Conquered Pet

Chapter 1

Earth

Raiza Nix

I have the world’s most shit rotten luck.

All my life, I’ve been picked last for everything and when it came time to choose which regiment to join in the Revolution, all of them had been full except for the soldiers at the front line, which had been my absolute last choice.

The people on the front lines always died.

Even now, the joker card was burning a hole in the back pocket of my jeans. The fabric was threadbare and positively ancient. Clothing factories hadn’t been in production for at least a hundred years by now and fabric was becoming increasingly rare to come by, at least in the human sectors.

The aliens didn’t much care about us unless we were fighting against them. They gave us nothing and took everything.

A bug skittered across my boot, and I jerked away, pressing my back against the vine-covered wall behind me.

The metal of the building groaned almost as if it was protesting my weight, but I knew that wasn’t it.

Nature had been reclaiming the skyscrapers of New York for decades now.

The pavement of the roads had long since splintered and were rocky plains of weeds, grasses, and wildflowers.

Many of the buildings had collapsed under the repeated exposure to the worst of Mother Nature.

More had fallen due to the continued attacks of the alien conquerors that kept coming for us when we refused to kneel for them.

A bird sang in the distance, and I looked up through the cracks in the walls to see the clear blue sky peeking through.

The fluttering wings of a monarch butterfly dipped in front of me, and I reached out to touch it, only just missing it in its journey to wherever it was going.

Sometimes I lost myself in the sheer beauty of it all before I remembered just how bad it was for us now.

It was hard enough to just continue surviving.

Two hundred years ago, planes, drones, and self-automated flying cars streaked through the sky like flocks of birds.

The streets would have been chock full of people hurrying to work, laughing with friends, running errands alone, or whatever people did in the times before we were hunted and subdued for sport.

A shiver raced down my spine. There was no use thinking about the past. Or much of anything, really. Not when I’d pulled the fucking joker card.

The card that meant a suicide mission.

I reached back and pulled it out of my pocket, staring at the ridiculously happy smile of the man dressed in the happy oranges and yellows of a jester.

The card itself was dirty and scratched and was probably some sort of relic from ages ago.

Maybe the commander had found it in some abandoned penthouse apartment.

A full deck was a rare thing to come by these days, but he’d found one nonetheless.

A series of gunshots ricocheted off what sounded like cement somewhere and I ducked down low. I swallowed hard.

The aliens were so close.

I was the first human to venture this far into their territory since the war for New York began, but that was my general’s plan.

It was all about strategy and I’d been the unlucky soul who happened to pick the card that would send her straight into battle with the sole mission of cutting off the snake’s head.

They’d sent me to kill the alien leader. If I could kill or even wound him, then we’d stand a chance. The aliens would be left without a leader and then we’d strike when they were at their most vulnerable.

Everyone agreed it was a solid plan, even me. The general of our human forces, Negan, had found a pack of cards and had spread them out on a massive dining table in one of the cafeterias in an abandoned high school. One by one, we’d each picked a card and lined up around the perimeter of the room.

At the same time, we’d all flipped over our cards. There had been excited whoops and sighs of relief. Well… all except for me.

When I’d flipped over mine, a strangled panicked cry escaped me, enough so that my fellow soldier Zyla heard it. She’d peeked over at my card and gasped. I saw her look me up and down with anxious fear. She didn’t think I could do it and neither did I.

“Dios mio,” she’d exclaimed. The entire room had gone quiet and General Negan had walked over to me. He’d grasped my hand and held it up in a show of support, which I wasn’t sure that I deserved. My fellow soldiers started roaring and clapping for me, but I’d just felt numb inside.

I’d picked the privilege of getting to kill the alien conqueror myself. I would either save us all or wind up dead.

With my luck, I wasn’t going to live to see the sun rise again.

I’d been rushed out of the room. To be honest, the last twenty-four hours had been a blur, up until this minute. Now it was almost time to walk before the most powerful alien in the crumbling state of New York and try to kill him, once and for all.

