Saved by the Servali (Felix Orbus Galaxy #5)

Chapter One

“ H ere’s a little something for your trouble, Inspector .”

Nessa jerked her arm away as the sketchy-looking dude with his mirrored glasses and coat pulled up around his mouth and nose forced a credit redemption card into her palm.

Three hundred credits. Not bad.

But not enough to make her overlook someone’s sorry-ass shuttle being in a no-fly state of repair.

“Which one is your shuttle, sir?”

“Berth thirty-eight.” The bald and heavily pierced man answered for his half-hooded companion.

“Well, the Milky Way Intergalactic Port Authority appreciates your generous donation to the Safe and Sound charity.” Nessa dropped the thin plastic chip into the slot at the nearest ticketing machine and pushed the donation option. Both men remained impassive, hands in deep pockets on too-large coats.

They both give me the creeps.

“I’m currently inspecting the rest of the crafts ahead of you, but yours will be ready in the next hour or so.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s fine.” They waved and walked off.

Strange behavior. Usually, passengers and owners stayed near their shuttles.

Could be an unmanned craft. Didn’t matter, really. Nessa moved to berth thirty and knocked on the door. “MWIP. Pre-flight inspection.”

“It’s bad enough I pay my mechanic to do this without having to pay someone else at every port,” a grumpy man greeted her as he opened the door. Behind him, a passel of kids clamored in the small interior as his harried-looking wife tried to get them all into their seats with snacks.

“This is a free inspection, sir. It’s also required before take-off, especially if you’re going to partake in intergalactic travel. We’re just doing our part to make sure you and your family arrive safely.” Nessa gave her best smile, round brown cheeks stretched tight with a joy she was trying to muster up for the sake of the little faces watching her.

“Come in,” Mr. Grumpy said ungraciously. “All the clearances are brought up on the control panel. We’re not even leaving the Milky Way, this is just our closest port. We’re taking our kids to Moonworld for a week. Costs two years’ worth of credits, and they’re already fussing because we didn’t bring the right snacks,” her bad-tempered host grumped and stomped away.

Rich, spoiled people. Nessa bit her lip. Moonworld. She’d wanted to go there since she was a little bitty thing on her daddy’s knee. Maybe, if she ever found the right guy, and they had kids...

Ha. Yeah. Or maybe the moon would just come to her. That was more likely than her meeting anyone who could afford to get married and have a family.

“Have a great trip.” She worked quickly through her checklist, logged their destination coordinates, and bid the passengers farewell.

Half the shuttles Nessa inspected that day were nothing remarkable, all Sapien System travel. Berth thirty-seven piqued her interest. A small, unmanned shuttle loaded to the brim with packaged food, women’s clothing in all sizes and styles, and all kinds of women’s shoes (also in many styles and sizes) was being sent to a set of coordinates she didn’t recognize. Nessa peered at the coordinates again and realized she didn’t even have any idea about their general location. After working at the MWIP for six years, a location that stumped her was rare.

“Not in the Sapien System. Not a planet. This is... Where is this?” She punched in the coordinates and frowned as her device showed a moving target in the Felix Orbus Galaxy.

“What the heck?”

More information was needed before she could leave—not because the shuttle was in bad condition, but because of the one thing that had always been her downfall, even in this mostly mundane job—her curiosity. Her dad would have said it was her “downright nosiness.”

A little digging revealed that the unmanned shuttle had been ordered by one Kamau Oji and was due to be received by a Freight Coordination Officer, both on a Leonid registered long-haul freighter, the Comet Stalker . The manifest listed enough snack food and sweets to make Nessa’s already generous hips pack on ten pounds just from reading it. But there were also containers of spices, types of grains, pastas, preserved meats and fish, and even seeds to grow herbs, vegetables, and fruits.

“Some kitty has the mega munchies,” she smiled to herself and scanned the door of the shuttle as it closed behind her. “Thirty-seven is clear,” she spoke into her comm.

“You don’t have to call it in. When we see the scan completed, we know,” Joe from the launch deck replied crossly. “We’re a little backed up. We’ll get to it when we get to it. Give it ten.”

