Page 42 of Hooded

“He’s not disposed of anything since you were taken, but it’ll be the last one in the fleet. As you were the last to be brought on board.”

I look over at Klynn. He blinks hard, twice.

“I want my ship. Take us to the dock. I presume there’s an umbilical connecting all the ships?”

“There is, but to use it in this nebula…” Her voice trails away.

“I’m not leaving without my ship,” I growl.

She shrugs, and Klynn shoves his pulsar into her side, clamping his hand on her shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Narlix says with some alarm.

“If we’re caught, you don’t want Lord Halfen thinking you helped us,” he says, voice low and dangerous. “You want him to think you were forced. That way, you’ll stay alive.”

I feel warmth run through my chest. Klynn is absolutely correct. He might not care much for Narlix, but he’s not going to let her die unnecessarily.

“It’s this way,” Narlix says, moving ahead of us and heading away down the passage.

Klynn flicks out a wing, curling it around me briefly as we follow her through the ship to a travel tube.

“We need to go down,” Narlix says, opening the tube up.

Klynn’s wings flare at the sight of the small space.

“What’s wrong,gladiator?” Narlix asks.

“I was dropped down a similar tube recently, landed on my head,” he says.

“I’d say unlikely to have caused you any lasting damage,” Narlix snorts, stepping into the tube.

I follow as does Klynn. He turns within the tube, and I get a face filled with fragrant feathers. Feathers which bristle with anger and concern. I slide my hand into those soft ones at thebase of his wings and feel him relax as the tube closes up and then drops like a stone.

“Vrex!” Klynn growls.

“It’s the nebula affecting the systems,” Narlix shouts over the sound of grinding metal. “The brakes will kick in soon.”

I cling to Klynn, holding tight to his hard body, the sickening descent not filling me with confidence the braking system for the tube is going to work.

Until we come to a sudden, violent stop. I’m thrown hard against Klynn, and Narlix is plastered against the wall.

“The gravity is also being affected,” Klynn says to her, as if this is an everyday occurrence to him. “So, you’ll need to take care.”

The tube opens, and with my hand in his, he stalks out.

We’re in the docking area of the pirate ship. It’s vast but in disarray. It’s clear the forcefield keeping the vacuum of space out has failed at least once, causing some considerable destruction.

But also ensuring there are no living things down here.

“The umbilical entrance is over there.” Narlix points to a small airlock on the other side of the dock.

“You need a suit,” Klynn says to me.

“So do you.”

“They don’t make them Gryn sized,” he responds as he stalks over to a locker and wrenches it open, pulling out an anti-grav space suit and handing it to me.

I hold it up. It’s made for a Tormelek and has to be five sizes too big.

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