11. Nyra #2
The shaft opens up into a larger chamber—a secondary relay station for the ship's environmental controls.
I crawl through a narrow gap between two massive coolant tanks, my skin prickling from the static electricity.
The tanks whine at a pitch just below hearing, fluttering through my ribs and into my teeth.
Condensation drips from the ceiling in fat, warm drops that smell like iron and burnt sugar.
I pause, pressing my back against the tank.
My hands are shaking—from the adrenaline, from the sick, electric thrill of doing something monumentally stupid on a ship that can feel me breathing.
I flex my fingers, trying to work the tremor out.
Somewhere above me, a ventilation shaft exhales a long, breathy sigh, and for one terrible second I’m sure Virex Prime is about to seal the chamber and crush me flat. The moment passes. I keep moving.
"K-Seven, scan for hangar access," I order quietly.
"Unit detects a pressurized seal forty meters above our current position," the drone responds. "But the atmospheric density is fluctuating. The ship is aware of the intrusion, Nyra. Unit suggests we stop being thieves and return to being captives. It is much safer for Unit’s chassis."
I scramble up a ladder made of hardened, obsidian-like rungs.
I reach the secondary atmospheric vents.
Thinness settles here, cold enough to make my lungs ache.
I bypass the first two security locks, my fingers flying over the organic keypads.
Almost there, the hangar doors’ outline appears through a small observation port.
The atmosphere shifts just as the climb reaches three levels up. The purple illumination in the vent turns a sickly, flashing red. Virex Prime knows and lets out a snarl. The air pressure drops suddenly, making my ears pop.
"K-Seven, how much longer?" I yell.
"Warning!" the drone shrieks, its voice spiking to a note that stabs behind my eyes. "Localized gravity shift! The ship is detecting a foreign interface. The secondary ventilation grate is?—"
The floor beneath me vanishes as the gravity flips. An impact with the side of the vent sends a sharp bark of pain through my shoulder as it hits the hard alloy. Before I can scramble back to the safety of the main shaft, the heavy panel at the end of the vent slams down like a hydraulic press.
I am not fast enough.
A sharp, white-hot agony lances through my forearm as the metal teeth of the ship snap down on my wrist. I scream, a raw, grating sound that echoes hollowly. It is a deep, crushing pain that turns the world into a blur of gray and red. Pinned, caught in the ship’s jaws like a rat in a trap.
"K-Seven! Help!" I sob, my breath coming in shallow, frantic puffs.
The drone hovers helplessly. "Unit cannot override! The Commander has locked the sector! Unit’s attempts to intervene are being met with the digital equivalent of a slap to the face!"
I yank back, trying to pull my arm free, but the movement only makes the pain worse.
The ship’s teeth grind against the bone.
Blood, dark and far too hot, begins to soak through my flight suit, dripping onto the iridescent floor below.
While trapped in the dark, I watch my own life leak out onto the black stone.
The silence that follows my scream develops into a heavy, expectant void. Life drains out of me, a creeping, cold sensation spreading through my veins.
"Draevik..." I gasp in a broken whisper.
The air in the vent suddenly ignites with a presence—a massive, overwhelming surge of energy that create goosebumps along my arms. The shadows at the end of the shaft coalesce into a solid mass.
Draevik manifests.
He appears on the narrow maintenance catwalk just outside the vent.
He is simply there, a wall of ash-grey skin and cold fury.
The veins beneath the surface are flickering with such intensity that they cast long, dancing shadows.
The mark on his chest appears to be a blaring sun, a surging light that matches the frantic pounding of my heart.
His eyes burn like blazing pits of fire, and his face carves itself into something like iron.
"What have you done?" he roars in disbelief.
"I was—I just wanted—" I can't finish the sentence. The pain pulls me under like fog. I sag against the panel, my knees buckling.
Draevik is across the space in a heartbeat. He moves like a crushing impact, a blur of motion that defies the gravity he just manipulated. He slams a massive hand against the wall beside the panel, his knuckles turning white as he strains against the ship’s own will.
"Release her!" he roars, the command echoing in the alien tongue of the Reapers, coming out as a snarl of absolute authority. The bioluminescence around us flickers and dies, leaving only the amber sheen of his skin to light the dark.
Virex Prime groans, a low, sub-vocal tremor of protest. The panel progressively, reluctantly, recedes. My arm falls free, and my body follows, slipping out of the vent.
I expect to hit the hard bio-mat floor. But I never hit the ground. Instead, Draevik catches me.
His hands are massive, wrapping around my torso with a grip that is terrifyingly strong and strangely delicate.
He hauls me against his chest, his breathing heavy and ragged.
He exudes a heat that burns with furnace-like intensity.
His hearts are thundering against my back, two distinct, powerful frequencies.
He is shaking.
The High Commander is palpitating with a tension so thick I can taste it.
He drags me away from the vent, handling me roughly, his movements jerky with a frantic, contradictory care.
He supports my neck, his fingers brushing against my skin with a lightness that contradicts the fury in his eyes.
He is checking my vitals, his large hands moving over my body.
"You foolish, small creature," he growls, but the words sound like a sob.
He looks at my arm, at the mangled, bleeding mess the ship made of my wrist. His features are drawn so hard I hear bone creak.
The expression on his face looks to be disproportionate, confusing protectiveness.
Anger is absent over my attempt to escape.
Fury is absent over my breaking into his archives and seeing the secrets of his past.
He is furious that I am hurt.
He holds me tighter, his large palm pressing against my shoulder as if he were shielding me from the very ship he commands.
I look up at him through the haze of my tears, and I observe the mask failing.
His gaze excludes prisoner classification, excludes battery assessment, and excludes leverage utility.
His gaze on me holds a weight that suggests nothing else in the universe matters.
The realization hits me harder than the pain in my arm.
I broke into his archives. I tried to run.
I triggered a security breach that could have compromised the entire ship.
And he says nothing about any of it. No interrogation, no restraint.
He cradles my wrist like the blood on my skin is the only emergency in the universe.
Something fractures in the constructed wall around my perception of him.
The damage resists repair. This exceeds strategy.
This is beyond control. A man prioritizing my survival over every parameter of his engineered logic.
He stands there, a bronze giant in a sea of blazing violet light, holding a bleeding scavenger as if she were the only thing left in the galaxy worth saving. He looks down at the blood on his hands—my blood—and his eyes widen with a sudden, sharp clarity. He is choosing me over the mission.
"Stay with me, Nyra," he pleads, the sound so soft I almost miss it over the noise of the ship.
I try to speak, but the words are caught in my throat. I can only lean into him, my head resting against the hard muscle of his chest. The smell of him—ozone and ancient spice—is what keeps me grounded.
I see a male who fears being alone in the dark. "Draevik..." I choke out, the name a heavy weight in my throat.
He simply turns and begins to carry me back toward the Sanctum, his strides long and urgent, his gaze never leaving my face.
He only looks at me, his eyes glossy with an intensity that promises the stars will fall before he lets go.
He ignores the maintenance shaft. He ignores K-Seven, who follows us in a silent, hovering panic.
The weight of him—his heat, his strength—is overwhelming.
I want to lean into the warmth. I want to understand why a High Commander would risk his ship for a girl with a pulse-welder and a mountain of debt.
As the doors to the Sanctum hiss open, I realize the rules have changed.
The hunter takes his prey—and chooses to keep it safe from the world.
As the dais takes the weight, the scavenger fades, leaving only the one responsible for teaching a ghost how to live.