Page 193 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

“What the fuck are you up to?” Aradne demanded. My eyes widened as I spotted the tall Xurtal female standing on the other side of Dumb. She was flexing her fist, which could only mean she’d taken care of Dumb for me while I struggled with his ugly older brother.

“Uh…” I started, wondering how to explain this half-assed plan to her.

I looked down at Dumb and decided that he was still alive—his chest was definitely going up and down.

He was breathing. Bending over, I quickly took the gun from his holster, then settled on taking the holster as well.

There was no sign of an access card anywhere, though; his pockets just held lint.

“Are you trying to escape?” Aradne demanded, her red eyes piercing me with a fierce glare.

I was ready to spill the beans at that look; she was hella intimidating when she wanted to be.

I was trying to escape, but this part was just about the cameras.

I switched to Dumber, who lay sprawled at Aradne’s feet like an ’s spoils, his long hair spread out on the tile around him.

“Just need their access to the security booth. The cameras need to be turned off,” I offered at last. I wasn’t going to explain more, but I was starting to panic that neither of them had a card.

With a sinking feeling, I realized that, like me, their access was probably arranged with palm prints—they didn’t have a card.

I looked at the nearest hand, wondering if I had the guts to cut one off. Would that even work?

“I see,” Aradne said. “And you’ll need to hide these two so you won’t be discovered too soon.

” She gave me a knowledgeable nod. “Wait here.” The tall woman strode from the shower area with purposeful strides, leaving me alone with the Dumb Duo.

I didn’t like that one bit, nervously wondering if they’d wake up any time soon or if someone was going to walk in here; it could be all over in an instant.

Aradne was back quickly, though, pulling one of our hovercarts piled with a bit of dirty laundry.

We worked together to roll each of the Aderian males into a sheet, then Aradne and I struggled to lift them onto the cart in a haphazard pile.

One hand was dangling out, and when I tried to stuff it back, it flopped out again right away.

I’d just have to make sure that side was right next to the wall should we come across anyone.

Giving up, I gave Aradne a nod, and the two of us guided the hovercart into the hallway.

I expected her to take it to the hovercart storage, where we could probably dump their bodies down the laundry chute.

They’d be stuck in there for quite some time—the next shift of laundry wouldn’t go down there until morning—and coms didn’t work on this planet, so nobody bothered to wear any. They wouldn’t be able to call for help.

Except Aradne pushed the cart on, and I realized she was thinking ahead.

The security booth, the palm print. I scanned the hallway, making sure we were alone before I grabbed that floppy hand, counted to three before pressing it to the palm scanner, and leaped inside with my glue gun raised.

I thought a guard would be sitting behind the security desk, but there was no one there.

Deflated by the lack of action, I stared at the gazillion buttons, wondering how I was going to disable everything.

Aradne fixed the issue for me. She charged into the room after me, picked up the chair, and slammed it into the screens with zero hesitation.

The loud crashing sound made me flinch, but the resulting mess was definitely worth it; that security booth was toast. Just to be sure, I grabbed a bottle of strong cleaning solvent from the bottom of the cart and poured it all over the desk, smiling in satisfaction at my sudden partner in crime when it made everything hiss and spark.

An alarm was sounding, some kind of low beeping, which meant that someone had been warned the security system was down.

Aradne and I heaved the cart down the hallway at a clip, running flat out into the laundry room.

We groaned and strained as we slid each body down the chute, hearing them land with a hard thud.

We shoved the cart into a corner and jogged to the mess hall, which was almost entirely full. I snatched a ration bar from the tray, Aradne following suit, and the two of us had only just parked our butts on the bench when a guard stuck his head inside.

I was struggling to hide my panting breaths, the sweat coating the back of my neck.

Was anyone going to speak out? Were they going to question us to see if we’d all been here or not?

I groaned internally. Was Mikasul present?

She’d definitely rat us out. I was grateful that Aradne had helped me—she didn’t need to do that—but now it looked like I was going to get her into terrible trouble.

Except Mikasul was nowhere to be seen, and a few more spots were still empty. With all the extra work we had to do, it seemed I wasn’t the only one struggling to finish in time for the evening meal.

The guard, a Rummicaron just like the one posted outside Luka’s suite, frowned at us with disinterest. Then, he opened his huge, shark-like mouth and growled out a warning for us to stay put.

Unlike the Dumb Duo, he had a remote to activate our pain collars, and he waved it in the air to make sure we understood how serious he was.

He disappeared down the hall the next moment, and the mess hall burst into a noisy commotion as the girls started to speculate about what had happened.

I saw more than a few eyes dart my way or linger on Aradne, but the tall Xurtal woman was pretty terrifying to most. No one wanted to get on her bad side—rumor had it she’d once been a gladiator.

Moira was the only other female in the room that I kind of got along with. She was a slender, blue-skinned alien of a species I didn’t know the name of. She gave me a worried, wide-eyed look but didn’t say anything.

We were questioned for several hours before we were allowed to leave for our quarters, but of the dozen girls, no one said anything about Aradne and me arriving late.

They interviewed Moira first, right in front of us, and she set the tone when she vehemently claimed that we had all been here, eating.

It was a mistake that the guards interviewed us all together; we were just repeating the same thing now.

I was sure that if they’d interviewed us separately, some of the girls would have spoken the truth, but like this, we were all sticking together.

I could only hope that this would last long enough that I could still sneak off tonight, that this wouldn’t result in a guard in our corridor tonight.

By the time we were released to wash up and head for our bunks, all of us were flagging—hanging onto each other, draped over the tables as we struggled to stay awake after our hard day of labor.

I was relieved to shut the door to my bunk room behind me and crawl into bed.

How many hours of sleep did I risk taking before I headed for that spaceport exit?

Mikasul strutted into the room before I had settled down, a smirk on her face.

“Had a fun evening, I heard!” she crowed.

“Sucks for you, while all that went down, I was dining with the Director!” She fluffed her long, silky black hair over one shoulder while looking at me smugly.

“Oh, the food I just had!” She launched into a long-winded description of the fabulous meal she’d partaken in, and I rolled over and yanked the pillow over my head, hoping to drown her out. That lady was obnoxious.