Page 383 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Thorin

I paced back and forth inside the shuttle, heedless of the sensation of motion as Kitan landed it in the desert.

My leg throbbed with a dull ache, but the pain was manageable, only there because I was feeling stressed.

Our lead was good, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were behind on the facts, that we were running late.

“Ah… I don’t suppose that smoke is just part of the aesthetic, is it?

” Kitan asked. I rushed over to get a look at what he was seeing, cursing loudly at the sight.

The collection of white buildings appeared to have suffered some kind of massive attack.

A crater had been blasted into one, smoke rising from the massive hole, the pristine white stone streaked with black and pitted with marks.

“The fuck happened here?” I demanded of no one in particular.

This place looked like a war zone; that crater looked like a bomb had been dropped on it.

“Do we have life signs?” Kitan’s hands flew over the controls as he checked the readings on his screen, followed by a very solemn shake of his head.

“None at all?” Camila asked from where she sat, strapped into a jumpseat, her trusty laser rifle cradled in her lap. I met her eyes, sharing the worry I felt. Had Akri and the unknown female died inside this rubble? Had they caused this? Or had it been Drameil who had somehow beaten us here?

“Put us down, Kitan,” Ziame ordered grimly from across the aisle.

His big body radiated tension, smoke curling from his nostrils, and his mobile ears were pinned all the way back against the sides of his head.

“Fierce, Snarl, see if you can pick up any trace of him,” he added.

His green eyes pierced my brother, who was holding a mildly panicking Ferai beast in his arms. Snarl hated zero-G and he hated landings.

The moment Kitan had put the shuttle down in the sand, Fierce was at the hatch, his hand curled into the thick pelt of his bonded beast. “I will find them,” he vowed.

They were gone in the blink of an eye, his body shifting to match the colors of the desert so he blended in, tricking my mind into thinking he wasn’t there.

“The rest of us, we’ll search this rubble.

We need to figure out what happened here,” Ziame ordered over his shoulder as he jogged away from the ship.

Jakar was out next, but though I was anxious, I waited for Camila to get to her feet and join me at the hatch.

She had a grim look on her face as she eyed the destroyed buildings with me.

“I think this was Drameil,” she offered, “and I think Akri got out before he got here. I think this was the result of a Crimelord tantrum.” She pointed at the smoke plumes wafting up from several places, the handful of bodies we could see in the mess.

“Or he was covering his tracks because Akri used the supercomputer here to get us that data; he’s hoping he stopped it from getting out. ”

That cheered me a little, a grin finding its way onto my face.

“I hope you are right.” Reaching out, I tugged on the long braid dangling over her shoulder.

“He’s got no idea what is about to hit him.

Let’s go; we’ve got a brother to find.” I found a little bit of glee again over the thought of all that data we’d sent out to other Crimelords and law enforcement all over the Zeta Quadrant.

She grinned back, her eyes growing bright with excitement. “Heck yeah, let’s go, mate!”