But her eyes?
No.
Her eyes arealive.
She’s talking to a little hover-drone, muttering something that’s half complaint, half showmanship. There’s a microphone built into her collar. She knows she’s being watched. Shewantsto be watched. She thrives on it.
And yet... beneath the bluster... I see it. Just a flicker. A flash of something that doesn’t belong in the eyes of a holonet star.
Fear.
Real.
I inhale slow through my nose. She smells wrong for this place. Bright. Fruity. Artificial. Synthetic perfumes trying to bury the scent of nerves. She stinks of rich comforts and false courage.
But the courage part?
That might not be fake.
“Idiot girl,” I murmur. My voice scrapes the walls.
I flick to another monitor. The one that follows the Frayvoyan. He’s already tampering with a power junction he has no business touching. The cyborg has wandered off-course, staring blankly at a blinking wall of pressure valves. The horned one is sniffing around bulkhead doors like he wants to mark territory.
Amateurs.
I shift. Something cracks in my spine. I’ve grown too tall for these halls. Or they’ve grown too small for me.
Then the human in the suit—Meyer, the screen pings—says something I don’t hear, but I see the shape of it in his mouth.
“We’re not leaving.”
His eyes settle on the girl.
And I feel my claws curl into the armrest.
So that’s how it is.
They’re not tourists. Not scientists. Not warriors.
Raiders.
They want to take from my ship. Myhome. They want to steal, ransack, dig up old gods and wear their bones like trinkets.
But him? He wants more than gold.
He wantsher.
No. That’s not quite right. He wants touseher. Leverage. Fame. Access. A hostage with high market value. He doesn’t see her as fire. He sees her as a key.
I lean back.
Let the monitors blink. Let the heatless light of ancient displays cast flickers over the deep red of my scales.
I’ve been here fifty-three years, six months, twenty-two days. I’ve eaten ratpacks from ten extinct factions. I’ve drunk recycled coolant and filtered fungus from dripstone caverns. I’ve fought off scavengers, parasites, crazed drones, rogue defense grids. I’ve killed with blades. With teeth. With mybare hands.
I am Garokk.
Vakutan warrior. Survivor of the Centuries War. Last son of Rysh Tal.
