Angela hunkered behind the table close to the wall, peering through the legs that bolted it and the chairs to the deck. At least thirty slavers had stormed into the room, not including the six or seven that Treyjon had knocked out. But he himself was knocked out now—or worse. If that hole in the wall was an indicator, the slavers were firing far more deadly weapons than he had been.

“Make sure there are no more Star Guardians in here,” one of the slavers ordered as the rec room door shut. “Then grab a woman. You know the plan. We use them as hostages and bargaining chips to get off the ship as soon as it hits atmo. And we make sure the captain puts down somewhere far from a city and lets us off, nice and safe and with no police coming after us.”

“I’m getting tired of this adventure,” Tala whispered from the deck beside Angela.

If Juanita were here, she would probably have smiled and said that she wasn’t, that this was giving her material for her novels. But she was safe with Orion, no doubt up in his cabin, having sex right now. Or reading comic books to each other. Apparently, they both had geek tendencies, even though Orion’s were hidden behind a bunch of muscles and his sexy man bun.

The slavers headed toward the women hiding in the gym equipment. They hadn’t seemed to notice Angela, Indigo, and Tala yet.

Angela looked toward Treyjon, alarmed that he wasn’t moving. He couldn’t be dead, could he? Not after he’d come down here to save them from his lecherous peers.

She wished she was closer, so she could check on him. Several of the long tables and sets of chairs separated them.

On her hands and knees, Angela started to crawl across the deck between her table and the wall. Maybe if she went around, staying close to the outside of the room, the slavers wouldn’t notice her.

Tala grabbed her ankle. “Where are you going?” she whispered, glancing toward the men.

“Checking on him.” Angela jerked her chin toward Treyjon. “Come with me, Doctor.”

Tala would have a much better idea of what to do when they reached Treyjon than Angela would. She might have quit her job to come up to volunteer at the animal shelter in Flagstaff to get away from it all, but she hadn’t turned off the doctor side of her brain.

Tala hesitated, and Angela expected her to say she was crazy, but after a glance at the slavers, most of whom were pulling women out from behind the gym equipment, she let go of Angela’s ankle and waved her forward. Together, they crawled around the tables and toward Treyjon. He still wasn’t moving. Fear curdled in the pit of Angela’s stomach.

“We get to take any of the women with us?” one slaver asked, laughing.

“We’re trading them for our lives, you idiot.”

“Be lonely with just you boys for company out in the wilds of Dethocoles. Maybe we could still manage to sell some.”

“We don’t even have a ship anymore. The Star Guardians took everything from us.”

“Not everything,” one said. “We’ve got our freedom back.”

“Not all of us.”

“Enough. It’s not our fault if the rest of them couldn’t figure out how to escape.”

Angela grimaced, wondering how these slavers had gotten out and if they had killed people on the way down to the rec room. What if Orion and Juanita hadn’t been in his cabin? What if they’d been walking down a corridor together and had been surprised and shot, the same as Treyjon?

“He shouldn’t have tried to cram so many into his ship,” Tala muttered, and Angela barely caught the words.

“Who?” she whispered over her shoulder.

“The captain.”

Yes, Angela had heard that Captain Sagitta had captured all three ships’ worth of slavers, plus the ones from the original ship, and had jammed hundreds of men into his brig and into other rooms never meant to serve as jails. It wasn’t that surprising that some slavers had found an opportunity to escape.

“He should have left them back on that planet and had someone go back for them later,” Tala whispered. “Or never.”

Angela didn’t argue. They shouldn’t be talking at all. Just because the other women were kicking and biting and yelling protests as the slavers hauled them out didn’t mean that nobody would hear or notice her and Tala.

Besides, she was more worried about making sure Treyjon was alive than in condemning the captain.

She and Tala reached the last two tables and started down the aisle between them. Treyjon lay facedown about ten feet away from the wall.

Angela wished the tables were more like counters with solid bases that people couldn’t see through. All it would take was for one of the slavers to glance over and—

“There,” a man said. “There’s more women behind the tables.”

Angela froze. Now what?

Several sets of legs raced in her direction.