“Thank you, Joe. Ten it is.”

“ About ten.”

“Of course. Courtesy and communication,” Nessa said sweetly before disconnecting. “Grouchy-ass bastard.”

Berth thirty-eight sent up immediate red flags. Nessa instantly knew why the shady dudes had tried to pay her off. The exterior windows were illegally tinted with a mirrored reflective polymer so no one could see inside. Two atmosphere regulating panels were loose on the shuttle’s exterior, meaning if the shuttle had to land planet side, it would likely catch on fire. One engine had obvious smoke damage.

“And that’s just the outside, Jesus have mercy!” Nessa knocked on the door with a roll of her eyes. No one answered. She checked her records and frowned. Unmanned shuttle—but the oxygenation and pressurization checks were filed as “to be completed.” That meant living occupants.

“ Or it could be those two are idiots who don’t know what boxes to check on the forms,” Nessa sighed and pushed in the provided code to enter the shuttle.

The interior was dark and empty. “What the hell? Someone’s just sending out shuttles into space? Where is this one going? Maybe it’s supposed to be a gift for someone. Surprise, I got you a flaming ball of crap,” Nessa mumbled as she walked through the dark interior, looking for the lights. Even for a larger, powerfully built woman from the rough end of St. Albany, Nessa had her fears. The dark was one she couldn’t shake. Not the darkness of space, but the darkness of small enclosed spaces.

The lights came on, and Nessa immediately let out a shriek.

“Dead bodies! Two dead bodies!” she squealed, hopping backward in terror.

She forced her eyes open, hand to her heaving chest. “Oh, fuck, thank God, not dead bodies.” Nessa realized the two dark chambers were receiving oxygen and fluids.

Not dead bodies. Two women in stasis, in hypersleep.

“What in the name of shady as hell is this shit?” Nessa screeched, frantically scrolling through the shuttle’s manifest on her port-issued tablet. Two humans were definitely not listed! She raced toward the shuttle’s door, knowing she needed to get help at once. Shaking fingers activated her comm, and she barked, “Joe, I—”

“You don’t need to make that call.” A rough yank on her wrist sent her comm flying through the shuttle door, landing at the feet of Mr. Bald and Pierced who stood on the platform with his hand reaching into his coat’s interior. Meanwhile, his half-hooded companion was grabbing her curly hair by its bun and twisting it, digging his knuckles into her neck as he forced her to her knees. “Looks like the Pantherite Provinces get a third treat.”

“Not today they don’t!” Nessa used her enforced position to do some damage. Since she was on her hands and knees anyway, she threw all of her bulk against the knees of her attacker, her shoulder and ample weight knocking him out of the shuttle. As he floundered back, she pressed the shuttle’s door and hit a final button on her still-active device—“Locked for Departure.”

A sizzle of red flashed against the glass.

Hot-beam lasers.

“Oh, God, not today!” Nessa whimpered.

She couldn’t get out of this shuttle—and she couldn’t let it make a planetside landing without the possibility of bursting into a ball of flames. There was no way to stop it from departing now, not now that she could feel the click-bump-click-bump as the shuttle moved forward. Number thirty-seven must have just lifted off, and she would be next in line.

Number thirty-seven! The previous shuttle’s coordinates were still in her device—and that shuttle was going to dock in space, not on a planet.

It wouldn't catch fire. And someone who was ordering all that yummy food and a ton of women’s clothing and shoes must know how to take care of human women, right?

But how was she going to survive this journey without food? Or water? How long would it take?

Die by being shot by thugs and send two other women to possibly die a fiery death, or maybe die saving two other women and herself?

“I hate this day,” Nessa half-sobbed as she entered an emergency override and changed the coordinates of the shuttle.

“Do you wish to duplicate the last entered coordinates?” her device asked.

Not really! But she hissed, “Yep. One long shot prayer, here we go.”

With a hard kick and a whoosh of pressure that left her plastered to the floor, Nessa passed out, clutching her inspector’s tablet, her last thought that she hoped she woke up when she arrived somewhere in the Felix Orbus Galaxy.