Page 112 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

As I stepped onto the bridge, a sharp pain shot up my left leg, deep inside the bone.

I gritted my teeth and ignored it. Just a cramp, it was just a cramp, I told myself.

I made myself focus on the surprising number of people sitting at the consoles.

What the fuck was going on now? Usually, the bridge was fairly empty, even in transit, as the autopilot took care of most things.

Ziame and Kitan swapped off monitoring our progress, and Chloe was always on the bridge if Kitan was there, but now…

Sunder was at the com-station. Abby sat in her chair at Ziame’s side, while Ziame was sprawled into the captain’s chair.

His tail draped around the side and curled around Abby’s ankle, always touching her wherever they went.

I ignored the hot spike of envy at the sight, only to notice that Kitan was leaning sideways to whisper in Chloe’s ear.

She was plugged in, so she could now ‘see’ in that otherworldly fashion; her blue eyes focused on her mate with a happy sparkle.

Geez, I could not get away from the lovesick shit, could I?

At least Sunder was stoic as a rock, hunched over the com-station in his battle form.

His leathery wings were tucked in tightly at his back, and the crown of horns circling his bare skull glinted like shards of obsidian.

He seemed entirely focused on what he was doing, and I wondered if maybe I could ask Sunder to check the logs for me.

Since Tori’s baby had been born, he had become more reserved and quiet. Though he spent as much—if not more—time with the terribly shy female and her infant. Rather him than me; I wasn’t touching it with a ten-foot pole. I was guaranteed to break something that tiny and fragile.

Next to Sunder, Da’vi and Jakar were also standing on the bridge at the back wall, and while Da’vi wore a frown more severe than my own, Jakar was smiling and waving two of his four arms my way.

“Brother! Are you here to get your first look at Ziame’s old ship too?

” Ah, so we were arriving at the coordinates where Ziame had been captured.

With Chloe’s help, he had figured out which planet it was, and we’d set out only a few days ago, as soon as Chloe had been up to trying out her new nav-port.

“We’re there already?” I demanded, and Jakar nodded eagerly.

His red skin flushed with orange freckles densely packed along his cheekbones.

The guy was always excited about one thing or another, but he was rarely this colorful.

He was one of our least educated; as he was born and raised a slave, this was his first taste of freedom, and I had to respect the guy for grabbing hold of it with both hands and enjoying every moment.

Even if he got on my nerves all the time.

“It wasn’t far; that’s why I decided we should take this chance and see if Akri is still there,” Ziame explained. He gestured at the viewscreen. “Are our sensors picking anything up?” Sunder was shaking his head, and so were both Chloe and Kitan.

“We’re not seeing anything, Captain,” Chloe declared confidently, her eyes unfocused as she sifted through data with a brain I couldn’t even fathom.

I didn’t think I could ever get used to the thought of plugging into a computer and letting yourself become part of a machine.

It made my skin prickle in discomfort, while my leg ached more, as if to belie my thoughts.

Acknowledging that this damn ache needed me to give in for a moment, I forced myself not to limp as I headed for the jump seats at the back of the bridge.

I leaned back, stretched out my sore leg, and blatantly ignored the annoyed look Da’vi sent me when that encroached on his space in the jump seat one over.

With so many people present, I wasn’t comfortable poring over data that might end up implicating one of them in murder.

Even if it wasn’t so much about getting justice for Miean as just wanting to know what had happened and whether this was a problem we needed to worry about.

“Alright,” Ziame said, interrupting my thoughts, “that’s not a surprise. Akri has cloaking and should be entirely undetectable.”

“So how do you propose we find it?” Kitan drawled with a smirk, leaning back in his pilot chair to send our captain a saucy look. “It’s not like it’s going to reveal itself to just any ship.”

Ziame nodded, his wide horns sweeping up and down, nearly clipping Abby on top of her head, though she didn’t flinch away and was thoughtfully looking in Sunder’s direction. “You think it’s safe to try and broadcast a message?”

The big Lacerten male nodded. “I hope it’s still here.

Akri was supposed to self-destruct once I was captured and the chance of rescue success was less than seventy percent.

I just struggle to believe that it actually did so.

” Hmm. Akri was supposed to be an AI ship.

AI ships weren’t allowed to disregard direct programming; that came too close to true sentience.

As far as I knew, most shipbuilders, like Strewn, had completely abandoned building AI ships, as the risk was too great that one of them would break their programming leash and turn on their masters.

In my opinion, such things came too close to slavery, and we all had personal experiences with what that was like. At least it seemed like Ziame truly cared about the fate of his ship and was even hoping it hadn’t obeyed its directives and destroyed itself.

“I’m going to try with my implant first,” Ziame explained, tapping the side of his head just above one of his big, expressive ears.

Both ears were currently pinned back, hanging down, their tips trembling from tension.

“If he’s in range, he’ll hear me. If not, we’ll try with the Vagabond’s system next. ”

Whatever he said next, my translator couldn’t make sense of; the words were just growls and clicks to my ears.

The tension in the air was palpable as we all waited to hear if he was getting a response or not.

It was hard to say, but when Ziame’s ears suddenly flicked up, his fanged snout breaking into a wide grin, it became obvious: we’d found ourselves a stealth ship.