She glanced back, but Tala could only shrug. Neither of them had weapons. Tala had those karate kicks of hers, but it wasn’t as if she could bring down thirty men that way. Even Treyjon hadn’t been able to take on so many.

A man with long hair and a scraggy beard jumped up on the table. He leered down at them.

“Hello, ladies.”

Several others jumped up beside him, laughing as they looked at Angela and Tala, and also as they took in Treyjon’s unmoving back.

The rec room door slid open, and several of the men whirled in that direction.

Angela peered through the table legs, hoping help was on the way. An entire army full of help.

Two men in black combat armor, their bodies completely ensconced inside it, strode through the doorway. They carried massive bow weapons, and Angela expected them to start firing at the slavers right away. She also expected an entire legion of armored men to race through after them, but the door slid shut.

The slavers all turned and those with weapons fired at them.

Most of the slavers did. The group atop the table jumped down into the aisle. Some crouched and turned, raising their weapons to fire. Others reached for Angela and Tala.

Angela tried to scurry back, but she was still on her hands and knees, and she only bumped into Tala. The men were on foot and faster. Two of them reached down to grab them.

Treyjon jumped up behind them. He fired at the ones right next to him, then leaped after the two reaching for Angela.

They started to turn toward him, but they weren’t quick enough. He grabbed the backs of their heads and smashed their faces together with a sickening crunch that was audible even over all the weapons firing in the room. One dropped immediately and didn’t move. The other tried to punch Treyjon. He blocked the blow, then slammed his fist into the slaver’s stomach. The man doubled over. Treyjon roared, grabbed him by the shoulder and the crotch and hurled him over the table.

Unfortunately, that roar drew the attention of the other slavers, slavers who were realizing their weapons were bouncing harmlessly off the other Star Guardians’ black armor.

“Get down, Treyjon,” one of the Star Guardians barked, the voice muffled but still understandable through the helmet.

Treyjon started to obey, but too late. One of the blue energy blasts streaked across the room and slammed into his chest.

He collapsed to the deck in front of Angela, landing on his back. His face contorted with sheer pain, and he plastered his hand to the smoking hole in his chest.

She crawled forward, aware of weapons still firing in the room, but wanting to reach him. He’d only been shot—twice, now—because he’d been helping her and Tala.

“Smoke grenades,” someone yelled.

The two armored men had dropped canisters onto the deck, canisters that were spewing a greenish smoke. A few slavers tried to race for the door. But the armored men, who had oddly not been firing before, shot now, taking the men in the chests. The Star Guardians didn’t use the bow weapons, though they carried them. Instead, they shot with the same type of stunners that Treyjon had used.

Angela had no idea what that smoke was, but she trusted it wasn’t anything toxic. If it had been, the Star Guardians wouldn’t have used it in the middle of a room full of innocent women. She assumed. Maybe the women’s presence was also why they hadn’t been firing. They hadn’t wanted to hit bystanders.

She reached Treyjon’s side, but didn’t know what to do. His eyes were squinted shut and his teeth gritted. Blood drenched the hand he pressed to his wound, and more blood puddled on the deck underneath him.

Perhaps for the first time, Angela realized this was all real. Slavers, spaceships, people dying. Everything.

Her hands shook with horror and fear. The laser guns hadn’t quite seemed like guns with bullets, but Treyjon’s wound was as bad, or maybe much worse, than any gunshot wound. And he had another one in his back. Could he survive this?

“Tala,” Angela rasped, her voice raw from the smoke. Or maybe from emotions.

She put her hand on Treyjon’s shoulder, though she didn’t know if he was aware of her. He looked to be in so much pain. It would be better if he passed out.

Tala reached her side, also kneeling beside Treyjon. But she was looking toward the top of the table. One of the men in combat armor stood on the other side, his shiny faceplate pointed downward, toward Treyjon. That gray-green smoke filled the air, and Angela thought she saw people falling over behind the armored figure, but it was so thick that it was hard to tell. Her own throat felt weird, and tears leaked from her watering eyes.

“You going to let me try to save this one, Captain?” Tala asked, her voice almost sarcastic. And definitely frustrated.

