The Yield

VESPERA

The sky near the galactic center did not do dark. It burned.

I pressed my forehead against the thick, reinforced glass of the transit shuttle, my eyes stinging from the sheer, unfiltered glare of a hundred million ancient stars packed tightly together.

Down here, near the heart of the Milky Way, space wasn’t an empty black void.

It was a dense, glittering fog of gold dust, cosmic radiation, and light so bright it felt heavy.

“Step back from the viewport, Citizen,” a droning, mechanized voice echoed over the intercom. “Approaching Security Hub Primus. Prepare for bio-scanning and atmospheric recalibration.”

I didn’t move an inch. I had paid my last earthly credits for this one-way ticket, signed a contract I barely understood, and endured six brutal light-speed jumps just to get to this ice-and-crystal rock.

All for tuition money. Real, hard, off-world currency that would let me buy my way into a top-tier university back home and leave my orphan past firmly in the dust.

All I had to do was serve as a human integration assistant. Babysit a few wealthy human colonists, organize their schedules, show them around the base. Easy money.

The shuttle jerked hard as it passed through the outer defense layer. Outside, floating in the void like a shimmering, translucent wall, was a massive golden energy curtain that spanned thousands of miles. From my angle, it looked like a delicate, woven veil.

Then the curtain flared.

I gasped, leaning closer. Beyond the gold haze, massive, jagged war-barges were locked in silent, brutal combat with sleek, shadowed interceptors.

Blinding arcs of plasma tore through the dark, blossoming into soundless explosions of white fire. It was an active war zone, hidden right behind a curtain of shimmering light.

“Curtain passage authorized,” the automated voice chirped, completely indifferent to the slaughter happening just miles away. “Welcome to Citadel-Voss.”

The shuttle plunged through the curtain, breaking into the atmosphere of a world made entirely of towering, jagged crystal spires and rushing turquoise rivers.

Three suns hung in a low, unnatural arc across a violet sky, casting blinding reflections off every surface.

The transit terminal was a chaotic hive of activity. High-security hubs hummed with heavy energy weapons, armed guards with iridescent skin marching past crowds of wealthy, nervous human settlers dressed in designer silk.

I hoisted my battered duffel bag over my shoulder, ducked through three separate biometric checkpoints, and followed the flickering neon signs toward the central command spire.

The shuttle doors hissed open, and the ambient environment hit me like a physical blow.

Before I could even step onto the platform, two armored guards grabbed my arms, shoving me straight into a cramped, cylindrical airlock labeled ATMOSPHERIC ADAPTATION CELL 04.

“Wait - what are you -”

The airlock sealed with a heavy pneumatic thud. White lights bathed the metal walls as a thick, icy vapor rained down from the ceiling vents.

It wasn’t a simple mist. The moment the chemicals touched my skin and hit my lungs, my nerve endings screamed.

It felt like thousands of microscopic needles driving into my pores at once. My chest burned as if I were inhaling ground glass, my throat seizing up while the compound violently recalibrated my blood oxygen levels to match the planet’s dense, high-pressure atmosphere and sub-zero crystal-valley winds.

I dropped to my knees, clawing at my collar, my teeth grinding together until my jaw throbbed. Pain flared behind my eyes, hot and sharp, making my vision blur into smears of violet and blinding white.

“Decontamination and biological pressure-sync at eighty percent,” a synthetic voice echoed through the speaker above. “Commencing gene-verify.”

A harsh blue laser grid swept over my body from head to toe, stinging like sunburn where it traced my skin. I forced myself to stand, shivering violently as the icy chemical residue evaporated off my clothes, leaving my skin feeling uncomfortably tight and hyper-sensitive.

The far door clicked. The airlock hissed open to reveal a massive, blue-skinned guard clad in polished obsidian armor. He held a glass tablet, his dark, pupilless eyes scanning from the screen to my face.

