Stolen by the Wraiths: New Chapter 1 – 3

 

Chapter 1: Alix

The lock disengaged with a soft click.

I tucked the sonic pick back into my tool roll, my fingers moving easily—a skill honed from breaking into things since I was twelve. The vault door eased open on silent hinges, spilling blue emergency lighting across my face.

Three data cores sat in individual slots, each one worth enough to clear my debt to the Zhek Syndicate. Finally. I pulled out the scanner, checking each core’s signature against the job specs. The third one matched.

I paused, my fingers hovering over the target. Six months of planning for a thirty-second extraction. Some genius picked this job. Dusthaven Station’s security was laughably outdated; I could bypass its systems in my sleep, and its vault defenses belonged in a museum. Either the researchers here were incompetent, or someone wanted this data stolen. A prickle of unease ran down my spine. Traps were always quietest right before they sprang.

The smart move would be to walk away. But the Zhek didn’t negotiate payment plans, and their collection methods involved creative surgery. I’d seen what they did to defaulters. The lucky ones died fast.

I grabbed the core.

Fifty grams of crystalline storage. It represented either freedom or the biggest mistake of my life. I sealed it in the shielded pouch at my belt, then began erasing my digital footprints. Every scanner sweep and lock bypass needed to disappear. The Meridian children’s home had taught me many things, but the most important lesson was simple: never leave evidence.

The maintenance corridors hummed with life support as I retraced my route. Metal grating bit into my palms as I crawled through an air vent, the recycled atmosphere thick with the tang of lubricants and ozone. My muscles ached, but comfort wasn’t part of survival.

On Meridian, children who complained were transferred to “special programs”—corporate adoption schemes no one returned from. I’d learned to keep quiet and trust no one. Those lessons had served me well in the fifteen years since I aged out.

I dropped into an abandoned storage bay and stripped off my infiltration gear. The coveralls went into the recycler along with most of my tools. In five minutes, I’d transformed from saboteur to a tourist, complete with a worn jacket, a simple travel bag, and documentation that would pass inspection. My backup plasma pistol stayed concealed in its shoulder holster. I had my emergency exit route mapped and a fake ID ready.

The docking ring buzzed with shift-change crowds, providing perfect cover. I moved through the throng, my pace purposeful but not urgent, weaving through crowds while tracking exit routes and security positions out of habit. A Vorth merchant, reeking of fermented spices, tried to wave a flimsy data chip in my face.

“Best prices on the station, little human,” he rasped.

“I’ll bet. Good luck with that, buddy,” I said, sidestepping him without breaking stride. Moron.

A flutter caught my peripheral vision—a micro-drone hovering near an overhead access point. It vanished before I could focus, but my skin prickled. Professional surveillance wasn’t standard for Dusthaven.

The transport put three kilometers between me and the crime scene. I’d collect payment from Stryd, transfer half to the Zhek, and book passage anywhere else. It felt too simple, too clean. Too safe.

Artificial twilight painted the entertainment sector in riots of purple and gold neon. The crowds were a chaotic mix of species and classes: spacers with credits to burn, corporate types slumming it, and travelers seeking anonymity.

I checked my chrono. Stryd insisted on 2300 hours, and punctuality mattered. The Red Comet cantina waited three blocks away.

I wove between laughing Umarians and Vorth merchants, the noise washing over me as the crowd pressed closer, pulling me deeper into the district’s heart.

I slammed into something solid.

One moment I was navigating bodies, the next I’d hit a wall of heated bronze. Strong hands caught my shoulders, steadying me. The touch sent a current arcing through my system that bypassed surprise and went straight to my bones.

“Careful.”

His voice carried an accent I couldn’t identify. I looked up—and up—into amber eyes that shifted like molten metal in the strobing lights.

The face was unmistakably alien. Elegant bone structure lay beneath bronze skin that radiated a steady heat—sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw. Silver markings along his throat rose and fell with his breathing like living jewelry, catching the neon with each movement.

His scent surrounded me, cutting through the stale air—warm spice blended with something wild and untamed. It filled my lungs, triggering responses I couldn’t understand or control. Warmth bloomed in my chest as my heartbeat quickened. But underneath the simple attraction was something else, something deeper and unsettling. A strange, cellular recognition, as if some primitive part of my biology was seeing something it had been waiting for. I wanted to chase that scent.

“I…” My voice emerged harsher than I’d meant. “Thank you.”

