As soon as Juanita, Tala, and the other women had been transferred to the Falcon 8, and Orion knew they were safe, he headed toward the bridge of the slaver ship. His brother would likely be up there, ensuring that Captain Cutty was captured and questioned. Or he might still be hunting down slavers. Many would no doubt have gone into hiding once they realized they couldn’t win against the Star Guardians. Some of the cowards may have gone into hiding even before then. These people preyed on the weak and the unarmed. They weren’t accustomed to fighting those who were their equals. Or betters.

Orion had heard Sage order the other Star Guardians to capture anyone they found and not to kill them. That way, they could be brought before the Confederation Court on Dethocoles to be tried for their crimes. Orion thought it would be easier and more practical to shoot the thugs—it wasn’t as if anyone back home would know what had happened way out here—but Star Guardians didn’t presume to play the roles of executioners. They were too wholesome for such things. Over the years, Orion had captured enough prisoners that had been wanted alive instead of dead that he’d dealt with his share of jailbreaks and difficulties, so he well knew the problems of transporting criminals.

“You,” came a snarl from up ahead.

An armored Star Guardian was leading one of the slavers toward the airlock where the two ships were joined together. Orion smiled broadly, having no trouble recognizing the shaven-headed man.

“Bray,” Orion said. “So good to see you in that position.”

“What position?” Bray tried to jerk away, but even if Star Guardians weren’t known for their extreme fitness, his captor’s enhanced armor gave him the strength to keep him detained. Bray was barely able to squirm.

“That one.”

Bray pointed at Orion’s chest with his free hand. “He’s one of our crew.” He glanced back at his captor. “Why aren’t you capturing him?”

The armored man stopped in the corridor, his faceplate turning toward Orion. In contemplation?

Orion squinted, waiting to see if he would have to explain himself. If Sage hadn’t shown his crew a picture of him, that might be the case.

“You’re the captain’s brother, aren’t you?” the man asked.

“Maybe he’s my brother,” Orion said.

It was foolish, but he got tired of being introduced and referred to as the great Captain Sagitta’s kid brother. People either asked him for stories, or they were completely surprised to learn that the legendary captain had a brother. In truth, he had three brothers. But the history books wouldn’t likely remember Orion or any of the others.

“Well, that changes everything, doesn’t it?” The Star Guardian pushed Bray toward the airlock without further comment.

Orion continued toward the bridge, but paused at the intersection before it when a throaty snarl came from down a side corridor. He dropped a hand to his bolt bow and whirled toward the noise, half expecting Captain Cutty and his slavering svenkar.

A dark-skinned man with two svenkars strode toward him, muscles rippling under their leathery skin. He wasn’t in combat armor, but he wore the typical black Star Guardian uniform with the sleeves rolled up to reveal the fire-falcon-going-through-a-gate tattoo they all received when they finished their training and were given their first assignment. He also wore a fur syiasha over the uniform, the six-inch-wide band a favorite clothing garment for those from the ice planet Osun.

The svenkars snarled at Orion, pulling his attention back to them. They crouched, their tails upright like flagpoles. They looked like they were about to tear his throat out.

“Not that one, boys,” the man said, swatting their backsides. “That’s the captain’s brother. He’s on our side.”

“The captain’s my brother,” Orion pointed out once again, not taking his hand off his bolt bow until the beasts rose from their crouches.

“So I heard.” The man waved in the direction of the airlock, then walked between the big svenkar and offered the typical greeting salute, a hand to the forehead and then fingers spread in the air, palm facing out. “Treyjon.”

“Orion.”

“Glad you got the shields down, Orion.”

“Was Sage complaining that it took me so long?” Orion turned toward the bridge again when it looked like Treyjon was going the same way.

“No, but it was getting hard to pretend we were trying to blow up the ship without actually blowing it up. I was a little surprised he let it get through the gate, but I didn’t know about the qazar field he’d had set up, either. I didn’t even know he knew that was a four-way gate. He must have hunted down more intel than you gave him.”

Orion bristled at the idea that his intelligence hadn’t been enough, but he wasn’t surprised Sage had sought out other resources.

“Zakota, our helmsman, didn’t know anything about the gate’s many exits until right before we went in. But you know the captain. He always has some secret intel up his sleeve.” Treyjon smiled, getting that worshipful expression on his face that so many men did when talking about Sage.

Orion managed not to roll his eyes. “Yeah,” was all he said.

They walked onto the bridge together. Something snapped near the captain’s chair, and a black blur rushed toward them. Orion leaped to the side before he registered what it was. Cutty's svenkar.

Treyjon stumbled to the side as his own beasts leaped past him to intercept it. Faster than the eye could follow, all three animals were writhing about on the deck, jaws snapping, fangs tearing at scaly flesh.

“No, get the traitor!” came a cry from the other side of the bridge.

