I like her. The Tharian whispered its declaration of approval into his mind, kicking Enki’s irritation up another notch. She’s honest. Tenacious. She does not give in to her fear, even though her situation is all but hopeless. You are going to stay true to your word and come for her, aren’t you?

I am not interested in your opinion, wraith.

Enki bristled, slightly offended at the Tharian’s suggestion that he might abandon Layla. He swiveled in his chair and rose to his feet, only to find Lodan standing in the doorway, his eyebrows raised in surprise as if Enki’s behavior was staggeringly unusual.

Well, he’d just exercised his rusty tongue, speaking more than he had in ages, so there was that.

Lodan inclined his head, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Enki glowered.

Shit. When had the bastard snuck up on him? Nobody took him by surprise, ever, but then again, Lodan was as silent and stealthy and any First Division warrior, and Enki had been distracted by the fucking Tharian… and Layla.

He assumed Lodan had heard most of their conversation, and judging by the flicker of anger that danced across his elegant features, he was just as incensed as Enki.

There was no question; the ones who had found Layla were Kordolian. The roving machine she’d described to him was an exploration drone, cast out by its owners to scout the human craft and gather information.

And it had logged her. They would know she was human, female, and valuable.

“Let’s chase,” Lodan said, his voice full of barely suppressed anticipation. With his unique talent for flying, Lodan possessed an unhealthy addiction to speed. Enki could tell he was itching to switch the auto-flyer to manual and begin the chase. “Sylth, give me some co-ordinates to go on.”

A complex series of characters flashed up on the sylth’s holographic display, and Lodan nodded, his eyes glazing over as he quickly absorbed the information. “She’s moving. Drifting. And it looks like someone has a lock on her location. See that dark spot on the starmap?”

Enki nodded. A distinctively destroyer-shaped black spot appeared on the holo. “Half-cloaked,” he muttered.

“Correct. If they were flying at normal velocity, we wouldn’t have detected them, but their irregular movements have given them away.”

The sylth populated the holo with a complicated stream of numbers that changed rapidly as the ship drifted closer to Layla’s position.

“Masters, that is the Ristval V.” The sylth’s detached, emotionless voice echoed through the cabin, sounding strange to Enki’s ears.

And the significance of its pronouncement—of it daring to speak without permission—wasn’t lost on Enki, because sylths rarely spoke aloud.

A relic of the Old Empire, sylths were the intelligence systems that breathed life into the Kordolians’ great black ships. Designed to be completely and utterly subservient, most Kordolian pilots set their sylths to quiet mode, preferring to access information at their whim, rather than be flooded by it.

In general, most Kordolians were averse to the idea of automation and artificial intelligence. Enki couldn’t understand why humans embraced those things so willingly.

“Well, well. There you are,” Lodan drawled, his eyebrows arching in surprise as he lowered himself into the pilot’s seat. “How exciting. So former General Daegan and his crew of idiots survived our fission missile, and it looks like they’ve been lurking around in the Ninth. The boss is gonna want to deal with him personally, but between you, me, and Ny, we can figure out how to capture an Imperial destroyer, can’t we?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m surprised they didn’t just fuck off to some unpopulated planet in the Middle Sectors to try and enjoy the last dregs of our civilization while it still exists.” He flashed his fangs, his expression turning vicious.

“Humans,” was all Enki said.

Lodan stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Of course. The species has to move forward one way or another. Even they will seek to reproduce. Sooner or later, they’ll want what we have.”

“Layla,” Enki growled, a sliver of anger working its way into his chest. To his surprise, the emotion was pure and it felt good, unlike anything he’d felt since returning from Tharos.

The thought of those honorless Imperial bastards laying their hands on one of the humans they’d sworn to protect…

It was maddening.

Lodan blinked. “Are you… with us, brother?”

Enki stared at him, irritated that the others always seemed to treat him with a shade of caution—with the exception of his offsider, Torin. Aside from General Tarak and the medics, none of them knew the exact details of his unique little problem, but being elite warriors, they were all highly observant in their own way.

They knew something was up with him, and this scrutiny… it got under his skin.

