Chapter 1

Lexi

“Over here, Lexi!” I heard someone say. “Give us a smile.”

I twirled around, my hair whipping around my shoulders, and I was hit by the flash of a hundred cameras. The photographers standing on the other side of the rails went crazy, snapping enough pictures to fill a thousand magazines. Knowing exactly what they were looking for, I widened my smile and held onto the arm of the man standing next to me. With practiced ease, the six-foot-tall model I had chosen as my date gave the media-vultures his best million-dollar smile.

“How do you feel about the movie?”

“Are you guys going strong?”

“Any word on what your next project will be?”

A thousand questions were thrown at me from every possible direction, and I responded to them the way I know best. I smiled, waved, and twirled around once more. When dealing with the media, the less you say the better.

“You’re doing fantastic,” Eloi whispered, gently brushing his lips against my ear. Even if he was gay, he sure knew how to pose for a picture while making it look accidental. By tomorrow, the tabloids would be covered with pictures of him whispering into my ear, the whole world curious about what kind of sweet and romantic things he could be saying.

“You’re not doing bad either,” I replied, gently placing one hand on his chest. He gave me a confident wink and laced his arm on mine. Arm-in-arm, we walked down the red carpet at a leisurely pace, giving the photographers enough time to snap as many pictures of us as they wanted. The loud buzz of the media crowd only subsided once we stepped inside the theater, and Eloi let go of my arm right away. Grabbing his phone, he started typing something on it, and I had no doubt he was texting his boyfriend.

It sucked we both had to lie to the cameras, but nursing a Hollywood career involved making sacrifices. Not that I was down to it. I had been more than willing to walk down the red carpet all by myself, but the execs had insisted on having Eloi tag along. He was on target with the demographic we needed, and his publicist was also eager to have him stand next to me. We were a match made in PR heaven, apparently.

Sighing, I looked to the side and stared at the ten-foot placard lining the entrance. I stood tall in it, my shoulders were rolled back, and I had a mean expression on my face. My hair was tied behind my head, a sawed-off shotgun in my hands, and I was wearing a spandex outfit that highlighted my curves in a way that would make the late Hugh Hefner proud. At the bottom, ‘BREAKER OF WORLDS’ had been typed in a large, skull-crushing font.

I shook my head.

I loved acting, and I sure as hell didn’t mind the success these movies were having, but I still had no idea why studio-execs insisted on having me play these roles. Wasn’t there anything else for me to do other than those alien action-flicks? It seemed like audiences just couldn’t get enough of those, and the studios were going crazy producing them nonstop. Yet, I was the farthest thing away from a bonafide action star, no matter how much my movies grossed. If it weren’t for a well-trained army of stuntwomen and doubles, I wouldn’t be able to pull off a single action sequence.

“Admiring yourself?” Eloi asked me. He didn’t even look at me. He remained glued to his phone screen, his thumbs moving at the speed of light as he chuckled to himself every five minutes or so. He wasn’t a bad guy, but his texting habits sure reminded me of a teenager who had just discovered the joys of sexting.

“You ever wish you were someone different?” I asked him, wondering if I’d be happier if I was more like this giant-sized version of me. I looked more confident there and had the kind of expression that told the world I didn’t mind kicking ass in order to get what I wanted. Of course, maybe the shotgun had something to do with it.

“What are you talking about, girl?” Finally looking away from his phone, he arched one eyebrow. “Don’t get all existential on me, alright? This is your movie premiere, and we’re here to bask on the attention and free cocktails. Leave the existential crisis at the door”

“Right,” I muttered. Clearing my throat, I reminded myself to keep a smile plastered on my face. If you want to make it as a movie star, you have to put your best self on display at all times, even when you don’t feel like it. “Thanks for doing this, Eloi.”

“No need to thank me,” he said. “Free cocktails, am I right?” Nonchalantly, my fake-boyfriend took me by the arm again and we cut our way through the crowd of studio execs and Hollywood head-honchos, all of them extolling the cinematic merits of this latest flick while seeing nothing but dollar signs in front of them.

