The Last of Nova Group

Seventeen-year-old Kona, six feet tall, is lean but powerfully built. Her raven hair, styled in a chic bob, frames a face people call breathtaking. Her emerald eyes hold a quiet intensity. She's a striking mix of Eastern and Western ancestry. But there's a dark truth hidden underneath all of it, one almost no one knows. She's a Hybrid.

An orphan since infancy, Kona was the accidental result of the Nova Group — started by a rogue faction of Xeno-Warfare scientists. These renegade researchers, obsessed with creating human-alien hybrids for war, took eighteen-month-old Kona and fused her DNA with that of a teenage alien Queen, a creature of terrifying power. She was the only one to survive the process, out of every attempt to combine human DNA with the alien's. Kona's whole childhood was combat training. Weapons were her toys. Combat drills were her games. The alien DNA gave her incredible strength, speed, and sharp intelligence. She mastered every kind of combat, plus stealth and infiltration — no lock or computer system could stop her. She moved like a ghost. And despite carrying the genes and killing power of a deadly alien, Kona stayed quiet, unassuming, and respectful. A natural introvert, she preferred being alone.

The Nova Group, which had grown into a mercenary outfit, once had fifty hybrids like her. Kona, the youngest, became the last when the scientist behind all their creation lost his mind and killed himself shortly after finishing her procedure. Their missions: clearing out supposedly empty facilities, space stations, and derelict ships — often taken over by pirates or gangs. Corporations big and small, even governments, paid Nova Group heavily to forcibly clear people out of areas they wanted to expand into or exploit. Other jobs involved retrieving data or valuable items. Sometimes it meant finding and eliminating high-value targets. They moved in, wiped out the resistance, and took control with cold efficiency. Nova Group usually worked in two, sometimes 4 man teams — and that was always enough. Kona, due to the power of hybrid symbiote, usually went in solo. 

Despite shrinking numbers — the cost of years of brutal missions — Nova Group's success never wavered. Years of high-stakes work, almost always done solo, had worn their ranks down hard. Their dominance bred deep resentment among rival mercenary outfits, jealous of their contracts and reputation. With only twelve hybrids left, a group of rivals decided to end them for good. A corporation tired of paying Nova Group's fees teamed up with a competing mercenary outfit to set a trap. Nova Group was hired to secure a massive underground facility, supposedly held by a heavily armed militia. The contract called for something unheard of: every remaining hybrid, deployed together.

Their ship usually served as a quick staging point — Operators dropped off, then the ship pulled back into orbit to wait. But this time, for the first time, the ship would stay on-site for the whole mission. The target, they were told, sat beneath an old mining facility. This would be the first time Kona and her fellow hybrids — despite years together in Nova Group — worked as one full team. Even living aboard the same ship, their lives stayed somewhat separate: meals, drills, chores. Nothing more. Personal conversation was not common. Mealtime was the only time all the hybrids were together. Mostly small talk, critiquing combat missions and training exercises. The viewed each other as comrades, nothing more. Oddly, their alien symbiotes could somehow sense each other's species, which sometimes sparked quiet tension. But the humans wearing them always kept things professional. Every hybrid's symbiote knew exactly what Kona's was — and respected it, even feared it. Still, they teased her anyway, the way older siblings do. Kona always acted like she wasn't happy with it. In realility, she liked it.  It made her feel a connection. Years of hard, synchronized training meant they could fall into step together instantly, no matter how little they understood each other on any personal level.

Nova Group stepped off their transport, boots hitting the ground as the cargo doors opened. Sixteen figures moved out onto the moon's surface — twelve hybrids, four supervisors. Each supervisor was a veteran of elite special forces, responsible for planning, training, and logistic.  One of the supervisors was Nova Group's commander.  Usually staying behind to supervisor from their command ship, he felt he had to lead this mission directly. Everyone wore full environmental suits against the harsh atmosphere: armored exoskeletons, reinforced helmets with HADAR (Night Vision) and Com Units built in, and a backpack with a self-contained oxygen tank, and a small jet pack for minor lift — just enough to clear small obstacles, built into it. All of them carried rifles and full loadouts.

Kona brought up the rear, rifle in hand, sidearm and knife, holstered on her vest. They moved toward a large storage warehouse that was before the outpost. Upon entering all they could see was old mining equipment and debris scattered across the floor, leftovers from a different era — and cleared it before continuing toward the outpost: a large two-level structure with one massive steel airlock door. As her team formed a perimeter, Kona moved to the front and ran up to the airlock, so she could crack the doors lock with a digital pick. Alarms started sounding, and compressed air hissed as the outer door opened, and she stepped into the darkness inside, rifle raised. The commander, another supervisor and five hybrids folllowed her into the airlock.

The whole facility was dead — no power anywhere. She switched on her helmet's HADAR mode, and her visor lit up the dark rooms like daylight. Her softly glowing green eyes swept the shadowed halls. She moved fast and quiet toward the control room, the rest of the team behind her, one hybrid left to guard the entrance. They secured the place quickly. Kona began restoring power and accessing the central database, hunting for the hidden entrance to the underground complex — the real target. Locating it meant tracing a hidden path and cracking whatever locked it. She expected to find that information waiting in the central system.

