Page 3 of Claimed By the Wraiths

“Nothing we talk about. Come on.”

“Where are you going?” she asked, already keeping pace.

I was moving back toward the junction, looking for another way around the blast doors. There was a service conduit on the station schematic.

Narrow. Meant for maintenance access, not people.

“You won’t fit through that,” Alix said.

“I’ll fit.”

“You won’t fit through that and fight on the other side.”

“Watch me.”

The conduit access was behind a panel that took three seconds to rip off the wall. The space inside was barely wide enough for my shoulders. I went in, feet first, pulling myself through on my back, equipment scraping against the walls.

“Serak.” Jessa’s voice in my ear. “I can hear them on the other side of the far door. They’re cutting through.”

I moved faster. The conduit turned, dropped and opened into a ceiling space above the relay room. Through the grating, Jessa was at the terminal below, still working, blaster in her free hand.

The far door was glowing along one edge. They were coming through.

I kicked the grating out and dropped into the room.

Jessa spun and nearly shot me.

“It’s me.”

“I know it’s you. Don’t do that.” She turned back to the terminal. “Forty seconds.”

The far door’s edge was cherry-red now. I put myself between her and it, pulled the blaster, and waited.

“Twenty seconds.”

The door buckled.

“Ten.”

Metal screamed as the cut section fell inward.

“Done.” She yanked the data core and shoved it inside her jacket. “Go.”

I grabbed her arm and hauled her toward the conduit access. “You first. Up and to the right.”

“I know. I memorized the schematic too.” She jumped, caught the edge, and pulled herself up. I followed, boosting her feet when she slowed.

Behind us, voices. Boots. They were in the relay room.

We moved through the conduit faster than should have been possible. Alix waited at the other end, covering the corridor.

“Thoryn, we’re clear. Fall back to extraction.”

“Already moving.”

Zevik had the Raptor at the docking port with the engines hot. Maris was running the gun arrays from the secondary console.

We made the ship in ninety seconds. The outer hatch sealed, and Zevik had us undocked and burning before the airlock finished repressurizing.