“Miss Reeves?” I heard someone call after me, and the tone was so icy cold that it caught me by surprise. Letting go of Eloi, I turned on my heels and found myself staring at two men in black suits. They looked as if they had pulled out of a Matrix movie set. They didn’t look like they belonged here. Still, I tried not to make assumptions. Better than most people, I knew how weird people in the movie industry could be.

“Yes?”

“Would you mind accompanying us for a minute?” The tallest of them asked me. He had an accountant’s haircut, but he spoke in a confident manner. Then, as if to let me know he wasn’t asking, he opened his jacket to reveal some kind of badge. He didn’t give me the time to inspect it but I knew that, whatever this was, it was serious. “This won’t take long, Miss Reeves.”

“Hold the fort, Eloi,” I said, and then nodded at the two suits. I followed after them as they marched past the theater’s lobby and into a staff-only adjoining room. The moment I was inside, they closed the door behind me and exchanged a glance. “What’s this about? Do I have a stalker I need to be worried about or something?” It wouldn’t be the first time an overbearing fan would try something crazy, like pretending to be an usher in order to cut a lock of my hair or something equally nuts.

“No stalkers, at least as far as we’re aware.” Crossing his arms, the agent pointed at the poster behind me. It was a copy of the ten-foot-tall placard hanging outside, except in this one there was a horde of green-looking creatures with sharp talons standing behind me. “Your movie is interesting.”

“You’ve seen it?” I asked, unable to hide my surprise. Aside from those involved in the movie’s production, I didn’t know anyone who had been able to see the full movie. Who the hell were these guys?

“We have,” the other nodded. This one hard horn-rimmed glasses and a slight lisp. Instead of an accountant, he looked like an IRS agent. “It seems like you’re quite good at diplomacy when it comes to alien species.” He was joking, of course. Every time I talked to an alien during the movie, it involved a witty one-liner and a very loud bang.

“What’s this about?” I asked again, now starting to feel uncomfortable.

I had never been a conspiracy theorist, but these guys were freaking me out. As I looked at them, I couldn’t stop thinking about the spooks of old, knocking on people’s doors and telling them to stop talking about whatever alien probe they had suffered through. Not that it made sense for me to be visited by spooks. I was an actress, not a raving lunatic who believed that lizard-people ran the Federal Reserve or something.

“Mind if we prick your finger?” Moving fast, the one standing closest to me grabbed me by the wrist. I tried to pull my hand back but, before I could do it, the other closed in on me and pressed the end of a handheld device to my index finger. I felt a sudden stab of pain, and then a single bead of blood appeared on my finger.

“What the hell?” I cried out, pulling my hand back. “Who are you exactly? I want to see that badge again.”

“Yeah, it’s her,” the one that looked like an accountant said, looking down at the device in his hands and nodding approvingly. “We’ve got a match.”

“Are we ready for the extraction?”

“We’re ready.”

Suddenly, I realized that these guys probably weren’t any kind of federal agents or whatever they were posing as. Maybe they were some kind of stalker duo who specialized in pricking celebrities’ fingers. It was a ridiculous concept but, in a world where celebrities are known to bottle up their own—ahem—intimate essences, all bets were off.

“Look, I don’t know who you guys are,” I continued saying, and started heading toward the door, “but I’m going to call security and—”

“I don’t believe that would be wise, Miss Reeves.”

“Not wise at all,” the other agreed.

As they spoke, they started walking toward me.

“Get away from me,” I cried out, awkwardly reaching inside my purse. I grabbed the pepper spray I always kept there for emergencies and immediately pointed it at the two spooks slash weirdos. They weren’t expecting me to fight back.

