"Understood." Horm regained control of her excitement. "And our ground forces?"

  "Hold them in reserve for emergency deployment. We have search teams on the way to the surface now. Once the target is located, your troops will reinforce as needed. I want rapid response capability, not scattered assets."

  "We'll be ready, High Commander. Fourth Fleet out."

  The connection terminated. Sarxon watched the tactical display as the incoming fleet markers began to spread, Horm's captains maneuvering their vessels into the positions she'd ordered. The net was tightening. Every escape route Marshall might consider was being systematically closed.

  Thrace's voice cut through her thoughts. "High Commander."

  Something in the ensign's tone made Sarxon turn. The communications officer was staring at her console, her expression shifting from routine attention to sharp focus.

  "What is it?"

  "We have a lead." Thrace looked up, her eyes meeting Sarxon's across the bridge. "One of the scavenger companies reports their team landed in the capital to investigate a strange anomaly."

  Sarxon rose from the command station, her pulse quickening despite her efforts to maintain composure. "Location?"

  "Transmitting coordinates now, High Commander."

  The tactical display updated, a pulsing marker appearing in the heart of the capital's ruins. Sarxon stared at it, feeling the pieces finally falling into place.

  Found you.

  36

  The four strangers—three men and a woman based on their builds—moved deeper into the cargo bay, their backs to the column Evan stood behind, pressed flat against the cool composite. They spread out from the ramp's base, pistols held at the ready, their attention focused forward on the lift shaft and the corridor that led deeper into the ship.

  Not a single syllable passed between them. Instead, their communication flowed through hand signals that Evan recognized as tactical shorthand, though the specific meanings eluded him. The oldest of the group, a man with gray threading through his close-cropped hair, made a chopping motion toward the lift shaft, then pointed two fingers toward the forward corridor. The others responded with quick nods, falling into position without question.

  One of the younger men turned his head, scanning the compartment's perimeter. Evan held his breath as the stranger's gaze swept across the aft bulkhead, tracking along the smooth white walls before settling on the column where Evan stood frozen. The man's attention lingered there. Two seconds. Three. His head tilted slightly, as if something about the shadow's shape wasn't quite right, some irregularity in the outline that didn't match the architecture around it.

  Evan didn't breathe. Didn't blink. He just pressed himself flatter against the composite and waited for the shout of alarm, the raised weapons, the chaos of discovery.

  Instead, the man's gaze moved on. He turned back to his companions and the tension in Evan's chest released by a fraction. He hadn't seen Evan. Or if he had, he'd dismissed what he saw as a trick of the light, an artifact of unfamiliar surroundings playing games with his perception.

  The leader gestured again, sending the woman and one of the younger men toward the forward corridor while he and the remaining stranger headed for the central lift.

  Evan watched the lift pair step onto the platform. He assumed they would go right to the bridge. The thought sent a spike of anxiety through his chest. They might try to fly the Ascendant. Might access systems he didn't know how to lock, trigger something he couldn't undo, but there was nothing he could do about that right now. The platform was already rising, carrying two armed strangers toward the heart of his ship, and if he broke cover to follow them he'd have the other pair at his back.

  One problem at a time.

  The woman and her companion had already disappeared into the forward corridor. Evan counted to five, then slipped out from behind the column and followed.

  The passage here was different from the cargo bay—warmer, the air carrying a subtle charge that raised the fine hairs on Evan's arms. The background hum of the ship's systems was deeper, more insistent, vibrating through the deck plates beneath his boots. Along the port side, tall, slender recesses broke the smooth white composite of the walls. Their frosted crystal-like surfaces pulsed with faint light, the glow traveling from top to bottom in slow, deliberate rhythms that felt almost biological. On the starboard side, rounded bulges protruded from the bulkhead, their surfaces traced by thin arcs of soft orange light that looped and faded in hypnotic cycles.

