Page 2 of Claimed By the Condemned Alien

“Yes.”

“All human?”

“Yes.”

Her gaze moved to the viewport at the end of the corridor, where Kharon-Veil filled half the stars.

“They aren’t relocating us.”

“No.”

“They’re placing us.”

The word entered the corridor like a blade. A chime sounded overhead, followed by the flat announcement: TRANSFER SEQUENCE COMMENCING. Locks released along the row of cells. Automated arms descended from the ceiling, each carrying an injector and a claim-band scanner.

From Cell Twelve came a scream. Farther down the corridor, someone began praying in a human language the translator did not render. A guard struck the glass with the flat of his shock baton and ordered silence. Elara backed against the wall.

“What is the preferred pairing?” she asked.

Damar’s hand tightened around the tablet. He had not realized she could see the reflection in the glass. The camera light changed from green to amber. He had seconds.

“Kharovian,” he whispered. “Command caste.”

“Why?”

The injector arm entered her cell. Damar stepped toward the manual override, then stopped. His wife lived on Veyr Prime. His son had just entered academy. The empire did not punish one person when an example required a family. Elara understood his hesitation. That was the worst of it. She did not beg.

Instead, she twisted one cuff until metal cut skin. Blood ran over her palm. Her fingers closed around something Damar had not seen before—a translucent shard no larger than a fingernail. A storage splinter.

“Tell someone,” she said.

The injector pressed into her neck. Her knees buckled. Damar moved before fear could stop him. He caught the shard when it slipped from her hand and concealed it beneath his maintenance glove.

The transfer system lifted her onto a gurney and wrapped her in a thermal shroud. The blue seal over her heart vanished beneath white fabric.

SUBJECT H-17: READY FOR DROP.

A second line flashed across his tablet.

BIOLOGICAL RESPONSE MONITORING AUTHORIZED UPON CLAIM.

Then a third.

DEATH CERTIFICATE VERIFIED.

Damar looked through the glass at the living woman the empire had already buried. He completed his corridor inspection because sudden rebellion would save no one. He approved fourteen pod seals. He marked one oxygen valve for repair. He ignored the guard who joked that humans broke more easily than Kharovians but screamed longer.

At Launch Bay Three, he excused himself to the maintenance alcove and pressed Elara’s storage shard into an obsolete diagnostic port. The shard opened without encryption because Elara had intended someone else to find it. Carelessness had nothing to do with it.

Rows of pairing records filled the screen. Human names. Alien designations. Planetary sectors. Claim probabilities. Behavioral predictions. Beside each human subject was a status field already completed.

DECEASED.

Damar scrolled until he found H-17.

ELARA VENN.

PAIRING TARGET: KHAROVIAN COMMAND PHENOTYPE, UNASSIGNED.