Chapter 7
Vesh, Xandraxian Space
We jumped at dawn. The Wraith passed through the Gate alone and came out at the dark edge of Xandraxian space under minimum power.
The transition released us without sound.
One moment, the blue curve of Velerion hung behind us.
The next, a dying red sun filled the canopy.
Priya stared at the planet ahead. Xandrax.
Queen Raya’s home world was eighty times the size of Earth, ringed with orbital platforms, defense stations, and more shipyards than our intelligence had predicted.
Construction frames glowed in the red light.
Warships moved between them in slow, disciplined formations.
The Dark Fleet had abandoned Raya. She should have been running out of ships, weapons, and allies. She was not.
“That’s a lot of bad guys,” Priya said.
“Yes.”
“Is that your official military assessment?”
“The official assessment contains more profanity.”
She glanced at me. “On a scale of one to we’re-definitely-going-to-die?”
“We are not going to die.”
“You didn’t give me a number.”
“Because the scale is stupid.”
“So, eight?”
“Priya.”
“Nine. Got it.”
She looked back at the planet. Her hands remained steady on the controls, but our bond mark sent a faint edge of tension through my neck.
I wanted to touch her. After the previous night, I wanted to do far more than touch her.
Her taste had followed me into sleep, when I managed to sleep at all.
Now she sat within reach in a fitted flight suit, and I was expected to behave like an officer. An unreasonable requirement.
“Stop staring,” she said.
“I am monitoring your condition.” That was the truth. She had emerged from her rooms with a coldness in her gaze I'd never seen before. The warm, smart-mouthed female I expected did not make an appearance. This Priya was analytical and calculating. Lacking warmth or emotion.
Exactly what I'd told her I wanted.
Stupid fucking asshole. She was right. I was an asshole. I hated this version of her even as I understood I was the cause.
"I'm fine." Even her voice was off. The two words were clipped short and contained zero humor.
“Your pulse is elevated.”
“We’re sneaking up on an enemy planet.”
“That is not the only reason.” I hoped.
Her cheeks darkened and I cursed myself for breaking every rule I'd repeated to myself on loop last night.
She wasn't mine. Not yet. Not really. I couldn't afford to be distracted.
I couldn't allow emotion to dictate my choices.
I couldn't hesitate if we were attacked or worry about her safety.
I couldn't be afraid of losing her or making a mistake.
Those were the actions of a fool. A foolish male led around by his cock trying to get himself—and his bondmate—killed.
Bondmate. The word made me shudder as I opened the tactical display.
I was a complete fucking idiot. She was already mine.
I already cared too much. All I'd managed to do was hurt her and deny us both a night of pleasure.
“The Wraith is nearly invisible, not invulnerable. We approach the moon on passive systems. No active scans. No weapons. No unnecessary power use.”
"I read the mission brief." Her hand moved over the pilot's controls with an ease I admired. She truly was every bit as skilled as Tavik had been. Perhaps even more so.
“What did it say about kissing your copilot.”
“No need to worry about that.” She adjusted the ship's drift angle with one of the thrusters and didn't even look at me.
“Disappointing.” What the hell was I doing? The sidelong glance she gave me—combined with the glare—let me know she had not missed my teasing.
“What kind of game are you playing?”
“No game.”
"Last night, you—. Never mind. I don't have time to worry about this right now." She muttered under her breath, and I made it my mission not to hear a single word.
Once we returned to base, I would convince her of my sincerity. Beg her forgiveness. I'd been an idiot, denying us both. Right now, I needed to focus on keeping us both alive.
The moon we'd come to inspect appeared as a black circle against the red planet.
Our target position lay on the moon's far side, hidden from Xandrax and most of the orbital defense grid.
Reaching it required crossing two sensor lanes and the outer edge of a patrol route without producing enough heat to distinguish the Wraith from drifting rock.
Priya reduced power before I gave the order.
The cockpit lights dimmed. Life support dropped to mission minimum.
The engines went silent beneath our feet, and the temperature began to fall.
“Hold this vector,” I said. “The moon’s gravity will pull us across the first sensor lane. Do not correct unless I tell you.”
“We’re falling sideways.”
“Precisely.”
“I like it.”
“Of course you do.”
We drifted. A Xandraxian sensor sweep passed across the tactical display, a thin red line moving toward us.
“Sweep in twelve seconds,” I said.
