Ever since Kelly could remember, life had been a battlefield.
Not the romantic kind people write about.
Not the heroic kind.
The kind where you either kill… or get buried.
Back on Earth, she'd been one of the bastard children of war. Born in blood. Raised in gunpowder. Trained to strip herself of anything that made her human.
Mercy was expensive.
Morality was heavier than a corpse.
And she had never had the luxury of carrying either.
She cheated.
She lied.
She killed.
Whatever it took to see the next sunrise.
So this?
This wasn't new.
The universe might be bigger. The war grander. The enemies uglier. But at its core?
It was the same rule.
Only the last one standing gets to breathe.
And Kelly intended to breathe.
She couldn't lose. She wouldn't.
She had clawed her way out of hell too many times to die now.
Over. And over. And over again.
Her eyes flared—bright, violent purple.
Stellar Sight activated.
The world slowed.
