Page 255 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

I just crossed my arms over my chest and gave that black space beneath the hood my best glare.

I knew that most people found the Master of Strewn terrifying, that when he walked through the public halls of the station, people scattered at his feet.

I didn’t feel that kind of apprehension, maybe I’d dealt with too many blowhard superiors in my military career to be that easily impressed.

Maybe working beneath the command of Ziame, the only Lacerten known to the galaxy, had made me more immune than most to scary presences.

Stars, it had been Ziame who’d burned my hands to a crisp.

Once you’d faced a horned, scaled, fire-breathing monster in the arena, things suddenly didn’t seem so scary in comparison.

“You’re a tough one,” the voice drawled, the hood tilting to the side.

“Wouldn’t you prefer working on something more challenging than this?

This has to be like child’s play to you.

” The metal claw slipped a little further from the cloak, revealing that it was attached to a slender metal arm, without any kind of protective casing covering the mechanical joints and wires.

He gestured with it around the engine room.

I had a feeling he was purposely showing the inner mechanics of that arm, hoping to intrigue me.

It was working—a little—but that didn’t mean he could convince me to abandon my post and my friends.

After I left the army, I’d been lost; being a gladiator had definitely taught me what my priorities should be.

The thought made some of the agitated nerves in my stomach settle. I knew what my priorities were.

“No, I have all I could ever want or need, right here.” I delivered the statement in a firm tone, making sure that, though I couldn’t precisely see his eyes, I was staring into that hood without fear, without flinching.

This guy would need to be absolutely certain that I wasn’t going to change my mind; I didn’t want him to waste my time more than he already had.

There was another chuckling sound coming from beneath the hood of that cloak, then the metal claw withdrew, smoothly sinking beneath the black fabric.

“I understand, Da’vi Ertague, formerly known as the gladiator Doom.

” Then, in the blink of an eye, the cloaked figure disappeared, winking out of existence like it had never been there.

It really hadn’t been. Not just the black beneath the hood had been a hologram—the entire figure had been. I was impressed.

Reaching up to scratch beneath Babbit’s chin with a finger, I eyed the remaining mechanics with a glare.

“Are you fucking done with your games? I expect top-notch work. I’ve got places to be after this, so the ship better run like she never has before.

” A chorus of “Yessir!” greeted me, reminding me sharply of what it had been like to run a full crew of mechanics aboard a gigantic Kertinillian battleship.

I stalked from the engine room because I needed to get away from that bunch for just a little while.

Not that anywhere on the ship was safe or quiet.

Crews were installing weapon upgrades; one team was converting more quarters into a high-tech hydroponics system, and another was refurbishing the freaking pool to supplement our strict training regimen.

Most of my gladiator brothers were either overseeing those installs or hanging out with their mates in the mess hall.

In the end, I settled for the labs, which only Hina and the Doc frequented with any regularity. I needed to warn Hina to keep an eye on her pink pet, and since Doc was always quiet when I needed him to be, I’d risk that.

The sound of saws hacking away at the outer hull of the ship grew more noticeable when I reached one of the outer corridors.

We’d received new hull plating to patch up some breaches the last time we were here; this time, they were fixing up more of the weak spots, the damaged places.

I expected the Vagabond to look almost as good as new when they were done, but she’d be even better on the inside.

What kind of ship was the female stuck in?

I wondered quietly to myself if I should already inform Ziame and Abigail about the contact, but what was there to say?

I knew where she was but didn’t know if it was real or a trap.

My tail swished angrily behind my back, the metal tip at the end clanging against the wall and leaving a little dent.

Her voice had been so warm—so, dare I think it…

cheerful? That was why I was inclined to think she was actually stuck where she was.

Someone laying a trap would have laid on the distress thickly, tried to play on my heartstrings, but this lady hadn’t.

She’d just talked as if I was having one of those stupid, inane ‘small talk’ conversations.

I shuddered. If this really was a trap, she was very good.

Barging into the lab without checking if someone was there, I tried to shake thoughts of the female out of my head.

Arianna was such a soft name, so melodic.

I had caught myself murmuring it several times after that call last night, as if it were a magic spell.

She was really good, I felt like she had already managed to wrap me around her finger.

I had never spent this much thought on a female in my life.

I didn’t even know what species she was, or how old she was.

“What…” Luka said, startled, when he looked up from where he was crouched over the broken stasis pod.

The Aderian male straightened, tugging on the lapels of his white lab coat, his black eyes settling on my face.

Instantly, my skin prickled, and the purple lines that covered my body like jagged lightning started a faint glow.

Nobody could really dislike an empathic Aderian like Luka, but it sure as fuck made me feel uncomfortable that he knew what I was feeling.

I didn’t even know what I felt half the time.

“Ignore me,” I said. “I just needed a breather with all the ruckus going on in the engine room.” I paced away from where he was standing, plunking my ass down on one of the hard metal stools. I wasn’t sure if this was a sufficient distance for the male not to sense me, but I sure hoped it was.

Luka didn’t say anything else, his black eyes shiny, unreadable mirrors.

Then he turned back to the stasis pod he’d been trying to safely open ever since we found it in the cargo bay.

He was convinced the person inside was alive, but the system to wake the occupant had fatally broken down.

To fix it—which I could—the entire system needed to be turned off.

That kind of defeated the point, however, as it would kill the pod’s occupant.

“I thought you were salivating to get started on this overhaul. What changed?” Luka queried after a long silence.

His hands tapped on top of the pod, his face turned down as he looked at the opaque plexiglass covering.

We couldn’t even see who was inside it, so we didn’t know if the occupant was another human or something else.

The pod was a completely different model from the ones the girls had come from, so my guess was something else.

My brothers and I had taken bets on it, but I was pretty confident I’d win.

Tapping my tail on the desk, I let Babbit climb down my body to leap onto the bare metal surface.

His long, slinky body was balanced on short legs tipped with sharp claws, and a long, furred tail that he swiped back and forth behind him.

I knew that motion, he was annoyed, probably because there was no soft pillow to lie down on.

I’d hidden the one he usually slept on in the engine room back in my own bunk.

“Nothing’s changed,” I said grumpily in answer to the Doc’s question. I didn’t feel like him prying into my head, so I decided to change the subject. “Let me at least look at turning that plex transparent; I think I know how.”