Page 1 of Alien Devil's Prey
TALON
The hologram of the freighter hung in the center of the ready room, a fat, ugly brick of a ship rotating in the silent dark. Its designation—Stardust Drifter—was a joke. This ship wasn't wandering anywhere. It was a cog in a machine, bleeding credits for a slaver syndicate with ties to the Conclave.
My cog, now. I just had to take it.
"Its official route is a three-week haul from Cygnus X-1 to the Traplav mining colonies," Varrick said, his fingers dancing over his console. "Unofficially, it's making three off-book stops to pick up 'specialized cargo.' That's our window."
"And the first of the five Regalia?" Rylos's voice was as cool and clipped as ever. He stood, arms crossed, his markings dark lines against his skin. As the team's architect, he saw the universe as a set of schematics, and right now, he was looking for a flaw in mine.
"Secured in a hidden compartment in the primary cargo hold," I answered, not taking my eyes off the rotating ship. "The first of the Sovereign's keys. With it, we begin to take back the empire he meant for us. The compartment is shielded and mag-locked. The vault's security is commercial-grade—layered, but nothing I can’t slice through given uninterrupted time.”
An empire built on loyalty, and destroyed by treason. We were meant to inherit it, not avenge it.
"The risk is silent alarms," Rylos pressed. "If the navigator alerts patrol ships before you finish, we're dead in the water."
"Which is why she’s the primary target," I said. "The plan is clean. I’ll use a signal dampener to mask the breach, neutralize her quickly so she can’t call for help, then get to work. The real complication isn’t the ship; it’s the competition.”
I brought up the latest intelligence reports. “The Conclave’s inner circle is also hunting for the Regalia. They murdered the Sovereign to steal his empire—now they want to consolidate that power by collecting the keys to his vaults.”
"Good," Zarek rumbled from the shadows where he leaned against the bulkhead. "More enemies to kill."
"We can't miss this pickup," Rylos said, his voice carrying an edge I rarely heard from him. "Once the Conclave's new financial system goes live, the Sovereign's vaults become ghosts—seals welded shut, with no way to cut them open. The quantum encryption will render every key we've collected worthless. We have weeks, not months."
"Which is why we have to exploit their complacency," I said, seeing the opening Rylos had laid out. "The captain and his skeleton crew take their cut and go on shore leave during the long, automated hauls. That leaves the ship—and the vault—in the hands of a single, indentured navigator. It's our only window."
Her image materialized next to the freighter's schematic. Tamsin Reeves. Dark hair pulled back in a messy knot, a smudge of what looked like grease on her cheek, and hazel eyes that held a cynical, pissed-off intelligence. According to her file, she was shackled to the ship's registry by a debt she could never hope to pay off. A debt manufactured to justify their ownership of her, I thought. The Conclave's favorite currency was human misery.
This was my part of the plan. The clean calculus of electronic locks, security algorithms, and system vulnerabilities. The rest of them had their specialties—slicing, seduction, breaking things—but I was the one who turned locked doors into open ones. I was the one who got them what they needed.
I'd failed the Sovereign. I wasn't going to fail the rest of them. That guilt was a flickering reactor core in my gut, a low, cold burn that never went out. It didn't make me a tortured soul. It made me focused. Besides, Vinduthi warriors didn't do tortured. We did the torturing.
"The plan is simple," I said, expanding the holo to show the freighter's route through the Oort Cloud. "We intercept them here. The asteroid field will provide cover, but I'm not leaving their comms to chance. Kallum, you'll run point and feed me a clean approach vector. I'll get in close and sever their long-range comms with a data spike. Silent and clean."
Kallum, our quiet ghost, gave a single, sharp nod from his console. It was all the confirmation our team needed.
"I'll take the Nightfall and breach their hull directly. Fast, silent, surgical. The target is a single, unarmed human. I'll secure the navigator, slice through the vault's security protocols, retrieve the Regalia, and extract. The rest of you maintain position here and prepare for fast pickup."
"And what if she's not feeling cooperative?" Brevan asked as he leaned forward. He was always thinking about leverage, about the soft spots to press. "A woman with nothing to lose can be... unpredictable."
"Then she becomes a non-factor." I looked back at Tamsin's picture. That defiant glint in her eyes wasn't the look of a victim. It was the look of a survivor who was just waiting for a bigger predator to come along. "The vault's security is layered, but it's designed to stop a brute-force attack, not a slicer withthe right access codes. With or without her cooperation, that compartment opens."
Rylos was silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the schematic. "The human woman is the one part of this equation that is not a known quantity," he said finally, his voice flat. "She is a variable. The mission requires precision. Are you still the man for that, Talon? Or has this hunt clouded the focus of 'the Void'?"
My jaw tightened. "My focus has never been sharper, Rylos."
"Then prove it," he countered, gesturing to the schematic. "Your plan is sound, but it hinges on your ability to bypass military-grade security under pressure. Are you certain you can break those protocols fast enough?"
"I've cracked Conclave security before." The words came out colder than I intended. "Their encryption algorithms follow predictable patterns. Layer the right exploits, apply enough processing power, and any lock becomes a suggestion."
I shut down the hologram, plunging the room back into the dim, operational glow of its consoles.
"I need to prep," I said. "I head out in three hours."
The others moved to their stations as we left the readyroom, calm routines settling over the bridge. This was what we were good at. A six-man team against an empire. A ghost ship hunting the monsters who thought they'd already won.
I headed for the launch bay, my footsteps echoing in the corridor. The Nightfall was waiting—sleek, dark, and built for exactly this kind of work. Out here, in the cold, silent void, there was no room for doubt or hesitation. There was only the mission.
Find every piece of the Regalia. Reclaim our legacy. And burn the Conclave to ash.
