CHAPTER 1
♫ … hold your ground … ♫
“SO … HOW ABOUT this extragalactic nebula?” I took my eyes off the
screen to wiggle my brows at Selina. She gave me “the look,” one she’d been
giving me since we were twelve. I’d say something goofy and she, in her
infinitely cute way, would shoot Cupid’s darts into my heart with a quick
smile.
“Alex,” she said, casting a stern look at me, “don’t make me
laugh.” There it was: her quick involuntary lip curl. If I said chocolate
fondue now with a Swedish accent she’d lose it. She glanced away from me and
over at Coreg who had his eyes tightly squeezed shut, hands above his head
holding the spaceship’s control levers, feet tucked into the pilot divots, and
concentration at maybe Mach 5. I’d been pacing along with him as well as I could
for most of this journey, helping us get to his planet, Klaqin, in a fraction of
the time. But, dude, I needed a break. My claustrophobia was threatening to
resurrect itself in this cockpit.
I discovered I was half-alien, or rather half-Klaqin, a mere day
ago and then
