8-3-2026

Chapter 1. (Rix Universe Book 4)

“Do you want him or not?” The assignment officer had exhausted his unimpressive reserve of patience and leveled an exasperated glare at Callisto.

Keenly aware of the long line of labor brokers, contract agents, and other assorted recruiters behind her, she chewed her lip. “Sure. I’ll take him.”

“Confirmed.” The officer scanned the agreement in, making her choice permanent. “He’s all decked under the expedited allocation protocol. Proceed to dispatch.”

Following the directions on the spasmodically flashing data banner, Callisto made her way to a large waiting area of the high-throughput processing center. 

She’d managed to snatch a hire. She smiled brightly at Victor, who stood silently beside her, determined to enjoy the victory despite lingering doubts. Instead of smiling back, Victor gave her a sharp look and said nothing.

In a short time, an out-processing coordinator appeared. How anyone could find anybody specific in this pandemonium of layered decks and queue rails remained a mystery to Callisto, yet here he was.

Alone.

“Where’s my hire?” she asked, her smile vanishing.

The young man motioned at them with his tablet. “Follow me.” 

She shot Victor a puzzled look as they wove between long, noisy assignment lanes and translucent partition walls. When the coordinator stopped, she nearly stumbled over feet stuffed into thick, scrunched-up socks and rough boots protruding from behind one such partition.

“Here’s your contract.”

She edged around the frosted plexiglass to find a large alien reclined there, eyes closed. He was of a humanoid variety, with two arms, two legs, and one head, which offered some relief. She really shouldn’t have asked for “anyone” at the assignment counter. 

“Why is he sleeping?” Victor’s voice was tight. “Is he alright?”

The dispatch coordinator prodded the alien’s ribs with his foot. “You alright?” he asked in Universal.

The lids covering the alien’s eyes moved apart slowly, revealing first a bluish third lid, then enormous orbs as bottomless as two black holes.

“Get fucked,” the alien said distinctly.  

Victor flinched, but the dispatch coordinator remained impervious. “How about congratulations? You’re under a contract.”

The alien blinked, showing that disturbing third lid again. “I’m what?”

Ignoring the question, the coordinator tapped his screen. “I’ve got a few things to go over before you can assume your new assignment.”

The alien belched.

“Callisto,” Victor began, but she shook her head, cutting him off.

“We’re not coming back empty-handed.”

“He’s wearing a bedsheet.”

She shrugged. “I was told he’s a migrant alien.”

“Great,” Victor drawled. “What will Seth say?”

The question made Callisto cringe on the inside.

“I’ve been overwhelmed and he knows it. He’ll be grateful I brought back help. Everything will be alright.” She touched Victor’s arm to reassure him and glanced again at the alien scratching his underarm in a way that made her think about flea treatments.  

The dispatch coordinator had found his checklist. “First, your contract. You’ve accepted—verbally, implied, or otherwise inferred—a position classified under Universal Labor Allocation Law in the category of Unclassified Assets and Non-verified Migratory Personnel.”

The alien rocked his head as if it were killing him, dislodging a bird’s nest of greasy, flaxen-colored hair.

“You’re assigned to Regenerate Science Station as maintenance personnel, with duties including but not limited to waste remediation and sanitation, biohazard neutralization, and incidental mechanical upkeep as directed by your supervisor. Any questions?”

“Where can I get a joint around here?”

Victor’s entire body twitched.

The coordinator turned toward Callisto. “You don’t have to take him, but the recruitment fee is non-refundable.”

Explaining to Seth why she paid a recruitment fee and came back empty-handed was simply out of the question. 

She stepped forward.

“Our station is completely drug-free,” she addressed the reclining body. “It may not be an ideal situation for you, but we provide a private room and full board, plus a small wage. The contract is for six months—you can always go back to your preferred occupation afterward.”

The alien’s lips puckered as if he was going to blow out a candle. Callisto braced for a rude clap-back, but then his mouth relaxed. A slight thrum ran along her spine like a melodic riff—his sharpened attention.

“You’re a human female,” he stated.

“Yes.”

He cocked his head. “Where’s your hair?”

She raised her hand to touch the soft fuzz of her shaved head, then dropped it. “I keep it this short for convenience.”

“Huh,” he said. “You have a boyfriend?”

Annoyance thinned Callisto’s mouth. “No.”

“You want one?”

“I have a husband,” she informed him tightly.

His solid black, disconcerting eyes didn’t shift, but Callisto thought he might be looking at Victor.