  Evan matched his footsteps to theirs as best he could, timing each stride to coincide with the sound of their boots on the deck. The two strangers moved with purpose but not urgency, their heads turning as they took in the alien architecture around them. The woman paused at one of the port-side recesses, her hand hovering near the pulsing crystal surface without quite touching it. Her companion made a gesture and she fell back into step beside him.

  They were getting too far ahead. Evan quickened his pace, closing the distance to maybe twenty feet, then ducked into one of the alcoves as the woman glanced back over her shoulder. The frosted crystal surface was cool against his arm, its slow pulse casting faint blue shadows across his skin.

  Evan leaned out from his hiding place, watching as they approached the sealed door—the secured area he had yet to figure out how to access—at the end of the passageway.

  The two strangers stopped in front of it. The man produced a device from his utility belt. It was small, rectangular, with a surface that caught the ambient glow from the orange bulges on the starboard bulkhead. He pressed it against the access panel beside the door, and symbols began scrolling across its face. Maker script, flowing in rapid succession, cycling through combinations faster than Evan could track. Ten seconds. Maybe less. The door slid open.

  The man who'd used the device spoke for the first time in a burst of excited Oridian Standard, his voice carrying the unmistakable tone of discovery. The woman responded in kind, her words tumbling over his as they both stepped over the threshold.

  Evan leaned from his hiding place, trying to see past them into the unlocked room. Their bodies blocked most of the open doorway, but between them, he caught a glimpse of something shaped like a rifle—maybe—mounted on the far wall. The outline was right, the proportions familiar despite the alien design.

  The strangers moved deeper into the room, blocking his view entirely. He pressed back into the recess and waited, the pulsing crystal surface beside him marking time in its slow biological rhythm. Suddenly, the strangers' excited voices drifted from the open doorway. They'd found something valuable. Something worth celebrating. As their quick, returning footsteps approached the doorway, Evan ducked deeper into the alcove's shadow. The woman emerged in a hurry. She'd pushed back her hood, revealing the face of a young woman. Olive complexion. Strong jaw. Dark hair pulled back from features that were twisted into a broad smile. Her eyes shone with excitement, as if she'd just stumbled onto a fortune in treasure. In her hands she carried what was definitely a rifle. Long-barreled. Angular, with a stock that curved to fit against the shoulder and a grip designed for firing like a conventional weapon. Maker technology, pulled from whatever armory lay behind that sealed door.

  She didn't see Evan. Her attention was fixed forward, her pace quick, her mind clearly racing ahead to show the others what she'd found. She passed within arm's reach of his alcove, close enough for him to see the fine beads of sweat under her nose where the breathing apparatus met her skin.

  Evan burst out from the recess behind her, clamping his hand over her mouth. His other arm wrapped around her waist, pinning her arms against her body as he pivoted and shoved her into the alcove. The impact of her chest hitting the bulkhead, his weight slamming against her, drove a grunt from her. Her rifle clattered to the deck between their feet.

  She frantically tried to twist free, her boots scraping against the deck as she tried to find leverage against him. But Evan had position, and the advantages of weight and training.

  His hand shifted from her midriff, his forearm exerting pressure against her carotid artery—a textbook technique to cut the blood flow to the brain rather than crushing her windpipe. She thrashed harder, her hands clawing at his forearm, but her movements were already growing weaker. Her dark eyes rolled back, and her body went slack. Evan lowered her to the deck as quietly as he could, propping her against the alcove wall where the pulsing crystal light painted her unconscious features in shades of pale blue.

  He picked up the rifle and quickly examined it. It was lighter than he'd expected, the materials unfamiliar but well-balanced. A recessed switch sat near the rear of the stock. Power switch, probably. He pressed it. Then footsteps echoed from the direction of the lift. One set returning from the bridge with purpose. Coming to see what the other two had found. Which meant one of them—probably the leader—was still up there.

