Page 1 of Claimed By the Wraiths

SERAK

“Thirty seconds,” Deyric said in my ear.

I pressed flat against the corridor wall, Ressh at my six, Thoryn holding the junction behind us. The data relay hummed on the other side of the access door, rows of storage cores packed into a room the size of the Raptor’s mess hall. The corridor smelled like machine oil and cold metal.

Standard Consortium station. Standard security. Standard everything, except what we were here to steal.

Routine extraction. Fourth one in three weeks. Hit the relay, pull the communications data, get out before Consortium security responded.

“Twenty,” Deyric said.

Jessa was already inside. She’d gone in with the first team, Alix on point. Someone had to triage the data on-site.

The first two raids had netted us terabytes of shipping logs we didn’t need. Jessa could tell the difference between intelligence and garbage faster than Deyric’s sorting algorithms. She’d proved that going through that haul afterward, so on the last raid she started going in with the team. I’d stopped arguing about it after that.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like her in a room I couldn’t see into on a station we didn’t control. I didn’t like the fact that I didn’t like it, because a captain shouldn’t care more about one crew member’s position than any other’s.

I cared anyway.

“Fifteen. Patrol change is clean. You’re clear.”

I keyed the door. It slid open and I moved through, Ressh behind me.

The relay room was cold, the kind of cold that meant industrial cooling for the storage cores. Blue indicator lights in long rows, floor to ceiling, casting everything in a flat sterile glow. Jessa was at the central terminal, pulling data, Alix watching the far corridor.

“How much?” I asked.

“Enough to keep Deyric busy for a week.” Jessa didn’t look up. Her fingers moved across the interface, fast, certain. “Communications logs, routing data, and more of that encrypted layer he can’t crack. Pulling it all.”

“Two minutes,” I said. “Then we move.”

“I need four.”

“You have two.”

She glanced up. “I have three, or we leave without the encrypted files, which are the only thing in here we don’t already have.”

“Three.” I turned to check the corridor behind us, one hand on the blaster at my hip. “Ressh.”

“Clear.”

Alix crossed the relay room from the far doorway, voice low. “Movement. Two levels down. Could be the patrol cycling early.”

“Or not,” Ressh said.

“Jessa.”

“Working.”

The first blast door came down without warning. A thick slab of reinforced alloy dropping from the ceiling, sealing the far corridor Alix had just walked away from. The door hit the deck hard enough to vibrate through my boots.

“That wasn’t a patrol,” Alix said.

The second blast door dropped between us and the terminal where Jessa was working. A containment field flashed around the frame, sealing every seam.

She was on the other side. Alone.

“Jessa.” I hit the door. Solid. My fist against the alloy didn’t even echo.