Page 256 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Da’vi

It wasn’t quiet in the engine room until late at night, when the last determined mechanic finally departed.

There was a lot that could be said about the Master of Strewn, I had some choice words on his recent visit and his recruitment tactics, for example.

What definitely couldn’t be said was that he had an incompetent crew, once they stopped messing around…

Their work had been exemplary. I wished I’d had a crew like that when I’d worked on the Balista, the Kertinillian battleship I’d served on for nearly a dozen years.

Putting the pillow back on the edge of the main console, I sat down in the chair near it with a sigh.

Babbit was already snuggling down, curling his thick tail across his front paws with a satisfied, chirruping sound.

Not even two seconds later, there was the quiet patter of feet, and Fluffy, the pink female, leaped up next to him.

I saw how Babbit opened one eye, glaring balefully at the juvenile Riho and warning her not to get any closer with a low growl. Of course, as I’d seen this many times before, the pink-and-purple female just pretended she didn’t hear any of that and climbed on top of Babbit to lie down.

Babbit kept growling, but he didn’t move, which still baffled me to this day.

Why was the much bigger male letting that female step all over him?

Undeniably, they did look very sweet and comfortable together.

He never kept it up for long anyway; as soon as Fluffy settled down, so would he, and the two could sleep like that for hours.

That meant I had a moment to myself, so I could figure out how to call back the female. I wanted to turn on her camera feed, but gaining access to a ship from this kind of distance, without even knowing what kind of ship it was… Yeah, I was going to need some specialized help.

“Hey, Akri, feel up to helping me with something?” I asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the two sleeping animals.

The Vagabond housed a powerful and very illegal AI at the moment, and it was doing its best to stay quiet and hidden while the Strewn crew fixed up his home.

I had studied Akri’s code on more than one sleepless night, but I still couldn’t figure out how he’d come to be.

Too bad Ziame absolutely forbade me to even come near his old Lacerten ship, which had once housed Akri.

Studying technology that advanced was making me salivate just thinking about it.

“Hello, Da’vi,” the AI said in cheerful tones, its computer-generated voice carefully modulated to sound distinctly male.

That was a change the AI had made after it had become the Vagabond.

“Is it true that you discovered the humanoid in the stasis pod is male?” I chuckled, endeared by the AI’s ever-inquisitive character.

“That’s right. Don’t you have camera feed access to the lab?” I figured the AI had already taken a peek, but it responded in the negative—probably keeping its access to a minimum until he was sure the mechanics had all left.

“What would you like my help with, Da’vi? I am currently very limited in what I can do,” he said, but the console screens in front of me flicked on, including the outdated, strange com device through which I could contact Arianna.

There was a pit of nerves in my stomach that I ruthlessly pushed aside.

I didn’t have time to worry more about whether she was truthful or trying to trap me.

I was going to find out right now, actively making sure I wasn’t exposing the Vagabond and my brothers to any risk.

“I need to make a call through this com device, and I want you to turn on the camera feed of the person I’m calling. I need to know who I’m dealing with.”

In the silence, I heard the soft little snores the two Riho made as they slept, but Akri didn’t respond.

When he finally spoke, his voice was full of disapproval: “Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?

Ziame has been teaching me about that.” I groaned internally, of course now the AI was learning about boundaries.

“Look, I’m trying to figure out if this person is laying a trap for us or not.

This is for the protection of everyone aboard the ship.

” Surely that was the kind of argument that would convince the protective AI to help.

I just really needed to see this Arianna so I knew she was real.

Then I could try to figure out how to get her help somehow.

“A threat to our security? Shouldn’t we inform the Captain about that?

” the AI asked, and at that moment, I was relieved that at least it was still trying to figure out most protocols.

I wasn’t ready to share what I knew of the female with the others yet.

If she was truly stuck in a dead zone, and if she wasn’t trying to trick me…

what could we feasibly do, anyway? We were months away.

“No, if it turns out this is a trap, then I’ll talk to Ziame.

But right now, I have nothing to report, yet.

” The AI was silent again at my response, but then the com screen flickered, and I saw the single contact listed on the device appear on the small, slightly cracked screen.

There was no name with the contact, nothing to indicate just who was on that other line.

My translator screen, which I’d pulled over the top of the device, had just deciphered it into numbers.

The fact that those numbers were from the Krektar alphabet was what was making me worry that this was a trap.

The Krektar were never up to any good. They were slavers or mercenaries, but that also aligned with what Arianna had said.

She’d woken up from a stasis pod, she could be a stolen female, whom the Krektar had intended to sell into slavery when some unknown calamity struck their ship.

“Do you need the call to be open while you try?” I asked the AI.

“If so, I’m ready when you are.” Immediately, the digits on the screen lit up green, the call going out.

There was a delay initially, like the first time, but because we were both stationary, the relay stations all across the Zeta Quadrant could pick up and amplify the call.

I held my breath, waiting for her to pick up, half expecting this call to fail.

It wasn’t like she’d appeared all that adept with technology when we spoke.

There was a chance she didn’t even know how to pick up.

She had once before, but what if that had just been a fluke?

