Moving with lethal agility, Serena slipped past every active camera, heading straight
for a patrol route along the perimeter of the cargo bay.
Earlier, on her way to The Med-Tech Quarantine, she had caught sight of the
security indicator at the junction.
The flashing red light had quietly shifted to The White Protocol Signal.
That was the green light Fenris had left for her.
Since the patrol routes on Project Zero-Transit randomized every thirty minutes.
The white light meant Fenris had leveraged his security clearance to carve out a massive, albeit incredibly brief, blind spot for her.
Serena had already mapped out the ship's entire blueprint and security grid in her mind.
With Fenris running interference.
She practically ghosted into the Abandoned Cold-Chain Corridor.
The decaying climate control system sputtered in the background.
A blast of freezing air, thick with the stench of mildew and rot, hit her square in the face.
Condensation dripped down the steel walls.
The sickly yellow lights flickered wildly overhead.
Bathing the narrow passage in a suffocating, deeply oppressive atmosphere.
Serena glided right through the shadows.
At the very end of the line was The Oxygen Ventilation Sector bordering the cargo hold.
It was somehow even darker than the frozen corridor she had just left.
A chaotic web of silver-grey pipes tangled aggressively across the ceiling.
The putrid stench in the air was so thick it was almost unbearable.
The second Serena stopped moving.
A towering, muscular figure stepped seamlessly out of the darkness ahead.
He was still wearing his black tactical gear. He didn't have a mask on, allowing the harsh angles of his mixed-race features to radiate an overwhelming aura of pure, predatory dominance in the dim lighting.
His stormy, grey-blue eyes locked intensely onto Serena.
He didn't waste a single breath on small talk. He simply closed the distance and handed her a folded piece of paper.
Serena raised an eyebrow, letting her gaze sweep over his aggressively sharp jawline before taking the document.
She looked down at it.
Her long, dark lashes fluttered momentarily before she shot him an impressed look.
It was an extremely detailed tactical map.
And it had clearly been ripped straight from the cargo bay's active security grid.
On the map.
The deepest section of the inner vault was aggressively circled in bright red.
A heavily marked route extended from that inner hold, leading straight toward the aft of the ship.
Hidden in the deepest recesses of the stern was a pathway that absolutely did not exist on Project Zero-Transit's public blueprints.
Serena's eyebrow twitched upward.
Jerrick's freezing, low baritone filled the silence. "Specimen Fourteen is currently lockedsdown in the most heavily fortified sector of thedinner vault."
"Black Sun's objective is to quietly extract Specimen Fourteen from the inner ring
and move her entirely off-grid via The Aft Docking Bay."
Which was exactly what the red line highlighted.
Serena tapped her slender finger
against the route. "They picked anet Right when the finale
of a time
piece hits the stage at the auction."
"When everyone's completely distracted... that's their window."
Jerrick gave a short, affirmative hum.
Serena looked up, a genuinely impressed smirk playing on her lips. "To not only pinpoint Specimen Fourteen's exact location and extraction route, but also
lack down your patrol grid in such a tight window."
"Mr. Fenris, you truly live up to your title as the ultimate mercenary. You're seriously good."
Had it been anyone else.
Receiving such raw praise directly from The Panacea would have triggered some
kind of visible reaction.
But Jerrick's stoic expression didn't so much as twitch.