Page 1 of Cops in Space
Prologue
In the beginning…
How did all this craziness start? Aliens. Lots and lots of aliens. I was sixteen when I discovered I was an alien hybrid. Yep, big shocker. My mother wasn’t from Guadalajara, Mexico. Nope, she was from a planet called Tanith and she was related to one of the most dangerous warlords in the galaxy; Zarek the Overlord of the Coletti Empire. Myunclewas a big, scary dude who ruled half the galaxy with an iron fist and had his eye on the other half.
What stopped Uncle Zarek from conquering the known galaxy? Six hundred years ago the Alliance had almost exterminated the Coletti people in the Great Galactic War. My uncle was still rebuilding the empire when the Tai-Kok started their murderous rampage. They are tall, hairless, skeletal humanoids with mouths full of sharp metal teeth. Their three blood-red eyes have vertical slits for pupils. Each soldier sports a metal mohawk that protrudes from their skulls like dinosaur spines. These monsters live to eat. Like a plague of locusts, they destroy civilizations, leaving nothing behind but rubble and death.
A Tai-Kok scout stumbled upon our solar system and discovered human flesh was a delicacy to be savored. Our world was the next to be harvested. Guess who got to stop them? Me. Yep. Just call me lucky. How was I to accomplish this miraculous feat?
My Uncle Ben, the mad scientist, had created a machine called the portal that instantaneously sent a test subject fromone location to another by converting them into energy. His idea was to port me onto a Tai-Kok ship. Yep, just me. All I had to do was leave a bomb, hit the retrieval button on my spiffy traveler’s belt and poof! I’m back on Earth before the Tai-Kok ship goes kaboom. Sounds simple, right?
Wrong. Uncle Ben didn’t have a clue where I’d actually appear on the ship. It could be the engine room, the crew quarters, or even the bridge. It was like playing Russian roulette. The Tai-Kok don’t like surprises or uninvited guests.
To make things even more fun, I accidentally ended up on a Coletti warbird. Once Kaelen, the ship’s captain and a battle commander no less, discovered I was related to Zarek, he decided to claim me as his mate. As if. I managed to port back to Earth, but the sneaky bugger had already marked me. Now I have him and Uncle Zarek stuck in my head.
And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my dad found out about my suicide missions. God, was he mad. I thought he was going to kill Uncle Ben, but Dad’s commanding officer, General Saul Jones, stopped him and took control of the portal.
With General Jones in command of the portal, we managed to slow down the monsters’ attacks, but when I got injured in a bombing run, I was benched. They said I was too young to be running around the galaxy blowing things up. Seriously? Now they were concerned.
The powers to be then decided I should become a cop. Right, like that wasn’t a dangerous job, but hey, I wasn’t about to sit in some bunker while the monsters destroyed our world. I graduated from the police academy at seventeen and soon discovered that most people I encountered were friggin’ nuts. I mean, seriously, did they put something in the water?
I thought having two aliens stuck in my head was bad, but nothing prepared me for Qa’a, the Supreme Leader ofthe Katanic shapeshifters. A being so powerful that he even worried Uncle Zarek and I could see why. Qa’a’s power was off the charts, and his true form was a squirming black mass with lots of tentacles and sharklike teeth. Katanic shapeshifters were pretty much indestructible and only the Executioners, the shapeshifters’ version of a cop, could punish a rogue Katanic.
I caught Qa’a’s attention when I rescued his son from the Tai-Kok and discovered the Supreme Leader had some traitors in his ranks who were working with the monsters to rule the galaxy.
Impressed with our detective work, Qa’a decided to make Dad, Kaelen and me his personal investigators. We quickly agreed to the deal because it gave Earth another ally in the fight against the Tai-Kok. At eighteen I became a galactic cop, with a spiffy badge and weapons of mass destruction at my fingertips. Yee-haw! Look out universe!
Chapter One
Motherhood…
The spinning vortex spat Kaelen, Qa’a, the Askole baby and me out onto the bridge of a high-tech warbird. I wiped the slime off my face and noticed a menacing-looking dude sitting in the captain’s chair. He looked like someone you sure as hell didn’t piss off and live to talk about it. His black battle suit emphasized his massive frame, and, on each arm; he wore large gold warrior’s bracelets with elaborate designs. An etched gold headband held back his gray warriors’ braids.
For some odd reason I felt an instant connection with him and suddenly realized who he was. “That’s Zarek?”I asked Kaelen on our private link.
“Yes.”Kaelen clamped his right arm to his chest. “My lord, this is Lexi.”
His gaze almost clinical, Zarek inspected me like I was an interesting but odd specimen.
I gave him my Debbie Sunshine smile and clamped my right arm to my chest. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Uncle Zarek,” I said in perfect High Coletti.
One dark brow rose in amusement. “Not an ounce of fear. You are your mother’s daughter.”
Huh? Was that a compliment or an insult?
Jaxor let out a hungry wail.
Crap. I pulled his bottle out of my side pocket and held out my arms.
Qa’a plucked the baby out of the bassinet and handed him to me. Jaxor’s tentacles wrapped around my wrist as I popped the bottle of milk in his mouth. “Such a hungry little guy.” I looked up at Kaelen. “We’re gonna need more milk.”
“Xylar will provide for him,” Uncle Zarek said.
I frowned.“Who?”
Uncle Zarek gestured at the glittering blue light blossoming in front of us.“His father.”
The light faded and there stood an enormous Askole warrior in battle armor. His tentacles squirmed wildly about his snakelike features as his gaze locked on Jaxor.
