Page 7 of Doom Averted

Putting the com device on the edge of the table, I gave Abigail a look, making sure that she understood I wanted her to hear me too. “I got this from Drameil’s safe,” I started, tapping the edge of the casing with a metal finger. “I intercepted a distress call with it, from a female. Her name is Arianna.” Her name falling from my lips made my belly clench and I drew in a jerky breath of air, my ribs protesting in pain.

“That’s a human name,” Abigail said and she leaned around Ziame’s big scaly shoulder to peer at the com device. I felt the urge to snatch it back off the table and tuck it into my shirt where nobody could see it.

“She is human,” I forced myself to say, giving in to the urge, and grabbing the device carefully. “And she’s stuck on a very damaged ship in a dead zone, she needs help.” I had already promised her that I’d come for her, it hadn’t crossed my mind that Ziame and my gladiator brothers wouldn’t want to. If they didn’t, I’d ask for my share of the credits we had, and then I’d charter my own way on Strewn. As soon as I had the thought, I tried to shake it from my head, it was just so irrational, that wasn’t normally me.

“Oh no!” Abigail immediately said, “We have to rescue her!” But I saw how Ziame’s stance hardened, remaining protectively in front of his mate, his eyes narrowing on me. He knew what a dead zone was, how long it meant we’d have to travel. This wasn’t just a few weeks, this was months of our time. It was a very big ask, and it could be dangerous.

“And you are certain this is not a trap?” Ziame demanded, his mobile ears flicking back toward his mate when she sucked in a breath in surprise. As I’d had the exact same suspicions, I knew I could assure him of this at least. There was just no way that Arianna wasn’t the real thing. I’d watched her again during this last call, and she was just so… Human, and so very clearly alone and lost.

Thinking back to that call, I flashed to the moment when she’d accidentally twirled over the coms console. I’d gotten a look straight up the long, flowery skirt she wore, and the sight of a pair of shapely, pale thighs was engraved into my brain. Just thinking of it made my pants suddenly uncomfortably tight.

Harsher than I meant to, because I was so unused to the feelings surging through me, I growled out what I knew. “Akri and I checked it out last night, we’re very certain that she’s what she says she is. She needs our help, she only has a single month’s worth of food, we have to leave now.” Any delay could be fatal to her, as it was, I’d need to do some very harsh tweaking to the engines and push Chloe and Kitan to cut a two-month journey in half. My head was spinning at what I was about to do to help us make that journey.

“Hmm,” Ziame said, but he finally relaxed, pulling out a chair to sit down at the table and nodding at me to do the same. As soon as I did, I realized that more of my brothers were leaning in through the open doorway. Ziame and I shared a look and though I didn’t really want to, because it just didn’t feel right to share Arianna with the other males, I agreed that they should have a say.

No matter what the rest decided, I was still going to rescue her, I’d already made up my mind. It would be better, faster, if I could do it with the Vagabond. Star Class Cruisers were made for speed, space exploration, and scouting.

In not too long the entire crew was sitting around the ready-room table, and I shifted uncomfortably in my chair under their scrutiny. When Babbit strutted through the door, I was relieved when he leaped onto the table to park his fluffy ass in front of me, staring at the others with his sharp blue eyes.

“I vote we rescue the human,” Jakar immediately stated, his two upper arms crossed over his bulky chest. The bottom two were restlessly tapping at the table. I wasn’t surprised, Jakar desperately wanted his own mate, but he wasn’t getting Arianna. They’d be a terrible match.

“We have to, we need to look out for our sisters out in the Zeta Quadrant,” Camila said while casually flipping a throwing knife between her fingers. Her dark brown eyes pierced everyone in the room, lingering on her own male, Thorin, who had a glare on his face, his arms crossed. Like me, she was pretty sure that he was against it.

“I agree!” Abigail said, and more of the human females chimed in, agreeing with her. I drew in another deep breath, my ribs aching, they were definitely cracked from Ziame’s blow. I’d need to have Luka take a look at them when I found the time.

I laid out the particulars carefully once silence returned, explaining Arianna’s predicament, and the perils of our journey if we wanted to make it in time. The words tasted sour in my mouth, I might not like people all that much, and I didn’t like company, but I hated that she was out there alone. That there was a possibility that my brothers didn’t want to take the risk of rescuing her.

“How sure are you that we can reach her in time? I thought we were finally putting the Vagabond in good shape, won’t this put our ship at risk?” Ziame asked. His long, prehensile tail waved around the room as he indicated the room, the ship. I could see the apprehension on the faces of some of my brothers and their mates, I understood that this was home, and we couldn’t risk it. I was asking them to anyway.

