Alien Hunters

CHAPTER ONE: MIDNIGHT'S FLIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

MIDNIGHT'S FLIGHT

They're after me. I have to escape. They're going to catch me. They're going to break me.

     Midnight grimaced and leaned forward in her cockpit. Her small blue starjet buzzed across the vastness of space. Behind her, the hulking warship roared in pursuit. The stars streamed around them, and Midnight's heart pounded almost as loudly as the engines.

     "Midnight!" The voice boomed out of the speakers on her dashboard. "Midnight, surrender yourself. You cannot escape us. Surrender now!"

     Tears burned in Midnight's eyes. She flipped switches madly, but they had seized control of her starjet's communicator. The sound of their breathing filled the cockpit; she could almost smell it. She cried out and pounded her fist against the speakers, trying to shatter them, to silence them, but she only bloodied her fist.

     "Midnight!" The voice rose again, deep, grainy, lusting for blood. "Turn around now, Midnight!"

     Midnight ignored the voice. She cursed, leaning forward in her seat, sneering. Sweat dampened her brow. She shoved the throttle so far forward it banged against the dashboard. Her starjet was small, only large enough for one person, not meant for the depths of open space. The slick metal vessel felt more like a coffin than a true starship.

     "Come on, faster!" she shouted, shoving against the throttle as if her will alone could speed up the starjet.

     She had to make it to the humans' planet.

     Earth, the old man had called it.

     I have to get there. I have to or the galaxy will fall.

     She stared forward out of the cockpit. Earth still lay light-years away. Even at this velocity, streaming through hyperspace at many times the speed of light, she would not reach Earth for days, maybe even weeks.

     Is it hopeless?

     The headlights of the warship behind her blasted across her vessel. The light streamed into the cockpit, and Midnight caught sight of her reflection in the glass. Her long imprisonment had been cruel to her. Her indigo hair seemed thinner than before. Her yellow eyes seemed huge in her gaunt, purple face. Across the galaxy, travelers called her kind--the mysterious pirilians--beings of beauty. They had obviously never met a pirilian who had just escaped both a burning planet and the most ruthless prison in the known cosmos.

     "Midnight, surrender yourself now, or we will blast you apart!" The deep, rumbling voice roared out from the speakers, deafening. "Your jet is low on fuel, Midnight. Turn around now and we will spare your life."

     Midnight shuddered. Yes. Yes, they would spare her life. She knew that was true. But the fate they planned for her was far, far worse than death.

     Fear flooded her belly like ice.

     If they catch me, she thought, they're going to harvest what's inside me. They're going to tear me apart, dissect me, install me into their ships, turn me into a million cyborgs screaming in anguish. She trembled. And they're going to use what's left of my soul to conquer the cosmos.

     She panted and bared her teeth.

     She would not let them.

     She would escape.