, and Alina finally recognized that it wasn't a wall. Someone huge was forcing her against their body, an arm clamped tight around her waist. Alina tensed, but didn't fight as she tried to figure out what the hell she was supposed to do to help Kaia up there.

The suited one standing before Orion spoke. The voice was deep—male—and too quiet for her to make out the words. Kaia's fists were bunched, her eyes flashing. Orion looked calmer, which was… confusing.

At least he was alive. The notification had been a mistake. Maybe something came loose when the ship was jostled earlier.

Only a moment later, Orion rose from the commander's seat and stood aside. To Alina's utter confusion, the giant took his place, which was just ridiculous, not least because he looked way too big for that thing. More than that, Colossal ran on Orion Halen's blood alone. If this was a coup, whoever staged it was an idiot. For a moment Alina thought she may be dreaming, because this was exactly the kind of thing that made no sense. She wriggled against the solid expanse into which she was pressed in a sort of check of solidity, and the expanse grunted in response.

If it was a dream, it was not letting her go. Alina could only watch as the giant settled in the seat meant for the commander of the colony ship Colossal . Then huge black-gloved hands came up to unclasp the helmet and lift it over his head.

She squinted into the blue backlight emanating from the chin being revealed.

Shamefully, it took a few more seconds after the helmet was fully removed for Alina to register what she was seeing, and that it wasn't a backlight at all. That was when she finally screamed.

The uhyre turned his monstrous blue-gashed face toward her, making her shrink back into whoever was trapping her. And whoever it was, it dawned now, felt way too big to be… human. She twisted her head back with the hard pit of realization seeding in her stomach, but she couldn't see past her captor's suit and helmet. All she could see was that the person… the creature … must've been over eight feet tall .

Alina slapped her hands over her mouth to muffle her cry, hoping the uhyre in the commander's chair would maybe just forget she ever drew his attention. But instead of turning away, the alien gurgled something low and grating in her direction. The thing behind her gurgled back.