Page 132 of Alien Burn

Dhomhes went down.

By the time he reached the turn, the fighting had stopped. A male was speaking, but the words broke against the running equipment. Dhomhes caught a tone of insolent calm that made him move faster.

Then the passage opened enough for him to see.

Stron held a knife level in the yellow light. His knife. Blood marked Stron's mouth, and his armor stood fully extended. Adryel was against the wall beyond him, upright, watching the male facing the blade.

He took in the rest in one sweep. A weapon on the floor. Disturbed dust. Adryel's hand near her side. The prisoner measuring the new arrivals without much hope of doing anything about them.

“Take him,” Dhomhes said. “Alive.”

Two guards moved in. The male went without a fight.

Stron crossed to Adryel and put a hand against her face.

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” she said. “But Stron⁠—”

“I know,” he said.

Dhomhes stayed out of the space between them. The guards searched the prisoner before taking him up the passage. He watched their hands, the prisoner's shoulders, the places where a concealed weapon might still turn a captured male into a fresh disaster.

One of them sent the prisoner's identification to his comm. Burk. The Kerde policing record opened beneath the captured male's image. Dhomhes saved it before looking up at Stron.

Stron glanced toward him.

“He came for a data chip. Evidence against the Rhysgarrds. Says they sent others.”

Dhomhes held his gaze, then nodded. He had questions. They could wait until Adryel was out of this tunnel.

The guards took Burk around the turn.

“Well,” Dhomhes said. “That was interesting.”

“Not the word I would use,” Stron replied.

Dhomhes looked at Adryel, then back at him.

“She needs to be checked by a medic.”

“I'm fine,” Adryel said.

“You were just grabbed off a transport ramp by a Kerde policing guard who turns out to be a Rhysgarrds operative,” Dhomhes said pleasantly. “You'll see the medic.”

She opened her mouth.

“He's right,” Stron said.

Adryel looked at him. Whatever she found in his face persuaded her to close her mouth again.

Dhomhes excused himself before either of them could notice how much effort the pleasant tone was costing him.

At the top of the maintenance stairs, he put his hand against the wall and drew one slow breath.

Then he called his lead.

By the time he reached the operations room, every part of the landing was being checked again.