But the thought makes my stomach churn.
Draevik is the person who adjusted the gravity so I could pace without getting tired. He is the person who made the air warmer because I looked cold. He lives as a soldier who woke up to find his entire world turned to dust.
"Nyra, there is more." K-Seven's lenses dilate. "The manifest includes coordinates for the final stand of the First Legion. If Unit can copy the beacon wavelength he was using during the Veln collapse, Unit can signal a neutral salvage guild. They will see a distress signal from a Reaper-class vessel and come running."
The thrill of the plan surges through me. It will be a risky maneuver—calling greedy scavengers to a warship manned by a High Commander—but it is my only shot at a clean break. I have to use the noise to slip away.
"Do it, K. Copy everything," I hiss. "We have to move. If we can reach the secondary hangar, I can manual-override the exterior seals."
K-Seven’s eye turns a frantic, cycling orange. "Attempting to copy... Error. File is read-only. The data is anchored to the ship's core. Unit can view, but Unit cannot duplicate. Unit’s storage capacity is currently being insulted by this alien encryption."
"Forget the copy! Just memorize the frequency and let's go!"
I start to climb. The maintenance shaft is narrow, slick with a film of synthetic lubricant that smells like old copper. I wedge my boots against the ribs of the ship, hauling myself upward. My heart becomes a frantic drum in my ears. To everyone else in the galaxy, he exists as a monster to be caged or a paycheck to be collected. To me, he is the alien who looks at a book of human poetry with utter bewilderment.
The shaft opens up into a larger chamber—a secondary relay station for the ship's environmental controls. I crawl through a narrow gap between two massive coolant tanks, my skin prickling from the static electricity. The tanks whine at a pitch just below hearing, fluttering through my ribs and into my teeth. Condensation drips from the ceiling in fat, warm drops that smell like iron and burnt sugar.
I pause, pressing my back against the tank. My hands are shaking—from the adrenaline, from the sick, electric thrill of doing something monumentally stupid on a ship that can feel me breathing. I flex my fingers, trying to work the tremor out. Somewhere above me, a ventilation shaft exhales a long, breathy sigh, and for one terrible second I’m sureVirex Primeis about to seal the chamber and crush me flat. The moment passes. I keep moving.
"K-Seven, scan for hangar access," I order quietly.
"Unit detects a pressurized seal forty meters above our current position," the drone responds. "But the atmosphericdensity is fluctuating. The ship is aware of the intrusion, Nyra. Unit suggests we stop being thieves and return to being captives. It is much safer for Unit’s chassis."
I scramble up a ladder made of hardened, obsidian-like rungs. I reach the secondary atmospheric vents. Thinness settles here, cold enough to make my lungs ache. I bypass the first two security locks, my fingers flying over the organic keypads. Almost there, the hangar doors’ outline appears through a small observation port.
The atmosphere shifts just as the climb reaches three levels up. The purple illumination in the vent turns a sickly, flashing red.Virex Primeknows and lets out a snarl. The air pressure drops suddenly, making my ears pop.
"K-Seven, how much longer?" I yell.
"Warning!" the drone shrieks, its voice spiking to a note that stabs behind my eyes. "Localized gravity shift! The ship is detecting a foreign interface. The secondary ventilation grate is?—"
The floor beneath me vanishes as the gravity flips. An impact with the side of the vent sends a sharp bark of pain through my shoulder as it hits the hard alloy. Before I can scramble back to the safety of the main shaft, the heavy panel at the end of the vent slams down like a hydraulic press.
I am not fast enough.
A sharp, white-hot agony lances through my forearm as the metal teeth of the ship snap down on my wrist. I scream, a raw, grating sound that echoes hollowly. It is a deep, crushing pain that turns the world into a blur of gray and red. Pinned, caught in the ship’s jaws like a rat in a trap.
"K-Seven! Help!" I sob, my breath coming in shallow, frantic puffs.
The drone hovers helplessly. "Unit cannot override! The Commander has locked the sector! Unit’s attempts to intervene are being met with the digital equivalent of a slap to the face!"
I yank back, trying to pull my arm free, but the movement only makes the pain worse. The ship’s teeth grind against the bone. Blood, dark and far too hot, begins to soak through my flight suit, dripping onto the iridescent floor below. While trapped in the dark, I watch my own life leak out onto the black stone.
The silence that follows my scream develops into a heavy, expectant void. Life drains out of me, a creeping, cold sensation spreading through my veins.
"Draevik..." I gasp in a broken whisper.
The air in the vent suddenly ignites with a presence—a massive, overwhelming surge of energy that create goosebumps along my arms. The shadows at the end of the shaft coalesce into a solid mass.
Draevik manifests.
He appears on the narrow maintenance catwalk just outside the vent. He is simply there, a wall of ash-grey skin and cold fury. The veins beneath the surface are flickering with such intensity that they cast long, dancing shadows. The mark on his chest appears to be a blaring sun, a surging light that matches the frantic pounding of my heart. His eyes burn like blazing pits of fire, and his face carves itself into something like iron.
"What have you done?" he roars in disbelief.
"I was—I just wanted—" I can't finish the sentence. The pain pulls me under like fog. I sag against the panel, my knees buckling.
Draevik is across the space in a heartbeat. He moves like a crushing impact, a blur of motion that defies the gravity he just manipulated. He slams a massive hand against the wall besidethe panel, his knuckles turning white as he strains against the ship’s own will.