He didn’t offer a hand. Instead, he reached out with a heavy gloved hand and grabbed my wrist, pressing a small metal scanner against my pulse point. A sharp, loud ping echoed in the quiet hall.

Green light flooded the device.

“Vespera Chase. Human, Earth-origin,” the guard rumbled, his voice deep enough to vibrate through my boots. He checked the tablet one last time, matching my biometric signature against his manifest. “You passed the sync. Most humans pass out on the floor.”

“Glad I could entertain you,” I rasped, rubbing my throbbing throat. “Is the welcoming committee always this friendly?”

“You’re expected at the central spire,” he replied, completely ignoring my sarcasm.

He stepped aside, gesturing down a long, high-security corridor lined with armed sentries and shimmering force fields. “Follow me. Do not step off the marked path, and do not touch the crystal walls unless you want your hands frozen to the stone. t’ll take you days to do it. Assuming you ever figure out how.”

I pulled my duffel bag higher on my shoulder, gritted my teeth against the lingering ache in my lungs, and fell into step behind him.

My contract specified my supervisor by his full, formal title. I pulled out my own glass tablet and read the unpronounceable string of symbols again:

High Commander Vaelen-Voss-Kaelen-Dryn, Regent of the Chromarii, Warden of the Galactic Core.

“Voss will do,” I muttered to myself, striding down the gleaming, mirrored hallway of the executive level.

I reached the massive, heavy obsidian doors of the Commander’s office, taking a deep breath to smooth down my blue travel tunic and compose my professional ‘please-pay-me’ smile.

I raised my hand to knock.

The obsidian doors burst open, and my escort casually stepped aside, completely unbothered—like he had done this many times before.

A tall, breathtaking alien woman bolted out into the corridor, sobbing hysterically. Her skin was a translucent shade of lavender, but her lower left arm was a nightmare. A dark, jagged bite mark dripped with vibrant purple blood, and black, poisonous-looking veins were spider-webbing violently up her forearm toward her neck.

“Barbarian!” the woman wailed in a thick, melodic accent, clutching her ruined arm as she stumbled past me. “Cruel, heartless brute!”

I froze, my blood running ice-cold. I looked at the crying woman, then at the black veins crawling up her neck, and then back at the open doorway.

She’s been violated.

The professional assistant in me died instantly. The shrewd, hot-tempered orphan who had survived twenty years on the rough streets of Earth took over.

“Hey! Hold on!” I called after the woman, but she crashed through the security doors and disappeared down the hall.

I turned on my heel, my jaw set, my knuckles white as I marched straight into the Commander’s office. “What the hell do you think you’re -”

The words slammed into the back of my throat.

The office was huge, lined with tall crystal windows overlooking the glowing rivers below. But I wasn’t looking at the view.

Standing in the middle of the room was a towering, hyper-muscled alien male. He was stark naked.

His skin wasn’t normal. It was glowing a violent, blinding shade of bright, angry crimson, waves of heat rolling off his chest so hot the air around him visibly shimmered. His broad back was covered in faint, intricate silver lines that looked like starry constellations, and his deep-set eyes burned like molten gold.

He looked up, fuming, his chest heaving as if he had just finished a fight.

“I said no more!” he roared, his voice vibrating through the floor and rattling my teeth. He slammed a massive, ruby-red fist onto an obsidian desk, cracking the stone. “That is the second one today! I am not up for another one, you insufferable.”

He cut himself off, catching probably the sound of my heavy, furious breathing behind him. He turned, his fiery gold eyes narrowing as he finally registered who had dared to barge into his office.

I didn’t back down. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, glaring straight into the eyes of a butt-naked, glowing red alien warlord.

“First of all,” I said, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp, sarcastic edge, “put some clothes on. Second of all, I don’t know what kind of sick, barbaric operation you’re running here, but I’m pretty sure bleeding candidates in your office isn’t in my job description.”

He blinked, his red skin flickering for a fraction of a second into a startled shade of deep violet, before flushing back to angry crimson.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.