I exchanged a look with Svar as my heart thumped in my chest. “There is news?”
My battle chief gave a half shrug. “Not an imperial fleet, or even a Zagrath ship, but we have been tracking an unmarked freighter.”
My attention pricked. “Unmarked? It is not imperial?”
“Not that we can tell.” Corvak frowned. “And it is damaged.”
“Life signs?”
“The freighter’s hull appears to contain something that is muddling them.”
My pulse quickened. That could indicate an imperial trap.
My majak huffed out a breath. “It is a sad day when a Vandar horde considers a damaged, unmarked freighter to be of interest.”
Corvak slid a cold glance at Svar. “We have boarded freighters before and found them to be carrying imperial cargo.”
I grunted. We all knew that the last time we’d boarded a freighter, our Raas had ended up taking one of the human females onboard as his captive. The battle chief had strongly opposed the move, and had never warmed to the small creature. “I am not sure the cargo was worth the trouble.”
Corvak choked back a rough laugh. “I might be willing to agree with you, Raas, but a raiding mission is still a mission.”
“Especially one that might be an imperial trap. Besides, I have no intention of taking prisoners,” I added. Although I liked the human that Raas Kratos had eventually taken as his mate, her presence had been a disturbance on our warbird, and she was the reason Kratos was gone and I was now Raas. As much as I honored Raas Kratos, I had no desire to repeat his actions.
“Unless they are meant for my oblek?” Corvak asked.
I gave him a sharp nod, a sense of purpose swelling in my chest. What I needed to banish my doubt was blood dripping from my blade and battle cries filling my ears. I squared my shoulders. “Vaes! Tell the crew that their Raas has declared today to be a good day to die.”
Chapter Three
Bron
The steel floors rattled as I made my way through the warbird, Svar and Corvak flanking me as we descended to the hangar bay. Red lights flashed around us, reflecting off the exposed piping and suspended, iron walkways that created the labyrinth of the Vandar ship. Bare-chested warriors leapt from winding staircases to fall in step with us, their echoing footfall joining ours to create a drumbeat as we marched.
Corvak had sent out the battle call, and the command deck crew had immobilized the damaged freighter. Our horde remained unseen by our prey, thanks to our invisibility shielding. All the ship would know is that they could no longer move. They wouldn’t understand that it was a Vandar attack until our raiding ships locked onto their hull. This was why many throughout the galaxy considered us wraiths—ghost ships who appeared out of nothing and portended death.
A warrior inside the hangar bay snapped his heels together as I passed through the broad, double doors. “Raiding ships ready for departure, Raas.”
I inclined my head to him, surveying the black, birdlike ships lined up on the expansive, open floor. Curved wings stretched out from round bellies that were waiting to be filled with raiders, metal ramps extending to the floor like tongues. A wide mouth at the far end of the hangar bay opened up onto space, and an energy field hummed across it, keeping everything inside from being sucked out.
Pausing at the bottom of one of the ramps, I spun and raised a fist into the air. “All glory to Lokken, god of old!”
The raiders thrust their fists in the air. “Glory to Lokken!”
I thought of Kratos, and the many times he’d led us into battle with the familiar chants. I pumped my fist higher. “For Vandar!”
“For Vandar!” my crew bellowed in reply.
Even without Kratos leading the charge, the war cry both centered me and fired my blood. Our people had been using it since the days we’d roamed the open plains of our home world. It had been the Zagrath who had subjugated us and forced us to take to space, but we held tight to our traditions. Even though our galloping beasts had been replaced by iron ships, we still traveled in hordes of warbirds, and wore traditional battle kilts with long-handled axes swinging from our belts. Despite our advancements in technology, our beliefs in the old ways remained strong. Valiant warriors would live forever in Zedna with the gods of old, and it was our mission to rid the galaxy of imperial control and one day return our people to the home world of Vandar.
I pounded up the ramp, and my warriors followed close at my heels. Our bodies were pressed tightly together as we clutched steel beams overhead and the ramp slammed shut, then the engine rumbled beneath our feet and the ship thundered across the hangar bay floor and burst into space.
As I stood near the open cockpit, I had a clear view of the freighter as we approached. Battered and dented, it did not appear to be a warship of any kind. A powerful memory resurfaced. The ship we’d raided when Kratos had taken the human captive had looked similar to this—like a wounded beast not fit for anything but being put out of its misery.
“Why do I feel like I have been here before?” Corvak growled, shifting restlessly beside me.
I swallowed the hard knot of disappointment in my throat, remembering that a battle was still a battle. This ship might still be an imperial trap, I reminded myself. I gripped the hilt of my axe and prayed to the gods of old that there would be imperial blood to spill.
Our ship clamped onto the freighter with a hard jolt, the docking pincers holding us to the hull as lasers cut through the metal. When the hull was breached and our ramp slammed down, my raiders poured out and assumed our defensive formation.
I ran
