How to Vaporize Your Enemies and Influence People

Orion just wanted to see the alien mothership. Instead, he found out his entire life is a lie.

​For forty years, humanity has lived under the benevolent, terrifying shadow of the "Pantheon"—a race of towering, armor-clad aliens who descended from the stars. So, naturally, Orion did what any rational, pop-culture-obsessed slacker would do: he strapped on full scuba gear, folded himself into a diplomatic shipping crate, and snuck onto one of their transport ships.

​But the view out the cargo bay window isn't the starry cosmos he expected. Before he can even process what he is actually looking at, a violent, bone-crushing pressure drop knocks him out cold.

​The next thing he knows, he’s being dragged onto a concrete tarmac, surrounded by a firing squad of eight-foot-tall Pantheon soldiers. Desperate, Orion flashes the universal symbol for "I come in peace"—the Spock hand sign.

​They ignore him. The rifles roar.

​Orion squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for death... but the high-tech plasma rounds just bounce off his chest like warm water balloons.

He isn't dead.

He isn't even bruised.

Orion has no idea where this transport ship actually landed, but he’s about to discover that whatever world he just stepped into, he is suddenly the most dangerous thing on the planet.