My heart slams against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
“Red Eye?” Raxl calls.
But I don’t answer.
I press a hand to the still-hot hull.
And I know.
She was here.
Jaela.
I don’t know how the hell I know it—hell, maybe I do—but the second my palm touches the heat-warped hull, something in melocks. A click, deep in the marrow. Like the universe just threw a match into my ribcage and whisperedburn.
Jaela.
The scent is faint—buried under smoke and iron—but it’shers. I’d know it in the middle of a firestorm. That sharp, clean note of solder flux and citrus. The sting of antiseptic. The whisper of something warm and electric, like spice scraped off a live wire.
I drop to one knee and scan the sand.
Raxl kicks debris out of the way, one hand on his pulse rifle. “No body,” he mutters. “No ash shadows, no burns. Think they made it out?”
“Notthey,” I snap.
He blinks. “Right. She.”
I don’t correct him.
There’s a blood smear on the side hatch. Not a lot. Just a smear. Bright red, sticky. Fresh enough it hasn’t dried fully in this heat.
Human.
I follow it. Knees cracking as I crouch, armor plates hissing. The smear turns to drips. Then to boot prints. Small. Light. Not limping—running.
“She ran,” I murmur, tracking them. “No drag marks. No collapse. Straight line south. No shoes—print’s too clean. She was movin’ fast.”
“Someone picked up the trail, boss,” Raxl says behind me. “Look.”
Another set of prints—bigger. Heavy. Irregular spacing.
Raiders.
The kind of mutant swamp-things that grew out of the cracks in Jurtik like mold with teeth. Half of them don't even remember what planet they're from. The other half were born here, shaped by chaos, carved out of old meat and hate.
I straighten.
“I want eyes in the Scar,” I bark. “Now. Use the bone-rotters if you have to. Find who took her. Findwhere.”
“You want backup?”
“No.”
Raxl opens his mouth. Closes it.
He knows better.
I mount the cruiser again. She roars under me like she’s tasted the same scent—blood and thunder and fury.
