Page 373 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

“Yes,” was all he said, and that felt final, like he was trying to shut me out.

It hurt, but I understood. Once we’d gotten through this, I’d sit down and have a good talk with him, convince him that he wasn’t losing control the way he thought he was.

I didn’t need to know what species he was to recognize what was at play here; there were far too many species out in the Zeta Quadrant that had similar drives.

That was for later; first, we got him the data he needed, and cracked that code.

*

Akri

My mind kept wandering to the female in the elevator with me.

She filled all my senses and claimed all my processing power.

As it turned out, I could no longer touch her without losing grip on my body.

My tentacles were like two feral Riho fighting for their freedom.

I couldn’t deal with this right now; I needed to use the port and the network of super nerves running through them.

When the elevator opened, I was out the door and on the guard beyond it immediately. There were no life-sign detectors for the levels below the surface; I couldn’t track the people inside any longer. Still, I had expected there to be a male, and I couldn’t dawdle, or he’d draw the alarm.

Jenny was right next to me as I wrestled with him.

The drive for violence rose in me, swelling my muscles and enhancing my reaction speed.

She landed the taser on the male, jolting him into submission, and my body strained, wanting to keep fighting, though my opponent was downed.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” I heard myself say, the foreign speech pattern that of the former owner of this body.

He was dead and gone, but some of his habits leaked through when I wasn’t in complete control, like now.

She grinned at me. “You’re welcome, darling. Let’s go.” She had the male by the foot, gesturing for me to take his hands, and together we pushed him into the elevator and closed the doors. Not as good a hiding place as the one for the other guard, but we needed to hurry.

Leading the way, we had to crawl past a few windows where people were working in sterile labs.

Their hazmat suits and airlocks insulated them from our presence, helping us hide.

The door we needed to reach had two males with batons standing guard.

No rifles down here to prevent them from causing irreparable or extremely costly damage.

I was afraid I would end up killing one or both of them when we fought.

In my plans without Jenny, I hadn’t worried about that, because I was certain that I had finally mastered this body.

Hesitating around the corner, I tried to think of another way to disable them—one that wouldn’t involve hand-to-hand combat.

Jenny was gone before I could stop her, her backpack dumped at my feet.

No! My whole body locked up as I fought to stay in place despite the strong urge to go after her.

“Hi,” she said, launching into the same spiel that had worked last time.

She sounded so cheerful and so silly, spinning a tale about wandering in here without meaning to.

She sounded just desperate enough to seem like she really was lost.

I didn’t think these males were going to buy it.

This was a restricted area; nobody just wandered into it.

In her civilian clothing, she looked too out of place.

They didn’t attack her, more confused than anything by her presence.

One was raising his com to his face, about to call a superior to ask for assistance.

The other was reaching for Jenny’s upper arm, grabbing her firmly as if he meant to detain her.

That’s what made me lose control of my body, or rather, when I gave in to the urge to protect her.

I was crossing the short distance in a rapid burst of speed when the guard holding Jenny went down from her little taser.

She’d hit him on his uniform, so he wasn’t fully out.

I adjusted my direction, tackling the other male against the metal doors behind him.

With my arm a hard bar on his throat, he struggled only briefly before passing out.

I had a flash of worry when he opened his toothless maw, thinking he was going to spit his acid in my face, but then he was gone.

This time, I didn’t bother to help him down to the floor, spinning around to assure myself that Jenny was okay.

She was sitting on the male she’d downed herself, the taser pressed to his throat to make sure he was well and truly disabled.

She was grinning, her eyes shining with something close to happiness, her cheeks flushed pink.

I didn’t understand it; how could she enjoy a scuffle such as this?

She bounced to her feet and approached as if to hug me, but then she flinched back. Her smile fell, but returned almost immediately. “Come on, we got them. Let’s hurry!” She gestured at the door. “Get us in. We’re almost there.” I appreciated that she was trying to help me stay focused.

The door opened for my admin rights without any further hacking, proving that they needed better security.

Beyond it, the supercomputer was on a completely isolated network, this space the only place where anyone could access it.

It was also empty; the group of scientists who worked with the machine was currently off duty.

I’d made sure to time our incursion to overlap with their downtime.

We dragged the two guards inside and propped them against the wall.

While Jenny was closing the door and looking around curiously, I was already heading for the wall where a huge bank of machines stood.

This wasn’t the entire supercomputer, which was enormous and took up several of the basement levels.

This wall was just the interface, with several screens and ports for access.

My tentacle with the port eagerly twitched as I approached the access I wanted.

Now, it was fully on board with me again, feeling like an extension of myself as I focused.

I cast a final glance at Jenny, who was taking in the bay of screens with flickering diagrams to my left.

They were working on a lot of complex calculations, top secret; I hadn’t been able to ferret out exactly what.

Now that I saw those, my guess was they were solving FTL speed issues.

There was always a demand for faster ships, and Ov’Korad was a major shipping hub.

The words flew from my mouth before I could stop myself. “Hey, kiss for luck?” She raised her head in surprise, her pretty hazel eyes wide when they met mine. Even without the words, I knew she was asking me if I was sure about this.

Gesturing with my hand, I waved her over, hoping she’d take the steps and press her mouth to mine.

I knew I shouldn’t distract myself right now, but I was struck by a sudden fear that I wouldn’t like what I was about to discover about my species or the data on the amulet.

I wanted to savor one last moment with her before everything might suddenly change.

She felt right in my arms; my head appendages had apparently known that all along.

If I could make that choice, I would keep her in my arms as long as she’d let me.

This kiss was the short peck I was sure she had intended last time, but only because I’d prepared myself for it.

Did that mean I had some control back? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think so.

“Go, I’ll keep watch,” she said, pushing my head toward the console where my cable was already plugged in.

I couldn’t make myself let go of her entirely, but I could persuade my tentacle to whip around so I could plug myself into the computer.

There, the whole world changed around me as my brain processed what I was dealing with.

I still felt Jenny at my side, but there was so much more, so much computing power at my fingertips—that it was actually faster than the brain I now possessed.

With jerky motions, I tapped the amulet into this machine using the improvised cable I’d manufactured for it.

Setting the machine to crack the encryption, I waited with bated breath to find out how long it would take.

Anything less than a supercomputer like this would take thousands of years to break encryption as sophisticated as the one on the device.

Was this machine powerful enough to do it in a feasible time frame?

While the machine calculated, I tried to access the research data of the scientist who had spearheaded this operation—specifically, his side projects—because he was the only one who had researched the species I’d become.

Finding any of them alive had proven impossible; they were elusive and nearly driven to extinction. This was my only hope.

Jenny’s body trembled against my side, her breath whooshing out of her. She said something, but my mind was occupied by all the threads I had running on the machine, and my attention was hard to wrest back to what was around me. Did she say my name? Was it a warning?

A sense of cold dread washed over me. Yes, she was trying to warn me, her hands tightly gripping my arm and shoulder, a note of panic in her voice.

We’d been discovered, so I had no choice but to set my contingencies into motion.

Yanking myself free from the computer was disorienting and dizzying, but I had no time for any such weakness.

Forcing my eyes to focus on my surroundings, I took in the half dozen guards with batons and tasers.

An Ovt male in a lab coat stood just behind them, a gleeful expression on his face, jowls slack and trembling as he spoke.

This was the scientist whose secondary research I’d been trying to access.

“What have we got here? Wandering around my halls?” he said.

“Hurt my mate, and I will not cooperate,” I replied in the Ovt’s warbling language.