Page 6 of Saved By the Servali

Alone. Useless. No one will even need to eat in all this excitement. Unless...

A foolish fantasy exploded in his mind, completely out of the starry beyond.

Unless therearesurvivors aboard.Iwill nurse them back to health. Marcus can handle the body. I will handle the soul, which everyone knows is connected to the stomach.

THE FIRST CONTAINERdocked smoothly, coordinates and advanced programming working in perfect harmony. Ardol beamed around the room despite the tense faces ringing him. “Okay, no one applauds the Freight Coordinator for how perfectly that lined up? Fine.”

Rupex made a huffing growl. “The next one is only moments behind!”

“I have a second bay cleared and—ooh, this one is a mess. Paneling coming off. Thank Bastet this didn’t dock on world! It would have burned up like one of Talos’ stinky candles.”

“Healingcandles. Less talk, more action,” the Tigerite grumped.

“I will open the shuttle.” Kamau stepped forward, pushing past Marcus and two long, wheeled cots. “No, I don’t have a Queen or cubs. I don’t have medical training or engine systems knowledge. Anyone can cook.”

Rupex shook his head. “I should go; it’s my ship. My duty. And no, my friend, not just anyone could cook.”

“Be careful, Kam,” Marcus advised. “If we lose you, I have to go back to cooking for him and Layla—and reminding them to come up for air and to actually eat.”

“But—”

“Don’t make me disobey a direct order, Captain,” Kamau challenged Rupex, and the Leonid slowly backed down. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure.” Kamau tossed a brave smile over his shoulder. “Seal the doors on both sides—in case.”

Talos nodded. “You should have time to make it back to our side of the bay if you hear or see anything suspicious.”

“Right.” Legs as wobbly as a plumcotta pudding, tail lashing with nerves, Kamau stepped forward into the shuttle bay. The doors hissed closed behind him. Through the reinforced window, he could see his crewmates watching over him, their faces grave.

“Steady... Steady,” he talked himself over to the first container, clearly a pod, an unmanned transporter and nothing more. The second bay held a shuttle that had once been rated for interplanetary travel—at best. It was certainly not fit to jump across galaxies! As he approached, sweat began to soak the fur on his chest and back. His ears, long used to scanning the vast Servali deserts for unwelcome sounds, swiveled and shifted.

Sounds didn’t come from inside the shuttle, but they certainly came from without. As he made his way past the corroding nose of the vessel, the engines hissed and smoked, then clanked to the ground with a thud that made the floor shimmy under his paws. The engines, blackened and sparking, were then joined by all the rear paneling, cascading down in a crash of metal and circuitry.

“The shuttle is dark,” Talos’ voice said through the intercom, spooking him.

Kamau wanted to curse the Tigerite for stating the obvious. “I see that!” he hissed back, storming to the shuttle’shatch, courage bolstered by annoyance. Almost as soon as he touched the keypad, the hatch sprang open—as if it had been programmed to accept a Felid pawprint from the outside as opposed to relying on the usual manual opening by the shuttle’s occupants.

His stomach roiled when he peeked inside. There was a strange smell—but not the smell of dead things. “I need lights!” he hollered.

“What is it?” Talos demanded.

“Dark!” he shouted back. “Idiots.”

Bright lights flooded the bay, and he gasped. The interior of the shuttle was still dark, but he could make out two long chambers in the back—hypersleep chambers. He could also make out a figure on the floor. “Medics!” he yowled, stooping forward, now able to identify the strange stench. Vomit, urine, and waste. The poor human Queen on the ground—she had been through an intergalactic jump without the protection of hypersleep by the looks of it. Or maybe she’d been in one of the chambers and had clambered out too early.

“No food, no water... She must be dead.” His paw tentatively touched her shoulder, and he was stunned to feel her body gently rising and falling. No, not gently. Weakly. “She’s alive! One is alive!”

Marcus, Dax, and Talos were already beside him, a beam of illumination from Marcus’ paw-held exam light bringing the gloom of the shuttle into sharp whites, black shadows, and metallic grays.

“It’s a miracle. This is probably what saved her,” Marcus rolled the human over, and a small steel water bottle was revealed. “She must’ve had that on her or found it in the shuttle. Talos, on three. Dax, Kamau, check the chambers. This female is going to die in minutes without help, that is if it’s not too late already. One, two, three!”

Kamau looked at the body that Marcus was already stabbing a needle into, a bag of life-saving fluids, proteins, and sugars pouring into her vein from a bag he placed on her chest.

“Will she—make it?” he whispered.

“Probably not, but we can try,” Marcus said grimly. “Blood from the nose, ears, mouth... signs of improper pressurization and protection during a jump. Vomiting... Bile, no chunks of food. Poor thing. I don’t know when she last ate. At least space travel can prolong the time a human or Felid can survive without food and water... I’ll get Skyla to help clean her up and make her comfortable. I’ll start a chronic dehydration and malnutrition protocol and scan for organ failure.”

“These two are alive and seem fine. Chambers are off, though. I don’t know when they shut off, but they’re warm and pink. That means they didn’t lose oxygen, right?” Dax called.

“Right.”

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