Page 14 of Zayrik

I was met with silence. I turned.

Nyla was watching me from her seat, legs stretched out, arms folded, her expression carefully blank. Suspicious.

“You got something to add, thief?”

She arched a brow. “Just enjoying the fact that you look like the one in trouble now.”

I exhaled slow, pressing a hand to my temple. She was impossible.

“You do realize you’re on this ship too, right?” I muttered. “If we go down, you go down with us.”

Nyla just grinned. Like she didn’t give a damn.

Like this was a game.

I wanted to be annoyed. But something about that cocky little smirk? The way her eyes lit up with challenge?

Yeah. That was going to be a problem.

Zephyr trilled softly from where he perched on the arm of her seat. Nyla ran a casual hand over his wings. “So, Captain, what’s the verdict?”

I ignored the mocking in her tone.

“Navigation’s offline,” I said. “Repulsors are barely functioning, and the ship’s directory is a glorified trash heap.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Sounds like you bought yourself a steal.”

I dragged a hand down my face. “I won it.”

“Uh-huh.” She kicked her boots up onto the console, making herself at home. “And I’m sure that went great for the last owner.”

I didn’t respond. Because she wasn’t wrong. And that annoyed the hell out of me. I shifted, scanning the cockpit again.

Bad bet. I knew that going in. I just didn’t expect it to come with a pissed off AI, a Laupin with attitude, and a thief who made my blood run hot and my patience thin.

But something else wasn’t sitting right.

This ship feltwrong.

Not just because of its condition, or the fact that Nyla didn’t seem surprised by what happened back on Katar station.

No.There was something else.

I let my fingers tap idly against the console, my gut twisting.

The way the stationlocked us down so fast. The way security moved,like they already knew.

It wasn’t proof. But my instincts had kept me alive long enough to know when to trust them.

I pushed off the console and moved past her, reaching for the auxiliary panel.

“Let’s see what I actually walked into.”

I pulled up the ship’s registry files,fingers moving over the console. The directory flickered. Old, fragmented logs, some corrupted beyond repair.

If something was off, I’d find it.

The data scrolled in front of me. Ship’s previous transactions, ownership records,some of it clean, some of it messy.

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