Moorland kept badgering her with questions and accusations in the same vein, as if their first interview never happened, relishing that Christen had to play along to maintain her cover.

She probably hoped Director Finch would grow bored and leave, but he remained, which betrayed that he didn't trust Moorland with her life. He didn't want the agent to disappear Christen or murder her under the guise of some mishap.

The fact that Dana didn't send their people also spoke volumes. This was a sanctioned government facility, and Moorland had the upper hand for now.

She sensed Dana in the vicinity and could almost taste her frustration.

Christen was no less frustrated, and her anger intensified with every passing moment, but she refused to allow the emotion to rule her rational thought. She had to concentrate on keeping her hands relaxed and making her body language contradict her emotions.

"You might as well confess, VSA Strickland; you are a traitor and a fraud. I dug into your background, and ten years ago, Dana Strickland had no sister. So, who the hell are you?" Moorland unexpectedly demanded.

"Dana Strickland is my sister as certainly as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but we do not have the same mother. Nor did we grow up together. She adopted me, took me in and ensured that I got my rightful share of our father's estate," Christen admitted.

"Then why does Dana's grandmother deny your existence?" Moorland pounced.

"My father had an affair with her precious daughter. I am the spawn of an adulterer who got her grubby hands on their family fortune. Why else?" she challenged.

"You forget, I can tell when people lie!" Moorland insisted, and Christen laughed.

"But apparently not when they tell the truth," she taunted, and for a second, she could swear the agent's irises had turned red.

Moorland attacked Christen, toppling the chair and badly hurting Christen's bound arms as she tried to strangle her prisoner. Her strength was not that of a human this time as she cut off Christen's air supply.

Director Finch tried to intervene, but with one hand, Moorland let go of Chisten's throat to shove him away from her.

That single movement knocked him clear across the room and against a wall. His head struck the plaster with a sickening crunch that left a spatter of blood as his limp body toppled, his facial expression caught in surprised confusion as he limply fell forward and didn't move again.

His heart stopped, and Christen looked up into the crazed expression of her attacker to see the unmistakable red glow of her irises.

Some primitive part of her body reacted to the undeniable instinct that this woman, whatever she was, was her mortal enemy.

The Morgal—their ancient foe that hunted her species to the brink of extinction. The knowledge in her head responded.

The game was over.

Christen snapped her restraints as if they were made of paper, but then again, they were just part of the charade for the benefit of the humans. Her left arm had fractured but was already healing.

She grabbed Moorland's arms and forced her hands away. Her strength was greater than her attacker's, but her injuries weakened her grip.

Moorland's hands turned to claws that cut into Chisten's skin before she could get them far enough away. Although she didn't hit anything vital, the wounds burnt like acid for a moment before her body counteracted the venom, surprising her attacker.

"You cannot win. You and your maker are the last of your kind. You came to this paltry planet to rebuild your species and dragged your inferiors along, but they proved hardier than you. They flourished here, but not for long. When you are dead, we will kill them all and rid this lump of rock of these stupid insects that overrun its resources," Moorland threatened as gunshots rang out in the hallway.

She barely paid attention as her teeth shifted to sharp points and snapped closed mere millimetres from Chisten's throat as the creature tried to rip out her jugular.

Something clicked in Chisten's brain like a switch being thrown as ten thousand years of history spooled through her mind as if she had seen that other world for herself.

She was barely aware of moving just out of reach of those venom-filled teeth and head-butting her foe. The Morgal shook her head to clear it from the blow that should have stunned Christen, who flexed her fingers, and claws formed she didn't realize she had.

She punched her hand right through Moorland's chest just as the door shattered inward. 

Christen didn't even fully understand what she had done as she pulled her hand back through the gaping holes, and Moorland's heart stuttered to a standstill in her bloodied fist.

The alien's expression became blank as someone ripped her off Christen, but it wasn't Dana and her people.

She blinked at Kendra with Michael Williams at her side, forgetting that she still clutched the bloodied heart.

"I told you she didn't need help," Kendra said, extending her hand to help her to her feet.

Christen dropped the heart in disgust, and it fell on the cement floor with a meaty thud. However, she was still too disorientated by the images in her mind, the adrenaline rush of victory that had too predatory an edge to it for her liking, and the way her head struggled to make sense of the turn of events that started at her house.

One thing she knew for certain as Kendra and Michael pulled her to her feet; the enemy she had been hunting these last couple of years, those behind the events, were not human. Their plan involved chaos that would facilitate the destruction of the Astors, Michael and his kind, the chosen, and the entire human race.

They conquered every species that ever stood in their way, destroyed all intelligent life on those planets and repopulated with their own kind. For millennia, the Astors curbed the Morgal and stopped their invasion of the universe.

But the Morgal proved an insidious enemy, capable of using the nature of their victims to undermine them and facilitate their destruction.

When their allies turned against them, the Astors were caught off guard. The Morgal attacked, and the Astors fell without the Alliance of Planets. Except with the Astors gone, the Alliance lost their most significant advantage. They were defenceless when the Morgal attacked the other worlds with the superior weapons acquired from the Astors.

A few Astors and some of their allies escaped, but of all the spaceships that fled before the Morgal, only one made it to safety, the one that crashed to Earth.

The Morgal tracked them for six hundred years across the vastness of space to keep their vow that they would wipe every descendant of Astor from existence.

Luckily they didn't understand what Alexander was and didn't learn about Dana, just as they didn't find out about the other four.

Once on her feet, Kendra handed Christen a rag to wipe her bloodied hand, but the ones with Michael bowed before Christen as she did. Even Michael and Kendra lowered their heads, though they didn't bow.

"We are yours to command, Princess. It is as it was. The Alliance lives again, and the Astor will rule once more. You warned the others, but they did not listen. Now we are on this world, far from our planets that now house the spawn of Morgal. This is our last stand, and we will protect the earth from the Morgal or fall with it. We are all the last of our kind," Kayra vowed solemnly.

"What makes you assume I know of what you speak?" Christen said, trying to gather her scattered thoughts in her aching head.

"Your eyes changed colour, Your Highness; you have come into your own. The shift has begun, but this is not the time to discuss such matters, nor the place."

Christen glanced at the reflective surface of the one-way mirror, and her eyes were bright, electric blue but were fading back to her normal colour, and she looked different.