Page 92 of Shielded in the Shadows

My hearts twinged. “I will,” I promised.

Cradling my precious mate, I circled our cloaked vessel to the open hatch hidden on its far side. Climbing aboard the Vespira felt nothing like boarding the Nivilus, but I breathed much easier within the safety of the ship.

Once inside, I rushed straight to medbay and placed Keela gently into the emergency medpod. Despite her earlier claim that she was in no danger of dying, every indicator light blazed red the moment the scanners detected the severity of her injuries.

I stroked my mate’s soft, pale cheek. “Rest, Captain. You’re safe.”

Keela murmured something unintelligible. Her lashes fluttered, and then her head rolled to the side. She’d held onto to consciousness just long enough to know I’d carried her to safety.

With a medic’s practiced efficiency, I removed and set aside all her weapons, including her bloodied nivilus. I also took off her biomask and her wrist bracer, leaving her ruined clothes for the pod to disintegrate.

I secured the mysterious datachip until we could access it safely. The orb containing Leomer’s remains I put in a medbay compartment and closed the door to hide it from my view so I was less tempted to leave it on a garbage heap outside.

“Treatment commencing,” the medpod’s AI said once I finished divesting my mate of everything important. “Please stand clear of the pod.”

Wings battered, tail drooping, and hearts heavy as stone, I backed away, bracing myself against the counter behind me.

“Welcome back, First Mate Nadal,” Lumos said as the medpod’s lid slid closed. “As the captain is indisposed, you are in command. Shall I prepare for immediate departure?”

“Not yet.” I scrubbed my face with my hands before remembering they were covered in warehouse goop and the blood of four gladiators, myself, and my mate. Gods, I needed a long cycle in the cleanser. “I need you to scan and find a stealth ship that’s somewhere nearby. The male who’s being eaten outside has access to it, so there may be a traceable signal.”

“Scanning.”

The agony in my wings and the adrenaline crash had left me feeling fuzzier than I would like. I opened compartments until I found what I was looking for: painkillers and a mild stimulant to clear my head. I jammed the transdermal injectors to my neck one after the other. The sudden absence of pain was a welcome rush.

“I have located the ship two hundred meters from our position,” Lumos said. “As you suggested, its pilot maintained a live signal with the vessel’s artificial intelligence system. The ship is a Fortune-class stealth runner. Very impressive tech.”

“Apparently so.” I was far too angry about Keela’s injuries and that gods-damned recording she’d been forced to watch to try to keep the accusatory tone out of my voice. “Despite all our precautions, it managed to follow us here from Trakhan.”

There was a beat of silence that felt like surprise or shock before Lumos replied. “My sincere apologies, First Mate Nadal.” The AI actually sounded contrite. “I accept full responsibility for my failure to detect the vessel and for endangering you and Captain Farai. I have logged this incident in my permanent record.”

“You can make it up to me by getting me on that ship and accessing its comms,” I said. “I don’t care how impressive the tech is. I need to get aboard and send a message.”

“I will ensure you can,” Lumos said in a vicious tone that almost made me feel sorry for the other ship’s AI. “Please see to your own wounds in the meantime. All necessary equipment to treat your injuries is stowed in medbay compartments one and three.”

“Thanks.”

Before I followed Lumos’s recommendations, I forced myself to leave Keela’s side long enough to step outside and call for Zwee.

The gorga hurled herself through the hatch moments later, blood-smeared and warbling in contentment.

I crouched and rested my hand on her back as my mate often did. The gorga’s warbling increased in both volume and intensity. “Well done, Zwee,” I said warmly. “I’ll make sure you get a grand feast when we get back to Trakhan.” I curled my lip in disgust. “Something that tastes much better than a Barmian.”

With a pleased trill, she scurried off in the direction of the crew cabin where she’d made her temporary nest.

I returned to medbay, stripped quickly, and shoved my torn and bloody clothing into the ship’s waste reclamation unit. After using some medical cleansing wipes to clean off the worst of the blood, I pulled on some pants and focused on repairing my damaged wings first.

The holes in my wings throbbed despite the painkillers I’d injected. This was not the first time I’d been shot with plasma bolts in my wings, but these injuries seemed a hundred times worse because they’d almost cost me Keela.

Every time I looked at the ragged holes, I relived the sensation of plummeting from the sky with Keela in my arms. My stomach churned with the gut-wrenching memory of dropping her onto a trash pile where a hidden shard of glaz had nearly killed her. The fact that falling onto the mountain of jagged metal and broken glaz would certainly have killed both of us didn’t do much to ease the guilt that gnawed at my insides.

Within the medpod, my wings could have been fully healed within a few hours. Instead, I healed the burns with a dermal regenerator and patched the holes with a finely webbed membrane that would expedite my enhanced healing process and allow almost normal function, including flight.

As I was stretching my wings and testing the pliability of the membranes, Lumos spoke. “First Mate Nadal, I have successfully used the deceased pilot’s damaged but still operational wristcomm to gain access to the stealth runner’s systems. After a fashion, I was able to…subdue its artificial intelligence system. You may board the ship to send a communication, or utilize their comm systems through me.”

“Good work, Lumos.” I fluttered my wings to loosen the residual stiffness and then folded them behind my back. “I’ll send the message from our cockpit, then. It is essential that it appears genuinely sent from that ship and has no trace of our unauthorized access to their comms.”

“I assure you no trace will be present,” the AI stated.