Cutty. If his svenkar heard him, it was far too busy to obey. That was good, because there wasn’t any doubt who the captain had meant. He stood between two armored Star Guardians, Sage and someone else, their gauntleted hands wrapped around his arms. Cutty had been disarmed, and his disheveled clothes suggested he’d been searched thoroughly.

Orion smiled, wishing he’d been there to witness the indignity.

Another Star Guardian farther back gripped the first officer, a man watching everything unfold quietly, as was his way. The rest of the bridge crew had been cleared already.

A flash of blue light filled the dim bridge, a stunner firing. Energy flared around the svenkars, and even from several feet away, Orion felt the crackle of electricity in the air. The hair on his arms stood up.

“Captain,” Treyjon said in protest. “You stunned my pups.”

As if snarling, four-hundred-pound svenkars could be considered puppies.

“We’re without a doctor right now,” Sage said. “It would have been difficult to fix them up if they were grievously injured.”

“Doc Svetloka always seemed more interested in eating my pups than in fixing them. You can’t trust a big game hunter to have a deft touch with a laser scalpel. I’m not surprised one of those lava rhinos from Amalcari got him in the end.”

“We’re going to lock up the captain.” Sage gave Cutty a prod. “Either have his svenkar put to sleep or—”

“To sleep, Captain?” Treyjon knelt beside the pile of unconscious beasts. “Just give me a few days. I can get her retrained and add her to my tracking team.”

“Don’t count on that,” Orion said, looking across at Captain Cutty, who was glaring glaciers back at him. “That hound is as mean as its owner.”

“I’ve got a knack for pups. I’ll retrain her. You’ll see. Bet she won’t even try to tear out your throat by the end of the week.”

“Lovely.”

“Do whatever’s practical, Treyjon,” Sage said, “but don’t let it endanger anyone on the Falcon. Once yours wake up, take them down all the corridors on this ship. Our sensors show that there are still people aboard, but they look to be hiding in secret compartments, so it’ll be a chore to find them. We’ll need the svenkars’ noses.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why not just ask the captain where his people are?” Orion said, still holding Cutty’s gaze.

“We asked,” Sage said. “We didn’t bring any truth drugs over, and he chose not to answer.”

Orion pulled out a dagger and stalked toward their prisoner. “Maybe a little force would be preferable to drugs.”

“You’ve already used enough force,” Sage said, his voice like ice.

The condemning tone surprised Orion, and he stopped a few feet away. He had intended to bluff, mostly. He didn’t torture people as a matter of habit, but he would consider making an exception for the man who had captured those women and who knew how many other humans in his life? How many people had he sold to the Zi’i so that the aliens could torture, kill, and eat them? His own people? That was what was so despicable about these slavers. That they sold out their own kind, turning human beings over to aliens. Enemy aliens.

“We’ll find them without your help,” Sage said, his voice a dangerous whisper.

Orion shook his head, not sure how to respond to the venom.

He and Sage hadn’t gotten along, not even remotely, since Orion had been kicked out of the military and had chosen to become a bounty hunter. Sage had apparently had run-ins with enough sleazy bounty hunters to believe Orion was essentially a criminal himself now, capable of doing all manner of vile things in the pursuit of the money he earned from turning people in. It hadn’t ever seemed to occur to Sage that Orion had chosen the profession because he’d wanted to do good, and because neither the military nor the Star Guardians would have him. And he’d been the one to alert Sage to this kidnapping scheme. Shouldn’t that count for something? Orion had nothing to gain from this.

Sage pointed his helmet toward the door, and he and his man led their prisoner away.

Cutty sneered at Orion as he passed, then spat.

Orion whipped his arm up, deflecting most of it, but droplets still landed on his face. He growled and launched the punch he’d wanted to launch since he first came aboard the ship and had to grovel to get a job he hadn’t truly wanted.

But Sage spun and caught the punch in the air, inches from Cutty’s face. The armor gave him extra power, and he stopped it without trouble, his gauntleted fingers squeezing down on Orion’s fist in warning.

“What are you doing protecting this animal, Sage?”

“You will not brutalize unarmed prisoners.” Sage released him and turned toward the door again, his man following him wordlessly.

Cutty smirked over his shoulder at Orion, looking like someone who had just won a great victory rather than someone being dragged off to jail. To a life sentence in jail. Surely, the jurors back home wouldn’t assign him anything else.

“Trust me, he deserves brutalizing,” Orion said, suspicious of Cutty’s smugness.

Did he have some backup plan up his sleeve? The man was slicker than a greased snake, and Orion was sure it wasn’t chance that had kept him in this business for so long. He had been excellent at avoiding the Star Guardians and the regular military, and he might have kept on avoiding them if Orion hadn’t chanced across notice of him hiring.

The Star Guardian restraining the first officer also crossed the bridge, the man smiling slightly as he was marched away.

As the men disappeared into the corridor, Orion couldn’t help but think he should have found Cutty and broken his neck before the Star Guardians had ever arrived.