Page 2 of Saved By the Servali

“And that’s just the outside, Jesus have mercy!” Nessa knocked on the door with a roll of her eyes. No one answered. She checked her records and frowned. Unmanned shuttle—but the oxygenation and pressurization checks were filed as “to be completed.” That meant living occupants.

“Orit could be those two are idiots who don’t know what boxes to check on the forms,” Nessa sighed and pushed in the provided code to enter the shuttle.

The interior was dark and empty. “What the hell? Someone’s just sending out shuttles into space? Where is this one going? Maybe it’s supposed to be a gift for someone. Surprise, I got you a flaming ball of crap,” Nessa mumbled as she walked through the dark interior, looking for the lights. Even for a larger, powerfully built woman from the rough end of St. Albany, Nessa had her fears. The dark was one she couldn’t shake. Not the darkness of space, but the darkness of small enclosed spaces.

The lights came on, and Nessa immediately let out a shriek.

“Dead bodies! Two dead bodies!” she squealed, hopping backward in terror.

She forced her eyes open, hand to her heaving chest. “Oh, fuck, thank God,notdead bodies.” Nessa realized the two dark chambers were receiving oxygen and fluids.

Not dead bodies. Two women in stasis, in hypersleep.

“What in the name of shady as hell is this shit?” Nessa screeched, frantically scrolling through the shuttle’s manifest on her port-issued tablet. Two humans were definitelynotlisted! She raced toward the shuttle’s door, knowing she needed to get help at once. Shaking fingers activated her comm, and she barked, “Joe, I—”

“You don’t need to make that call.” A rough yank on her wrist sent her comm flying through the shuttle door, landing at the feet of Mr. Bald and Pierced who stood on the platform with his hand reaching into his coat’s interior. Meanwhile, his half-hooded companion was grabbing her curly hair by its bun and twisting it, digging his knuckles into her neck as he forced her to her knees. “Looks like the Pantherite Provinces get a third treat.”

“Not today they don’t!” Nessa used her enforced position to do some damage. Since she was on her hands and knees anyway, she threw all of her bulk against the knees of her attacker, her shoulder and ample weight knocking him out of the shuttle. As he floundered back, she pressed the shuttle’s door and hit a final button on her still-active device—“Locked for Departure.”

A sizzle of red flashed against the glass.

Hot-beam lasers.

“Oh, God, not today!” Nessa whimpered.

She couldn’t get out of this shuttle—and she couldn’t let it make a planetside landing without the possibility of bursting into a ball of flames. There was no way to stop it from departing now, not now that she could feel the click-bump-click-bump as the shuttle moved forward. Number thirty-seven must have just lifted off, and she would be next in line.

Number thirty-seven! The previous shuttle’s coordinates were still in her device—and that shuttle was going to dock in space, not on a planet.

It wouldn't catch fire. And someone who was ordering all that yummy food and a ton of women’s clothing and shoes must know how to take care of human women, right?

But how was she going to survive this journey without food? Or water? How long would it take?

Die by being shot by thugs and send two other women to possibly die a fiery death, ormaybedie saving two other women and herself?

“I hate this day,” Nessa half-sobbed as she entered an emergency override and changed the coordinates of the shuttle.

“Do you wish to duplicate the last entered coordinates?” her device asked.

Not really!But she hissed, “Yep. One long shot prayer, here we go.”

With a hard kick and a whoosh of pressure that left her plastered to the floor, Nessa passed out, clutching her inspector’s tablet, her last thought that she hoped she woke up when she arrived somewhere in the Felix Orbus Galaxy.

Chapter Two

“Annnnd, open! Say num num num! Say num num for Uncle Jax!”

Kamau could see where this was going. He watched the handsome tan and black Canid trying to feed pureed maize and marsh duck to his nephew, a Leonid-human hybrid with pale fur somewhere between gold and cream.

“Pbbbblt!”

Kamau handed the Canid engine systems mechanic a towel as he passed out their breakfast orders. “Don’t take it personally. Alana covered me with milk porridge last night,” he said as Jaxson scrubbed the cub food from his furry muzzle.

“You don’t have to help, you know.” Layla, the Information Officer and the captain’s Queen and wife, passed Alana to her husband. She pulled baby Chance toward her as her brother-in-law began sponging off his uniform.

“What? And miss the closest thing I’ll ever get to fatherhood? No way, no how, nuh-uh,” the jovial Canid snatched baby Alana from her massive Leonid father and rubbed his nose to her soft cheek.

Kamau sighed silently as he watched the loving chaos on board theComet Stalker, delighted for his crewmates and welcoming the feeling of exhaustion that was already assaulting him. One meal down, two more to go... But sweet Bastet, he looked at the serving cart, then back at all the different sorts of people who needed to be fed, and winced.

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