Page 171 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Hina

I was a little apprehensive about following a guy I’d just met, who looked much like a real-life gargoyle.

He was both terrifying and ugly, with tusks protruding from his mouth and a glower on his face that seemed more unfortunate than intentional.

He had excellent manners, even if the huge wings made him seem almost as big as the green-scaled guy with horns, who stood close to eight feet tall.

Knowing all of them had been gladiators before they escaped their master only made them seem more fearsome.

“Jakar and Da’vi have been working to set up hydroponics in ten of the unneeded crew quarters. They hope to be able to grow some of our own food,” the male rumbled at me in a voice that sounded like rock sliding across rock. It was all gravel and grit, much like his appearance.

Hydroponics sounded like a great idea. For a ship this size, they probably had the space.

If I understood it all correctly, this was only a small group of people.

Not even ten gladiators and a few human women.

Growing food for a small group like that was absolutely doable.

I wondered how much these two men knew about growing food and if they could use my help.

As a xeno-botanist, it was only loosely related to my area of expertise, but I was sure I could help.

“I can’t wait until they grow some actual tomatoes; nothing beats biting into a fresh, juicy tomato, if you ask me,” Abby sighed from behind me.

I sent her a smirk, knowing what she meant, though I couldn’t stand tomatoes myself.

Fresh cucumber, though—pickled and spiced in a salad—that sounded heavenly right now.

I still vaguely recalled what was supposed to pass as my last meal back on Earth: soggy, thin mashed potatoes, rubbery steak, and wilted green beans.

I had considered passing up on it because it was so unappetizing.

We stepped into a corridor lined with doors, one of several we’d already traversed.

One of the crew quarters was open, and I could hear banging and muttering coming from inside it.

Sunder, the gargoyle male, gestured with his arm.

“They converted all these rooms, I believe, although they have yet to try growing anything in the hydro pods. Hey, Jakar, you got a moment?”

The banging ceased immediately, and not one but two heads peeked out of the room.

One belonged to a younger, red-skinned male, with a splattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks, which were brightly colored yellow.

A short mop of black hair topped his skull in that bedhead fashion.

Though instead of being studiously applied and kept in shape with product, this was no doubt genuine.

He looked like a guy fresh from the military: healthy, in shape, and eager.

Like the Spacies I’d see in bars back on Earth after they were first released from basic training, when they hadn’t yet seen anything or been through any kind of combat for real.

The other male was the complete opposite, with a deep frown and a closed-off expression.

He had a mane of thick purple and black hair in braids, two horns spiraling up from his forehead, and his black skin seemed cracked and marbled with glowing purple lines.

He wore a coverall stained with grease streaks, his hands wiping at a cloth to clean them, which was when I realized his hands were robotic prosthetics.

Segmented and shiny black, they were so realistic that if he hadn’t drawn my attention to them with that cloth, I would never have noticed.

“What is it, Sunder?” the younger of the two asked.

He stepped out of the quarters they were in and spread out all four of his arms. “Can I help with anything?” He seemed incredibly eager to please, practically bouncing on his feet.

His eyes were not on Sunder but on Abby and me, then they darted down to take in Snarl, who’d followed me out of the med bay and was now sitting at my feet.

“I have some plant samples here that I’d like to get into some dirt so they might make it,” I said, and I jiggled the bag overflowing with vines and blooms. I loved that Fierce had gone out of his way to fetch me some of these plants, just because I’d eagerly pointed at them and mentioned they reminded me of my favorite plant back home.

I’d wanted to take many samples down from that planet, but just having one was making me happy.

The grumpier guy, who I assumed was Da’vi, huffed before jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

“We just installed the last set of pods, but we hadn’t yet decided what to grow where.

” He eyed Jakar. “If anything breaks, let me know.” Then he stalked away, a tail with a sharp point at the end lashing the air behind him as he walked, everything in his posture screaming, Leave me the hell alone.

