Page 66 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Even Ziame and Abigail had noticed the tension between the nav and the pilot, but neither had said a thing as they’d left us to join the others leaving the ship.

Supposedly, the extra budget I’d gotten them by unearthing the treasures from the smuggling hatches meant they could now buy new mattresses for everyone and allow for the purchase of some personal items.

I had been offered an amount, just like everyone else, and had been assured by Abby and her mate that I was welcome to stay aboard the ship with them as long as I liked.

I had declined the money and asked that she put it toward the cost of my future surgery instead.

I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected Kitan had told Abby to do the same with his share.

How was I supposed to feel about that? I didn’t know how to make sense of all the conflicting emotions inside me. I didn’t want his pity; I wanted something else—something that made me feel warm inside, the feelings he called forth with a touch of his hand, a brush of his heat against my skin.

I had zero experience with any of that, though I understood some of it from my avid watching of the drama feeds.

I had also observed Abby and Ziame during the past week and a half since I’d been accepted by the former gladiators.

If I wanted to have what they had, I needed to let Kitan know—I just couldn't figure out how.

Did he want it too? I thought so, but he was always so polite and gentlemanly.

It was frustrating, even if it was what made him so appealing, too.

“I am,” Kitan said, and for a moment, my confused thoughts meant I had forgotten I’d asked him a question.

“I can oversee the attaching of the new hull plates from here. It’s a good thing this Star Class Cruiser is of Strewn design.

They had all the parts ready to go, and I’m told the guy that runs this place hates seeing their own builds in disrepair. ”

I hadn’t heard that; it didn’t sound like a good business model, to be honest. But what did I know?

I had lived with pirates half my life—pirates who’d run out on a bill if they could.

Not at Strewn, though; you couldn’t burn your bridges here.

It was the best shipyard in the Zeta Quadrant—independent shipyard, that is.

“So we got a good deal on the hull repairs?” I asked, and Kitan sent me one of those wide, foxy grins. The rumor he’d shared seemed to imply that but I’d never seen any evidence of it on any of my previous visits to the shipyard.

“Better than most, I’m guessing,” he said with a roll of his shoulder, no longer hindered by his injuries.

“But that’s not saying much, is it?” I asked, aware that Captain Busar had always cursed the Strewn bills. Cursed them to high heaven and paid them anyway. It had always been best to avoid him until they’d managed to conquer a new haul.

“Oh no, Strewn makes you pay through your nose regardless. Though I think we’ve been served far faster than I’ve ever experienced here,” Kitan responded.

We shared a look of commiseration and mirth, and then Kitan invited me to run pilot/nav simulations with him—unplugged, he stressed.

As I hadn’t touched a nav console in weeks, I happily took him up on the offer, and we spent several hours that way, only interrupted when Kitan had to coordinate with the repair team working on our hull.

By the time the rest of the crew returned with their purchases, the repairs were nearly done.

Kitan was getting ready to transfer the final payment and initiate the decoupling procedures.

Sunder had commed us with intel on a suitable Star-Class Cruiser transponder to replace the one that had marked this ship as the Ever Golden.

Technically, it was illegal to change the transponder on a ship, but as Strewn was neutral territory, they didn’t care.

I’d seen the process twice before, when the heat had gotten too much, and Captain Busar had felt it necessary to change the ship’s identity.

He’d never paid the full price for a transponder that actually matched a Star Class Cruiser’s identification codes, though.

The Ever Golden’s transponder had technically once belonged to a Long Hauler of similar size.

Once the ship had drifted free from the huge shipyard and space station, you could truly see what a massive thing it was.

Like a great big spider, it crouched in space—a central core with dozens of arms spreading in each direction.

Ships were being built, scrapped, or repaired, and there was a busy coming and going of vessels finished or seeking aid and commerce.

Strewn as a Neutral place for all species, was a busy and popular center of trade besides its primary function of building ships.