He studied my face, those eyes tracking my features as if memorizing them. His nostrils flared slightly—reading my scent as I drowned in his—and the realization should have disturbed me. Instead, a fresh cascade of heat washed through me.

Out of habit, I catalogued the details. He was tall, probably six-five, with a powerful build that promised both strength and speed. The way he held himself, even in stillness, was economical and fluid, a predator’s movement that promised violence. The glowing veins extended down his arms, disappearing beneath his sleeves.

His hands still rested on my shoulders, their warmth a tangible pressure through my jacket. When he shifted his grip slightly, the movement sent shivers down my spine.

“You should watch where you’re going.” His words made my thoughts scatter. “These crowds can be dangerous.”

He said ‘dangerous’ like a promise, not a warning. I should have stepped back, broken contact, returned to my job. Instead, I found myself studying his cheekbones, how the silver pathways shifted with his breathing, the protective way his body angled to shield me.

“I can take care of myself,” I managed.

Amusement flickered in those amber depths. “I’m sure you can.” His gaze dropped to my mouth for an instant before returning, and the brief attention made my lips tingle. “But that doesn’t mean you should have to.”

The crowd pressed us closer. The air between us was electric, charged with his scent, which intensified and wiped my thoughts clean. Every breath carried that intoxicating mix, and my body answered with a warmth I couldn’t control.

Jazurai traders pushed past, breaking the spell long enough for reality to intrude. I’ve got a job to finish and debts that won’t pay themselves.

“I have to go,” I said, though my feet didn’t want to move.

He nodded, his hands lingering for another heartbeat before releasing me. “Be careful out there.”

The crowd swallowed him, but his scent lingered. The survival sense that had sustained me through fifteen years screamed at me to blend in, to disappear. But a new, reckless impulse urged me to follow him, to chase the first hint of safety I’d felt in years.

Instead, I forced myself toward the cantina, every step like swimming through honey. The spot his hand touched burned, as if it marked me, and I could taste his scent with every breath.

The Red Comet squatted on the district’s edge like a diseased growth, its neon flickering between red and a sickly yellow-green. Inside, the haze of smoke and bodies was like being underwater. The air tasted of cheap alcohol and desperation mixed with the recycled atmosphere.

I spotted Corvan Stryd in his corner booth, nervous energy vibrating off him as he nursed a drink that was mostly ice. I took in the details in an instant: thinning hair, soft hands, and expensive clothes that couldn’t hide his weakness. But as I approached, I noticed details that didn’t fit—the way he kept checking exits, how his fingers drummed an unsteady rhythm against the glass.

I slid across from him. He startled, then forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Perfect timing.” He raised his glass in a mock toast. “I was beginning to think this place might eat me alive.”

“Your choice of venue, genius.” I kept my hands visible on the scarred table, the data core secure in my jacket. “You have my payment?”

“Of course, of course.” But instead of producing credits, he leaned forward. “Tell me, how did you find Dusthaven’s security? Challenging?”

Wrong question. The job was over—payment should be automatic.

“Why does it matter?”

“Professional curiosity.” He paused, studying me. “I heard their systems were impossible to crack. But here you are. Eight hours. How?”

All my survival training shouted warnings. People who asked too many questions usually had reasons that ended badly for others.

“Credits first. That was our—”

“Arrangements change.” Stryd leaned back, his nervous facade cracking. “Turns out I learned some interesting shit since we talked. About those cores. About their true contents.” He paused, studying my face. “About you.”

Three figures rose from separate tables. They were professionals, closing my escape routes—the front door, the side exit, and the refresher corridor. I was boxed in.

“What do you want, Stryd?”

“Those cores contain classified bio-enhancement research worth more than planetary budgets.” His smile transformed his face into something predatory. “Military applications. Advances that could shift sector power balances. My employers prefer the thief who stole them didn’t live to discuss the contents.”

“Then why the meeting?”

“Professional courtesy. We’d like to know how you bypassed security so easily. Corporate intelligence always needs new talent.” He leaned back, suddenly at ease. “Cooperate, answer our questions about your techniques, and we’ll make it quick.”

“And if I don’t?”

Stryd picked up a small, silver utensil from the table, turning it over in his soft fingers. He didn’t look at me. “Then we’ll take much longer getting answers. Much longer.”

