The Last Heir of the Forbidden Family

Spoils of War

Chapter 30: Spoils of War

"He's right around the corner," Dorian gasped, clutching his chest as the crimson light beneath his skin flickered like a dying ember. "Third bulkhead down. He's weaponizing the corridor's security feed."

"Let him try," Kenji muttered, sliding his combat knife back into its sheath with a sharp click before ripping a high-pressure steam valve off the auxiliary wall unit. "Seraphine, keep Dorian behind the turbine housing. If Vance gets past me, put a round through his skull. Don't hesitate."

"I never do," Seraphine said coldly, dragging the shivering boy out of the line of fire as a dense, blinding white hiss of scalding steam erupted across the narrow metal walkway.

The deafening roar of the freighter's engines drowned out the initial sound of the ambush, but the sudden, violent clash of steel against steel echoed sharply through the vibrating lower deck. Kenji lunged into the blinding white wall of vapor, his blade meeting Vance's combat knife with a shower of brilliant orange sparks that illuminated the dark, cramped industrial corridor for a fraction of a second.

"You're losing your edge, old man," Vance's voice cut through the hiss of the steam, strained but dangerously confident as his cybernetically augmented reflexes allowed him to parry Kenji's downward slash with ease. "The company offered a full pardon for anyone who brought the asset in. But for you? They made an exception. Dead or alive, Kenji. Mostly dead."

"Corporate HR is going to be very disappointed with your performance review today," Kenji grunted, throwing his weight forward and slamming Vance's shoulder against the hot iron housing of a steam turbine.

Vance hissed in pain as the scorching metal burned through his tactical fabric, his synthetic eye flashing a brilliant, angry red in the dim light. He drove a heavy, reinforced boot into Kenji's midsection, sending the older runner stumbling backward across the slick, grease-stained deck plates.

"Kenji!" Seraphine yelled, half-raising her weapon from behind the turbine housing, her eyes darting between the fog and the shifting shadows.

"Stay back!" Kenji barked, coughing as he wiped a smear of blood from his lip, his eyes locked on the tracker stepping out of the steam cloud. "This is personal."

Vance smiled, his face scarred and cold, raising his specialized combat blade with calculated precision. "There's nowhere left to run, Kenji. The captain of this rust bucket already sold your transponder codes to our regional command. The moment we clear this inlet, an extraction gunship is going to blow this entire ship out of the water."

"Then I guess we need to reschedule our meeting," Kenji whispered.

Instead of attacking, Kenji dropped low and swept his leg across the deck, kicking the master release lever of the main auxiliary pressure line. With a deafening shriek of tearing metal and a massive wave of superheated steam, the corridor was instantly flooded with a blinding, impenetrable wall of white heat.

Vance cursed, blindly slashing his blade through the empty air as his optical sensors overloaded from the thermal spike. "What the—!"

That was the only opening Kenji needed. He closed the distance in a fraction of a second, driving the hilt of his heavy combat knife directly into the side of Vance's neck, right where the cybernetic interface met his biological nervous system. Vance seized violently, his eyes rolling back as his internal systems short-circuited in a shower of tiny, spitting blue sparks, before collapsing heavily onto the grated metal floor.

The corridor fell deathly silent, save for the rhythmic, heavy thumping of the freighter's pistons far below.

Seraphine stepped out from the shadows, lowering her weapon as she looked down at the unconscious corporate tracker. "Is he dead?"

"Out cold," Kenji breathed heavily, leaning against the hot bulkhead to catch his breath as he wiped the sweat and condensation from his forehead. "His comms are fried, and his locator beacon is disabled. We bought ourselves some time, but he wasn't lying about the extraction ship. The company knows we're on this boat."

Dorian crawled out from behind the turbine, his face pale and drawn, pointing a trembling finger toward Vance’s tactical belt. "Look at his rig. There's a data-slate flashing with an encrypted corporate frequency. Grab it."

Kenji knelt beside the fallen hunter, unbuckling the heavy leather tactical harness with swift, practiced efficiency. He popped the secure data-slate free from its magnetic mount, the small screen instantly illuminating his face with a pale, cold blue glow as it booted up.

"What's on it?" Seraphine asked, stepping closer and keeping a wary eye on the stairs leading back up to the main deck.

"Everything," Kenji muttered, scrolling rapidly through the encrypted files as lines of corporate telemetry, asset tracking numbers, and secure facility blueprints cascaded down the screen. "Bounty manifests, regional sector patrols, and..." He paused, his eyes narrowing as a specific set of coordinates caught his attention. "Well, look at that. Vance wasn't just tracking us. He was carrying the manifest for the central supply depot where they manufacture the stabilizing compounds."

Dorian stared at the glowing screen, the realization dawning in his hollow, exhausted eyes as the crimson light beneath his skin flared softly once more. "The stabilizer... the stuff keeping my organs from melting down over the next seventy-two hours."

"It's manufactured at a fortified corporate research facility three hundred miles south of here," Kenji said, looking up from the slate to meet Dorian's gaze. "The exact same place you broke out of."

Seraphine crossed her arms, letting out a dry, humorless laugh that held no real amusement. "Let me get this straight. To stop the clock ticking inside Dorian's chest, we have to turn around and raid the very corporate stronghold we just barely escaped from?"

"It's the only place with enough raw compound to keep him alive for more than a week," Kenji replied, standing up and tucking the data-slate securely into his jacket. "Otherwise, we spend the rest of our short lives running from every corporate bounty hunter between here and the coast."

Dorian pushed himself up to his feet with Seraphine's reluctant help, his posture rigid as he fought through the lingering agony of the spinal shunt. The rhythmic pulse beneath his collarbone seemed to steady, matching the grim, determined beat of his own heart.

"I won't run anymore," Dorian said, his voice quiet but steady, carrying a sudden, chilling resolve that made even Kenji pause. "If they want this tech back, they're going to have to pull it out of my cold, dead hands."

"That can be arranged," Kenji muttered, glancing back down at Vance's unconscious form before turning toward the ladder. "Come on. Let's go have a chat with the captain about a

ltering our destination before our friend wakes up."