“Is there a problem?” He might be defective, but he could still hold his own, could still function.

“Your eyes, brother.”

“Ah.” Nobody had been able to explain why Enki’s eyes changed color sometimes, turning from their usual dark amber to an unnerving green, of all things. Zyara had run countless tests, scanning him from head to toe. She’d found nothing.

When he’d demanded answers from the Tharian, the cursed wraith had just laughed.

“Do you have a lock on her location?” he asked, changing the subject. “We need to move.” Time was running out. The longer they took to get to Layla, the more she would suffer.

As much as he hated to admit it, the Tharian was right about her. Despite her state of total helplessness, she clung so stubbornly to the promise of life.

The thought of Daegan’s medical unit laying their filthy hands on her made him a little angry, and that was good, because Enki thought he’d forgotten how to be angry.

“I’m on it.” Lodan’s expression turned distant as he took hold of the controls, his large hands appearing oddly graceful as they settled into the familiar grooves of the stealth cruiser’s manual navigator.

From what Enki had observed, flying a Kordolian ship required sharp reflexes and an iron will. The sylth was a responsive, organic thing, and the language of control was spoken through touch and movement. A sylth had to be coaxed and commanded, and a good pilot could push these machines far beyond their theoretical limits.

“Her signal’s still open. That’s good. I have the location trace, and we’re…”

Boom. There was a distant thud as Lodan pushed the Virdan X beyond hyperspeed, into the place where dimensions warped and strange things happened.

Then Lodan cursed viciously in some old tongue of the Lost Tribes, the words coming from some deep part of him that hadn’t been erased inside the Swallowing Pit, the dark facility where he and Enki and the rest of the First Division were slowly and excruciatingly transformed into something not-quite Kordolian.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just lost them. Cloaking must have kicked in again. That means they’re moving fast.”

“And the human?” To his surprise, Enki’s trickle of anger turned into something deeper and darker; a kind of desperation.

All this, over a human?

“Her signal’s gone too. Then—”

“They have her.”

The almost imperceptible sound of soft footsteps made Enki glance over his shoulder. Nythian appeared behind them, and Enki knew he’d allowed them to hear his approach on purpose.

It was a courtesy thing; a way of announcing oneself.

“Blink and you’ve missed it,” he growled. “If the signal’s disappeared, what are the chances of finding them again?” Dressed in full battle-armor and armed to the teeth, he looked ready for war even as he casually leaned against the wall, folding his arms.

“Like spotting a fucking szkazajik in an ice-storm.” Lodan closed his eyes, flying by feel rather than sight. “I can’t believe they just slipped out of view like that.”

Nythian hissed in frustration.

A terrible coldness spread through Enki as he remembered Layla’s soft, desperate plea.

I need your help.

He had given her his word.

“I won’t let them have her.”

Both Lodan and Nythian turned their full attention on Enki, staring at him as if he were mad, which he was.

His mind, which had been operating like a machine up until now—on autopilot—now flickered back to life, and he thought furiously.

How the fuck did one locate a shadow in deep space?

The Tharian chose that very moment to surface.

You have an interesting prisoner down below, soldier.

“Relahek.” For once, he didn’t silence the Tharian.

“Luron Alerak’s little brother,” Nythian murmured. “He was with Daegan when they tried to take Earth from us.”

Lodan’s smile was predatory. “If Relahek’s been lurking around the Outer Sectors, chances are he’s been in contact with his idiot brother. He might know how to find him, which would lead us to the Ristval V.”

Enki was already moving. “Give my your dagger, Nythian.” His blades were in his quarters, and that was too much of a detour to take right now. A sense of urgency pounded through his veins. Goddess help the lordling; nothing would stop him from getting answers.

Time was running out.

Nythian raised his eyebrows, managing to look suitably impressed as he pulled one of his Callidum daggers out of its sheath. “Anything else you need, brother? My swords are your swords.” He flipped the blade, offering it hilt first to Enki.

“No.” Enki closed his fingers around the familiar hilt. A single blade would be more than sufficient.

He knew a thousand and one different ways to inflict pain, and not all of them required a knife.