Chapter 27: Shadows and Desires

The tension in the air was thicker than a starship’s hull plating.

Our alliance with the Kha’reli was fragile at best, and now, Warlord Va’karr had requested a personal meeting. He wasn’t coming alone.

I stood in the war room of the G’Tarok, studying the holo-display of the rendezvous coordinates. The meeting point was a neutral sector—far enough from both our forces to ensure neither side could spring a trap. But trust was a rare commodity in this war.

Ny’Vara and Sa’Kari stood on opposite sides of the table, both watching me carefully. Two women—one Narn, one feline-humanoid—both lethal in their own way, and both with their own ideas on how this meeting should go.

Ny’Vara broke the silence first. “We shouldn’t be doing this. Va’karr is a warlord, not a diplomat. This could be a setup.”

Sa’Kari’s voice was cool. “If it is, then we counter accordingly. But dismissing this opportunity would be foolish.”

I held up a hand. “Enough. We’re going. But we’re not going in blind.”

I turned to G’Lan, our chief strategist. “Have our fighters ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. If Va’karr so much as blinks wrong, I want to be able to punch our way out.”

G’Lan nodded. “Understood, Captain.”

Tor’Vek grunted. “And if he does come in peace?”

“Then we do what we came to do,” I said. “We make sure this alliance holds—because if it doesn’t, we’re all dead anyway.”

### The Warlord and the Assassin

We arrived at the meeting coordinates. The Kha’reli flagship, Kra’thul, loomed in the void, its dark hull covered in jagged ridges like a sleeping beast.

A single shuttle detached and headed toward us.

As it docked, I stood in the hangar bay, flanked by Ny’Vara and Sa’Kari. Tor’Vek and a security team stood at the ready, weapons holstered but in easy reach.

The airlock cycled open with a hiss.

Va’karr emerged first, towering and armored, his reptilian eyes scanning the room with cold precision. But it was the woman who stepped out behind him that made my breath catch.

She was not Kha’reli.

Tall, elegant, and lethal in the way only an assassin could be, she moved with the grace of a predator. Midnight-black hair framed a face that was both beautiful and unreadable. Her skin had a bronze hue, her piercing silver eyes locking onto mine with unsettling intensity.

Va’karr’s voice rumbled through the bay. “Captain Harper, meet Zhen’Vala—an emissary of the Syndicate.”