Page 11 of Commander’s Mate

A guard shouted.

Then the building shook.

Chapter Three

Zared

We breached the Ursaga auction house through the west service tunnel because criminals always protected the doors meant for rich men and forgot about the places where workers carried filth.

The first guard died before his weapon cleared the holster. The second got a warning only because Pyrr was feeling generous, and the warning was the flat of his armored hand slamming the man’s face into the wall. By the time the third reached for an alarm panel, Tivid had already locked the local system and fed it false signals.

“Outer corridor clear,” Pyrr reported over the combat channel.

“Hold it,” I said. “No pursuit reaches the holding rooms.”

“With pleasure.”

That was not regulation response.

We were no longer regulation soldiers.

I moved with Ground Team One through a corridor that smelled of disinfectant failing to cover terror. Auction houses pretended to be clean. They sold fantasy to buyers who did not want to see the chains behind the silk. But beneath the polish was always the same stench: fear, drugged bodies, old blood, and the rot of men who believed ownership made cruelty respectable.

My armor read fourteen heat signatures behind the first holding-room door, then thirty-six behind the next. Too many small clusters. Too many guards between us and the central inventory hall.

“Team Two,” I said, “split and open the side chambers. Free restraints but keep groups in place until extraction route is secure.”

“Confirmed.”

A guard rounded the corner ahead, saw us, and froze.

He had time to understand he had made poor career choices.

Then Rehor shot him.

We reached the central holding corridor at the same time an inner alarm finally overrode Tivid’s interference. Red light washed the walls. Somewhere above us, auction guests were being told there had been a temporary security concern. I hoped they were afraid. I hoped they choked on it.

“Kyanna Guryon’s signal tag is ahead,” Tivid said. “Third chamber on the right. Multiple females grouped inside.”

The door was shielded. I placed my hand against the lock panel, let my armor interface bite into it, and waited the two seconds it took Dreadnought One’s AI to argue with inferior technology.

The door opened.

Women huddled in the far corner.

For one suspended heartbeat, the war vanished.

I smelled her.

Not Kyanna Guryon. Not Haloran. Not Uatu. Something unknown and warm beneath fear, antiseptic, and the stale fabric of slave garments. My body recognized what my mind had no time to understand. Every instinct went still, then sharpened toward a single female standing among the others.

Light brown hair tangled around her face. Blue eyes wide with terror and intelligence. Skin pale compared to mine, flushed at the cheeks. Bare feet. Thin shift. Shoulders straight despite fear.

Mine.

The word hit so hard I nearly stepped toward her before discipline caught me by the throat.

No.