The bird continued to sing. I wondered if it was mocking me, as if it knew that I wasn’t the strongest soldier or even one that was a particularly good shot or anything special whatsoever.

Did she know I was going to die today? Was she banking on me succeeding?

Was she gathering her friends to watch my miserable defeat?

Honestly, I was probably going insane. I leaned forward and pushed myself back off the wall, peering around the corner.

I was close to the center of the city. There were a few signs that remained, although none of them worked anymore.

I imagined that one day a long time ago they blinked with bright lights, probably pinks and purples and blues and greens and yellows.

It must have been something of a rainbow, but they hadn’t been lit up in more than a century.

The aliens had cut off electricity to the city well before I was born. I brushed some dirt off one of the signs closest to me. Everything was always covered in dirt.

Times Square.

The crunching of someone else’s boots amongst the decaying leaves caught my attention and I jerked my head up. Nervously, I licked my lips. I could delay no longer.

It was time to get moving.

I took a deep breath as I began walking toward the sound, knowing I was either walking to my glory or my doom.

With every step, I tried to will some semblance of bravery from deep inside me, but I couldn’t.

My mind raced through the various weapons I’d hidden inside my leather jacket, wondering which one would be the best choice.

I didn’t know which of them would kill the alien commander.

He could be weak to fire. Maybe a shot right between the eyes would kill him. Maybe he was weak to something else, like a knife wound or a laser gun.

I didn’t have a laser gun.

A terrified whine billowed in the depths of my throat.

I swallowed hard and kept walking, keeping as quiet as I could.

Cautiously, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my knife, tucking it into my sleeve so that I would have easy access should I need it.

My gun was in my jacket pocket. It was fully loaded.

I lifted my chin and strode into the center of the square.

I didn’t look around me, but I knew that my fellow humans were probably somewhere nearby.

They wouldn’t be close enough so that the alien heat sensors would pick them up.

I had a flare gun stuffed in the back of my jeans that would signal to them wherever they were and then they would arrive.

I was to fire it when I killed the alien conqueror. The humans would come running and finish the job if need be. Hopefully.

The real battle would begin after that.

Someone approached me from behind and I did everything I could to calm the frantic beating of my heart. I slipped one hand into my jacket and fingered the holster of my gun.

I’d cleaned and oiled it this morning, ensuring that it was fully loaded. I flicked the safety off.

“When they told me that they were going to send a human to negotiate with me, I expected them to send their general, not a woman. Especially one as tiny as yourself,” a rumbling voice spoke behind me. I swallowed a frightened squeak.

It was no use going into this afraid. If I wanted to survive today, I was going to have to depend on my courage. I closed my eyes for the briefest of seconds and took a deep breath, before opening them and turning around to face the beast that had come for me.

Holy fucking shitballs.

He was so much bigger than I imagined. I was a measly five feet tall, and he towered over me by a good two feet, enough so that I had to lift my head to look him in the eyes.

His pupils were a bit dilated compared to a normal human and his irises were an unnatural dark purple.

It would have been a pretty color if he wasn’t so terrifying.

He could probably reach out and snap me like a twig.

Also, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Why wasn’t he wearing a shirt?

His chest was rock hard, every inch of him perfectly chiseled and firm.

His body was mostly human, but there were distinctive scaled stripes across his skin that reminded me of a tiger and a boa constrictor all in one.

He was smooth, his skin like marble without even the slightest hint of hair.

Every muscle was enormous. He was probably strong enough to lift me right off the ground and toss me all the way across the square.

He cracked his knuckles, revealing long dark gray nails that seemed more animal than human.

They were more like talons than anything else.

My gaze dipped lower, taking in the black pants that hung low on his hips. His boots were black too, military grade, probably steel-toed.

He cleared his throat, and my gaze tore back up to his face.