Page 52 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Abigail

I stared in absolute horror at the viewscreen, where they were still showing reruns of the goriest moments of Ziame’s last fight. Some asshole had fucking impaled him! I felt a little faint from seeing that—again and again—as it was one of the most well-liked moments of the entire fight.

“Shit...” I said, and Tori leaned in to hug me tightly against her side. I leaned into her embrace gratefully, careful of her big belly. She’d been a godsend the past hour while we’d watched through that horrendous fight.

“Luka is right there. You saw him walk off the battlefield. He’ll be alright.” But my head was buzzing from worry. Then I eyed everyone on the bridge and saw how they were looking at me—with concern and pity. And, in the case of Diamed, our new nav, definitely derision.

Straightening my shoulders, I sat up and gave her a fierce glare. “Get ready for takeoff. I’m going to bet we’ll need to leave in a hurry.” Kitan gave me a solid nod and put his hands on the controls, initiating pre-flight checks.

At my wave, Sunder hurried off to get rid of our three unwanted Krektar guests.

We’d all agreed we’d simply leave them behind the moment we left the docks on Xio.

It hadn’t felt right to execute them, and it wasn’t like they knew where we were going or that the crime lord wouldn’t know we’d been to Xio.

“Everyone who can, strap in,” I ordered. Then I checked in with Sunder to verify his progress. Since the two injured Kretkar had healed enough, we’d moved them to the cells just like Thonklad, and I knew all Sunder had to do was escort them out the nearest door at gunpoint.

“Com from our away party,” Kitan said, grabbing my attention when Ziame appeared on the screen.

I was infinitely relieved to see him clearly behind the controls of the small, short-range shuttle they’d taken to the arena.

He was sitting upright, a focused expression on his scaly face, and a thick white pad of bandaging covered one shoulder.

I made sure to step into view behind Kitan’s shoulder, standing in front of the captain’s chair. His eyes focused on me immediately. “Abigail, I’m afraid we’re coming in hot. You’d better lift off; we’ll dock in the air.”

His eyes went to the controls he was working, clearly hard at work steering the small craft. Judging from the way the passengers in the back were being jostled about, they were moving rapidly and not in a straight line. “All right, we’re just waiting for Sunder to drop off our unwanted guests.”

At that moment, my com pinged with a message from Sunder, letting me know he’d strapped into the nearest jump seat.

I sat down myself in the captain’s chair, locking the harness in place the way I’d been shown on landing earlier that day.

“Everyone secure?” I asked, and when the sounds were affirmative, I ordered Kitan to take us up.

I felt a little silly to be the one giving orders, but it was exactly what the Sune male and Diamed, our ornery new nav, seemed to be expecting.

The ship jolted, engines roaring as we shot into the sky.

The forces of our lift-off pressed me hard into the captain's chair, much as they had when we entered the atmosphere earlier that day. This wasn’t like in the movies, where the ship gracefully floated into the sky; this was much more like a rocket takeoff, and it was intense.

Kitan had been talking with traffic control about a takeoff slot, but we hadn’t received one yet.

Immediately, an alarm went off, and control appeared to be frantically ordering us to stand down until clearance—then changing their tune to order us to land, as we were being detained.

We couldn’t have that. I was certain that we had no chance of counting on the authorities on Xio to take our side.

They’d serve us up to this shadowy, scary figure that Drameil was.

“Are you certain you can reach us in time? That isn’t strong enough to leave atmo,” Kitan was saying to Ziame, who had left his com channel open.

Ziame nodded his big horned head, the image on the viewscreen shaking at what sounded like a blast hitting their craft. “I can do it,” he said with confidence.

“Whew, I didn’t know you were that good a pilot with small craft. You pull that off, and I’ll have you flying this beauty in no time,” the Sune male joked at Ziame. My gladiator didn’t respond, though, clearly focused on flying.

Kitan was steering the ship with calm, practiced moves of his hands and steadily talking to Ziame to coordinate their position.

The technical jargon was far too difficult for me to follow, but I could clearly pick out the small updates Ziame would give on his distance from us as we climbed to escape Xio’s atmosphere.

