A Kroid.
Sabis and the Kroid exchanged words in the universal tongue before the Xaal handed a pouch over. The Kroid opened the pouch and looked in it, its eyes narrowing at the contents.
Breg pulled a plasma dirk out and brought it toward Isobel’s face. She pressed herself into the corner where the seat met the wall, but there was nowhere to go. Laughing, Breg grabbed one of her curls, pulling at it hard before cutting it off with a swipe of his blade.
He handed it to the Kroid, whose gaze was on her. Baring its sharp, jagged teeth at her, it chittered in a manner that seemed ravenous. She tried not to remember her attacker in the woods or how its jaw had come unhinged, but she couldn’t forget if she tried. Fighting against the shudder that wracked her body, she looked away.
Andrix said something to it, jerking his chin out to the open room.
Soon after, the table shook as the group of Xaal stood up to leave. Isobel glanced swiftly between them, grabbed the utensil from her dish, and slipped it up her sleeve.
When she looked up again, Andrix was staring at her.
Chapter 33
Ved
Lepna was a refuel and trading station, one of the few this far out. It was so far out that the Authority didn’t have jurisdiction over it. Mostly, it wasn’t worth the trouble for them to care.
Which made it the best kind of place for the worst kinds of beings.
Ved hated that they’d brought Isobel there. Almost as much as he hated being here himself. But, besides the fact that they’d stopped here for some reason, there were mechanics on Lepna who could fix his ship.
It had been three days of traveling at top speeds and fixing issues as they arose. But for every hour he covered, the enemy clan’s ship gained minutes on him. One of his engines was lagging behind. A part that had been made inoperable during the vector tear and subsequent crash landing was slowing the shadowdrifter as a whole down.
“Forty up,” the lean Pyp said in the universal tongue as he gestured to all the ships in the hangar. His bulbous, pale green head shook on his shoulders in a way that convinced Ved it may roll off at any moment. “Can’t help until then.”
“I need it now,” Ved said through gritted teeth.
The Pyp stared at him, three yellow eyes blinking unevenly as he weighed the threat of violence a Xaal naturally carried. “Maybe Sayar can.” He gestured with his chin.
Ved looked toward the far corner. A rodent-like creature called a Brite, no taller than Ved’s knee, was scrabbling away from another Pyp’s thrown tool.
The Brite, Sayar, chittered. “I haven’t had a single job today besides a handful of refuels. If you’re looking to push me out—” He dodged another thrown object. “Youdrift-lunk! I bet your mother wept when she pushed you out. You flat-headed, no balls—”
“Sayar,” the Pyp next to Ved interrupted. “Job.” Then he walked away swiftly.
Sayar stiffened before looking over his shoulder at Ved.
“Can you fix a nol-pin of a 333 ixom-layered engine?” Ved asked.
Sayar narrowed his eyes before scampering toward him. “Broken or just defused?”
“Defused. I need it in thirty.” He refused to give his enemies any more of a time advantage than they already had. Every moment Isobel was at their mercy was a moment too long.
Sayar’s nose twitched, his beady eyes assessing. “Sixty tokens, but I want double. Up front.”
“Fine,” Ved agreed. The rat could have asked him for ten times that and he would have paid it gladly.
Sayar muttered something about plasma-sucking wastes as he followed Ved to his shadowdrifter.
“ThereI was, waist-deep in Nax shit, and they have the balls to say they’d never heard of her.” Sayar was regaling Ved with the unfortunate tale of how he’d ended up on Lepna, his voice echoing off the inside of the engine compartment, when Exxo interrupted.
“The Raxans have just changed course by twenty-seven degrees,” he reported.
The sounds from the engine compartment stopped abruptly. Sayar poked his head out. “Did that droid just say Raxans?”
“I amnota droid,” Exxo said, aghast.