She didn't. To her shock, there was no underground complex. This was just an abandoned mining depot — nothing more, no hidden structure, no trace of anything else. Her scans confirmed it, over and over. The senior Nova Group executive traveling with them, already uneasy about the size of this mission, realized instantly what it meant. A trap. He gave the order to pull out immediately.

As they ran, an explosion tore through the silence — their ship, engulfed in flames, was being destroyed, as massive explosions ripped it apart.  Kona, who'd gone in first, was now last out, falling in at the back of the group heading toward the burning wreck. Part of her thought they should've stayed in the outpost instead. But she'd been trained to follow orders, and she did. They came out onto the open tarmac that was being illuminated, by the flames coming out of their ship. Kona spotted the hybrid who'd been guarding the airlock — dead, a single hole through his visor. A sniper's kill.

Then the ambush hit. Gunfire and fusion lasers erupted from every direction. Bright lights were turned on, illuminating the whole tarmac in front of the outpost, where Nova Group just ran out into.  Whoever set this up knew exactly how dangerous the hybrids were and came prepared. Nova Group snapped into a defensive formation, firing back with everything they had. In the dark, all they had to aim at were muzzle flashes, while the lit-up tarmac made them easy targets in return.

Surrounded and outgunned, Nova Group started taking losses, fast. A few pushed into what they called "Beast Mode," letting their alien physiology take over completely as the situation turned desperate. They fought back hard, weaving through gunfire, closing the distance, and tearing into the enemy at point-blank range. When they ran out of ammo, it turned to hand-to-hand — necks snapped, limbs broken, bodies destroyed. They took out a good number of the enemy but, it wasn't enough. They were simply outnumbered. One by one, they fell. The mercenaries kept firing, staying just out of the deadliest crossfire, until they confirmed it: the *Super Nova* was gone. Everyone aboard was dead.  The first part of the ambush was a success.

The commander made a last desperate call — retreat into the mining outpost, force close-quarters fighting where the odds shifted a little in their favor. They fell back in stages, a slow, bloody trickle against overwhelming numbers. Even that cost them dearly — every movement drew fire. Kona laid down cover, a shield that barely slowed the attack. Then a fusion laser cut the commander in half mid-order, silencing him instantly.

Kona froze. The noise, the chaos, the sight of the commander dying, someone that had mentored her— for a moment it was too much. Her body just stopped listening to her. It took the sight of a fallen comrade at her feet to snap her out of it. A female hybrid. About ten years older than her. Their training had never included one thing: how to actually connect with each other. Kona wouldn't have called them friends — she only understood comradeship. But this one had been different. Talking to her had meant something. Kona respected her, genuinely liked her. On instinct, she pulled the body against her with her left arm, raising her rifle one-handed with the right. As enemies closed in, she emptied her magazine into one, dropping him. Then a flash to her left — another laser — and everything went white.

Her right arm was gone, torn away six inches below the shoulder in a blinding flash. Weapon and limb spun through the air as her whole world seemed to break apart. Only adrenaline kept the pain from swallowing her whole. She searched for the shooter, her grip slipping off her fallen comrade. She reached for her sidearm — set up for her to be drawn from her right hand, the one she no longer had. Her severed arm lay more than ten feet away. She fumbled the holster left-handed, and another laser found her — this one tearing through her lower right side, throwing her to the ground. She tried to get up. For a second, she actually considered crawling back for her arm. She didn't.

That's when the alien mind inside her — the quiet partner she'd only ever spoken to in shared thought — took over completely. Her eyes lit up glowing bright green with fire. A raw snarl tore out of her throat, something ancient and furious breaking loose. She ran, wounded, desperate, toward the light of the outpost's airlock, her vision swimming, that glow her only anchor in the dark. Then another heavy laser blast slammed into her back, throwing her forward and setting off her jet pack — meant only for small lifts, but the blast sent her flying two feet off the ground, hurtling her forward toward the airlock she was running to. She hit the ground hard, twenty feet short of safety, and she slammed face-first into the visor on her helmet.  Her limp body skidded to a halt.  Everything went black.

Hours later, she opened her eyes to a brutal truth: she was the last member of Nova Group. The only one left alive in the wreckage of a massacre. The attack had started before dawn, in total darkness. Now it was dusk again — the same darkness she'd lost consciousness in, returning to close the day.

A loud shriek ripped through the silence and jolted her awake — something that hit her somewhere deep, beyond hearing. She turned her head, slow and painful. What she saw was a nightmare: more than a dozen towering creatures, at least seven feet tall, tearing into the bodies of her fallen team. Claws like blades ripped through flesh and bone. Long fangs sank in without effort. They were stripping the suits off her comrades and feeding, methodical and unhurried.

Panic hit her. Her hand went for her holster — empty. Everything gone: pistol, magazines, her knife, even her spare rifle mags. The ground, usually littered with gear after a fight like this, was stripped bare. The mercenaries hadn't just retreated — they'd looted every body they left behind. They'd assumed she was dead too, and left her for the dark, rather than finish the job. If she'd shown any sign of life, that mercy wouldn't have existed. Instead, they'd simply taken her weapons and gear, then moved on.