Chapter 2: Ressh

The particle rifle rested against my thigh, its weight as familiar as my own heartbeat. From my booth on the cantina’s overhead balcony, I had flawless sight lines to the scene unfolding below. Corvan Stryd sat across from the human female—Alix Rowe—delivering his final threats with the casual cruelty I’d learned to expect from Kess Vain’s operatives.

Through my rifle’s enhanced optics, I could see every micro-expression crossing her face. The slight tightening around her eyes when Stryd used her real name. The way her fingers shifted position on the table—not quite reaching for her concealed weapon, but preparing for the possibility. It was the discipline of a professional warring with growing alarm.

Three days of surveillance had taught me her patterns. How she moved through crowds tracking exits out of habit. The way she kept her weapon concealed but accessible. It was the training of someone schooled in survival from childhood, someone who’d learned early that trust was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

But it was her scent that had made these three days hell. Even from this distance, traces of it reached me through the cantina’s stale air—something uniquely hers beneath the standard human baseline. 

It was clean and sharp, carrying undertones that affected my traceries and made my pheromonal glands respond in ways I couldn’t control. It wasn’t just attraction; it was a deeper, instinctual pull, a resonance my Tsekai biology recognized on a level my conscious mind refused to acknowledge.

Now, through my scope’s magnification, I watched Stryd’s hand shoot out to grab her wrist. Panic sharpened her scent, a chemical scream that sliced through the cantina’s haze and coiled in my gut like a serpent, triggering every protective instinct I possessed.

She was afraid. She was in danger. And the man threatening her worked for the bastard who’d destroyed my unit, killed my brothers-in-arms, and left the survivors to die in the void.

Mission parameters dissolved. Years of training and discipline evaporated like vapor in a vacuum. The only thing that mattered was the woman below and the threat she faced.

My weapon came up without conscious thought, the sight acquiring Stryd’s center mass through the scope’s targeting reticle. My finger found the trigger and squeezed with steady pressure.

The particle beam made a sharp, contained crack as it discharged. Distinct from common plasma weapons, it was more precise and infinitely more deadly. The bolt punched through Stryd’s chest, leaving a cauterized hole that steamed in the cantina’s humid air. He looked down at the wound with puzzled surprise, as if he couldn’t understand how this had happened, before toppling sideways out of the booth.

One heartbeat of stunned silence. Then, chaos erupted.

“Contact, all positions,” I subvocalized into my comm, the neural interface translating my thoughts into encrypted signals. “Primary target down. Initiating extraction.”

The cantina exploded into violence as Stryd’s three associates scrambled for cover and opened fire on anything that moved. Civilians screamed and dove under tables while my team responded as one, each member anticipating the others’ actions.

I vaulted over the back of my booth and dropped twelve feet to the cantina floor, my species’ naturally strengthened bones absorbing the impact without difficulty. The familiar calm of combat settled over me. My heart rate steadied, my breathing grew controlled, and my vision narrowed to immediate threats and opportunities. I was designed for this, trained for this, built for this.

The first hostile rounded my cover with his weapon up, his movements too slow and clumsy for someone facing a Tsekai operative. I put two rounds in his chest before he could acquire me, the impacts spinning him into a table that collapsed under his weight. His partner tried to flank left, but walked directly into Jessa’s line of fire from the opposite balcony.

“Threat, seven o’clock, heavy armor,” Jessa’s voice cut through the noise, a model of professional calm.

I adjusted my trajectory, using a panicking civilian as mobile cover while sliding behind the bar. The armored hostile was spraying suppressive fire across the cantina with a heavy repeater, the massive weapon chewing chunks from walls and furniture with each burst. Debris rained down as I calculated angles and timing.

A primitive command echoed from the oldest part of my brain, a part I hadn’t known existed until I saw her. The words were not my own, but an instinct roaring to the surface: Mine. Claim. I ruthlessly suppressed the thought. It was an animal thing, something to be caged.

I fired blind over the bar top—three quick shots to force him into cover—which gave Thoryn a clear line of sight from his position near the emergency exit. The Tamzari’s weapon spoke once with a deep, resonant boom that vibrated through the floor. For a split second, the muzzle flash glinted off the emerald, jewel-toned scales of his arm, a startling flash of beauty amidst the violence. When the sound faded, the armored figure was crumpled against the far wall.

I flowed toward Alix’s position, moving between cover points too fast for human eyes to follow. She’d drawn her plasma pistol, but kept it low, her muzzle discipline intact even in the middle of a firefight.

