Dav turned his laslight back to the one thing on this ship that had no business being here and studied it a little more. It was a dead animal of some kind in a cage, nothing heʼd ever seen before. He would bet quite a large chunk of his pay that if it were breathing, it would show up orange on Kilaʼs little screen.
This one life form, of all the life on this ship, had not died of a lack of breathable air. It had been killed by lethal injection, the syringe still in its shoulder, as if the person whoʼd plunged it in was too scared to pull it out. Looking at the incisors and the claws on the animal, Dav didnʼt blame them.
He played his light over it a little longer, and then tapped his comm. “Final casualties, Commander?”
“Four hundred and eighty-three, sir.” Commander Appal had to clear her throat. “Kilaʼs confirmed from her side. We havenʼt missed anyone.”
They had the captain alive, along with most of his senior officers. And none of the hassle of a large-scale prisoner population. All their would-be prisoners were dead.
Dav wasnʼt sure what he thought of that.
If the Tecran ship hadnʼt been disabled, he knew they would have shot the Barrist out the sky and killed every single person on board. If heʼd had the fire-power available himself, he would have done the same to them.
But this seemed like a waste of life. A tragedy.
And the burning question was, what were the Tecran doing in Grih territory to begin with?
He tapped in to the Barristʼs comm system. “Weʼre secure, Borji. Bring your team over and find out what the hell happened to this ship.”
The place on the Grih planet Dav came from, Calianthra, had a saying: beware of unexpected gifts.
He was wary, all right. Very, very wary.
She was clean, and she was cried out. Wrung out like a limp rag. Only thirty minutes had past of her hour, because she was worried about working out how to use the hyr fabric, and she didnʼt want to ask Sazoʼs advice.
Her hair hung below shoulder-length, clean but in need of a good brush and a hair tie, smelling of the gel Sazo had provided. A sort of cinnamon and vanilla spicy mix that was amazingly good.
She sorted through the garments, and realized she was humming a tune while she did it. Sheʼd always enjoyed singing, but since sheʼd been taken, sheʼd hummed and sang more than she ever had in her life. There was something so pithy about song lyrics. They got right to the heart of things in a few words.
She didnʼt doubt she was sane because of them.
She lifted out an item that must surely be underwear, although so big she could have got both legs in one leg-hole. She pulled them on, and then bunched them close to her skin. The fabric contracted, and as she pulled and arranged, it obeyed completely, shrinking, molding itself to her, until she had exactly the kind of underwear she preferred.
Flushed with success, as well as the humid air of the shower room, she pulled out a sleeveless tank top which she guessed was a bra equivalent and went to work again. When she worked out she could have any level of lift and separate she wanted, she played for a good five minutes, grinning as she made her breasts do the impossible, giving herself cleavage that would be the envy of any playboy bunny. The beep Sazo said heʼd send at forty minutes sounded, and she toned it down a little, although not totally. She was tired of being grubby and drab.
The pants and long sleeve t-shirt were easy, and the fabric was stretchy enough for her to move freely.
She ran into trouble with the shoes.
The only ones in the pack looked like massive ballet slippers. The Tecran had big feet, and she wondered how the hyr fabric in the shoes would work. Sheʼd prefer trainers, something she could run in.
Sazo said the Grih were peaceful and had strict rules guiding their encounters with alien life. They would never subject her to what the Tecran had. But call her a cynic. Sheʼd like the option of running, if she could.
Of course, sheʼd been without shoes for three months, so anything was an improvement.
She slipped her foot into one, and then the other, and they started to contract. Ballet slippers, it was, then. They were comfortable, at least. And the soles were probably thick enough to run over rough ground.
She closed up the packs again, still wishing for a brush and a hair tie, but the Tecran had feathery stuff on their heads and if they brushed it, there was no evidence of that in the things Sazo had gotten for her. She combed her fingers through her hair and then braided it in a French braid.
“A hair tie, a hair tie, my kingdom for a hair tie,” she sang under her breath.
“A hair tie?” Sazoʼs voice came through the speaker by the door.
“A stretchy, thin band to wrap around the end of my hair, to keep it in place. Iʼd be happy to see a comb or a brush, too.” She kept her voice neutral, but she didnʼt like that heʼd been listening to her. Although she knew she could be misunderstanding. He was in the craftʼs systems, and if she spoke, he would hear it, whether he was actively listening to her or minding his own business completely.
And what else did he have to do at the moment?
Boredom was a huge problem for Sazo. Idle hands do the devilʼs work had never been more applicable. Although, this time, the devil had been totally in her corner.
Theyʼd needed each other——Sazoʼs access to the shipʼs systems and her mobility and opposable thumbs——and their plan had worked.
She walked back into the small cockpit, still hanging on to the end of her braid, peered out the porthole one last time at the Tecran ship disappearing into the distance, and gave them the middle finger.
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to the team of awesome readers, editors and authors who help me make my books as good as they can be. This journey would be a lot more lonely without you. Thanks again to Jeff Brown at Jeff Brown Graphics for the awesome cover.
Shadow Warrior (Sky Raiders Book 3) Page 26