Saoirse knew she could have her soldiers down here on a moment’s notice.
She wasn’t stupid. They were an order into her implanted earpiece away, if she chose it. Thousands of heavily armed, carefully trained loyalists with a snap of her fingers. If she were less confident in her careful study of Earth, she may have even been tempted to have them follow at a distance, promises be damned. As it was, they could be here in seconds, weapons charged and awaiting her orders.
But Petra was tiny and easy to restrain, and the greater threats on Earth seemed entirely preoccupied with explaining to billions of humans how the “aliens” had simply “snuck up on them.”
It wasn't like they'd expect the leader to show up in a suburb of Los Angeles, unaccompanied and unarmored, anyway.
So Saoirse was safe, but she was not comfortable. The ride in Petra’s gauche sportscar was punctuated by several detours that had already erected, piercing sirens rattling Saoirse’s sensitive hearing. It was cramped, and loud, and brighter than she expected it to be, considering it was nearing dusk.
Her eyes, safely ensconced behind what Saoirse knew were a particularly gauche pair of sunglasses, flicked past each street —memorizing their route with practiced ease.
“You seem remarkably calm for the end of the world.”
Saoirse knew, as she said it, the she was needling Petra. But could it even be considered impolite when she so clearly didn’t care about anything or anyone?
Petra clicked her tongue. “There’s nothing here to mourn.”
Saoirse hummed. She clicked one of her boots against the bar of her seat, pushing it back as far as she could. Human sports cars, it seemed, were not made for creatures substantially more than six feet tall. “What made you decide to present your honest self to me, instead of your curated lie? The one you just performed for your assistant..”
Petra neatly turned into a gated community. A loud siren at the unoccupied guard post meant the gate was stuck open. They slid past it with ease, a heavy keyring still sticking out of the glass door of the booth.
“I get more this way and I have nothing to lose. You could try to tell the others that I’m dead inside, but let’s be honest — they think you’re fucking scary. There’s no world, ours or yours, where my own people believe you over me.”
With a soft click the purr of the car’s engine quieted. Faintly, Saoirse could still hear sirens — though they were much more muted here than in the city proper. They sounded raspy and strained this far out, calling to no one and nothing.
The house itself was more modest than Saoirse expected, with pastel shutters and bright window boxes of blue flowers. Petra seemed to read her mind, because she cracked a soulless grin and arched a brow. “Small and quaint, isn’t it?”
“Not small. Just not excessive.”
“It was my mother’s childhood home.” Petra strode to the front door, the pink puff keychain — only three keys nestled in its sparkly fibers — appearing from her pocket. “I want to ruin it for her memory.”
Saoirse’s stomach soured. “So you keep it for the debauchery and the disrespect of her spirit?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
They closed the door behind them, a tiny white cat approaching them both with a pleasant chirp before wandering into what appeared to be a study. The staircase, grand as it was, had small, flower patterned runners and a cluster of potted plants on the thick banister. The space was otherwise pristine, with little personality and expensive decor.
“First thing’s first,” Petra told her, with a wrinkle of her small nose. She pointed at Saoirse boots.
International pop-idol PETRA is at the top of the game. Her reputation is cleaner than her pastel pink cuticles, and her fans are ravenous for more. It's all perfect: or, at least, it was. Then the aliens came.
Queen Commander Saoirse Doran's last chance to ascend the throne without the specter of failure is a successful peace negotiation with tiny planet "Earth." The plan is simple: find the most beloved Earthling and convince them to co-sign a cooperation and resource agreement.
But Saoirse didn't count on high-maintenance pop princess PETRA being a living lie. Now the Queen Commander needs to win over a sociopath, and an increasingly intrigued Petra needs to remember the most important lesson of her dead mother:
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