Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The plasma bolt scorched past Doren’s ear close enough to singe fur.
He threw himself sideways, firing blind over his shoulder as he crashed through an ancient doorway. Stone dust exploded from the frame where another shot struck, showering him with debris that smelled of ages past and something sharper—ozone, fear, the acrid tang of Grorn weapon discharge.
“Emma, move!”
She was already moving, Ari clutched tight against her chest as she sprinted down the corridor ahead of him. The baby wasn’t crying—she’d gone silent the moment the shooting started, as if she understood that noise meant danger. That instinctive quiet might be the only thing keeping them alive.
Doren spun, squeezed off three shots at the hulking silhouettes pursuing them, then ran.
The waystation on Veris IV was supposed to be abandoned.
That’s what the records had indicated—another dormant Precursor facility, waiting for an Aurelian touch to awaken it.
He’d triple-checked the coordinates against both the ancient disk and the information from the first outpost. Everything aligned perfectly.
What the records hadn’t mentioned was the Grorn excavation team already dug in like parasites.
Stupid. He ducked under a collapsed beam, boots skidding on rubble. Should have scanned more thoroughly before landing. Should have—
Another bolt sizzled past, close enough that he felt the heat through his shirt.
“Left!” Emma shouted from somewhere ahead.
He trusted her—had learned to trust her instincts over the past weeks in ways that still surprised him—and veered left without hesitation.
The corridor narrowed, then opened into a chamber filled with equipment that hummed with dormant power.
Precursor technology, half-excavated from the walls, surrounded by Grorn drilling apparatus and portable generators.
They’d been here for weeks, maybe months. Methodically stripping the waystation piece by piece.
And now Doren had delivered a Silver Key directly into their hands.
Emma had pressed herself against the far wall, breathing hard, her brown eyes wide but focused. Ari was tucked into the carrying sling they’d rigged from spare fabric—the baby’s silver skin seemed to pulse faintly in the dim light, reacting to the surrounding technology even in her fear.
“How many?” Emma gasped.
“At least six. Maybe more.” Doren moved to her side, checking his blaster’s charge. Half depleted. He had one spare power cell, nothing else. “They’ve got the main entrance blocked. We need another way out.”
“The ship—”
“Too far. We’d never make it across open ground.” The Vagabond sitting vulnerable on the landing pad a quarter kilometer away, and between them and safety, a killing field of exposed terrain that the Grorn would cover with weapons fire the moment they emerged.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the corridor they’d just left. Multiple sets, moving with the deliberate coordination of warriors who knew their quarry was trapped.
Doren’s tail lashed against his leg—a nervous tell he’d never fully suppressed. He forced himself to think, to push past the fear clawing at his chest. There had to be another option. There was always another option.
Except when there isn’t.
“Give us the child.” The voice was deep, resonant, speaking Galactic Standard with the harsh accent of the Grorn homeworld. “Surrender it now, and we will let you live.”
Emma’s arms tightened around Ari. “Like hell.”
Doren positioned himself between her and the entrance, raising his blaster. “Generous offer. I’ve got a counter-proposal.”
A massive figure stepped into the chamber—a Grorn commander, easily eight feet tall, his mottled-grey scales gleaming in the equipment’s ambient light.
The fanged skull insignia on his uniform marked him as Order of Eternal Night, a true believer.
Behind him, more warriors filled the corridor, their weapons trained and ready.
“You are Doren va Karr.” The commander’s black eyes studied him with cold recognition. “The treasure hunter. We’ve been monitoring your activities for some time.”
“Flattered. I’d love to catch up, but—”
“You have something we want.” The commander’s gaze shifted to Emma, to the small silver form visible in the sling at her chest. “The Key. We will take it now.”
“She’s not a thing.” Emma’s voice was steady despite the terror Doren could see in her trembling hands. “She’s a baby. A child.”
“It is a tool. A mechanism. Nothing more.” The commander gestured, and his warriors began spreading out, flanking them. “Cooperate, and your deaths will be quick. Resist, and we will make you watch as we dissect the creature piece by piece, searching for the secrets encoded in its flesh.”
Doren’s blood went cold.
He’d heard stories about what the Grorn did to captured Aurelians. The records in the first waystation had shown him images that still haunted his sleep. But hearing it stated so casually, so matter-of-factly, made his finger tighten on the trigger.
Six warriors. Half a power cell. Emma and Ari behind him, no combat training, nowhere to run.
