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.
“I destroyed the tracking beacon,” she said. Her voice had gone flat. The dangerous kind of flat that preceded significant violence. “I checked three times. Primary, secondary, and the backup. I pulled them out physically.”
“You checked the standard beacons.” The voice came from the door. Female. Familiar. Amused.
We both turned. Vashil stood in our doorway, flanked by two Consortium soldiers in full combat armor.
Real armor, not the knock-off stuff mercs wore.
Military grade, with the kind of sensor packages that meant they could see us breathing through smoke.
Vashil looked exactly like she had when Maris had let her live four days ago. Clean, composed, smiling.
I hated her smile.
“Hello, boss,” Vashil said. “Miss me?”
Maris’s blaster was in her hand before Vashil finished talking. I moved to flank her, ignoring the protest from my wounds. Eight by ten feet. No cover. One bed, two blasters, and a death wish.
“Backup tracker,” Vashil continued, like we were having a casual conversation over drinks. “Hardwired into the nav system’s quantum processor. Microscopic. Even you wouldn’t think to look there. Cost me a fortune to have it installed two years ago, but I believe in long-term investments.”
Two years ago. Before I’d come back. Vashil had been planning this betrayal since long before I’d shown up to complicate Maris’s life.
“You sold us out.” Maris’s voice could have frozen helium.
“Sold implies past tense.” Vashil’s smile widened. She was enjoying this. “I’m selling you out. Present tense. Important distinction. The Consortium is paying very well for both of you. Alive, specifically. Though they were clear that ‘mostly alive’ would be acceptable.”
More footsteps in the corridor. Heavy. Multiple. I counted at least six more sets of boots. No, eight. No, twelve. They weren’t taking chances.
My assessment was brief and depressing. The math wasn’t good.
“You were my lieutenant,” Maris said. “For six years. I trusted you.”
“Your first mistake.” Vashil checked her chrono. “Well, not your first. Your first was letting sentiment cloud your judgment. Building an empire on grief? Very poetic. Very stupid. You went soft when your lizard came back.”
I felt Maris’s rage spike. Not hot rage. Cold. The kind that preceded very careful, very thorough violence.
“Second mistake,” Vashil continued, clearly enjoying her monologue, “was letting me live. I mean, really? Mercy? From the Smuggler Queen? You used to execute people for looking at you wrong. But you let me walk because what, you were feeling generous? Sentimental? Or just tired?”
“I let you live because I thought you were smart enough to stay down.”
“Third mistake. I’m very smart. Smart enough to know the Consortium would pay more for you than I’d ever make running your leftovers.
Do you know what they’re offering? Not just credits.
Territory. My own station. Legitimate shipping licenses.
A future that doesn’t involve looking over my shoulder for one of your assassins. ”
“I don’t have assassins anymore. You sold them out too.”
“True.” Vashil’s smile turned predatory. “But you would have. Eventually. Once you remembered who you were. The Queen doesn’t forgive. She might delay revenge, but she doesn’t forgive. We both know I was living on borrowed time.”
She wasn’t wrong. I could feel it—Maris had already been planning Vashil’s death. Not today, not tomorrow, but eventually. When things were settled. When it would send the right message.
“Thirty seconds,” Vashil announced. “You have thirty seconds before my new friends get impatient and come in shooting. I’d prefer you surrender. Less messy. Less paperwork. But I get paid either way.”
I felt Maris processing. Angles, distances, probabilities. How many she could kill before they killed her. How many I could take with me. The math wasn’t good.
“Twenty seconds.”
“You should have stayed down,” Maris told her. “When I gave you the chance.”
“Fifteen seconds. And no, I shouldn’t have. I should have done this years ago. Before you met him. Before you went soft. When you were still the Queen who’d burn a station to make a point.”
“Ten seconds.”
The corridor filled with more Consortium soldiers. I counted twelve visible, probably more outside. They had pulse rifles, shock batons, and the kind of coordinated movement that meant actual training. These weren’t conscripts or mercenaries. These were proper Consortium forces. Elite units.
They’d sent elite units for us. It was a terrifying compliment.
“Five seconds.”
I touched Maris’s shoulder. Light contact.
Not yet.
She got it. Her finger eased off the trigger. Fractionally.
“Time’s up.”
Maris lowered her blaster. I didn’t.
“Smart choice,” Vashil said. Then, louder, to the soldiers: “We’re coming out. They’re cooperating.”
“Thoryn.” Maris’s voice was steady. Too steady. The calm before the storm. “When I move, you go left.”
“That’s a terrible plan.”
“I know.”
“We’re doing it anyway?”
“Obviously.”
The first soldier entered our room, pulse rifle trained on my chest. The second went for Maris. Bad mistake. Never go for Maris first when I’m in the room. Even injured, even exhausted, even held together with veterinary sutures, I’m always the bigger threat.
Or so they should have assumed.
I grabbed the first soldier’s rifle barrel and yanked. He came forward, off balance, not expecting a half-dead Tamzari to have that kind of speed left. My elbow connected with his throat, right in the gap between helmet and chest plate. He dropped, gasping. I kept the rifle.
Maris had already shot the second soldier. Two rounds, center mass. He collapsed, and she kicked his rifle away without a second glance. Clean work.
Even with Vashil’s betrayal burning in her chest, her movements were ruthlessly efficient.
The doorway erupted in pulse fire.