Page 7 of Hunted By the Wraiths
His crew. Of course he had a new crew now.
He didn’t seem to notice the flash of pain that lanced through me.
THORYN
“We hit a Consortium facility.” Now that the shock of the bond was settling in, it was a little easier to speak. “Found data on something called the Synthesis Project. Our data guy’s analysis... he thinks you were a key logistics runner. Your shipping logs are the only thing that can tell us where their main black site is.”
I could almost see her mind working, cataloging. She was running the numbers, checking her memory. “And?”
“Consortium wants them suppressed. Permanently.” I didn’t need to elaborate. She got it. She understood they didn’t suppress parking tickets. She understood what it meant if they were this desperate, that the manifests were critical. That she was critical. And expendable. I saw her expression harden. The old Maris. The survivor.
Right. Mission. Assessment. Time to report in. I pulled the encrypted comm unit from my vest pocket. Keyed in Serak’s frequency. Short-burst, tight-beam transmission. Waited for the handshake signal through layers of rock and station interference. Three seconds. Four. Connection established.
“Thoryn.” Serak’s voice crackled, distorted but recognizable. “Status.”
“Contact made.” I kept my voice low. “Compromised. Station’s thick with contractors. Heavy armament.”
“Understood. Hostile count?”
“Seven down in initial contact. An ally reported twenty-plus reinforcements converging.” I glanced at Maris. “We evaded. Currently secure, location unknown to hostiles.”
“Diversions are active,” Serak confirmed. “Zevik is disrupting traffic control near the main docking hub. Ressh and Alix are probing their network security. Estimate four hours maximum before Core assets deploy sector-level containment. Move fast. Keep her alive.”
“Affirmative. Thoryn out.”
I killed the connection. Slid the comm unit back into my pocket. Silence fell again. Just the low hum of the life support and our breathing in the cramped, cold space. Maris hadn’t moved. Still watching. Waiting.
I watched Maris on her datapad. The pain was a constant, fiery pressure in my head, a distraction that made it hard to think. But as I watched her work... the pressure seemed to recede, pushed back by the pure, cold logic of her planning. For a second, the pain didn’t vanish, but it lessened. I realized the conditioning was just a layer of noise. She was the focus.
Maris spoke, her voice flat and all business. “The data you need. I have it. It’s not in one place. I split it into three caches. The first is at the shipyard.”
“Can we still get there?” I asked. “We have to assume the attackers have sealed those tunnels.”
“Assume they have,” she said. “We’ll find another way.”
Her fingers moved across the surface of the pad, pulling up schematics. The Quarry. This hollowed-out rock, riddled with tunnels.
“Alternate route.” She traced a glowing line with one finger. A smaller, older service conduit. “It takes longer, butit avoids the main security chokepoints. Comes up through the abandoned ore processing sublevels. Should exit into the shipyard’s main service bay, near the old processor housing.”
“That’s a solid plan.”
Something moved in her expression. Gone quickly. She stood smoothly, pack slung over one shoulder, blaster held ready. I straightened carefully from the floor, my head scraping against the low, curved ceiling.
She moved toward a shadowed recess that turned out to be a concealed weapons locker built into the rock wall. Inside, neatly racked: plasma pistols, spare charge packs, two pulse rifles, compact concussion grenades. A comprehensive medkit.
“Gear check.” She grabbed one of the pulse rifles. She checked the charge pack, slid it home. “We won’t get another chance once we’re moving.”
I took inventory. My own sidearm charge was decent. Knife secure in my boot sheath. The pulse rifle I’d taken from the ceiling attacker. She handed me a reinforced vest with armor plates, but there was no way it would fit me. I cut open the side seams, tossed it on anyway. Better than nothing. I hoped.
“Ready?” she asked, turning toward the hidden exit panel.
“Yes.”
She triggered the panel release. The corridor beyond, another narrow service tunnel, appeared empty. Silent except for the low hum of the station’s environmental systems and the faint drip of condensation somewhere nearby. We moved out, silent, side-by-side but not touching. Into the maze again.
The maintenance tunnels twisted, following old mining routes. She walked without hesitation, checking corners, listening. Down another rusted access ladder, hand over hand into deeper darkness. Through a section where the floor plating had rusted through. Past dormant, dust-choked ore haulers.
We heard voices twice. Distant shouts. Both times she pulled us into shadowed alcoves, waited, listening. Patrol boots clanged past somewhere above or below. We kept going. Deeper into the rock.
