Page 46 of The Haunted Alien’s Mate

The building beyond it was three stories of pale composite, no windows on the street level, a single entrance marked by a door that had no handle.

Rennick placed his palm against the surface. The door dissolved into the wall, and he stepped through. It reformed behind him.

I stared at the building. There was no signage or indication of what happened inside. He could be going to a business meeting. Kelvane trade families ran operations across dozens of ports, and Rennick mentioned his uncle managed the family’s commercial network.

This could be nothing. Or it could be what Tambi feared, and Rennick was about to do something dumb with our ship. That was unacceptable. Hollow Chorus was under my skin the same way I was under hers. If Rennick was making plans without me, that needed to change.

I circled the building. There was a back service access point, a narrow panel at knee height designed for maintenance bots, ventilation ports higher up, and a secondary entrance with a keypad interface. It was a standard high-security commercial layout. I’d breached worse in the army.

The ventilation port above the service panel was wide enough, so I pulled myself up, braced both boots on the wall, and pried the grate with my multi-tool.

Inside, the maintenance corridor was narrow, lit by embedded floor strips. Climate-controlled air moved past me, cool and faintly sterile.

A few minutes later, I dropped to the floor and oriented. Main corridor ahead, branching left and right. Voices carried from somewhere above. One of them was Rennick.

I moved closer, staying low, keeping to the wall where the lighting was dimmest. A stairwell opened to my right, and the voices clarified. Rennick’s was tight and controlled, the way he sounded when he held something back. The other was also male, sounding calm and unhurried.

I couldn’t make out words, just the tone, and Rennick’s was getting harder. The other male stayed level. I pressed against the wall at the top of the stairs and edged forward.

There was a doorway ahead, partially open, with light spilling through. The older guy’s voice carried a sentence fragment.

“...should never have registered the purchase under your name. That was careless, Rennick.”

“It’s my star-damned ship! My name goes on it.”

“It was never supposed to be anyone’s ship after what happened. Do you know the mess you’ve caused for this family?”

My stomach dropped, and I shifted my weight forward for a better angle. Was that Rennick’s uncle?

The floor panel under my boot chimed, and the voices stopped. Then the corridor lit red. Damn! I’d triggered an alert.

A security drone dropped from a ceiling recess. It was roughly the size of a dinner plate with articulated grips that looked designed to restrain. Fuck! It was a containment unit drone.

The drone lunged at me, and I ran, taking the left fork and vaulting a low partition. It tracked me, adjusting its path mid-flight to match my direction.

A second unit activated ahead, dropping from another ceiling recess to block the corridor.

I feinted left and went right, rolling under a shelving unit and coming up with my multi-tool in my hand, the blade extended.

The first drone swept low, and I caught it across the sensor housing, cracking the casing.

“Sorry, buddy. Nothing personal, but I’m not getting caught snooping.”

It spun, recovered, and came back at a different angle. Feisty little fucker. It must have military training. Identify me as a threat, disrupt my pattern, exploit any weakness. I had the same training.

The second drone circled wide, tracking my movement, and when I cut left again, it was already there. Fuck!

I sprinted for the service exit. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Once I was out of the building, they wouldn’t see me as a problem and would stop their pursuit. I hoped.

The first drone hit me across the shoulders, grippers locking onto my jacket, and I twisted, slamming it into the wall. It released and recalibrated, one articulated arm dragging, and in two seconds, I’d covered another eight feet. Almost free.

The second drone came in low and fast. It hit the back of my knee, and my leg buckled, pain searing up my hamstring. I went down on one hand, blade still up, and slashed at the first unit as it closed in again. The blade scraped the composite and threw sparks.

A third drone appeared. This one was bigger, and it shot toward me. I ducked, but it struck the back of my skull, and my nerves fired as a jolt of pain crackled through me.

I tried to feel my head to see if I was bleeding, but my arms wouldn’t lift. My vision whited at the edges. I swung the blade once more out of pure stubbornness and connected with nothing.

My knees hit the floor. The multi-tool clattered out of my hand and spun away across the polished floor.