Page 30 of Beast Unburdened

“Where’s Thorin?” I blurted out, concerned one of our number was missing. “He’s collecting your female’s winnings right now, should be back soon.” That sentence made no sense to me and I was too foggy to try to untangle that so I left it. “Purse money?” I asked and Luka gave me an exaggerated sigh and told me to shut up so he could fix me. Amused I said to Jakar and Fierce, “His bedside manner is certainly lacking isn’t it?”

I shut up the next moment though because I spotted the organizer heading down the hall with an entourage behind him. Two guards and two slaves carrying a heavy lockbox. The Xionian male was a red feathered one with a white and black crest on his raptor-like head. He flared it out in distaste as he looked at the mess of blood all over the floor.

Lip curled he said, “The winnings,” and gestured at the chest. Jakar hurried to take it as the slaves were about to set it down in the puddle of my blood. The organizer gave Luka a hard and distrusting stare and Luka, to his credit, straightened, curled his lip right back at him, and glared. “There a problem organizer Frrraz’t? Would you like to take it up with my boss? Lord Drameil?”

The organizer’s feathered crest dropped down and he looked away, then he rolled his head on his long neck and said in a clipped tone of voice. “Of course not. Please see yourself out, I have business to attend to.” He walked off, followed by the males with him and just as he left the tunnel we could hear him pick up a com call and start talking in hurried tones. I had a bad feeling about it.

“Let’s get out of here fast, tell Thorin to meet us at the shuttle,” I said gruffly and then cursed when I couldn’t find the strength to get to my feet. Fierce pulled me up by my good arm and then with a cheeky grin hung the IV bag he’d been holding from one of my horns. I couldn’t be bothered to feel indignant about that, we needed our hands free. Then we staggered down the corridor towards the exit as fast as I could manage.

I eyed the Kertinal on the floor as we passed and realized his eyes were open, he was alive and in pain and his handler hadn’t given him treatment and simply left him behind. “What about him?” I asked no one in particular and saw how the male’s pain-filled eyes widened in shock. Whoops, now he realized I could speak.

Fierce and Jakar shared a sad look, “The handler was informed by the owner to leave him. He’s been written off.” “Okay, so we take him then,” I told the guys, “Nobody’s going to look for him.” That seemed simple and obvious to me but both Jakar and Fierce looked startled as if it hadn’t occurred to them that this was even an option.

The Doc sighed but then quickly ran his medical scanner over the male before digging around his pack and jabbing the guy with some pain reliever. “Badly cracked ribs, you can pick him up Fierce just be careful or we’re dealing with perforated lungs. I’ll prop up the big guy.”

Fierce handed me over to Luka, who was slighter but still strong as he took some of my weight and steadied me from under my good arm. While Fierce was surprisingly gentle as he started to pick up the Kertinal. The big male didn’t struggle, instead, with a groan he shook his head, “Legs are fine,” he gasped out. “Just help me up, I’ll walk.”

It wasn’t fast, as Fierce definitely needed to support the winded, injured male. But we made it out of the corridor and started winding our way through the arena’s bowels to the exit where our shuttle was parked. We were nearly there too when Thorin caught up to us from behind with a harried look, “Hurry,” he said, “I think they’ve figured it out.”

He’d only just spoken when we heard shouting go up from behind us. I chanced a look and saw a contingent of guards on our tail so we made the effort to increase our pace. Thorin had taken off his fake pain collar and added a hooded cloak so he could move in the crowd unrecognized. He’d also procured a blaster from the pack Luka had carried in. Now he covered our retreat with it and then dashed to the front to take care of two guards standing near our shuttle.

I steeled myself then and managed a bit more strength and steadiness, hurrying into the shuttle first and plunking my ass down in the pilot’s seat gratefully. Pre-flight checks were not a good idea to skip but I did the bare minimum as I warmed up our engines. Behind me, the others piled in and I heard Jakar and Fierce arm themselves and return fire. “Brace!” I yelled, “We’ll take off with the hatch open.”

Barely sparing my passengers a glance to make sure they were all holding on tight I set the shuttle into motion. Turning it a last time so my brothers could get off another round of covering fire and then I aimed us for the docks and took off.

Chapter 15

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 was a little faint in the head from seeing that, and then again and again as it was one of the most well-liked moments of the entire fight apparently.

“Shit...” I said and Tori leaned in to hug me tightly against her side. “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 take-off. I’m going to bet we’ll need to leave in a hurry.” Kitan gave me a solid nod and set his hands to the controls, initiating pre-flight checks.

At my hand 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 here.

“Everyone who can, strap in,” I ordered. Then I checked in with Sunder to verify his progress. As 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 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. “Alright, we’re just waiting on 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 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 on entering the atmosphere earlier that day.

Kitan had been talking with traffic control about a take-off slot but we hadn’t received one yet. Immediately an alarm went off and control appeared to frantically be 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 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. He 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 crafts. You pull that off and I’ll have you flying this beauty in no time,” the Sune male joked at Ziame. The 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 then, by sharply speaking up, “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 hardly get us out of here if I don’t know where you want to go.”