  Evan again pressed himself flat against the alcove bulkhead. The footsteps grew louder, closer as he balanced the rifle in the back corner nearest his right hand, the woman still slumped at his feet. And then the man passed the alcove's opening. Evan got a quick glimpse of sharp close-cropped dark hair, the man's hood pushed back, all his attention focused forward.

  Evan stepped out behind him. He hooked his arm around the man's neck, the chokehold locking in with skilled proficiency. A strangled noise escaped the man's throat as he thrashed, grabbing at Evan's forearm. Evan's free hand found the pistol holstered at the man's belt and yanked it free.

  A shout brought his attention forward to the man from the armory. He stood directly in front of them, his goggles pushed up onto his forehead, his eyes wide as he registered the crisis in front of him. His weapon zeroed in on Evan.

  With his captive serving as a shield, Evan shook his head in the negative as he rested the stolen pistol against his captive's temple. The man was trying to speak, words tumbling out in gasps between attempts to breathe. Oridian Standard, probably, urgent syllables that meant nothing to Evan. The shooter lowered his weapon slightly, his own voice rising with increasing desperation, rapid sentences that carried the tone of someone trying to negotiate.

  "I don't understand you," Evan said. Flat, deliberate. Making it clear that words weren't going to bridge the gap.

  The shooter's expression shifted. Recognition that they couldn't communicate. That whatever he was saying wasn't getting through. He slowly lowered his pistol to the deck, then carefully straightened with his hands raised. More words, softer now, the urgency replaced by something closer to submission.

  Evan released the chokehold on the other man, shoving him stumbling toward his buddy. He kept his purloined pistol trained on them.

  The two men stood together, their hands up, their postures non-threatening. The man from the armory pointed toward the lift, then upward toward the bridge.

  Evan gestured back. "Up? You want to go up? To the bridge?"

  The man nodded, pointing upward again, but with greater urgency. Evan didn't get the sense they were trying to trick him. They seemed worried about something, and he got the feeling they thought he should be worried, too.

  "Okay, let's go," he said, gesturing with the pistol for them to move. Keeping his pistol on them, he let them walk past, sparing a glance at the unconscious woman before marching them back to the lift.

  The platform carried the three of them upward in tense silence. Evan positioned himself against the back wall, watching the two men who stood with their hands visible and their attention carefully forward. The pulsing lights of the lower deck faded below them, replaced by the softer illumination of the bridge level. The platform settled, and the doors parted.

  The leader sat in the command station—Evan's command station—his hood pushed back to reveal a hard face, gray threading through his close-cropped hair. He was studying the alien symbols on the control surface with intense concentration, but he looked up when the lift arrived, words already forming, a question directed at his companions.

  Then he saw Evan.

  The man's expression hardened instantly. He rose from the command seat in a single fluid motion, his pistol clearing its holster, the barrel swinging toward them.

  Evan grabbed the nearest of his captives and dragged him in front of his body, pressing one of the pistols against the man's temple. "Don't."

  The leader fired anyway.

  The first bolt caught Evan's human shield squarely in the chest. The man in his grip went rigid, a choked gasp escaping his throat as the smell of burned flesh hit Evan's nostrils. Before Evan could react, the leader fired again—the second shot finding the gap between the collapsing body and Evan's torso, catching him in the left shoulder.

  Agony bloomed through his arm and chest. A searing heat that felt like a branding iron pressed against the meat of his shoulder. He staggered, his grip on the dying man loosening. But his right hand remained steady. He fired back. The pistol made almost no sound, just a soft whine and a flash of light. The bolt caught the leader in the chest. His eyes went wide. His legs buckled. He crumpled against the command station and slid to the deck, smoke rising from his charred wound.

  The young man from the armory—the one who'd surrendered his weapon—rushed past Evan toward the body that had fallen from his grip. His voice rose in a cry of dismay, hands reaching for his comrade, words tumbling out that Evan couldn't understand. The man on the deck wasn't moving, his chest a ruin of blackened flesh where the first bolt had struck. No blood. Just that awful burned smell filling the bridge.