“I can do it,” I said, even if it meant doing something I’d sworn I’d never do again. The very thing the Master of Strewn had tried recruiting me for. The problem was that we still had several days worth of overhauls left, I could speed some of that up, but we had to wait until those were done. It wouldn’t leave us much more than three weeks to reach Arianna when that normally would take the Vagabond two whole months.

“Let’s vote,” Ziame, “Raise your hand if you wish to rescue the female.” And one after another, the people in the room cast their votes.

*

Arianna

I hadn’t heard anything from Da’vi in over a day, I’d been too chickenshit to try giving him another call myself. Instead, I’d worked hard to open the crates in the cargo bay. If I could just find more food and water, maybe I could call him and let him know that I could hang on longer. The first crate I’d finally managed to pry open with something that resembled a crowbar. It had contained packaged somethings but I was pretty sure they were medical supplies, not anything edible.

Not about to give up, I’d worked on the others the next day, after I’d finally gotten a decent amount of sleep curled up in a nest of towels in the supply closet. Now I was wearing a far too large jumpsuit that was at least keeping me warm, courtesy of one of the crates, and I’d gotten more disappointment with the rest. Empty or useless, I still had no more food.

“I just need to search more of the ship, there has to be a kitchen somewhere,” I told the stale air. Crowbar in hand, I started wandering the hallways, trying to pry open each door that I came across. Sometimes it worked and I got to check what was beyond, often it didn’t. I was getting really frustrated about it so I was chanting mantras under my breath, and when that didn’t work, I started singing the sunshine song. That usually helped.

“What are you singing?” was asked so suddenly that I screamed, turning around, and frantically swatting with the crowbar into the empty air behind me. There was no one in the hallway with me, though it curved at the end and the lamps were bad so there were shadows everywhere. That had sounded remarkably like the deep, dual-layered voice of Da’vi, but I had to be imagining things.

“Oh, right, you weren’t on the bridge when I called, so I patched the call into the ship’s intercom system. My brothers have voted, and we’ve all agreed to pick you up.” I gaped up at the ceiling, scanning it for hidden little speakers, something to point myself at if I wanted to speak back. From the sounds of things, Da’vi was still coming to rescue me. He sounded calm, confident he’d be here in time, I sincerely hoped that was the case.

“Uh, what do you mean vote? Are you saying you hadn’t actually decided yet before then?” I asked him. I thought he’d told me he was coming to get me last time, why was he saying they had voted. And brothers? How many brothers did he have? Were they running an entire ship together?

“I mean that I’m coming for you with my brothers on our ship, if they’d voted no, I would have figured something else out for you.” He sounded calm and assured, casual about it but it made my entire body glow, hearing those words. I had never had anyone say something like that, like he was squarely in my camp, ready to help me without expecting anything in return.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I found myself in a negative spiral I struggled to get out of. It was easy to let thoughts swallow me like: ‘you’re not worth it!’ or ‘of course he’s expecting something in return.’ I shoved those away, swallowing to get my dry mouth to work again. “Thank you Da’vi, I really appreciate your help. I don’t have any way to repay you…” There, that had sounded calm, I should be upfront about it, and get my expectations clear. Though I wasn’t sure how I would handle it if he said he knew how I could pay him. I’d heard that line more than once when I hitchhiked across the states.

I couldn’t hear the background noises from his side as well as I normally could, but I was pretty sure there was a chirruping sound from his pet. Followed by some kind of low rumble, I hoped that was some kind of machinery but it sounded a little threatening. “No need to repay me, just helping out a stranded human,” Da’vi said, his voice as gruff as always.

He didn’t want anything from me, he really was just being nice. I didn’t care that my dad would have scolded me for being naive again, nothing was ever for free with him, so it definitely wouldn’t be with a stranger. I didn’t want to believe that, I wanted to believe with my whole heart that Da’vi was the kind of guy that was rough on the outside but all squishy on the inside. I knew they existed, I had met them before, and alien or not, Da’vi was like that, I had to believe that.

“I was singing my sunshine song,” I told him, “It cheers me up when things aren’t going the way I want.” I gestured down the hallway, “None of these doors open, I hoped to find a kitchen, more food.” It was just really hard to get around on this ship, because it was such a broken mess, with many hallways ending with a bulkhead or debris. Each door I tried to open held the potential of a dead body behind it too, it was hard to keep in good spirits knowing that.