Page 45 of Hunted By the Wraiths
“That’s my queen.”
“Damn right.”
We waited.
THORYN
Eighteen hours. We’d been waiting sixteen of them.
I sat on the floor with my back against the wall, watching Maris pace. Five steps to the door. Turn. Five steps to the refresher curtain. Turn. Repeat. She’d been doing it for the last hour, wearing a groove in the cheap metal flooring. Her hand kept dropping to her blaster, checking it was still there. Then to the knife at her belt. Then back to the blaster.
The Haven was falling apart around us. When we’d arrived yesterday, it had been the normal level of lawless—questionable deals, expired warrants, flexible morals. But something had shifted in the last six hours. The background noise had gone from “busy trading post” to “powder keg looking for a spark.”
Three firefights in the last two hours alone. The Rigelian couple three doors down had stopped screaming at each other about an hour ago. The silence was worse. Either they’d made up. Unlikely. Or one of them was dead. Probable.
I’d been keeping count. Fourteen ships had left in the last four hours. Only three had arrived. Rats fleeing a sinking ship.
“Two more hours,” Maris said. Not to me. To herself. She’d been counting down since we’d contacted the Raptor, like saying it would make it true.
My shoulder ached where the plasma burn was still healing. The new scales were pale green, tender, not quite right. They’d probably never be right. Add it to the collection. The vibro-blade wound in my side pulled every time I breathed too deep. I’d been rating the pain at a five, but it was creeping toward six. The autodoc we’d paid for had been a hack job. Probably used veterinary sutures.
Still better than most of my accommodations for the last eight years.
Maris’s emotions bled through at the edges. Paranoia. Justified. Exhaustion. Understandable. And that specific flavor of rage she reserved for things not going to plan. The Raptor was technically late by her calculations, though still within their eighteen-hour window. She’d already plotted seventeen different reasons for the delay, ranging from “navigation error” to “everyone’s dead.”
She was usually an optimist like that.
“They’ll make it,” I said.
“I know.” She didn’t stop pacing. “Serak doesn’t do late. Former spec ops. They don’t do late unless?—”
“Unless they’re being careful. Which they are. Because they’re not idiots.”
She shot me a look that said she knew I was right but didn’t want to admit it.
A fight broke out in the corridor. Not unusual, except this one involved automatic weapons. The sharp clatter of projectile rounds punched through our thin walls, leaving neat holes that let in strips of dingy light. We both hit the floor, waited. The shooting stopped. Someone screamed. Then gurgled. Then nothing.
“We should have stolen a ship,” Maris said against the floor.
“With what fuel? What navigation codes? What registration that wouldn’t get us shot down the moment we left dock?”
“Details.” She rolled onto her back, stared at the ceiling. “I hate when you’re logical.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.” She turned her head to look at me. “But I hate this waiting. I’m not built for waiting. I’m built for action, planning, moving. This sitting still while everything goes to hell around us is?—”
An alarm blared.
Not the Haven’s general alert. This was different. Sharper. The proximity alarm from the docking bay we could see from our window.
Maris was at the narrow viewport before I could stand. I joined her, had to duck to see through the grimy transparent aluminum. A ship was settling onto the landing pad below. Not the Raptor’s distinctive profile—the Raptor looked like what it was, a converted military frigate. This ship was sleek, aggressive, civilian.
Very familiar.
“No,” Maris breathed. Her face had gone pale. “No, that’s impossible.”
It was her personal ship. The one we’d abandoned in the hidden hangar when we’d fled The Quarry.