When I reached her side, she looked up at me with recognition and something else. The scent of her relief washed over me, a wave so potent it momentarily staggered me. My body gave a silent, organic answer to her unspoken plea for safety.

“This way.” I shielded her from the remaining threats, one hand guiding her toward our exit route. The brief contact of my palm against her back sent a current of heat up my arm and straight to my brain, confirming what my biology had been screaming from our first encounter. Every threat in the galaxy would have to go through me to get to her.

We sprinted down the maintenance corridor, boots ringing on the metal grating. Behind us, the sounds of pursuit reverberated, but they were moving too slowly, thinking too much. Panic made them sloppy while training made us efficient.

“Down!” I shoved Alix through a doorway as plasma fire stitched across the wall where we’d been standing. She rolled with the momentum and came up in a defensive crouch, her weapon trained back the way we’d come.

When she spoke, her voice was shockingly steady. “How many?”

“Two, maybe three. Stay low and follow my lead—”

She leaned out and fired three quick shots down the corridor, forcing our pursuers to take cover behind a junction box. Her placement was perfect, not trying to kill, just buying us time and space.

“Move,” she said, covering our retreat as we crossed to the next section. “I’ll watch our six.”

We burst into the private docking bay, but it was empty. The klaxons of a station-wide lockdown began to blare, their urgent cries echoing off the metal walls. Red emergency lights pulsed, casting everything in a bloody glow.

My comm crackled. “Ressh, extraction at Docking Bay 7 is blown,” Jessa’s voice was tight with urgency. “Station’s going into lockdown. New rendezvous is Cargo Platform 9, west spire. Get there. We’ll find you.”

Chapter 3: Alix

The comm clicked off, leaving us in a silence punctuated by the screaming alarms. The giant alien—Ressh—swore under his breath, a low, guttural sound that seemed to vibrate in my bones.

“Change of plans,” he said, turning to me. Those amber eyes were intense, focused. “We’re being hunted.”

“No kidding,” I snapped, gesturing at the flashing lights. “I got that part. Who’s ‘we’? My plan was to get paid and disappear, not play tag with a station full of trigger-happy security.” My survival sense was screaming at me to ditch this guy and vanish into the station’s guts. He was a magnet for trouble, and I was standing way too close.

“The people who tried to kill you work for a man named Kess Vain,” he said, his tone a deep rumble that vibrated through the deck plates. “He wants that data core, and he wants you dead. Right now, I’m the only thing standing between you and them.”

Great. Just great. “So what’s the brilliant new plan? Because ‘get there’ isn’t exactly a detailed schematic.”

“The west spire is on the other side of the industrial sector. We go down. Through the lower levels.”

“The underbelly.” I almost smiled. He might be a super-soldier, but this was my turf. “You’ll get us killed down there. You stick out.”

“And you don’t?”

“I know how to be invisible,” I shot back. “You look like a monument to bad decisions. Follow me. Stay quiet. And try not to kill anyone unless they shoot first.”

Without waiting for an answer, I pried open a floor grate and dropped into the service tunnels below. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and unidentifiable machine grease. It smelled like home.

For what felt like hours, we moved through the station’s forgotten pathways. The silence between us was heavy, broken only by the drip of unseen fluids and the distant groan of the station’s life support. We navigated catwalks over cavernous recycling plants, the air shimmering with heat from below. We squeezed through ventilation shafts that were tight even for me, the metal scraping against my jacket. Ressh moved with a surprising silence for his size, but he was a predator built for open spaces, not the cramped confines of the station’s bowels.

He was also a furnace. The warmth radiating from his body was a constant presence at my back, a strange comfort in the cold, damp tunnels. 

I tried to ignore it. 

I failed. 

Every time he brushed against me in a narrow passage, my skin would prickle, and I’d have to fight the impulse to lean into the contact. Get a grip, Rowe. He’s a tool for survival, not a space heater.

We had to hide twice. The first time, we pressed ourselves into a grimy alcove as a security patrol marched past, their boots echoing ominously. Ressh was a solid wall of heat in front of me, so close I could feel the rhythm of his breathing. The patrol leader paused, sniffing the air. My heart hammered against my ribs. But then he shrugged and moved on, and I could breathe again.

