Page 5 of Hunted By the Wraiths
My cantina. Wrecked. Bodies littered the floor, three attackers, two of my own. My gaze landed on the one by the door. Jax. His eyes were open, staring at the cracked ceiling, blaster still clutched in his hand. Dead.
Thoryn turned. He moved so fast I almost missed it, none of the hesitation or pain I’d glimpsed moments before. Scales now smeared with blood. His amber eyes, slitted pupils narrowed, scanned the room, dismissed the dead, found me. The heat rolling off him was almost visible.
I raised my blaster again, centering it on his chest. Habit. Assess the threat. He was the biggest threat in the room. Always had been.
“You came back,” I said. My voice sounded flat in the sudden quiet. Accusing. Stating the impossible fact. “And brought assassins.”
“They were coming anyway.” His voice was a low rumble, deeper than I remembered, rougher. “For you.” He took a steptoward me, through the debris. Winced, a sharp breath hissing through his teeth. He pushed through it. “Consortium. Wants your data.”
It made no sense. From my comm, Grevik’s voice crackled – he ran station surveillance feed for me, bless his paranoid efficiency – sharp, urgent. “Boss. More inbound. Station cams show three vehicles converging on Sector Gamma entrance. Armed heavy. Twenty plus.”
Twenty more. Now. When my security forces were at the other side of the station.
Against the remaining handful of guards?
Bad odds. Terrible odds.
I finally looked away from Thoryn. Scanned the wreckage. My empire. Burning before it was even fully built. All that work. All the surviving. For this.
When I looked back, the decision was made. Grief could wait. Survival came first. Always.
“Fine.” My voice was cold again. Back in control. “I’ll come with you.” I holstered my weapon. Felt the weight shift, familiar, grounding. “Later. We talk.”
He just nodded. Once. Sharp. The pain seemed momentarily banked behind pure focus. “Fair.”
I turned to where Vashil was helping one of the wounded guards. Her face was pale, streaked with dust. “Vashil?—”
“Boss,” she cut me off, her voice tight. “Grevik’s right. And... Jax. He’s... he’s gone.”
He’d been loyal. None more dedicated. He didn’t deserve to be left, but I’d learned long ago that the dead didn’t care about the living.
“Vashil. Evacuate everyone who can walk. Contingency plan Theta – seal Tunnel Four access behind us! Now! Torch the manifests in the Admin Block vault. Burn everything. Go!”
She met my eyes. Saw the order was final. Nodded. Moved. Good people. Loyal. I hoped they’d make it.
I grabbed my survival pack from behind the bar. Pre-loaded. I also palmed the small, shielded data chip from the hidden panel beneath the counter. My personal backup. I was always ready to run. Just hadn’t expected it to come with a ghost.
I looked at Thoryn. He stood waiting, a massive, scaled wall between me and the door. Ready. “Lead.”
He moved toward the back exit, the one leading into the deeper service tunnels and I fell in beside him. Who knew that habits from almost a decade ago could still feel so right.
“Thoryn.”
He stopped at the tunnel entrance. Looked back at me, his eyes were hard to read in the dim emergency lighting.
“Don’t die again.” My voice was rough. “Doing this once was enough.”
A low sound rumbled in his chest. Almost a chuckle, strangled by pain or maybe something else. “Deal.”
The heavy service door slid open onto a narrow tunnel, rough-hewn rock slick with condensation. The air hit me, thick with the smell of machine oil, and cold, damp rock dust. I could hear the whine of grav-engines now, close. Echoing down the main access corridors. They were already inside the station.
We ran.
I led him through the maze I knew better than my own skin, my boots splashing through stale water. The sounds of pursuit echoed from the main concourse behind us, a chaos of shouts and heavy boots on metal. They were clumsy. Loud. But numerous.
I didn’t take the direct route. I took mine. Down a rusted ladder into a ventilation sub-level, through a narrow crawlspace choked with abandoned conduit, and into a section of tunnelsmarked “Unstable” on all official station schematics. They were stable enough.
He followed without question, his size a liability in the narrow passages. I heard his shoulder scales scrape against the rock, heard the harsh drag of his breathing in the enclosed space. It was too loud. Too ragged.
