Star Runners: Mission Wraith

Prologue-1

Prologue

Fadre Gree was not his real name.

He continued every day as if he were one of the Zahlian engineers. The staff dressed in their civilian clothing lined up in pairs behind the shiny black elevator doors. A nearby man cleared his throat. Gree kept his gaze on the polished obsidian floor to avoid eye contact.

After a minute, the elevator pinged, and the dark reflective doors opened. Two Zahlian Marines, in their crisp crimson uniforms, held repeating laser rifles over their chests. They stepped out of the elevator, their ice-like eyes steady on the engineers.

Behind the Marines stood an officer with a silver tablet in one hand and a blinking metallic wand in the other. He swept the metallic device over two engineers at the front of the group and glanced at his tablet. The wand beeped and flashed green, signaling the first engineers could pass into the elevator. The Marines motioned with their laser rifles for the next pair to step forward. Their fingertips rapped on the rifles as they glared at each waiting person.

A muscle in Gree’s cheek twitched. The security to access the bowels of Zone Ninety was far more extensive than he’d anticipated. After seven months on Claria, he still had his movements monitored, and his correspondence surveyed. He hadn’t risked checking in with his superiors for two weeks. Now that he was about to descend into the depths of the complex, he wouldn’t be able to send or receive any communications. The building blocked all incoming or outgoing transmissions to maintain the operation’s security.

The Zahlian agents didn’t realize he knew about the surveillance or the blocked transmissions. He spent what little free time he had to try to appear like a bored employee. But the agents had reason to keep a watchful eye on the engineers working on this project for Baron Industries.

The Marines allowed the next pair to pass. They turned and gestured for Gree and the woman next to him to step forward. Her name was Ula Mara, an engineer from a local town on Claria. He had tried to get close to her in the past few months, but she kept to herself. During their one after-work drink in the company lounge, he discovered Ula had received accolades for her revolutionary designs in spacecraft hull plating. His cover story proclaimed him as a genius for optimizing the Lutimite Drive utilized by all spacecraft traveling within the Zahlian space lanes. The project supervisor charged him with advancing the engines on a Zahlian Interceptor, and he had wondered why.

Today, he hoped to find out.

The wand passed over his head, down his back, and touched the back of his legs. Gree sighed and looked up at the ceiling. The officer’s device flashed green, and Gree stepped into the elevator. The engineers packed into the rapidly shrinking elevator causing Ula to press against him, her eyes on the wall.

The final two engineers shoved into the elevator. The officer stood at the edge of the door, surveying the group. He nodded while counting the number of employees packed inside. He keyed for the level, and the entry hissed shut.

Gree couldn’t believe the length of the ride down. When the doors parted, guards escorted workers from the first elevator to the locker room where they changed into black lab coats. They had locked personal items into blue, plastic bins before ordered to another elevator. He marveled at the silence—the methodical efficiency of the Zahlian operation.

But he could see it in the eyes of the Marines and officer. Today would not be another day of calculations and study. Excitement radiated from their faces as they ushered the staff into another lift and proceeded with the descent.

The second elevator slowed, bounced once, and came to a stop. With a snap-hiss of servos, the doors parted to reveal an expanse substantial enough to fit a Zahlian capital ship. White fluorescent lights buzzed in the ceiling several stories above the floor. Other technicians and engineers, all in black lab coats, worked at stations around the room. Some carried tablets while others labored on equipment. The lighting increased in intensity at the center of the space where the floor lowered into a bowl shape.

“All right, move it,” the officer barked from near the elevator.

The engineers stepped forward with caution, surveying the bustling area. Ula leaned back, her eyes on the ceiling high above their heads. A solid red line stretched across the length of the room’s upper limit. Zahlian guards dispersed the newly arrived pack, escorting them to workstations. Gree watched them lead Ula away while he remained with engineers he didn’t know and hadn’t seen during his months in the Zone.

A Marine guard led him and the other engineers through various workstations. At one table, engineers focused on dissecting the inner workings of a laser canon. At another, designers wearing red goggles studied the microscopic variations of a piece of metal.

His pulse quickened, but he tried to control his breathing. After months of being Fadre Gree, trying to work his way into a project so secret it existed hundreds of marks below the surface, he now walked into an underground operations laboratory on Claria. His Legion contacts were not going to believe his report…if he would ever be able to give it.

Acting as if his upper arm itched, he scratched just behind his elbow and gently pressed the activation switch embedded under his skin. As he did so, his vision shifted and blurred like static for an instant. Implants attached to his retina warmed and activated, the images he saw now being recorded and saved into the thumb-sized device placed just under the skin on his arm. If all went well, and he could trust the Legion agent he met on the edge of the Fringe two years ago, he had thirty minutes of recording time. He hoped the image captured clear and true—especially when he recalled the pain of the initial procedure. He hoped the years of planning and execution would be worth it.

He rounded a line of lofty cubicles. Before him stretched a pair of engines connected to computer terminals and colorful wires. He nodded at the guard and stepped in front of the engine he had thus far seen only in schematics. When the trials were complete, it would be the fastest ship in the known galaxy. Nothing in the Legion even compared, but the Zahl project was still far from test flights.