One of them stumbled back, clutching his face, but the other managed to avoid being sprayed by me. Just so he’d know I wasn’t completely harmlessly, I kicked his ankle as hard as I could. I wasn’t exactly proficient in the art of kicking people, but toed high-heels had never failed me before. As he doubled over in pain, I brought my knee up and hit him between his legs.

Scared and with no idea of what was going on, I made for the door as fast as I could. I was reaching for the doorknob when I felt a hand wrapping itself around my ankle. Next thing I know I’m tipping forward, the ground rushing up to meet me.

“She’s got some fire,” the agent I had sprayed groaned. He stood over me, his eyes red, but he was talking to his colleague as if I wasn’t even in the room.

“Yeah, well,” the other said with a shrug. Then, smirking, he pointed at the movie poster on the wall. “She’s the Breaker of Worlds, a true alien slayer. What were you expecting?”

“The slaying days are over for her, though,” Grabbing something from inside his jacket, the red-eyed suit went down on one knee. In his hands was a pen-like device, much like a thin metallic wand. “You heard that, Miss Reeves? Your days of fighting against the aliens have come to an end. Your orders are to make love, not war.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I cried out, desperately trying to get back up. Even though high-heels qualify as a self-defense tool, they sure aren’t that useful when balance is paramount. Instead of springing up to my feet, I just landed on my ass. Completely unfazed, the two spooks exchanged a knowing glance and nodded.

“G’night, Miss Reeves,” the one holding the wand said, and then he pressed a button on it. There was a red flash of light, one that flooded my entire field of vision, and my thoughts scattered like birds taking flight.

I was out cold.

Chapter 2

Kaldar

“We’ll be arriving at the Jupiter spaceport in about an hour.” The pilot’s voice came into the cabin through the speakers, and I found myself pinching the bridge of my nose. A full hour? I didn’t know if I could take the next five minutes. “I remind you that your terminals have a full-selection of Earth classics to help you pass the time. Enjoy yourselves.”

Behind me, a group of overly-excited teenage Varumpians hit my seat with their knees. I looked back at the squid-like chatterboxes and frowned. That seemed to do the trick. Kaleth warriors weren’t a common sight in intergalactic commercial flights, and I figured they had never seen someone like me before. They were probably afraid I’d place my hands on their heads and crush them like grapes.

They were right to be afraid.

You’d think that the Federation would have found a better way of getting me to the backwater solar system those humans lived in, but the cheap fucks had pushed me into a cramped commercial shuttle and called it a day. After four hours of being stuck with a bunch of tourists and Earth-fanatics, I was more than ready to take over the ship and put martial law in place.

Still, I kept my cool.

No matter how much I despised Earth and all of its trashy cultural exports, the fact remained that my life depended on that blue planet. Or, to be more precise, my life depended on a single human the Federation had found there. While most species have a fight-or-flight instinct, the Kaleth have what I like to call a mate-or-get-fucked instinct. If we don’t find a suitable mate a couple of years into our adulthood, our mind starts deteriorating until we finally snap and die.

That wasn’t a problem a few decades ago.

Even though the Kaleth had always kept their numbers low, there were enough females to go around. It was rare for one of us not to find a mate. Then, the war came. These Zanthi fucks started collecting planets, overthrowing governments, and pissing off every so-called civilized race in the galaxy. The Kaleth came to the rescue—we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to kick someone’s ass—but that resulted in having our homeworld bombed to shit. Most of the civilian Kaleth were obliterated, and the ones that survived were mostly those in the military.

Since there weren’t enough Kaleth females to go around, the Federation started getting worried. After all, the Kaleth were the ones keeping the Zanthi at bay, but most seasoned veterans were going batshit crazy without the ability to mate. Like the humans would say, it was a species-wide case of blue balls.

The Federation instituted a massive research program to find suitable mates for the Kaleth but, as it would turn out, our genes were as stubborn as a Minxain stripper in heat. No species seemed to be compatible with us. That, of course, until someone had the brilliant idea to test some genetic material from Earth. Lo and behold, the Kaleth were compatible with the humans. Just as long as a suitable genetic match was found, the Kaleth had some hope.