  Evan's shoulder screamed at him. He glanced down and saw a circular burn perhaps two inches across, the flesh seared and discolored, wisps of smoke curling from the charred edges. The pain radiated down his arm and up into his neck. The heat had cauterized everything. He wouldn't bleed to death, but that didn't mean much to the agonizing depth of pain and injury to the muscle, tendon, and bone of his shoulder.

  The man from the armory looked up at him, pointing toward the front of the bridge. Evan turned, his eyes settling on the sensor grid. Multiple contacts flickered across the display, appearing and vanishing as the tower's interference disrupted the readings, the pattern clear enough.

  They had company approaching from multiple directions.

  Sarxon's forces. Had to be.

  They were converging on Ascendant and closing in fast.

  37

  The younger man from the armory kept pointing at the sensor grid, his free hand making sharp gestures toward the flickering contact markers. His voice rose with each syllable, the Oridian words tumbling out faster and faster, his eyes darting between the display and Evan with growing desperation. Whatever he was saying, the meaning was clear enough from his tone.

  They were both in trouble.

  Evan's jaw tightened as he watched the contacts multiply across the tactical projection. Five markers had become eight. Eight became twelve. The interference from the tower's metal structure disrupted some of the readings, but the pattern was unmistakable. Sarxon's forces were closing in from multiple directions, converging on his position with coordinated precision.

  And he knew exactly how they had found him.

  "This is your fault." Evan's voice came out harsh, scraped raw by pain and fury. He gestured toward the dead leader slumped against the command station, then swept his hand toward the sensor grid. "You brought them here. Your ship, your landing, whatever you did—they followed you."

  The younger man stared at him without comprehension, the language barrier as solid as the bulkheads surrounding them. But something in Evan's tone must have translated, because his expression shifted from panic to something closer to guilt. He looked away, his shoulders dropping.

  A groan cut through the tension.

  Evan's attention snapped to the man lying on the deck. The one who'd taken the leader's bolt meant for Evan. The one whose chest was such a smoking ruin, he should have been dead before he hit the floor. But the sound was real, weak and pained, escaping through lips that twisted with the effort of drawing breath.

  Still alive. Somehow.

  Ignoring the fire that lanced through his shoulder, Evan turned and dropped to one knee beside the fallen man, his eyes moving over the wound. The burn was severe—charred flesh, the smell of cooked meat hanging in the air. But the bolt had struck high and to the left, closer to the shoulder than the heart. Not a kill shot. Not quite.

  The younger man was already there, his hands hovering over his companion's body, words spilling out in a desperate stream. Pleading, maybe.

  "Help me." Evan pointed toward the lift, then down, then mimed the action of carrying someone. The younger man's brow furrowed with confusion. Evan tried again, more forcefully this time, desperation bleeding into his own voice despite his efforts to stay controlled. "The medical bay. We need to get him to the medical bay. Now."

  He could have just let the man die. He didn't owe him anything, but the way the leader had shot him, without hesitation to get to Evan said more about the group than any words might have. These others worked for him, not with him.

  And they were expendable.

  Evan couldn't believe the leader hadn't known the Möbius was up there, who it belonged to, or what that might mean. Kviren had made it clear the relic ships were legendary. Well known. Maybe the man had hoped to loot the Ascendant before the Umbral forces arrived. Or perhaps he thought to steal the ship away from them first.

  The leader had been reckless. He couldn't have known what he was walking into. That said something, too. He had been desperate to find something of value. Maybe he was in debt. Owed whatever passed for money here to the wrong people. Maybe these three owed him money in turn. Evan didn't know much about the Oridian Galaxy, but that kind of indentured servitude still happened on Earth, so it made sense.

  Besides, what would letting the wounded man die accomplish? If they were going to have to fight, Evan needed all the help he could get.