A bubble of manic laughter claws up my throat.
“Ofcourse,” I croak aloud. “Of course the gods spit me into a sauce-themed village.”
Something groans behind me. The ship. Systems shutting down. Power conduits sizzling into silence. The core is dead. Nothing left but emergency auxiliary and the backup fusion cell that could barely power a toaster.
I touch the side of the fuselage. “Rest, old beast,” I whisper in Vakutan. “You brought me through Hell.”
And I collapse. Onto scorched grass, shoulders burning, eyes dry as bone. I want to sleep. I want to dig a hole in this soft, humid dirt and disappear. But I can’t.
They’ll come looking.
Grolgath, maybe. Coalition scouts if they trace the anomaly. Hell, even a rogue Trident vessel, sent to confirm my death.
And I amnotdying in a sauce bottle town in the middle of pre-Fusion-era Earth.
Not yet.
I reach into the suit’s inner lining. Pull out the image inducer—a sleek little piece of Vakutan engineering the size of a plum, humming faintly. Still operational. Good.
I slap it against my sternum.
The transformation is instant.
My red scales flatten into human skin—tan, sweaty, slightly scarred. My claws retract. My tail vanishes. My height drops by a head and a half. The image isn’t perfect, but in a world where humans wear pajamas to public shops, I doubt anyone will notice.
“Rychne is dead,” I say to the open sky. “Richard… begins.”
And with the smell of barbecued forest still hanging thick in the air, I stagger toward the treeline—toward the scent of electricity and motor oil and human civilization.
Wherever the hell that leads.
CHAPTER 2
VANESSA
Iwake up to the sound of a diplomatic crisis.
Not the metaphorical kind—the real, kitchen-clanging kind—where my ten-year-old is standing on a dining room chair with a flashlight in one hand and a stainless steel colander strapped to her head with a belt I vaguely remember wearing to a bachelorette party in 2018. She’s shirtless except for a galaxy-print sports bra and pajama pants covered in UFOs. The cat, poor bastard, has a paper towel tube duct-taped to his back like a laser cannon, and he's giving me the exact same look I’d give someone who poured orange juice into their cereal.
“I hereby declare the United States of North America a protectorate of the Unified Galactic Friendship Empire!” Sammy bellows, aiming the flashlight directly at a petrified half-eaten Pop-Tart. “Your waffles are now subject to taxation and universal breakfast law!”
“Sam,” I croak, voice like gravel in a blender, “if I don’t get caffeine in the next sixty seconds, I’m going to secede from this union and make you do algebra until your eyes bleed.”
She looks at me, all freckles and mischief, lowers the flashlight just a little. “Technically, the Galactic Charter says homework is outlawed in all Friendly Territories.”
“Technically, the human charter says I’m your mother and your galactic immunity is revoked if you track glitter into the bathroom again.”
She pouts. I smirk. And then we both hear it.
The cough.
Not mine. The coffee maker’s.
A single gurgle. One last, watery gasp.
And then nothing.
I lurch off the couch—still half-dressed from last night’s collapse into unconsciousness—stumble toward the kitchen, and slap the side of the coffee maker like I’m trying to resuscitate a dying friend.