The man—Captain Sagitta?—said something, but for some reason, Angela struggled to understand. The words seemed to come out hazy. The whole world seemed hazy. Then her arms grew weak, and she found them slipping out from underneath her. She tipped over and landed on her side at Treyjon’s shoulder, her hand flopping down onto the bloody deck. And then she blacked out.

Treyjon woke up and felt immediate relief as he did. He remembered being in pain and lying on the deck in the rec room with the little blonde woman peering down at him. She had worn the most concerned I’m-almost-positive-you’re-going-to-die expression on her face. Angela, that was her name.

“He’s awake,” someone said.

“If it means I’ve got to go back on shift, I’m not,” he said, or tried to say. It came out as an inarticulate slur, even to his ears. He doubted anyone’s translation chip would be able to decipher it. Was he drugged? He must be. He wasn’t in nearly as much pain as he should have been, given that he’d been shot twice by those slavers.

He curled a lip in disgust. How had all those slavers gotten out? Had he known the rec room was about to be overrun, he wouldn’t have kicked out Lieutenant Commander Varro and the others.

“What did he say?”

“That it’s a delight to wake up to the face of a beautiful woman instead of one of the medical robots?”

Treyjon tried to focus on where he was and who was speaking. As his eyes focused, he made out slatted ceiling tiles. Sickbay? Ah, yes, there were some of the articulating robotic arms for surgery folded up there. He recognized the view from a previous experience. At least that had involved a dangerous mission where trouble had been anticipated. Getting attacked by enemies in the rec room was less anticipated, unless one counted Lieutenant Commander Varro.

“Stow that, Orion.” That was the captain’s voice, stern and unyielding, as usual.

Treyjon turned his head enough to make him out to his left and down by the foot of his bed. Sagitta wore combat armor, with his helmet tucked under one arm. His face was as stern and unyielding as his voice. More than that, he looked pissed. Pissed at Treyjon?

Probably not. Treyjon had served aboard the Falcon 8 since its commission five years earlier, and he’d been there at the ceremony where Captain “Sage” Sagitta had officially been granted command. He knew the man as well as anyone around and recognized that as his irritated-with-himself face. Presumably, if he was here, the slavers had been recaptured, but he couldn’t be happy that any had escaped to start with. Treyjon hoped that nobody else had been hurt.

“How is he, Doctor?” Sagitta asked.

“His wounds are healing as my fleet of nanobots mend the tissues back together and repair damage, and his vital statistics suggest he is recovering adequately,” a familiar voice said. Eridanus, the ship’s AI. It was coming from one of the medical robots standing nearby.

“I was talking to Doctor Matapang,” Sagitta said dryly.

Who? At first, Treyjon imagined they’d landed and that a new doctor had been found—the ship had been without more than the robots and the AI since losing Svetloka back on Agoran. But that was Tala, one of the women they’d rescued, standing next to the robot. Right, that must be her last name. Treyjon didn’t think he’d known it. There were enough women down there that he didn’t know most of their first names, not that the captain had been encouraging the men to visit them. Quite the opposite, really. Lieutenant Commander Korta went down there more than anyone else.

“Your nanobots seem to be healing the wounds quickly, Captain,” Tala said. “All I had to do was clamp his lateral thoracic artery and stop the bleeding long enough to give them time to work. Your, uhm, robot programmed and injected them without conferring with me.” She gave the medical robot an odd look. Maybe they didn’t have such things where she came from.

“Precisely what I said, Captain Sagitta,” Eridanus said. “Albeit, I was considerably more succinct.”

This time, Tala frowned at the robot.

Treyjon wondered if she knew the ship’s AI was using the robot as a speaker at the moment. Probably. He remembered that she’d been in sickbay before, helping with the men who had been wounded back on that green swamp of a planet. She seemed a little lost with what must have been new technology to her, but she had proven her willingness to help whenever it was needed.

Treyjon understood fully well what it was like to grow up somewhere without modern technology and then suddenly be immersed in it. His hunter-gatherer people had been using spears and sleeping in hide huts supported by bantok bone frameworks when the first Dethocolean ship had landed a century earlier. And many of his people, including his parents, still chose that lifestyle. They spurned the modern cities that had grown up here and there in the more temperate zones, instead choosing to follow the herds and retain their independence and freedom.

