Page 46 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

The comm erupts again, this time with screaming from the surface channel. The sound is brief, then cuts to dead static. A second voice shouts about breach charges at perimeter tower two. A third voice begins a report and ends in a wet choking noise that silences everyone in the tunnel.

Teren’s face goes slack. “Oh God.”

I raise my weapon and turn toward the upward passage. “Move. We reach the emergency lift and get to the surface command route. Brakk, rear guard. Sira, stay behind Anita. Teren, if you see anyone bleeding who can walk, they walk. If they cannot walk, you mark their location and keep moving.”

Teren stares at me. “I’m not leaving people to die.”

“You will not save anyone by dying first.”

His jaw trembles, but he nods.

Anita looks at me with anger and horror mixing in her eyes. “You sound like you’ve said that before.”

“I have.”

We run.

The lower access passage climbs in steep switchbacks toward the surface excavation network, and every meter feels longer than it should. The tunnel lights flicker between emergency red and archive-silver afterglow, turning the walls into a pulse of blood and ghostlight. Dust fills the air in waves. My shoulder throbs where falling stone struck armor and flesh, but the pain is distant, filed away beneath threat assessment. Anita keeps pace beside me longer than I expect, one hand gripping her scanner and the other pressed against the wall whenever gravity shivers.

The first body lies at the junction to lift shaft three.

He is one of the younger excavation workers, human, male, no weapon in sight. His throat has been cut so cleanly the blood has not yet finished spreading beneath him. The wound tells me everything I need to know before the rest of the scene does. No struggle. No warning. No wasted ammunition. The attackers are moving silently and killing witnesses instead of securing prisoners.

Anita stops hard enough that Sira nearly runs into her.

“Don’t look,” I say.

“Too late,” she whispers.

Teren makes a small broken sound behind us, then forces himself forward. “His name was Daru. He played cards with the drill crew.”

Brakk’s grip tightens around his cutter. “Not scavengers.”

“No,” I say. “Professionals.”

We reach the emergency lift, but the control panel is dead. Brakk tears the access plate off with a snarl and jams his hands into the wiring. The shaft above us groans as the surface trembles under distant explosions.

“Give me thirty seconds,” he says.

“You have ten.”

“Then I’ll do thirty seconds of work in ten seconds and complain about it later.”

Anita steps closer to me while pretending she is only trying to see the corridor behind us. Her face is tight, but she is not collapsing. She has buried the archive vision beneath immediate danger because she is either strong, foolish, or too stubborn to break at the proper time.

Probably all three.

A shadow moves at the far end of the junction.

I fire before it fully emerges.

The plasma bolt hits the attacker center mass and throws him backward into the wall. His armor absorbs part of the blast, but not enough. He drops without a sound. Two more figures sweep around the corner in coordinated formation, matte black armor, sealed helmets, compact rifles angled low to avoid ricochet through unstable walls. They move like soldiers, not zealots. That distinction matters. Fanaticism may motivate them, but training guides their hands.

“Down!” I shout.

Everyone drops except Brakk, who is elbow-deep in the lift controls and cursing like language owes him money.

I fire twice. The first bolt clips one attacker’s shoulder and spins him sideways. The second misses because the corridor gravity shifts just enough to bend my footing. The third attacker fires a narrow-beam round that slices past my jaw and burns a line across the wall behind me. I cross the distance before he can adjust.