But because Earth was still a backwater planet that had no concept of life outside of their rock and had barely begun to explore space, the Federation decided to make first contact only with the leaders of humanity. A treaty was signed and to this day, only a small number of their government, business, and religious leaders even know about the rest of the galaxy outside of their putrid little world.

And then Kaleth warriors started getting matched.

I had been one of the lucky few with a compatible match. Some random human female had been found to be genetically compatible with me, and now I was stuck inside this damn shuttle, waiting to meet the one who’d save my life. I should be thankful but, in truth, I was just annoyed.

Most Kaleth don’t want to die, that’s a given. As for me, I had already accepted that as my fate. I had spent most of my life fighting the Zanthi on the far edges of the galaxy, and I was more than ready to check out of this life before the mate-or-get-fucked instinct took over me.

My plan?

Grab a shuttle and head into one of those Zanthi hives. Armed with a thousand grenades and a rifle in each hand, I’d just mow down as many of the fuckers as I could, and I’d die in a glorious hail of bullets. I had told as much to my commanding officer, but he didn’t share the sentiment.

“Legacy is important, Kaldar,” he had told me. “The Kaleth are in danger, and it’s your duty to ensure our legacy continues. Wouldn’t you like to raise someone like you? A warrior who’d carry your name and honor the Kaleth?”

I hadn’t told him, but I wasn’t that confident in the offspring that would result from a human and a Kaleth. We were warriors, through and through. Our bodies were muscle-bound killing machines, and our instincts were those of a predator. As for the humans…shit, the humans were an embarrassment. They were ruled by emotions, their bodies were even more frail than my toenails, and they had a penchant for entertainment that would make your brain ooze out of your ears. No wonder the Galactic Federation had told Earth to get their shit together before they could join up.

Sighing, I glanced at the terminal of the Varumpian sitting next to me. She seemed to be a woman—I had a hard time telling them apart—and her six eyes were as wide as plates as she gaped at her screen. She had been binge-watching something called Too Hot to Handle, and I simply couldn’t take one more minute of it.

“Do I really need to watch one more episode of that?” I asked, not even bothering to hide my annoyance. “Seriously.”

“Oh, but it’s the finale now,” she replied happily, the wet-looking tentacles hanging from her chin wiggling as she talked. “I’m rooting for Francesca, you know? I think that she has a real shot at—”

I just glared at her, and she seemed to take the hint. She lifted up the panel between us and sunk into her seat, disappearing out of sight. I could still hear the stupid yapping of the humans on her screen, but at least I didn’t have to see it.

Sometimes I wondered if the Zanthi wouldn’t have done the galaxy a favor by laying waste to Earth. Ever since the first representatives from the Federation had made contact with the Earthlings that things had started going to shit fast. Nowadays, members of every race couldn’t get enough of all these stupid shows that hailed from Earth. And let’s not even mention the dumb music.

It’s like on one hand the Zanthi wanted to enslave the entire galaxy for their nefarious and evil purposes. But Earthlings exported so much of their cultural garbage that if they didn’t blow themselves up or kill themselves and if they actually made it up into space, they’d probably be hailed as conquering rulers.

For a people who (with the exception of their political, financial, and religious rulers) that still believed they were alone in the universe they seriously had some major pull.

Earth-themed bars had sprouted on every corner of the galaxy, and teenage dumbasses on the streets of every city were proud to sing about how their hips didn’t lie—never mind the fact that some of these idiots didn’t even have hips. If you sat in a bar, it wouldn’t take you more than five minutes before you heard a group arguing about who’s a Charlotte and who’s a Samantha. Whatever the fuck that meant.

All the while most with the exception of their political masters Earthlings went about their lives thinking they were all alone in the galaxy. Turns out most of the galaxy was waiting on what stupid show they were coming up with next.

