Page 146 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Hina

I was supposed to be dead. When I blinked open my eyes blearily, I wondered if this was the afterlife. The big purple fronds swaying above my head certainly indicated that I wasn’t on Earth any longer. My body struggled to adjust, and my head was sluggish as I tried to comprehend what was going on.

If I were dead, then why did it feel like my skull was splitting in two from a terrible headache?

And why were my lungs aching, struggling to pull in oxygen?

Even my throat was sore, almost as if I’d been breathing in smoke.

I twisted my head a little, my eyes struggling to focus on what was next to me while my nose told me smoke was the culprit behind my aching lungs.

Blinking rapidly, my eyes cleared just enough to take in a portion of bent and warped wreckage—a spaceship, or what was left of it.

Okay, so I wasn’t dead. Right now, I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

With momentous effort, I heaved my body into an upright position and forced myself to focus.

I had to figure out where I was, and whether there were other survivors.

My eyes were clearing, and while my head ached something fierce, I could better process my own thoughts.

As I looked around a second time, I could see that the wreckage was only a small portion of a small spaceship; there was no sign of the rest of the ship.

Near me was a broken and bent shell of a stasis pod.

The internal wires dangled out of it, and my feet were still pointed in its direction.

I’d come from there: the crash had broken the pod, but the pod had kept me whole.

I suspected that I was lucky in that regard, especially when I spotted another stasis pod a little further away, broken in two, with half a body hanging out of it.

Unsteadily, I got to my feet, leaning on my own pod for balance.

A third pod lay further away; it looked completely whole, so I made myself walk to it, unsteadily climbing over the churned-up earth surrounding this crash site.

By the time I reached that pod, I was a little steadier on my feet.

My lungs and throat still hurt, but it felt as though I could draw breath more easily than before.

There was a faint stirring of hope that whoever was in that stasis pod was still alive—and that I could wake them.

If I could, I wouldn’t be alone in this mess.

I’d said my goodbyes, I’d been escorted into the chamber.

I’d panicked and cried when the gas had filled it up, and then I’d been swallowed by darkness.

I’d faced my damn execution, so why was I now here, crash-landed on a strange planet?

It was a puzzle I couldn’t figure out, so I forced the thoughts away and focused on the here and now—on survival, and maybe on not having to do that all alone.

The outside of the pod was covered with a fine layer of soot, so I used the bottom edge of my already sooty sweater to wipe the worst of it off.

Oh, I guess no company. Stupidly, my brain got hung up on that part for a brief moment.

Then flight instincts kicked in, and I flung myself away from the stasis pod.

Inside, the poor soul had died, their skin burned almost entirely away, leaving a charred, eyeless corpse.

I dry-heaved into some pink and red bushes, my empty stomach rebelling at what I’d just seen.

Nothing had ever prepared me for that. Of course, my brain was a glutton for punishment, so my eyes darted over to the broken pod, where half a body was dangling out of it.

I squeezed my eyes shut and fought down another wave of nausea.

Not good; I needed to get my act together, or I was going to be toast.

Straightening up, I tried to focus on the things I was more familiar with.

I was fit, as I’d done a lot of fieldwork and completed all my survival training.

Surveying the area again, I skipped over the two dead bodies and forced myself to assess what was here that I could use.

I needed to find a source of safe water to drink and shelter.

The temperatures weren’t too bad, and when I looked up at the pink sky, the sun was halfway down the horizon.

I hoped that meant I would still have a few hours of light to get myself situated.

As a botanist, I hoped I had a better shot than most at identifying possible edible plants.

The clearing I was in lay low on a mountainside, and looking in the direction of the flat plains gave me an itchy, uncomfortable feeling in the back of my head.

Those looked like floodplains—just quick-growing grasses, nothing tall.

The shimmering glitter of what seemed to be a river in the distance made that assessment more probable.

I should try to get to higher ground. But first, I should scavenge what I could from here.

It took me nearly an hour to pick through the wreckage of the ship, but in the end, I was satisfied that I had located and taken what I could.

I was now the proud owner of two metal flasks—one actually contained water, which was great news.

I had also found a med kit still stuck inside a special slot in a ship wall panel, with a convenient red cross painted on it to mark its position.

I had pulled free some cables that I could use as rope, and a sharp piece of metal that I could use as a knife.

There was no sign of any food or much beyond that, so I had resorted to stripping the lining of my stasis pod to create a swath of fabric to carry everything in.

There was no working technology in the wreckage that I could find—no way to send out a signal and call for help.

I tried not to think about what that meant for me.

If I managed to get through the first few nights, was I going to end up living out my life on this strange, alien planet, like some weird, alien version of Robinson Crusoe?

Yikes. I’d go mad without some kind of company.

The slope going up beyond the portion of the crashed spaceship was steeper than it looked.

Soon, I was covered in a fine sheen of sweat and had to take off my comfy sweater.

At least I was wearing my well-worn, sturdy shoes, which were fairly suited for the rough terrain.

It could be worse—imagine if I’d chosen to wear high heels to my execution.

The foliage around me first started getting denser as I climbed, and it drew my interest. Was anything that grew here edible?

Some of the plants I saw looked like they could have tubers, my mind already working on filing away what looked safe to touch and try.

When I found a stick that seemed the right size for walking, I picked it up, noting the firm core but the more spongy bark layer.

Then I picked up my pace; I had a feeling there were going to be caves in the direction I’d chosen to go.

That would make a good starting point for shelter.

*

Fierce

The sensation of the gravity generator shutting off was, as always, extremely disconcerting. Unlike my fellow gladiator brothers, my head would fill with all of Snarl’s complaints as soon as weightlessness set in. “I hate floating. Why am I floating? Are we landing? I am going to puke.”

“No, please don’t puke,” I warned the Ferai beast. He didn’t fit in a jumpseat where he could be strapped in safely, so I had my arms around his upper body, anchoring him to me.

I was right in the splash zone, with his big maw pressed against my shoulder.

Well, it was hovering near it right now.

From experience, I knew that Snarl wouldn’t actually empty his stomach, but for a dangerous wild animal, he sure knew how to whine.

Snarl made a huffing noise, his floating hind legs scrambling to find some kind of purchase, his claws digging into my skin. “I hate landings,” he complained again.

Rolling my eyes at the ceiling, I growled at him, “You’ll love stretching your legs down on this planet. Stop whining.” One glowing red eye glared angrily at me from where his head floated near my shoulder. I pulled back my lips and bared my sharp teeth, a growl rumbling up my throat.

That shut him up at last, but now I’d drawn the attention of my brothers even more.

Thorin and Camila, along with Jakar, had already been avidly staring at the mildly panicking Snarl.

Damn, even Kitan was leaning around his chair to look at me.

I growled again, “Shouldn’t you be flying this metal bird?

” Kitan flashed an amused grin and swiveled back to face forward.

The only one who wasn’t openly staring was Sunder, who sat stonily in his seat, frowning down at his clawed hands.

A moment later, our gravity reasserted itself as the planet got hold of us.

My body thudded into the jumpseat, followed by Snarl crashing into my chest with a whine.

Out front, through the viewscreen, the image of the huge pink and purple planet was overtaken by a rush of clouds, followed by a view of the planet’s many tall mountains and the floodplains that stretched between them.

“Okay, listen up, brothers,” Sunder said.

“We know very little about this planet, so don’t run off.

We’re just checking out the wreck to see if there are any survivors.

Stay alert, Akri indicated there’s a possibility that some indigenous species might not like us poking around.

” He tapped a finger on his thigh before pointing it at Camila and Thorin.

“That means no sneaking off for some hanky-panky. Got that, you two?”