Diamed drew my attention by speaking up sharply. “What’s our destination, First Mate?” Her hands were scrolling adeptly through the holo display projecting star charts between her and the console. “I can’t get us out of here if I don’t know where you want to go.”

Was she being serious? This woman? Hadn’t she been right here when I’d discussed Sunder’s intel on that shipyard for the new transponder with him? Did she really need a direct order? Maybe she did. Maybe I didn’t understand the intricacies of space travel.

“The shipyard, Strewn,” I told her. I eyed Kitan and then Ziame, still on the coms, and was gratified to see both of them nod. I really didn’t like being in charge. Why had Sunder put me in this spot? Didn’t it make more sense if he was Ziame’s second?

“Alright,” Diamed said, “Strewn it is.” Then she started moving her graceful hands through the star charts, seeing things I couldn’t even begin to understand.

She seemed at ease with what she was doing, unbothered by the activities around her and the tension visible on the faces of Kitan and Ziame. It wasn’t long, though, before our pilot grunted and said, “Locking in the course, thanks.”

Then a shudder ran through the entire ship, rattling my teeth.

“What the hell was that?” I eyed the other people on the bridge with me but realized that Kitan was really busy and likely couldn’t answer.

His snout was pulled into a snarl, and his golden eyes were practically glowing.

I wasn’t certain if he was fiercely happy or furiously angry. Maybe he was both.

Diamed gave me a look—much calmer than I was—and then, with a sigh, she eyed the empty consoles around the room.

“That was a ship firing at our engines. Your pilot managed to dodge, but it was close.” I was grateful for the explanation and, at the same time, terrified by it. A ship was shooting at us?

“Fuck,” I said, eyeing the other consoles the way Diamed was. “What can we do? Fire back? Raise shields?” I dared to ask. I wasn’t sure if any of those things were possible with this ship, but it sounded right.

Kitan spared a moment from his concentrated piloting of our ship.

“No weapons. Shields are up, but barely—holding at thirty percent. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.

” Then he sent Ziame a fierce grin on the comm screen.

“You’re almost there. I’m opening the hangar bay door.

Can you land that shuttle in there at this speed? ”

Ziame had been quiet, though it appeared his flying had taken on a less erratic path. They weren’t being jostled about any longer in the background—maybe because they were close enough now that our ship had become the main target.

My big green guy pulled his face into a fierce grin that seemed to match the one on Kitan’s snout. “You bet I can. I’ve done it before.” But then, something flickered in his eyes—the reflection of red blinking lights, followed by a muted bang. “Shit, one thruster’s out. We’re losing speed.”

I felt my heart thump in my throat. No! What did that mean? Was he not going to be able to make it? We weren’t leaving him behind! But I shouldn’t have worried—there was a jolt and a shudder, and then Kitan declared, “Matching speed, brother. Hurry up, we can’t maintain this long.”

The next few moments, I sat clutching the edge of my seat, still pressed tightly into my chair by the g-forces of our fast acceleration.

It only eased up slightly because Kitan had slowed us a little.

A glance at his console told me he had what looked like some kind of radar display, which showed at least seven different blips.

The one in the center had to be us, and the nearest—the small one—I hoped to God was Ziame and the others.

There was no sound indicating we were hit, but Kitan cursed and flipped some switches to his left. “Shields are down—direct hit to the generator.”

That was bad, really, really bad… But I had no time to contemplate our possible demise. The next moment, there was a shudder running through the ship. Then Ziame declared victoriously, “Docked, close doors!”

And then our ship seemed to buck once as Kitan let out an ululating yowl and pulled hard on the yoke. “Right on time, brother!”

Ziame’s com winked out, and the viewscreen was suddenly filled with what our front sensors picked up, essentially making it look like I was watching out of the front window.

Glittering space filled my eyes—black studded with stars and a blue-and-black-striped moon that we were fast approaching.

The force on my body was also drastically easing and suddenly seemed to go from holding me down in my seat to me actually starting to float away, held in place by the straps.

“Breaking atmosphere. Ready to engage gravity generator in three, two, one,” Kitan counted down.

With a flick of his hand, the gravity generator activated, and I thudded down into my seat.

I didn’t wait, figuring it was safe enough—I was already fighting to undo my safety harness so I could sprint down to the hangar bay and see Ziame.