The numbers didn’t add up. They never would.
I’m sorry, he thought, not sure who he was apologizing to. Emma. Ari. The universe that had finally given him something worth protecting, only to snatch it away.
And then Ari began to glow.
It started as a soft luminescence, barely visible against the equipment’s ambient light. But it intensified rapidly, spreading from the baby’s silver skin in waves that pulsed with an almost musical rhythm.
The Precursor machinery responded.
Dormant systems flared to life throughout the chamber. Displays activated, showing streams of data in languages Doren couldn’t read. The humming increased in pitch and volume, building towards something that felt like anticipation.
The Grorn commander’s eyes widened. “Seize them! Now!”
His warriors surged forward—and the floor opened beneath their feet.
It happened too fast to track. Panels that had seemed solid stone retracted in perfect synchronization, revealing shafts that dropped into darkness. Four of the six Grorn vanished, their startled roars cut short by the distant sound of impact.
The commander and one warrior managed to leap clear, but the machinery wasn’t finished. Cables whipped from the walls—not cables, Doren realized, but some kind of automated defense system, tentacle-like appendages that moved with terrifying speed and precision.
The remaining warrior was wrapped and dragged screaming into an alcove that sealed behind him with a hiss of ancient pneumatics.
The commander fired wildly, his plasma bolts striking equipment that sparked and smoked but kept functioning. The tentacles closed in from multiple directions, forcing him back towards the corridor.
“This isn’t over!” The commander’s voice was ragged with fury. “We will find you! We will hunt you across the galaxy! The Key belongs to—”
The tentacles seized him.
Doren didn’t wait to see what happened next. He grabbed Emma’s arm and ran.
The waystation guided them.
There was no other explanation. Doors opened ahead of them, closed behind them, corridors lit up to show the path while others plunged into darkness. Ari’s glow pulsed steadily, almost contentedly, as if she was having a conversation with the ancient systems that Doren couldn’t hear.
“What’s happening?” Emma gasped as they ran.
“The facility’s protecting her.” Doren pulled her around a corner, following lights that flickered in sequence. “She activated its defenses somehow. The Precursors must have built in countermeasures against exactly this kind of intrusion.”
“The Grorn—”
“Dealt with. For now.” He didn’t want to think about what “dealt with” meant. The waystation had shown no mercy, no restraint. These systems had been dormant for twelve thousand years, waiting for an Aurelian to awaken them.
Waiting for something to protect.
They burst out of a side entrance he hadn’t known existed, emerging into the harsh sunlight of Veris IV. The Vagabond sat on the landing pad ahead, untouched, its ramp already lowering as Doren’s emergency signal reached the ship’s automated systems.
“Go! Get aboard!”
Emma sprinted for the ship while Doren covered their retreat, scanning for any Grorn who might have remained outside. The excavation camp was visible in the distance—prefab shelters, vehicles, equipment—but no movement. Either everyone had been inside the waystation, or they were regrouping.
He didn’t intend to stay long enough to find out which.
The ramp sealed behind him as he dove into the cargo bay. Emma was already strapping into the co-pilot’s seat, Ari still clutched against her chest, when he reached the cockpit.
“Punch it,” she said.
He punched it.
The Vagabond screamed upward, her engines howling in protest as Doren pushed them past their rated capacity.
G-forces pressed him into his seat, but he didn’t ease off—couldn’t ease off, not until they’d broken atmosphere, not until the stars surrounded them and hyperspace was just a button-press away.
A proximity alarm shrieked.
“Grorn ship,” Emma reported, her voice tight. “Coming up fast from the planet’s far side. They must have been in orbit.”
Doren’s hands flew across the controls. “How long until we can jump?”
“Navigation says... four minutes to safe distance.”
The pursuing ship was faster than the Vagabond. Newer, military-grade, built for exactly this kind of chase. Doren could see it on the sensors, closing the gap with every second.
Three minutes fifty seconds.
The first volley of weapons fire lit up the void behind them.
Doren flew like a demon.
Every trick he’d learned in twenty years of smuggling, every desperate maneuver that had kept him alive through a dozen near-misses with law enforcement and pirates and worse—he threw them all at the problem.
Rolling the ship to present a smaller target, using the planet’s gravity well for a slingshot burst of speed, cutting thrust at unexpected moments to throw off targeting solutions.
The Grorn kept coming.