They were supposed to be gone in ten minutes—fifteen at max—if something went wrong.
So far?
Everything was going wrong.
No shit.
Pirate Veeka, second in command of the Riftmaw Ravagers, was not a patient woman. And right now, her boot tapped against the pristine metal floor of a far-too-clean luxury commuter craft, echoing louder than the hushed curses of her crew.
They should’ve left the place by now.
Except they were still here trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
Their target beast was nowhere to be found.
"Where is the passenger manifest?" she snapped, grabbing the holo-terminal from one of her men before he could hand it over.
"Yeah. It was a list, boss. The Problem is that it listed everyone, including those who only bought tickets."
Her eyes skimmed over the names. Nobles. Functionaries. The usual list of fat-pocketed twits who booked seats just to say they had them.
She snarled. "That’s the problem. Too many ghosts and no damn bodies."
Veeka threw the holo-terminal back at the pirate and turned to the lounging area they had just swept.
Empty. Just like the rest of the floor.
Which made no sense.
Their intel had been solid.
The Baron’s lackey swore the beast had boarded. Even sent a video of the creature’s handler walking through the gates earlier that morning.
A white cage.
A confirmed timestamp. He even paid a premium for priority boarding.
The only problem? No handler and definitely no beast.
And all they ended up seeing was one confused, solitary noble who had emerged from the bathroom the moment they made their way to look for their target.
Veeka was practically gritting her teeth.
Where the hell was it?
Or had they been set up?
No answer, not only because she never said it aloud but because the only person who would’ve had the brains to answer this was out there on his deathbed.
So all she was left with was this silence that was enough to make her snap.
This wasn’t just any side gig or a way to amass riches. This one was a matter of survival.
It all started with this new scheme; ideally, it was an offer for a job. But with what that moron of a Baron was offering, they might as well call it a bribe.
It was a job that they definitely turned down and didn’t even bother to listen to.
Not only because the client was infamously annoying, but also because they were seriously balls deep in their own problems.
The Ravagers had their own issues: territory disputes, internal power struggles, supply shortages, and that damned corruption.
But the persistent Baron insisted on talking their ears away.
Then, suddenly, he mentioned something that caught Veeka’s attention.
He mentioned what this beast had been eating.
Spiritual relics.
Spiritual. Fucking. Pet. Food.
Fruits that are just legends to most people after people stopped finding them in the closer galaxies. These were things that shouldn’t even exist anymore.
And now Baron Firth was claiming that beasts were eating that daily?
But the real kicker was the insinuation that he made after getting their attention.
If the fruit was rare, then what about the beast that had been bathed with that much spiritual energy?
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