Yeah, it was hard to be excited about humans. Everyone at my unit had clapped me in the back, envious of my position, but I would’ve traded places with any of these assholes in a heartbeat. Sure, I would die without a mate, but who gives a fuck? Everyone’s going to die. Besides, I was pretty sure that death would start looking like a reasonable option after thirty-days with a woman from Earth.

“Just try for thirty-days,” my CO had insisted. “That’s what the Federation mandates. If you still think you rather not have a mate, then you can return. No harm done, right?” I had hoped he was right, but the more time I spent inside this shuttle the more I started believing that brain damage would be inevitable. All this trashy shows and Earth-fanatics were getting to me, and I wasn’t sure if meeting with a flesh-and-blood woman would help.

To make matters worse, there was nothing interesting about the place where I’d have to spend the next month. The only time tropical planets interested me was when its jungles were crawling with guerrilla soldiers. This one had nothing but hotel resorts, more tourists than it was reasonable, and absolutely nothing of interest to do. Sure, I had heard a few criminal groups operated here and there, but I doubted I’d be allowed to hunt them down.

Not that I had a choice.

Leaning back, I finally booted up my terminal and inputted my personal code. I had postponed this, but I figured it was time to read the briefing I had been sent. I skipped the usual bullshit—endless paragraphs of the Federation thanking the Kaleth for their service, the legalese of the protocols, and all the endless terms and conditions—and skipped straight to the end of the briefing.

“Lexi Reeves,” I read, glancing at the file of the woman that had been identified as my genetic mate. I scrolled down the screen, ignoring all the additional information on her, and went straight to the pictures. Red hair that felt in waves over her shoulders, piercing green eyes, and a hint of freckles dusting her cheeks. She actually looked good.

Underneath her picture were some other files, and I opened the first one. It was an image of Lexi clad in some kind of spandex uniform, a rudimental two-barreled weapon in her hands. Behind her, cutting across the horizon line, were ships that reminded me of the can-openers the Zanthi used as their raiders.

“Huh,” I muttered. I had to admit—I was intrigued. I had thought that Earth’s populace was blissfully unaware of the existence of intelligent life in the universe, but it seemed like some of the knowledge held by their top government officials had filtered down to their population if they were sharing stories of their supersoldiers.

I opened another file.

This was some kind of video file with a two-hour duration. There was no way I was going to sit through the whole thing, and so I started skipping around.

“What the…?”

Leaning forward, I watched as Lexi appeared on the screen. She had a bloody cut on her cheek, and her lips were pursed into a snarl as she mowed down a bunch of Zanthi-like creatures with a rudimental turret. The camera cut back-and-forth between her and the creatures, and it showed the massive amount of damage she was dishing out. I had never seen anyone this good. Even if she was a human, it sure looked like she knew how to handle herself. Hell, most seasoned warriors wouldn’t be able to pull off a feat like this.

The humans must have had some sort of genetic augmentation program. I mean, look at those ass cheeks on that woman. And how was she not sweating or getting a single hair out of place?

I skipped around some more, and every scene that I saw made me even more impressed. From maneuvering a sub-orbital ship at full-speed to cracking a computer terminal, this Lexi woman wasn’t like what I thought she’d be. I never thought that Earth had a caste of elite warriors, but this woman seemed to be one.

I brought up the image I had looked at before.

She stood there on the screen, weapon in her hands as her tight uniform drew attention to her curves, and I nodded approvingly. Hovering over her head was her name in a bold font and, below her feet, was what I assumed to be her callsign: BREAKER OF WORLDS. Shit, what the hell had she done to deserve such a cool handle? Back in my unit, it was all ‘Kaldar, kill that guy’ or ‘Kaldar, blow up that building’. It would’ve been cool to hear something like ‘Breaker of Worlds, light these assholes up’ from time to time.

“Alright, Lexi Reeves,” I whispered, a smile tugging at the corner of my lips. “Maybe this whole thing won’t be such a waste of time.”