Page 121 of The Edge of Dawn

Find the traitor. The one who claims he is the eldest born of the dead emperor.

Is he really?

Does it even matter?

According to Tarak’s intelligence, his target had been cybernetically modified. He possessed a vicious metal appendage—a tail—that could be used to impale his victims.

Dragek wasn’t fazed. He already had an idea of how he could neutralize it.

He entered a long chamber where passenger seats lined the walls. They were all empty.

Based on the map Tarak ordered him to memorize, he was close to the bridge. There was a weapons storeroom to the left and a medical bay to the right. There were people in the med-bay, too. A Kordolian and a human.

The human was receiving treatment of some sort. Had they hurt her?

He couldn’t help but think of Jade. It could so easily be her in that treatment room.

Dragek’s instinct was to burst in there and kill whoever dared lay a hand on the defenseless female, but doing so would immediately blow his cover and jeopardize the entire mission, putting them all at risk.

So he gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore whatever was happening in the med-bay.

The female in there didn’t seem like she was distressed. She wasn’t crying out in pain—for now.

He just had to get to Amun.

Tarak and his crew would take care of the rest, including the humans. They weren’t his objective right now.

Cloaked in invisibility and silence, he moved through the ship until he reached the doorway to the bridge.

Naturally, the Qualum doors were sealed, but when Tarak’s techs had constructed the Second Silence around the Caelix III, they’d hacked into the ship’s security network and added Dragek’s biological signature to the database.

Theoretically, these doors should open for him.

But that would give his presence away. After all, an invisible ghost couldn’t just open a door and go unnoticed.

So he waited.

Until the doors opened, and a Kordolian walked out.

Clearly, this wasn’t Amun. Tall and broad, with grizzled features and cropped hair, he wore the old military uniform.

Some sort of soldier, and a senior one at that, Dragek guessed.

But he wasn’t worth bothering about right now because Tarak and the others would take care of him, and he’d just given Dragek the perfect opening.

He slipped through before the doors closed.

And found himself inside the very heart of the ship.

This was the control room.

It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. There were the usual consoles and pilot chairs. Holographic star charts were projected into thin air. A uniformed Kordolian sat in one of the pilot seats, intently focused on some sort of navigational map.

Another one—a young-looking tech—was hooked up to the Sylth, monitoring something or other.

If they’d detected any sort of interference from Tarak and his crew, they didn’t show it. The Darkstar Mercenaries were too good and too devious to let such a basic error slip through.

He had to trust they didn’t know he was here.

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