Page 144 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Ziame was quick to explain how they’d spotted the Varakartoom approaching Yengar Spaceport.

They’d tried to get in touch with us but couldn’t get through, and in the end, had to make the hard choice of running and hiding, hoping we’d be all right.

It was only because the Information Broker had sent them a short-range message from his safe room that they’d known we’d been taken.

It was Akri itself that spoke, explaining how they had inserted its core back into the small stealth vessel and set off after the shuttle we were on.

That had led them straight to the UAR Battleship Praetor.

They knew they couldn’t take that one on by themselves, and they needed a big distraction if they wanted to try and sneak on to get us out.

“They were in Kertinal space,” Da’vi contributed.

“So we anonymously tipped them off that there was a battleship encroaching.” He gave us all a toothy, wide smirk, his purple eyes glowing as he lifted his hand in a fair imitation of a human salute.

“They don’t take kindly to that, but while expansionists, they won’t hurt the humans in stasis, they’ll have a safe refuge there. ”

Well, that was a load off my chest. It didn’t sound right that these people were put in stasis and would wake up on some random planet, but it wasn’t going to be safe for any of them to return home.

Like me, the UAR would want to keep silencing them.

Akri added, “I pulled a lot of data off the UAR battleship while I was docked. It seems all these people were convicts, slated for execution on Earth.”

That made Da’vi roar with laughter. “Are you telling me I just helped the Kertinal Empire acquire close to a thousand criminals? That’ll show them!

” But I felt a quiet sense of horror at those words.

The UAR boasted about extremely low crime rates, mostly because every single crime, big or small, was punishable by death.

There were no prisons, which were touted as inhumane.

No, a conviction meant you got to put your life in order, say your goodbyes, and then it was a lethal injection.

Somehow, I shouldn’t be at all surprised that they’d then use these poor souls as trade goods.

No one would miss any of those people; everyone all thought they were dead.

When I explained this, Abigail started cursing loudly.

“And here I thought the future would do things better! What kind of crap is this?” The others were silent as they shared looks, while Da’vi had propped his head in his hand, tweaking one of his horns with the other as he suddenly seemed lost in thought.

“In that case, I suppose these people are lucky to end up where they did,” Thorin murmured.

“What Da’vi said is true. The Kertinal are expansionists; they like their wars.

But their homeworld is stable, and they treat their people well.

” It was one way of looking at it, at least they were alive and had a shot at building something new again.

It was what I had expected to do for myself when I’d first escaped…

And now, I had a home, with these strange but loyal people.

*

Thorin

The news of how the others had managed to help us escape was good to hear.

I was glad to know, for one, that the Praxidar, Jim, had come through for us and warned the Vagabond.

He hadn’t needed to do that, but he had, that made him a good guy in my book.

It was also a relief to know that the humans in stasis were in good hands, even if they couldn’t return home.

Ziame answered my biggest question unprompted: Drameil had gotten away, fleeing the battleship in his own private vessel.

That was shitty luck but hardly unexpected, the male was a coward at heart, only playing his sadistic games when he knew he had the upper hand.

The Kertinalian army had allowed him to retreat rather than taking him captive with the rest of the UAR battleship.

At least they had his data chip, though they hadn’t managed to make any headway yet on breaking the encryption. “I am sorry, Thorin,” Akri offered. “I do not have enough processing power to run the Vagabond and break it. Kitan will not allow me to use Chloe’s brain for extra power.”

The last sentence was said with a slightly petulant tone, which caused the shapeshifter to grin widely at the ceiling while he tucked his female into his side.

“Damn right, Akri. My female is not an upgrade you can plug in whenever you feel like it. She needs to rest her brain so her eyesight might return.”

While I understood exactly why Kitan prioritized Chloe’s health over breaking the encryption, I couldn’t help but feel anxious to find out what was on it.

It could very well be the thing that would help us bring the bastard down.

“How long do you estimate it will take currently?” I asked the ship, who responded with a huge number, calculated down to the second. Well, that was depressing.

“I have discovered some more interesting data I took from the UAR battleship,” Akri offered, silencing the small talk that had started to pop back up.

“The footage that got our Camila in trouble shows a small ship leaving. I believe I found the manifest, which indicates ten stasis pods and the planned route it was supposed to take. I also found a report saying the ship lost contact.”

That meant there were still a few humans out there who might need help.

I wondered how responsible we were all feeling for their fate, or if some of us wanted to ignore it in favor of going after Drameil, or simply finding more funds to make life better on the ship for ourselves.

With Camila as my female, I felt a sense of kinship with those lost humans, though.

Where only last week I might have shrugged this off as no longer my problem, now I felt we ought to at least try to find them.

But it was Jakar who pumped all four of his arms in the air.

“All right, let’s go find them! Maybe there are more females!

” The others felt similarly and agreed to go find the ship while we continued trying to break the encryption on the data chip.

Of course, Camila kicked Jakar in the shin under the table and warned the kid that this wasn’t going to be a find-a-mate mission, which caused the colored dots indicating emotion on his face to turn bright orange—an expression I knew meant embarrassment.

For the next hour or so, I sat with my brothers and friends, eating the abundant amount of food on the table.

We talked about our course of action for the next few weeks, oohed and awed over the tiny, pink- and blue-skinned baby in Tori’s arms until she and the child excused themselves for some rest. When exhaustion started hitting me, Doc told me he’d scan and take care of removing the cast from my leg, which only took a few moments with a laser scalpel and a lot of slightly drunk cheering from my brothers.

As Camila and I headed for my bunk for some much-needed privacy and rest, Akri announced he had some news on the footage of Miean at the time of the murder.

It was the first time I even remembered we still had a Riho on the loose somewhere, but I wasn’t about to go and fix that issue now.

It had been waiting for weeks, it could wait another day.

I had my female with me, who was staying, and my brothers were all here, happy and healthy. Or they seemed to be, at least.

But when I cast a look over my shoulder, I noticed how Fierce was staring after me with a strange look in his yellow eyes. Whatever that was about, that, too, could wait. “Come on, Camila, I promised to show you exactly why you made the right choice staying with me.”

And to the sound of laughter and catcalls, the two of us headed for some privacy and well-deserved rest.