“Is he it?” He sounded thoroughly unimpressed.

“This is Victor. He works with my husband.”

“Will I also work with your husband?”

“You will report to me,” she said. “My name is Callisto.”

He didn’t move, and the expression on his brutish, weathered face didn’t change.

She was ready to admit defeat when the alien pulled his legs up. “Let’s do it.”

Slowly, he pushed himself off the floor and rose to his full height. She knew he would be tall, but wasn’t prepared for how tall. And broad. The stained, coarse fabric wrapped around his body strained to contain the bulk of him as he towered over even Victor.

The dispatch coordinator made a final notation on his form and hurried them toward the exit. Despite him leading the way, their progress through the overcrowded floor of the processing center was hampered by their new hire’s drunken sway. He stumbled and listed to one side, then the other, barely keeping pace. With each step they took, Victor’s face darkened a little more, but Callisto couldn’t escape a surreal feeling that they were leading a great mythical beast through the throngs of ordinary people. 

That feeling shattered when the fantastic beast ran into a sharp corner and erupted in a bout of cursing so vile it created a vacuum of stunned silence around them.

At the final checkpoint, the coordinator uttered “good luck” in their general direction and beat feet. 

“Step forward,” a security guard ordered the alien. 

He did, leaning heavily on the booth’s counter.

“Don’t lean, bruiser, mind your manners. Birthplace?”

“Extinct,” the alien growled, ignoring the order not to lean, and hiked up his unwinding sheet. Callisto glimpsed a shoulder and part of a broad ribcage beneath a sleek pelt that was too fine to conceal deep, multicolored bruises. At some not-so-distant point, he had been severely beaten. The knowledge cooled Callisto’s annoyance by a couple of degrees and made her wonder if injuries, rather than intoxication, made him clumsy.

The guard peered at the alien. “What are you, a Levisur?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I am.”

Check.

“Name?”

“Ah… Sid.”

Check.

“You’re all set. Have a nice day.”

The little gate swung open.

The three of them squeezed into an enclosed conveyor that took them to the hangar, where their shuttle waited. Itl, one of their station’s pilots, already had the hatch open.

“What took you so long?” he asked irritably.

“There was a line,” Callisto couldn’t keep the fatigue out of her voice. She didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with the temperamental Tarai right now. “But we got lucky this time.”

“Good. No more wasted trips. Except now we have to spend another hour waiting for clearance. I hate these allocation hubs—traffic control has ten different vectors and they can never agree whose turn it is to go.”

She didn’t argue. Itl would complain whether she did or not. He was a never-enough kind of guy, and his appearance reflected his philosophy. One piercing was way too subtle for Itl, so he got twenty. One tattoo didn’t stand out sufficiently, so he inked one hundred. His multitude of heavy metal necklaces, bracelets, and spiky patches made him jingle and rattle when he moved. 

Victor got into the shuttle first, followed by Callisto. When the alien ambled in, Itl’s eyes bugged out.

“Who in the void is that?”

“Sid,” Sid said as he slid inside. He never showed any sign of discomfort in his battered body, but the way he folded himself into the rear seat was careful. 

Itl fixed his pupil-less Tarai eyes on Victor.

“Don’t look at me.” Victor raised his hands in surrender.

“Were there any smaller janitors?”

“Not in our pay range,” Victor said.

“You two are crazy. He looks fresh from a prison system.”

Callisto frowned. She had considered that her acquisition might have an unsavory past, but… was he?

“Never been to prison in my life,” Sid announced from the back. “Why are you picking on me? I’m not asking why you look like a lightning rod of the Universe.”

While Itl gasped and stuttered, Victor turned toward Sid, wearing his Strict Dad face. “We’re a professional team, Sid. We’ve got rules, but other than that, we respect each other’s personal choices. Okay?”

“Exactly.” Itl, feeling supported, found his voice. “My hardware—my choice. Now be quiet, everyone, you’re ruining my concentration.”

Sid didn’t respond. When Callisto turned, she found his eyes closed. He looked sickly gray around the edges, folded neatly if not comfortably into his seat, with the requisite belts buckled. He’d definitely flown before. He knew the drill without being told, reassuring her that he was trainable.

A second later, a green indicator flashed on the dashboard, and they got clearance. Itl steered them out of the hangar and into space, gunning for their space lab, Regenerate. 

“Just so you know,” he said quietly to Callisto when they were underway, “I wouldn’t have voted to keep him on the team. He’s a poor fit.”

“Too bad,” came the voice from the back. “I’m under the contract.”

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