“Heat profile?” she asked.
“Within limits.”
“Not ours. The rock off the port side.”
I checked. A fragment of the moon rotated three kilometers away, its sunward surface radiating more heat than the Wraith.
“What about it?”
“It’s going to shadow us too soon.”
“We will clear it by six hundred meters.”
“No, we won't. It's going to reflect heat off our hull and give away our position.” Her right hand moved toward the thruster control.
“Do not fire,” I warned. “Their sensor sweep will detect the ignition.”
“Then give me three percent from the attitude jets.”
“That will not alter our path enough.”
“It doesn’t have to. The moon will do the rest.”
"There is no room for the ship." I studied her projected line. The maneuver looked wrong. Then the rock completed another half rotation. Its irregular mass changed the local pull, and Priya’s line curved into the narrow space between it and the sensor drone doing the sweep.
The opening for our ship appeared as if she had magically summoned it.
“Now,” she whispered and tapped the jet once. The Wraith slid behind the rock fragment as the sensor sweep passed. For five seconds, our entire ship disappeared inside the rock’s thermal signature. Then gravity drew us clear on the other side. No alarm. No weapons lock. Priya exhaled.
“You doubted me,” she said. "That drone almost caught us."
“My apologies. You were right.”
“You questioned me and put the mission, and our lives, at risk.”
“I will be sure to reprimand myself in the report.”
"You have no reason to be distracted. You made sure of that. So, don't do that again."
I looked at her hands on the controls. Perfectly steady. Her hurt hung in the air between us like a physical thing. Fuck. I'd made a bigger mistake than I'd thought. “I will not make the same mistake again.”
We crossed the second sensor lane without activating any of their killer drones and let the moon pull us into shadow.
The planet vanished. Red light disappeared from the cockpit.
Only the dim green of our instruments remained.
Priya activated the Wraith’s passive recording array while I aligned the sensor vanes toward the shipyards.
“Position locked,” she said.
“Beginning scans.”
The first data arrived slowly. Passive sensors collected whatever radiation, engine heat, and reflected light reached us. No signal left the Wraith. We were listening to the enemy breathe from behind a door.
“Yard one,” I said. “Four capital hulls under construction. Twelve support frames.”
Priya entered the count. “Intelligence expected two capital hulls total.”
“Correct. Yard two. Seven destroyers in final assembly.”
“That’s not rebuilding. That’s mass production.”
“Yes.”
“Where are they getting the material?”
“That is why we are here.”
We worked through the yards one by one. Fourteen active construction sites.
Three orbital foundries that our intelligence believed had been destroyed.
Forty-one military hulls in various stages of completion.
Supply traffic moved between them in constant streams. Priya enlarged one of the passive images.
“Those freighters don’t match the others. ”
“Explain.”
“The Xandraxian ships stay in assigned lanes. Same spacing, same speed, clean handoffs. Those six came in together, crossed two lanes without clearance, and every local ship moved out of their way.”
I reviewed the track. She was right.
“No transponders,” I said.
“Friends don’t usually need to hide who they are.”
“They do if the friendship violates half the treaties in the Alliance.”
I redirected the recording array. The unidentified freighters were too far away for a hull match, but their engine signatures and approach vectors would give intelligence something to trace.
“Good catch, Scout.”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“This is not the sim bay.”
“Coward.”
“Focused coward.”
Her smile flashed in the dark. We remained in position for four hours.
Deep reconnaissance is not the constant danger civilians imagine.
Most of it is waiting without moving. The cockpit grew cold as every nonessential system remained shut down.
The canopy chilled first, then the deck, then the controls beneath our gloves.
Priya flexed her fingers between entries to keep them responsive.
“Cold?” I asked.
“No. I’m doing hand exercises for fun.”
I reached under the console, retrieved the emergency thermal layer, and handed it to her.
“What about you?”
“I am Velerion.”
“Does that make you weatherproof?”
“It makes me less likely to complain.”
“That’s not what living with you has taught me.”
She spread the layer across both our laps.
“It is designed for one scout,” I said.
“Then scoot closer.”
“That is a poor idea.”
“Hypothermia is a worse one.”
She tugged the thermal layer toward me. Our thighs pressed together from knee to hip. Heat transferred immediately through the flight suits. My cock remembered the previous night. So did the bond. Priya looked at me. “You’re thinking very loudly.”