Page 32 of Claimed By the Wraiths

I did want a clock. Something with numbers I could hold onto.

Maris said, “We can reach the outer Nexus area in about twenty-five hours. Then we go cold outside their sensor envelope and stay there until Deyric has the door open and the boarding plan is locked. We do not announce ourselves twice.”

The Ghost was faster than the Raptor. Smaller, lighter, with engines Maris had rebuilt to run hot.

“I’m going now,” I said. “I take the Ghost, I follow the transport, and once it docks the bond gets me to Jessa inside the station. You rebuild the package and come when it’s ready. Rendezvous at Nexus.”

“Serak.” Maris’s voice was careful. “One ship. One person. Against a fortified station.”

“I’m not assaulting the station. We know where Nexus is. I’m finding where they put her.”

“How?”

I looked at my hands. They were dark. Still dark.

The proto-bond was still open, still tracking, still pulling me toward deep void.

“I can find her inside it,” I said. “Get the crew moving.”

I cut the comm, strapped Tal into the copilot’s seat, and keyed in Maris’s transponder codes. The physical chip had gone with Jessa’s gear, but she’d loaded the sequences into the Ghost before we ever docked. On undock the ship’s registration rolled over.

We would leave Meridian as a different vessel than the one Jessa Corren had arrived on. Then I brought the engines online.

The direction was clear. Deep void.

My hands hadn’t faded. I didn’t try to make them.

SERAK

The Ghost’s engines ran hot. Maris had rebuilt the modified Kestrel for exactly that. She’d stripped the safety governors and rerouted the thermal overflow into a secondary thrust system, adding twelve percent to the output.

The nav display showed Nexus Station’s coordinates in deep void, and I watched the distance close.

Ten hours.

Tal was in the copilot’s seat. He hadn’t let go of the armrests since we’d cleared Meridian Station’s sensor range.

His knuckles were white. His breathing was too fast.

“How fast is this ship?” he asked.

“Fast enough.”

“Fast enough for what?”

“To get there before they hurt her.”

He didn’t answer right away. His breathing didn’t slow. The Ghost’s cockpit was small enough that I heard every inhale, every controlled exhale, the effort of a man trying not to fall apart in a space the size of a storage closet.

“I’m not a soldier,” he said.

“I know.”

“I’ve never been on a ship this small. Or this fast. Or heading toward a facility run by a man who will kill me if he finds out what I gave your partner.” He paused. “My family thinks I’m still at the conference.”

“Do they know?”

“They don’t know anything. That was the point.” He looked at the viewport. “Twelve years of making sure they never had to.”