Yozef

Prologue

“Zoey!” a booming voice bellows.

I glance up to see Rava looking at me with wide eyes. Lyra is next to her. Their gazes rise above my head, jaws dropping.

I don’t need to look over my shoulder to know what they’re seeing. My skin tingles with awareness. The black-dressed Venkorian guards. They’re coming for me.

Am I shocked? No. Eventually, the Venkorians are coming for all of us on this space station. So far, they’ve been taking us a few at a time. We have no idea where or how far away. We don’t know if we’re being relocated to another spaceship or a planet.

My friends and I are vastly ill-informed.

Headmistress Helena is the only one of us who wears a device that allows her to understand these giant alien men, but even she is told very little.

As far as I can tell, the Venkorian guards mostly grunt and scowl. It keeps all of us on edge.

It’s not like we have any other options.

We can’t turn them down or deny them. For one thing, our space station is failing.

It can’t sustain us for much longer. We’re running out of resources.

For another thing, we’re all women, most of us in our early twenties.

We don’t have any way to defend ourselves.

We are not trained in combat or defense.

We’ve been living on this space station for over twenty years.

The majority of us don’t remember Earth—the planet we came from.

We were sent here in the late stages of Earth’s total destruction.

The intention was for humanity to survive through us.

Female infants who would one day be inseminated.

But, tragically, the sperm specimens were destroyed.

We’re lucky. Someone found us. These aliens appear to have the same characteristics as humans.

The only visible difference is their enormous size.

That should be a relief. We should be grateful.

What if we’d been discovered by something resembling the blue or green aliens of fictitious lore? That would have scared us to death.

However, for some reason, I’m not comforted by these giants. None of us are. They don’t give me warm-and-fuzzy vibes.

Apparently, my number is up. I’ve been chosen. Resistance will accomplish nothing. I’ve watched some of my friends fight and scream as they were carried away. It did them no good.

Standing from where I’ve been picking potatoes in the dirt, I wipe my hands on my dress and turn to face my fate. “I’m Zoey.”