Page 99 of The Edge of Dawn

He was alone. Ashrael had disappeared to do something or other, and the crew was busy preparing the ship for departure.

There wasn’t just one vessel.

There were at least a dozen. There was the stealth cruiser that he and Ashrael were about to board. There was a medical transport—in anticipation of the human females and children they had to retrieve. There was a fleet of small, deadly-looking fighters—to guard the larger ships.

How surprising. He’d assumed this would be a stealth mission—just him and Ashrael and a well-trained pilot.

But it seemed Tarak had bigger plans.

All of these ships were being sent through the wormhole? Wasn’t that too risky? What if one of them disappeared in the ether, or they got separated and spat out at different points in the Universe?

Whatever. He had to trust that Ashrael and Tarak knew what they were doing. He wasn’t oblivious. He saw. He observed. The general always seemed to be several steps ahead of his enemies.

He would just have to trust in the plan. After all, the entire First Division still followed Tarak. Those guys weren’t the sort that would blindly follow anyone. After the fall of the Empire, they could have done whatever they wanted. They could have committed mutiny.

Nine against one. As formidable as he was, even Tarak wouldn’t have been able to hold them back if they wanted to go against him.

But the First Division warriors were still unflinchingly loyal to Tarak. Dragek sensed that nothing in the Universe could break their bond.

They were united for a reason. They were no fools.

So logic dictated that he blindly follow them into an infernal wormhole, halfway across the Nine Galaxies, to find a ship carrying a mad descendent of the imperial family and a group of helpless human females and children.

It was the only thing to do.

A wry puff escaped his lips.

How in the Nine Hells had he ended up in this position?

He closed his eyes and let himself drift a little, casting his awareness outwards. He searched for her just because he could. Because he needed some form of reassurance that what they’d shared was actually real and not a crazed fever dream.

He found her. It wasn’t hard. Amongst all the others, she burned so brightly, like an all-consuming flame. He wanted to step into her warmth again. He wanted it to completely engulf him.

He felt so different when he was with her—like he’d been reborn.

She was still asleep. Still in his domain. He couldn’t get through to her without slipping into the void again, which was impossible right now.

Never mind. Let her rest.

Trepidation was pointless. He would return. Even an interdimensional rift couldn’t keep him from coming back to her.

A faint sensation prickled at the edge of his consciousness. A presence? How had they managed to sneak up on him like that?

He turned his head sharply, looking over his shoulder.

Ah. That made perfect sense.

There stood Tarak, arms folded, head slightly cocked, his expression as cryptic as ever. “You understand now, don’t you?”

“I’m starting to.”

“This isn’t a suicide mission, Dragek. I have every intention of bringing my men back intact. If you know much about my reputation, then you know I don’t consider any of my men to be expendable. That includes you.”

“I’d heard you ran an efficient operation. That you were different from the other bosses. That in recent times, you’d grown more merciful. My old masters put it down to weakness. That you’d been influenced by the humans.”

Tarak raised an eyebrow. “And what do you think?”

It occurred to Dragek that Tarak was clad in his battle-armor, a light-absorbing suit made from a hard but flexible layer of Callidum. A pair of menacing-looking Callidum swords were sheathed at his back. He was heavily armed, with plasma guns, incendiary devices, and daggers secured against his body.

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