As Kitan confidently maneuvered the ship away from the station, the scrapyard became visible: a swarm of ships of all sizes—behemoths, tiny shuttles, and everything in between—drifting in space in various states of decay.

Flocks of tiny salvage ships swarmed everywhere you looked.

No matter how often you saw it, this scrapyard would always be impressive.

The bridge doors opened behind us then, and I heard people enter.

I had no attention to waste on them; the view took up all of it.

It was just so beautiful—the way the salvage ships darted in and out in a graceful dance as they chipped away pieces of ships that had been left here to die.

It was a little like dying, letting a ship just float there—derelict and unusable.

I couldn’t imagine that ever being the fate of this ship.

Though, with the getting of a new transponder, this was now a true death for the Long Hauler Ever Golden.

As we neared the massive field of floating ships, Kitan smirked at me, nudging my hip with his foot.

“Go on, unplugged only, navigate me to our new transponder.” I didn’t let him tell me twice, sinking into the nav chair and letting my fingers fly over the console.

This was a different mode for me to be in—a freer one.

With it came confidence, too, so I spared a glance for Ziame, who’d sat down in the captain’s chair, and Sunder, who’d sat down behind the com panel.

Abby was on the bridge, too, perched on the armrest of Ziame’s seat.

I had the coordinates immediately. Even unplugged, I could navigate this short trip through the floating scrap fast enough anyway, processing the data quickly and then sending the optimal route to Kitan’s piloting console so he could fly it.

It was a disappointingly easy task; we didn’t need to go into the field very far.

A Star Class Cruiser was floating in three broken pieces at the edge of the field.

Even with our eyes, we could quickly tell it was our destination.

“Who’s going out there to get the transponder?” Abigail asked the bridge in general. I could hear the pinch of worry in her tone, but I didn’t have to wonder long about why it was there.

“I think it ought to be me, little one,” Ziame said, and I had to contain a chuckle. Abigail was such a tall woman it was hard to think of her as small, but obviously, to Ziame, she was. I imagined that Tori and I were like little ants to the nearly eight-foot-tall Beast.

“I will call Da’vi to the bridge,” Sunder suggested.

“He can probably help out through the coms. And may I suggest taking Jakar out with you? He’s handy and eager to learn.

” I didn’t know who Da’vi was, except that sometimes he was called Doom instead, and that his hands were badly burned.

He’d kept to himself even more than I had, so we’d never actually met.

There was a niggle of fear at meeting someone new—someone I hadn’t yet gotten used to or learned to trust. Then I eyed Kitan sitting at the console next to me, saw the warm look in his golden eyes, and knew at least one person here would have my back, no matter what.

We were making the approach now, and I sent Kitan some last-minute corrections to align our ship next to the correct portion of the broken Star Class Cruiser—the one with the transponder in it.

It read out the name The Vagabond, and Kitan noticed it at the same moment I did, I think.

He smirked and read it out loud: “Well, isn’t that fitting? We’re all vagabonds here, aren’t we?”

Ziame let out a low, rumbling chuckle, stood up, and patted Kitan on the shoulder—hard enough, clearly, that the Sune actually jolted forward and nearly face-planted on the pilot console. “So true. It is a fitting name for our ragtag bunch. Good work finding it, Sunder.”

I was still a little uncomfortable around the huge Tarkan male who was always in his gargoyle-like battle-form.

I had since learned from Tori that he’d been forced to remain in that shape for so long that he was now unable to assume his peace-form.

Tori had also mentioned that he’d been a gladiator the longest out of all of them—more than twenty years—and that he’d been a trainer for the last period, not a combatant.

That should have made me feel more at ease, but it didn’t.

He was just so ugly and frightening to look at—extremely uncharitable of me to think, but I couldn’t get rid of it just yet.

Abby and Ziame said their goodbyes, and then Abigail sat down in the chair Ziame had vacated, clearly planning on overseeing the operations from here. The moment Ziame left the bridge, talking into his com to Jakar to meet up at the airlock and suit up, Da’vi showed up.