Page 32 of Silver Slayer

"Quin." Vala's voice pulled me back. "Scan the ship with the bio-analyzer for anything alive that might be a threat. I don't want any surprises while we're in here."

Right. The analyzer. I'd clipped it to my belt at some point during the chaos. I pulled it free, my hands steady despite the adrenaline still humming through my veins. The screen lit up under my fingers, and I ran the sweep: full spectrum, life signs, thermal, motion. The readout scrolled in steady columns of data, and I watched it with the same practiced attention I'd given every scan I'd run on this godforsaken planet.

"Nothing," I said after a moment. "No life signs. No thermal signatures outside of the four of us. The ship's dead."

"Good." Vala's gaze shifted to Tyrk. "The engine room's going to be toward the stern. If the conduit assembly is intact, it's buried in the primary power-transfer housing."

"What about him?" Tyrk nodded toward Vennox, still unconscious on the floor between us.

Vala's gaze flicked to Vennox. "We can't leave him alone and unprotected."

"I'll stay with him." The words were out of my mouth before I'd fully decided to say them.

"Fine," Vala said finally, and the word carried the weight of every reservation he wasn't saying out loud. "But you don't stay out here in the open. We need a room. Something with a door we can secure."

"I'll find one." Tyrk was already on his feet, his massive frame disappearing down the wrecked corridor, the sound of his boots fading with each step until there was nothing but the hiss of Vennox's rebreather and the distant groan of the hull settling around us.

Before too long, boots in the corridor. Heavy, measured, getting closer. Tyrk rounded the corner, and even in the dim light, I could read the relief on his face.

"Crew quarters," he said. "Down the corridor, second hatch on the left. Door still seals. Room's intact.”

Vala nodded once. "Show us the way."

Tyrk crossed to Vennox and knelt beside him, flinging him over one broad shoulder like a sack of dog food as if he weighed nothing. I followed Tyrk down the corridor, my boots keeping time with his steady rhythm. Vala fell in behind me with that silent, predatory grace of his.

The only light came from the portable disc Vala carried, its pale circle moving with us through the dark, barely enough to pick out the buckled floor panels and the wiring that hung from the ceiling like dead vines. The corridor smelled like ozone and something older, something that had been sealed inside this wreck for a long time.

Tyrk shouldered through the second hatch on the left, and I ducked in after him. The room was exactly what he'd promised: small, windowless, a bunk platform bolted to the far wall, a storage unit built into the bulkhead beside it. The air was stale, cold, and still.

The Nomadican crossed to the bunk in three strides and laid Vennox down with a gentleness that surprised me, given the way he'd carried him. He settled him on his side, adjusted the rebreather with two careful fingers, and stepped back. Vennox's chest rose and fell in that slow, even rhythm the sedative had given him.

Tyrk reached into his pack, pulled out one of the portable lights, and set it on the floor in the center of the room. He pressed the center, and it came alive, casting a pale, steady glow across the room, the same quality of light I'd seen him hold up to the viewport back on Vala's ship. Not much, but enough to see by. Enough to keep the dark from being absolute.

"Door mechanism is here." Tyrk moved to the hatch and pulled it shut, then pointed to a recessed panel set into the wall beside the frame. "Slide this latch down, and the seal engages.” He demonstrated, sliding the latch into place with a dull clunk. "To open it from the inside, you just slide it back up. Simple."

“Easy peasy." I nodded.

"One more thing," Vala said, leaning Vennox’s sword against the wall next to the doorway. "If you hear anything. If you see anything. If the bio-analyzer picks up a single reading that doesn't belong. You ping me. Not a hesitation. Not a second thought. You ping me, and I come back."

"I will," I promised.

He gave a single nod. Tyrk clapped me once on the shoulder, and then the two of them filed out. I followed them to the hatch, closed and locked it behind them. I stood there a moment, hand still on the frame, listening to their boots fade down the corridor until even that was swallowed by the ship.

The portable light Tyrk had left on the floor cast a pale, uneven circle across the floor, barely reaching the corners. Shadows pooled in the recesses of the room like dark water, and the walls seemed to press in closer.

I pulled the bio-analyzer from my belt and ran another sweep out of habit, out of the need to do something with my hands. The readout came back the same as before.

I crossed to the bunk and dragged over a storage crate, turned it on its end, and sat down next to Vennox.

For once, he looked peaceful. Every moment I'd known Vennox, he'd carried himself like a male braced for impact, every muscle calibrated, every expression controlled. But in sleep, the architecture of that control was gone, and what was underneath it was just a face. Younger than I'd realized. Tired in a way that rest alone couldn't fix.

The rebreather hissed. The ship settled somewhere deep in its bones, a long metallic groan that moved through the walls and faded.

I was still watching his face when he moved.

Not a waking movement, smaller and more urgent than that. His brow pulled tight, the muscles along his jaw going hard, and his hands curled slowly against the bunk surface like he was reaching for something that kept moving away from him.

His head turned against the bunk, and the tension in his body ratcheted up all at once, his shoulders pulling inward, his breathing changing from that slow, sedated rhythm to faster and shallower.