Teen Ink

Prologue

I got up and left them. Left them standing there dumbfounded at what I had told them. It’s not my fault, things like that happen. It’s really not my fault she’s dead.
My names Inez if you wanted to know. I like having an Earth name considering I was born there. My parents packed me up and deposited my infant self a few light years away. As of two months ago I’m a 17 year resident of Voger. Nice planet lots of minerals, I don’t recommend visiting though, the natives aren’t exactly friendly.
The folks were probably escaping WW4. Apparently the war before that WW3 was started when then alien creatures of Earth’s twin world, Venus, invaded and declared war. Now after the Venus creatures killed 2/3 of the human population, thing started looking up. The aliens worked together with the remaining humans to establish a better Earth. Other worlds began trading with the humans while trying to preserve a healthy relationship with the Venusites. That is until civil war broke out within the newly incorporated alien race. Now trade between other planets has ceased as Earth experienced WW4.
Multiple ships and escape pods fled the planet, with the majority of the remaining humans aboard. These ships escaped to the planets Earth had once considered allies. Not all of them accepted the fugitives though.
The pod I was on as an infant was probably one of the last ones to land on Voger. The Queen of the planet, Astana, placed a force field around her atmosphere, preventing her subjects from harboring the Earthlings.
If you ever see my parents though, tell them I'm truly grateful. At least here on Voger there is no civil war. Thankfully they gave to some relatively decent humans when they decided to abandon me. This new family gave me a gun at age three which I used to kill my first inhabitant of this retched world. I was all of seven at the time.
My Voger mom is called Telum. She was on the ship with my parents, which is how she came to acquire me. When I was younger I would ask her about my parents. All she would say was this "You had two mothers and all I know is that they loved you very much." Yeah right.
Even though she had a biological daughter, Telum decided to raise me as her own. Her daughter’s called Lex. She's a year older than me and doesn’t talk much.
Telum's ship had landed in the middle of a brutal sand dune desert. While the others aboard decided to flee to human camps and sanctuaries, Telum built a life in the Vogerian desert. Ever since that day we have been living off of the supplies from that ship, and the trains we've ransacked
We’ve acquired many friends through the many years spent on the planet. Never knowing how unprepared we would come to be in the upcoming future.