I could be completely wasting my time, and I really hated wasting my time.

The screen flashed blue, and I held my breath, waiting to hear her voice again.

A shiver broke out over my skin at the sound of her breathy tones.

“Hello? Is that you, Da’vi?” My hand shot up to curl around one of my horns, clutching it tightly as if that could contain the sensation of warmth spreading through my chest. My tail had curled around the leg of the chair, the coils tight around the metal bar.

“Arianna,” I said, a frown creasing my brow.

I didn’t like the reaction my body was having to the sound of her voice.

I didn’t trust it. That’s why I needed Akri to turn on her camera feed, so I could see her.

If I knew what species she was—if I knew if she was even real—surely this weird response in my body would disappear, or at least make sense.

“Thank you for calling me back. I’m very glad that you did,” she said, her voice melodic, almost singsong.

I managed to suppress another shiver wracking my body just as the cracked com screen flashed, the image filling with static.

What I saw when the static cleared had me freeze in my chair, staring in shock.

A human—it had to be. There was only one species in the universe with skin that could have a shade like that: a rich, milky pink with little dark spots that I knew Camila called birthmarks or freckles.

I could see very little of her beyond a slender wrist, a softly curving arm, and what had to be her hip, enveloped in some kind of colorful fabric.

Then she floated forward, and I realized there was no gravity aboard her ship when I saw strands of dark brown hair floating around her face—a face that was round and soft-looking, with a sharp little nose that tilted up at the end.

Bright eyes glanced my way, and a smile curved pink lips that looked entirely too soft.

That smile fell as I stared at her, my breath stalling in my throat, my heart pounding in my chest. I hated talking to people for a reason, I was always awkward, and that made me angry, so I ended up sounding gruff.

“Are you still there?” she said, and then in a rush, “You’ve got some bad news, haven’t you?

Come on, out with it. I’m a big girl, I can take it. ”

I sincerely doubted that she was a big girl; that wrist had looked awfully small and fragile.

I would tower over her if we were ever to meet in person.

Now that I knew she was real and that she was human…

I had to tell the Captain about her, and I was certain my brother’s mates—who were all human—would want to go and rescue her.

I didn’t know how that made me feel. Was she going to be clingy?

Maybe I should make Jakar speak with her, he was the one who desperately wanted a mate of his own.

When a growl rumbled up from deep in my chest, I knew that definitely didn’t make me feel good, so I snapped my teeth at the screen and started gruffly talking.

“Listen, you are in what we call a dead zone. There is nothing remotely civil anywhere near you.” My statement was met with silence, but her expression seemed to waver for a moment, her lip trembling before it firmed.

I didn’t like that look; it pulled on something uncomfortably inside my chest, so I rapped a knuckle against my sternum, hoping it would ease.

“Okay, so what does that mean?” she asked.

Her voice had lost some of the cheerful edges, but it was back almost immediately.

“There’s no one else to call? Or it just takes very long for someone to get here?

” Her eyes were this intriguing shade of brown, dark and deep.

They drew me to her. The cracked, old com screen wasn’t doing them justice, and I wondered what kind of colors I’d see if I were looking into them for real.

“There’s no one else to call,” I said, because while I could technically direct her to some of the civilizations that bordered that dead zone, I didn’t really like any of those options.

Especially not now that I knew she was human, a human was far too valuable inside the Zeta Quadrant.

One wrong move, and she’d end up with a slave collar around her slender neck. I couldn’t let that happen.

That look was back, her face pale, her lip trembling just a little. I knew that meant she was scared and worried about what was going to happen to her. Before I could help myself, I barked out, “My ship is undergoing repairs. Once they are done, we’ll head your way. Do you have enough supplies?”

She didn’t know I could see her, but it still felt like she was looking straight at me when she said she’d make do.

A radiant kind of smile broke out across her face, one that told me she was relieved—happy—that I said I’d come.

She didn’t utter a single complaint, didn’t suggest I hurry up with the repairs; she didn’t even ask how long it would take for me to get there.

I didn’t know how to end the conversation, so I just grunted and ended the call.

Then I stared around at the chaos in the engine room in dismay.

There was still so much work left to do to get the Vagabond back in shape, in better shape than she’d been in for years.

Right now, she couldn’t even leave the Strewn Dock; we didn’t have any kind of propulsion.

With the risk of bounty hunters still looming over us, that was the first priority, even without Arianna’s problem.

“You promised the human rescue,” Akri suddenly said.

“Is this when we tell the Captain about her?” I stifled a groan that wanted to rise from my chest. Of course, Akri always wanted to do the right thing.

He was programmed to do so, and even though he was sentient—which was illegal—he still abided by those tenets.

Right now, I wanted to work on the engine and speed up the repairs as much as I could. I didn’t want to talk to Ziame.

“I think Ziame is having private time with his mate, and we shouldn’t disturb his rest. I’ll talk to him in the morning, Akri,” I said. Already, I was out of my chair, running a checklist in my mind of what I could already do tonight without the aid of the Strewn repair crew.

“Oh, ooooh!” Akri intoned. “They are having sex.”