Page 5 of Claimed By the Wraiths

I made two mugs, the way I always did during the late watch. Sweetness in his, because he’d never add it himself.

He didn’t know I did it. Or he did, and neither of us had ever mentioned it.

The Raptor hummed. Engines vibrating through the deck plating, through the bench, through my boots. The constant sound of home.

Serak was already at the table. Datapad open. The mission assessment he’d been rewriting for weeks, the one that always reached the same conclusion no matter how many variables he adjusted.

I slid his mug across and sat down.

“Still staring at the same page?” I asked.

“Different page. Same conclusion.”

“One ship, nine crew, and a station we can’t crack.”

“Something like that.”

I opened my own datapad. Fuel projections. The numbers hadn’t changed since yesterday, but looking at them was easier than looking at him.

Easier than thinking about the way he’d said my name through the comm when the blast door came down.

Just “Jessa.” Not shouted. Not panicked. Flat and absolute.

I wasn’t going to think about that.

“How many times have you run that assessment?” I asked.

“Enough.”

“And it’s going to be different this time?”

“It might.”

“It won’t.” The corner of my mouth twitched. “You outrank me, but I still get to say that.”

“And yet you keep saying it.”

We sat there. He stared at his assessment. I stared at fuel projections.

The silence between us was the most familiar thing on the ship. More familiar than the engine hum. More familiar than the recycled air or the curry smell or the blue wash of the nightcycle lights.

This silence. The one where neither of us mentioned the raid, or his hands, or any of it.

Down the corridor, a door opened and closed. Ressh and Alix, moving in sync, their footsteps matched.

They passed the mess hall without stopping. Alix lifted a hand as they went.

“Training bay?” I asked.

“Where else?”

We sat in the mess hall until the lighting shifted to daycycle, the overheads warming from dim blue to full white. I went to change. He gave up on the assessment.

By the time the crew gathered in the briefing room, I’d tied my hair back and looked like I’d had a full night’s rest.

Serak looked the same as always. Composed. Contained.

No sign that he’d been sitting across from me in the dark for six hours, saying nothing about the things we never said.