Of course, it might not be quite so extreme for Tala and the rest of the women. He hadn’t seen what was purported to be Gaia, the planet where all humankind had originated, but from what he’d heard, it wasn’t nearly as primitive as his own home world of Osun. The Gaian humans were supposed to be on the verge of space travel, though, if left to their own devices, it might be some decades before they discovered the gate that led out of their solar system.

“Your ship’s AI isn’t very modest, Sage,” Orion said.

He and Juanita, the woman that he’d somehow romanced and lured away from the rest, stood at the bottom of Treyjon’s bed. Angela was there, too, and Treyjon gave her a nod, relieved that she appeared unharmed.

“The engineers who built the Falcon 8 didn’t think a Star Guardian ship’s AI should be modest,” Sagitta said.

“Much like its captain?”

Sagitta gave Orion a flat look. From what Treyjon had seen of the two together, it was hard to believe they were brothers. Of course, Sagitta was fifteen or twenty years older, so they wouldn’t have grown up together. Maybe it was good that poor Orion wasn’t under his brother’s command. As a bounty hunter, he wouldn’t have to answer to anyone.

“What time is it?” Treyjon asked.

A couple of people looked at their logostecs. Good, that meant his words had come out more intelligibly this time.

“Half past dramakta,” Sagitta said. “We’re six hours from making orbit. There shouldn’t be time for any more escape attempts from our prisoners.” His jaw clenched, that disappointed-in-himself expression returning.

“I should have fed my pups an hour ago.” Treyjon put an elbow down and tried to lean weight on it to push himself up.

Pain flared in his chest, and he gasped and flopped back onto the bed.

Angela frowned and touched his leg.

“Even though the nanobots are working along,” Tala said, “it’s only been a few hours since you were injured. You had better stay in bed for another day at least. If you were on my world and recovering from gunshots, I’d say a week.”

“I’m fit and hale and recover quickly.”

“Is that a tear in your eye?” Orion asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure? It’s getting all moist and filmy.”

“I had no idea you spent so much time looking into my eyes,” Treyjon growled.

“I can’t help it. Their allure is compelling.”

Juanita swatted Orion in the chest. Good. He deserved it. A full-fledged punch would be even better.

“Look, I’m not joking,” Treyjon said. “If the svenkars don’t get fed on time, they’ll eat the next person who walks into the kennel room. They won’t care if that’s me or not.”

He met the captain’s eyes, hoping Sagitta would understand. The Star Guardians were used to Treyjon being able to keep his beasts in check, but he did that through daily intense training and a lot of food bribes. Svenkar were the best tracking animals in the galaxy, and they could bring down the biggest game—or the biggest criminals—with ease, but they weren’t domesticated, not even close. Their instincts were wild, and they’d be even happier to eat humans than the alien Zi’i were.

Sagitta opened his mouth, but Angela spoke first.

“If you tell me what to do, I can feed them,” she offered.

“Thanks,” Treyjon said, “but they’ll have you for a snack.”

“If they’re at all like our dogs, you just have to show them who’s boss.”

“I don’t know what dogs are,” Treyjon said—the translator hadn’t offered an alternative to his ear, “but you have to carry a stunner and a big shock stick when you start working with new svenkars. And you better have them chained too. When they’re focused on the hunt, the way you saw when I led that female through the rec room for practice a few days ago, they won’t bother anyone, and I like to get them accustomed to people so they stop seeing us as prey, but you don’t want to go in there by yourself when they’re hungry.”

“What do you propose then, Lieutenant?” Sagitta asked. “You need them fed, but you don’t want anyone to go in.”

“I didn’t say anyone couldn’t go in, just her.” Treyjon waved at Angela.

She blinked, then looked down, her cheeks flushing pink. Treyjon realized he’d insulted her, maybe even hurt her feelings. That hadn’t been his intention.

“I just mean, look, sir, you’re wearing armor. You’ll be fine in there.”

Sagitta’s eyebrow twitched. “You want me to feed your animals?”

“They do work for you. Without pay, I might point out.”