The second time was worse. We were crossing a narrow maintenance spine over a chasm of churning machinery when we heard voices ahead. We scrambled into a side conduit, a space barely wide enough for one person. Ressh pushed me in first, then crowded in behind me, his body pressing me hard against the cold metal wall. I was sandwiched, his chest a hard plane against my back, his scent overwhelming my senses. I held my breath, listening to the mercenaries pass by below, their voices rough and cruel. One of them laughed, and the sound made the hairs on my arms stand up. Ressh shifted behind me, a low growl vibrating through his chest and into my spine. It wasn’t a sound of aggression, but of pure, lethal protection. And a part of me, a part I refused to acknowledge, found it thrilling.

After another hour of tense travel, we found a slightly more secure place to rest: an abandoned, dusty mess hall for a long-decommissioned sector. A few overturned tables and chairs were the only furniture.

“We need to stop,” I said, my legs aching. “Just for a few minutes.”

He nodded, his eyes scanning the exits even as he moved to the center of the room. I slumped onto a less-filthy chair while he took up a watch position by the door.

“Here,” I said, pulling a ration bar from my pack and breaking it in half. I tossed him a piece. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

He caught it easily and ate his half in two efficient bites. I nibbled on mine, the chalky protein bar tasting like sawdust. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable.

“So, who’s this Vain guy?” I asked, needing to fill the quiet. “What’s his beef with you?”

His expression tightened. “He was my commanding officer.”

That shut me up. I waited, and after a long silence, he spoke again, his voice low and strained.

“He runs a black ops unit for the Consortium. Or he did. My unit. The Rift Wraiths.”

“Catchy name,” I muttered.

“We were the best,” he said, and there was no ego in it, just a statement of fact. “Until he sent us into a trap. Framed us for war crimes. Tried to have us all eliminated.”

I processed that. A professional soldier, betrayed by his own. It was a story I understood all too well, just with bigger guns. “So this Vain guy is a real bastard.”

“He’s a monster.” Ressh’s voice was flat, his gaze fixed on some distant point. “And that core is the first proof we have of what he did. It’s our only chance to clear our names.”

“And to stop him,” I added, thinking of the corporate research. “What’s he planning to do with it?”

“Something that will make what he did to us look like a minor incident.”

We finally reached the old transit hub, a ghost station of silent platforms and dead escalators. A heavy-duty mag-lock door, triple-encrypted and tied into the station’s central security grid, blocked our path. A lockdown pulse had sealed it tight.

“I can force it,” Ressh said, his hand resting on the doorframe, muscles in his forearm bunching.

“And you’ll bring every guard in the sector down on our heads,” I said, pushing past him to get to the control panel. “This needs a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.” I pulled my tool roll and got to work, my fingers dancing over the interface. The code was a nightmare, layers of corporate security protocols woven together, but they’d left a backdoor in a diagnostic subroutine, a sloppy mistake. Always a mistake. “Keep watch. Give me ninety seconds.”

He didn’t argue. He simply moved to stand behind me, his body a solid wall shielding me from the corridor. His scent, that wild blend of spice and something else, was stronger now, sharpened by adrenaline. He trusted me. The realization was a strange, unfamiliar jolt. No one trusted me. Not like this.

My focus narrowed to the lines of code scrolling past on my datapad. The sweat beading on my forehead was completely different from the cold sweat on my own skin. His presence was a silent, watchful weight. He was so close his warmth was a tangible contrast to the chill of my fear.

“They’re coming,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration against my back.

“Almost there,” I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. I found the loophole and poured a cascade of commands into the system. A flicker of green light. A soft click. The mag-lock disengaged.

We slipped through the door just as a security patrol rounded the far end of the corridor. We melted into the shadows of the abandoned hub, the guards passing by without a second glance. For a long moment, we just stood there in the dark, breathing. The heat of him beside me, the controlled rhythm of his breath. A look passed between us—not of friendship, but of grudging, mutual respect. He was more than just muscle. And I was more than just a thief.

We found shelter in a derelict maintenance locker, a forgotten closet at the back of the hub. It was small, cramped, and smelled of rust and decay. There was a single, narrow bench bolted to one wall. One bed. Of course.

“We rest here,” I said, sinking onto the bench. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. “Then we move.”

He remained standing, his presence filling the tiny space. In the dim light, the silver traceries on his skin pulsed faintly. Before I could say another word, the sound of boots echoing in the transit hub sent a fresh spike of fear through me. They were still hunting.