Page 181 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Hina

I watched with a smile as a slightly chubby Fellow waddled across the mess hall in pursuit of Fluffy and her male friend, Babbitt.

The male Riho was the only animal we’d personally managed to rescue from that moon; he was a capture from the wild, according to Fierce, a fully mature Riho.

For some reason, he and Da’vi had been inseparable since he’d been brought aboard, the grumpy engineer had taken full responsibility for his care.

He was sitting in a corner of the mess hall now, watching with a half-smile as the three animals played. It was the only way we usually got to see Da’vi for any length of time; he was prone to forgetting to join us for meals if someone didn’t go fetch him.

Fierce never missed a meal now that it had become completely normal for him to crunch on a few bones.

He had also made a lot of progress in learning to read and write, and he loved it when I read to him at night.

Often, we’d fall asleep like that together, curled up in our room on our large, comfy bed.

“Never get tired of that, you?” he asked me, curling his arm around my shoulder and tugging me close.

I had to concur; it was always a good show to watch Fellow attempt to catch the fleet-of-foot Riho.

As long as the guy himself seemed to enjoy the game, we didn’t interfere.

Since he was making his typical gleeful chortling sounds as he scurried after them on his four little feet, we weren’t worried.

We were still waiting to hear from the Aderian authorities about where Luka could be.

They wouldn’t let us land on the outpost planet; they’d made Ziame and Abigail jump through hoops, signing all kinds of forms. From landing protocols to a missing person report, Abigail had tried everything she could to get information on Luka and his whereabouts.

The only thing we’d been able to find out was that the pirates had likely not bought Fluffy and others like her off these breeders.

They’d raided the little base because the Aderian authorities had let it slip that they had found an entire pile of bodies at the bottom of one of the drill holes.

We’d all been happy to hear that these bastards hadn’t gotten away with it.

We’d dallied around the planet as long as we could and logged each and every ship leaving the system. At some point, we’d been forced to leave, if only because the bounty hunters after us had caught on to our location.

I still vividly recalled the intense flying Kitan and Chloe had performed to outmaneuver them.

Just thinking back on it could make my heart race; I’d never been on a spaceship that moved like that.

Surprisingly, it was Fierce who was calm through all of that, comforting me when he was the one who hated flying.

When I asked him later, he confided in me that it was because he had absolute faith in the duo.

Flying with the two at the helm, he knew everything would turn out all right.

“Do you think we’ll locate the Doc?” I asked quietly.

I didn’t want to dampen the cheerful mood in the mess hall.

Fierce had an amazing sense of hearing, so the tiniest whisper was always enough to reach his ears.

He held me tighter, nuzzling his face into my hair.

“Yes, we will find him. We do not leave anyone behind. Not ever.”

With that promise, I allowed him to distract me, letting him pull me with him to our quarters, which I’d filled with the first results of my successful not-wisteria plants.

Inside our little haven, it was okay to leave our worries at the door.

This was still the happiest time of my life, here with Fierce, with the man I loved, the alien I loved.

I might have been sentenced to death once, but it was only because of that that I’d truly found life.

THE END

Healer Hunted

Robin O’Connor