“Yes, but they’ve never shown any inclination toward obeying me.”

“That’s because you’re afraid of them, and they know it.”

“I am not afraid of them. I just don’t care for the way they leave puddles of saliva on the deck and urinate wherever they wish. I find them distasteful.”

Treyjon’s chest and back still hurt, but he managed a grin. “They especially know that.” His grin didn’t last long, as concern for the animals returned. They would all be hungry by now, but the female he acquired from the slaver ship had been malnourished and treated poorly. It was a wonder she hadn’t turned on her owner and eaten him. He wanted to make sure she was treated well here. “Captain, if you won’t—”

“I’ll do it,” Sagitta said, and patted Treyjon on the leg. “You just concentrate on getting better.”

“So I can go back to training the female? She’s going to be a good tracker, Captain.”

“So you can buff the teeth marks out of my armor tomorrow.” Sagitta nodded toward him, and toward the doctor, then turned for the door.

“Can I come help?” Angela asked, surprising both Treyjon and the captain.

Sagitta frowned at her. “You don’t have armor.”

“Earth girls are adventurous, Captain,” Juanita said.

Orion snorted. “No kidding.”

They shared the sort of long gaze that only lovers found appealing. At least Treyjon thought that was how the gaze went. He hadn’t had a lover in a long time, not in the true sense of the word. There had been a few bed partners during extended shore leaves, but most of those women had seemed pleased to sleep with a Star Guardian and check it off their wish list.

That was quite a coup, apparently, at least going by what he’d seen on some planets and space stations. He imagined that Jarok had been mystified when the Gaian women hadn’t flung themselves at him. Admittedly, Treyjon hadn’t had any trouble finding women to share his bed with since he’d gotten the uniform and the tattoo, but he’d often suspected they hadn’t particularly cared which Star Guardian they slept with. More than once, some of them had shown distaste when they’d found out he was a tracker and worked with svenkars. Several had asked how he could stand to be around such savage, stinky beasts. Some had been excited by the idea that he could command the big svenkars, but they hadn’t actually had any interest in them. They were like Sagitta in that respect.

“I can stand behind you if it comes to that,” Angela said. “I’d love to see the rest of the animals on board. Svenkars is what they’re called?” she asked, pronouncing the word slowly. “I saw the female the other day. She’s magnificent, isn’t she?” She looked to Treyjon as if for confirmation. “It’s amazing that humans are able to get them to work for them. They’re definitely apex predators. They must be. On Earth, we train dogs for hunting, and some of the breeds have more aggressive tendencies than others, but they’re still domesticated animals, and they’ve been bred to work well with us.”

“Nobody breeds svenkars,” Treyjon said. “People have tried, but the females won’t breed in captivity. Sometimes, you can capture a pup, and that does make it easier to train them to be around humans. That’s how I got Tank. I still wouldn’t sleep in a cabin with him if he wasn’t caged, but he’s more interested in pleasing me than the others. I mostly bribe and cajole Salt and Pepper.”

“You captured them as adults?” Angela asked. “How did you—”

Sagitta cleared his throat. “I have many duties to see to before we land. If you’re coming with me to feed them, Miss Angela, it needs to be now.”

“Oh, I can come?” She almost skipped after the captain.

Treyjon watched with some bemusement. Nobody ever skipped gaily after the captain. He was also surprised she wanted anything to do with the svenkars. After she met them up close, she probably wouldn’t.

“She may be disappointed when they don’t have the personalities of pointers or want to climb onto the couch with her,” Juanita said after they left.

“I don’t know about that.” Tala prodded the statistics display on the wall over Treyjon’s head. “She thinks those dogs with the squished noses that always sound like they’re hyperventilating are cute.”

“Bulldogs. Pugs. There are lots like that.”

“Yes. She likes them all.”

The conversation drifted on to other topics, and Treyjon found himself closing his eyes, the drugs still in his system suggesting sleep would be a good idea. He hoped the svenkars didn’t get around Sagitta to harm Angela. Treyjon should have objected to her going along. He was surprised the captain hadn’t. Treyjon would feel awful if she’d survived the slavers—twice—only to be mauled by one of his charges.