She looked toward the airlock. The outer door hung open. Only the inner one stood between her and whatever was out there. Waiting for the outer door to seal, then pressurize, then for the inner door to finally open — that gap alone could kill her. Those creatures could reach her long before the cycle finished. It was her only chance anyway. She reached deep for whatever strength her alien blood could give her, pushing past the pain screaming through her body. Missing an arm, she forced herself upright, every movement a fight. The same lasers that had ravaged her had also cauterized the wounds — sparing her from bleeding out. Only the pain remained, and her alien half, worked hard to dull it.

Trained for exactly this kind of movement, Kona picked her way silently across the wreckage-strewn tarmac, careful, quiet, invisible. She reached the open outer hatch and risked one glance back. The creatures hadn't noticed. She slipped inside and hit the controls to close the outer door. A deafening alarm tore through the stillness as it began grinding shut. The creatures' eyes snapped toward the sound — red, hungry, furious — and they surged toward the airlock as one, a wall of shrieking, clawing bodies. Time seemed to stretch. Kona pressed herself against the wall, raising her one remaining arm, in defiance, like it could stop what was coming. She'd go down fighting if she had to. Then, an instant before the lead creature reached her, the outer door slammed shut — a wall of metal between her and a mouth full of teeth. The impact hit like a gunshot. Snarls and shrieks hammered against the door from outside, furious at being denied. The airlock pressurized. The inner door released. She pulled her helmet off with her one good hand and let it fall. She'd restored the power earlier — the lights were on now, at least. She dropped into the nearest chair and was unconscious before her head touched the back of it.

When morning came, it found Kona in the outpost's reception area. She tried to stand, but the pain slowed her down. This wasn't just any outpost, she remembered now — it had been a mineral exchange point, where smaller mining operations delivered ore to be picked up later by bigger transports. Whatever profit it once made had dried up, and the place had been abandoned fast.

She made her way to the window. What she saw outside was horrific. Blood stained the gray tarmac in dark streaks. The huge cargo bay, built to hold tons of ore, sat completely empty. If there'd been any remains of her team left behind, she figured the wind had probably scattered them into nothing but red stains by now. A cold thought hit her — they'd all been eaten. Her own severed arm had laid somewhere out there in the wreckage. She whispered a small, bitter wish, she hoped those things had choked on it.

She searched what was left of the outpost — the command center, a common area, a galley that reeked of long-forgotten meals, living quarters heavy with the memory of people who used to live there, and a cluster of empty workrooms. For a moment hope flared when she found the medical bay — then died just as fast when she saw it was stripped bare. The whole place had been picked clean: no medicine, no food, no weapons, except for a two-foot length of rebar she grabbed for what little protection it offered.

She was close to giving up when, in the supervisor's quarters, she found something — a first-aid kit, untouched, tucked behind a cabinet.  They pulled out all the drawers, but no one had bothered to check behind it.  Healing paste. Pain injectors. Scissors. A little gauze. Not much, but enough. She tried removing her suit, but the fabric around her wounds had fused to her skin — the same heat that cauterized her wounds had melted the material into a kind of makeshift seal. That fusion was probably the only reason she survived; normally a breached suit out here meant death. She cut around the wounds as best she could and peeled away what she was able to. Exhausted, she applied the healing paste to the worst of the damage and gave herself a pain injection. The sharp sting of the needle barely registered next to everything else. The empty outpost pressed in around her — violence and loss stretching in every direction.

Three days passed. Her medicine ran out. She didn't find any food. Thankfully the water recycler kept humming quietly, the only thing keeping her alive. She hadn't eaten since before the mission started. She slept alone on the supervisor's cot, the isolation total. Without a suit, she couldn't leave. Water was all she had. Death started to feel close, patient, waiting. She pushed herself up and made her way to the reception area, sat at the desk, staring out at the wreckage through the window — and then heard it. A roar. A ship, descending.

Mercenaries, she assumed instantly — coming back to make sure Nova Group was really gone. Her hand tightened around the metal rod she'd been carrying as a weapon. She rose slowly, silently asking her symbiote for one more surge of strength, one last push from what they still had left between them. She thanked it — for staying, for being part of her, mind and body and whatever else made up a soul. It answered without words, its presence folding into hers like a promise.

Minutes stretched on forever. Then the outer airlock groaned to life, alarms screaming, metal grinding against metal. Every muscle in her body locked tight, ready. The pain faded, replaced by a rush of adrenaline — a brief, temporary gift. Taking down one or two of them would be enough. If this was how it ended, she'd end it fighting, on her feet, like a warrior. She spun the metal rod in her hand, fast and precise, a small ritual to steady her nerves before whatever came next. The outer door sealed. Pressure equalized with a soft hiss. The inner door began to open.

Kona's heart slammed against her ribs, her breath catching in her throat. Her eyes hardened, glowing the brightest green they every have. The softness in her face burned away by pure resolve. She whispered one last thing, quiet and defiant, before the door finished opening:

"Nova Group... my brothers, sisters... I'm coming home."