Page 4 of Saved By the Servali

“Felids are individuals. The pains are individuals, too. I’ve come to love Layla and Rupex like my own grown cubs, even though, age-wise, it’d be almost impossible. They help fill the hole that losing my family left, but it’s never... It’s never quite enough. What about you, Kam? Do you have something to help with that emptiness?”

“I suppose. Feeding everyone on this ship. Making sure no one else finds themselves so empty,” Kamau said with a shrug. “Oh. Andborde.”

With a laugh, Marcus walked off. “I’ll be by later for some of that remedy myself!”

“HUMANS FROM SAPIEN-Three have a diet heavily reliant on processed food. Sodium, sugar, and artificial stimulants and additives have shown—”

“Kamau!”

“Do they actually expect me to feed the Queens that slop?” Kamau muttered and paused the screen on the galley’s database computer so he could give his undivided attention to Talos.

The imposing Tigerite Security Officer was the biggest being on the ship, commanding attention with his broad, tall body, his bright orange, white, and black fur, and his piercing eyes. A thing of opposites, he was the biggest but also the quietest being on the ship. He could pin a person with the sheer volume of his silence as easily as he could hold them down with one paw. To have him suddenly a paw’s length away, yelling with fury in his eyes, was a horrific experience that Kamau didn’t want to repeat.

“What is it?” Kamau asked, whiskers twitching in concern, fluffed tail tip starting a nervous tap-tap-tap against the smooth floor.

“Your shipment from the Milky Way Intergalactic Port is less than an hour out, and you just now think to tell me I have to clear two pods? One is a shuttle! It looks derelict at that!”

“What? I just placed the order. Ardol is the Freight Coordinator. Yell at him! He knows how much I ordered, he should have told you what sort of vessels to expect, and how many.”

Talos shifted, anger seeping away as he rubbed a nervous paw over the white ruff of fur at his neck. “Yes. Er. I thought of that, but...”

“But?”

“Well. I went to his office, and I could hear... He and Jade... You know, she has started the injections that make a human female imitate a Felid Queen’s heat.”

Kamau rolled his eyes. “Ardol gets a Queen who is not only beautiful and eager to bear his cubs, but he also escapes your wrath. Bastet’s eyes! Was I a bad cub?”

“Save the hysterics. I’m sorry I shouted, but I do need you to get your copy of the manifest and contact the MWIP or theshipper to see why they added the second vessel. I have the confirmation here.” Talos pulled up something on the screen of the flat tablet he carried in his paw. “StableShip, MIG-approved intergalactic shuttle container. Not rated for sentient beings or domestic livestock. Return shipping coordinates pre-programmed...” Talos read and scrolled, one white digit flying up the smooth screen. “Nothing about a second, but it left at the same time, same location.”

“It’s probably just a shipping error. They sent an empty vessel. Or maybe we got a double order!” Kamau’s eyes lit up. “We have the storage for it! Bastet knows, there are dozens of empty quarters on this ship, even after Layla and Wendy began to set up their nurseries and the little play academy for the cubs.”

“I’m going to have to see if I can get the scans from the MWIP. They should have sent them already.” Talos’ face was grave.

Kamau lost his joyful expression, wide ears drooping. “What do you think it is? What’s wrong?”

“A leech.” The Tigerite made his grim announcement in a deep, dreadful growl and strode off.

Kamau felt sick. A leech? Civilized planets didn’t use leeches—dummy shuttles or vessels meant to dock on a freighter or passenger ship to leech the data, clearances, and account information stored there, sometimes simultaneously submitting a corrupted program into the host ship’s computer system.

Some leeches knocked out the life support systems.

The Queens.

The cubs!

Kamau felt his heart leap into his long throat, silky fur frizzing up from the sudden panicked sweat drenching his skin. “I’m coming with you!” he hollered, chasing after the much larger Felid.

As an afterthought, he stopped and seized his great-grandmother’sagbada, a heavy iron pot that had generations of flavor baked and seared into it. It was his best vessel for cooking everything from stews to goat shank, his secret weapon in the kitchen. Now it might be his weapon, full stop.

Chapter Three

“We can blast it when it’s in range. I won’t miss, Captain.”

Kamau held his heavy pot by its foot-long handle and watched Talos cross his arms and flex his massive shoulders.

I feel like a scrawny little knight who still has the voice of a cub, he thought, watching Wendy practically melt into a puddle at the sight of her heroic husband strapping into his seat and adjusting the defensive laser system settings.

“Wait! Wait, wait!” Layla careened into the room, a disheveled Ardol fast behind her.

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