“Don’t mind Da’vi,” Jakar said, then added with a chuckle, “He’s all Doom and gloom most days.

” His laughing eyes shot from Sunder to Abby.

“Get it? Doom!” Then he laughed uproariously at his own joke.

I didn’t get what he was laughing about.

Was Doom the guy’s nickname or something?

If so, that seemed a little mean to call him that behind his back.

Abby snorted. “Doom was the name Da’vi fought under as a gladiator.” She jabbed Jakar in the upper shoulder with a hand. “Behave, kid. We still need to convince Hina she wants to live here with us lunatics.” That sobered the guy right up, his freckled face shifting from yellow spots to deep orange.

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and gestured me into the small room with another.

“Sorry, Abby. This way, Hina, you can pick a pod and put your plant in. I don’t mind which you pick.

” He took my bag from my hands without asking as I passed him, cradling it gently in both lower hands as he indicated the various pods and explained how the system was set up with his other two.

I liked the kid, and he’d clearly worked hard to learn the system and as much about growing things in it as he could.

He was eagerly showing what he knew and offering me as much space for my not-wisteria samples as I liked.

They were climbers, so I needed to make sure that, when other things got planted, this plant wasn’t going to start strangling anything.

To that end, I picked a pod at the end of the small room.

Previously, this area had held lockers, which they must have removed.

Now, there were lots of screw and bolt holes left that I could have the plant climb along—if it took hold, that is.

Soon the two of us were lost in working with the plants, exchanging ideas, and working out various methods of planting to maximize the chance of one of these shoots actually growing.

Abby had long since disappeared, and while Sunder had looked on for a while longer, he too left at some point.

Now it was just Jakar and me, which was pleasant once the young guy got over his initial combination of shyness and eagerness to please me.

Our work was only hindered by Snarl, who’d growl or outright put his body between Jakar and me if he thought the young male got too close.

I would be annoyed with that if I thought that Fierce had put him up to it on purpose, but I’d been there in the room with Fierce the entire time.

I hadn’t heard him say a thing to the hound; I was fairly certain this was his own way of meddling.

Once we’d gotten the not-wisteria planted and the samples prepped for me to analyze in a lab—which Jakar assured me existed—I helped the young male pick out suitable seeds to start planting in the hydroponic pods for food production.

It had been a long time since I’d last worked with my hands in the dirt this much, for something as basic as growing food.

I found it soothing and fun, and Jakar and I worked well together.

I found myself teaching him things I knew, which he eagerly absorbed.

A few hours in, I was starting to get both hungry and exhausted, and I had seen no sign of Fierce yet.

That surprised me; I thought he wouldn’t be able to keep away, that he’d follow me here.

I knew I’d reacted oddly when the Doc had mentioned a mating drive, but I hadn’t meant it as rejection.

It just drove home our differences: that, for him, this was much more tangible than for me.

I’d just gone through a massive change in my life, thinking I’d died and finding myself in an entirely different quadrant of the universe, as it turned out.

Abby had explained that part to me on the way up from Serant.

When I mentioned being hungry, Jakar began to apologize profusely, rushing to lead me to the mess hall.

As we neared it, I could already smell many different kinds of food, mouthwatering scents filling up the corridors.

The mess hall was a rowdy, noisy place, already filled with most of the gladiators aboard the ship and the other ladies.

My eyes immediately searched for Fierce’s familiar shape.

In any human-filled mess hall, he would have stood out due to his nearly seven-foot height and his color.

Here… not as much, because both Ziame and Sunder were even bigger.

My gaze snagged on the green-scaled, horned captain and Abigail at the head of the table, their heads bent close together as they talked. Abby’s eyes glittered happily.

I spotted the pilot—the red-headed, human-looking guy—with a young woman whose blonde hair was cut in a choppy style, the strands waving around her face in pixie-like disarray.

Then the pilot grinned, shook his head, and his entire body morphed into something alien; it might have been the same species as the grumpy Da’vi I’d met earlier.