Folding his arms across his chest, Gree turned his head to the side and walked around the engines. No matter who you were or where you were from, you had to be impressed with this technology. It was no wonder the Legion wanted him to get a look at the prototype. In a couple of years, this spacecraft could render the Zahlian Navy invincible.

He picked up a tablet and started reading his assignments for the day. Zahlian command wanted him to begin tests for engine optimization. They planned on installing the advanced engines in…two months? No, that couldn’t be possible. This project had barely advanced beyond the preliminary stages, right?

Two attendants moved a lengthy line of diagnostic equipment in front of his station on shiny metal carts. The instruments moved out of his view, revealing a sleek object in the distance.

Gree’s jaw dropped, the tablet lowering to his side. In the center of the laboratory, parked like it would blast through the ceiling at any moment, was the Wraith.

It couldn’t be.

He stepped forward, drawn to the spacecraft as if it had a magnetic pull. The ship’s stabilizers looked like the fins of a sea creature. He shook his head, studying the smooth ebony hull and curved arching nose coming together in the shape of a horseshoe crab. Up until that moment, many in Legion intelligence had discounted the rumor of an advanced Zahlian Interceptor code-named Wraith. If he could trust the reports, this Interceptor could fly completely undetected by sensors, avoiding missile lock, and operate unaffected by stunners or system disruptors of any kind. A fighter with such abilities would tilt the balance in the Legion-Imperial Cold War. With the work his team had completed on the engine enhancements, the stealth ship would also become the fastest in the galaxy.

“Dr. Gree, isn’t it?”

Gree spun around, facing the younger engineer. “Yes?”

“Sir, aren’t we supposed to begin working on the engines?”

“Right,” he said, turning back to the Wraith, “we are. I just, well, I hadn’t seen her up close.”

“No one has.” He stepped next to Gree. From the smooth skin around his eyes, the fellow engineer had to be ten years his junior, or he had received some genetic enhancement—probably on a world like Claria. “She’s beautiful.”

Gree blinked, appearing to bring himself back to the task at hand but hoping his eye implant focused and captured a clear shot of the first known image of the Wraith.

“We had better get to work, Doctor…”

“I’m Sarta Bren, but everyone calls me ‘Popper.’”

Gree nodded, his eyes still on the Wraith looming like a silent sentinel. He opened the tablet to access his files on engine specifications, pulling his gaze away from the design perfection of the Wraith.

“Okay, Dr. Bren,” he said, “we need to start by testing if our engine can endure the modifications we made last week.”

“Right.”

Gree stopped listening as Bren launched into his expectations. Instead, he focused on the dread penetrating his stomach. The Zahl Empire would kill to acquire the images he just recorded. He had actual proof the rumors of the Wraith were true.

He needed to get topside after his shift, away from the building’s jamming, and send the video off world before it was too late.

As the shift ended, the laboratory lights turned off. One spotlight remained on the Wraith. Gree stared at the ship for a moment longer. Smaller than the Legion’s Trident, the Interceptor design looked less militaristic and more organic, almost as if the Zahlian craft had been born, not created. It had an elegant design. The smooth surface of the hull glistened like polished marble, the remaining light in the room rippling on the craft like a pond in the moonlight.

Gree sat his tablet next to the engines and, even though his recording device had filled hours ago, took one last look at the Wraith. He needed to get this information back to the Legion.

He filed out with the other engineers. Bren was babbling something about his evening plans when Gree came back to the conversation.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “what’s that now? I zoned out for a second.”

Bren snorted. “Glad you find me so interesting. Anyway, some people I know wanted to go to the Jouncy game later tonight, but I’m so over sports. Seriously, what’s the point? You know? Your team wins, or they lose—your life is the same the next day, right?”

Gree said nothing.

Bren continued his rant on the elevator ride back to the surface, launching into a tirade over a guy he knew who lost next month’s rent betting on a game.

Ula rode in silence at the elevator’s front, her arms behind her back. Gree stared at her, noticing the wisps of blonde hair stretching out like golden spider webs. He didn’t know much about her side of the project, but he knew it was her brilliance enabling the Wraith to remain invisible from sensors. Her advancements and dedication would serve the project well.

And she was beautiful.

Shorter than him and fit. He’d admitted a long time ago she was the best part of the daily elevator rides. Perhaps in another place and time, something could have…

Instead, he had to listen to Bren talking about the upcoming tournament he claimed not to care about.

They retrieved their belongings, including Gree’s bag with the crucial bit of technology, from the locker room, and changed into the civilian clothes they had worn when they arrived sixteen hours ago. With the schedule requiring them to return in six hours, he knew he had limited time to launch his remote Whisper carrying the Wraith video into space, away from the jamming, and back to his Legion contacts.

Wearing his light blue shirt and dark pants, he passed through the locker room door. It felt better to be out of the lab coat. He glanced at his watch and stopped, nearly crashing into Ula standing near the locker room entrance.