Page 99 of Mated on Live
But why…
“Sophie?” He called, leaning in closer to the device.
It bobbed up and down. A rough approximation of a human nod.
Because his human mate was controlling it.
“Are you on the planet?” He asked immediately, fear gripping his guts. The very idea of his soft, sweet, defenseless human down here…
But Lucky was moving side to side now. A human no.
Relief rushed through him, making his shoulders slump for just a moment before he straightened.
“Did you open the door?”
Bobbing yes.
“How…?”
She couldn’t answer that, but when he used his foot to force the door open the rest of the way, he could see the remnants of two other combots – one in pieces on the floor, the other through the glass that held the control panel. She overrode it by just breaking it.
“That works,” he muttered, impressed. How had she even managed to get a combot to move fast enough that it could break on impact, much less break something else? He knew she had been playing with his fleet, but he didn’t think she’d gotten so good that she was capable of overriding safety features. Or controlling them from orbit. Or as a fleet, from orbit. That alone was a task only people with advanced skills could do.
He turned back to Lucky. “We need to find Hela. Have you seen her?”
Up and down – yes.
“Is she in danger?”
Up and down.
He cursed as Korvii whimpered. He might not be used to human nonverbal communication, but he quickly picked up this basic positive and negative conversation.
“Is the entire fleet here?”
Up and down.
“Okay. See if you can find the control room. Or maybe the controls for these cuffs. They’ll likely be carried by whoever brought us here, so you might not be able to-”
Their cuffs all groaned then hissed then clattered to the ground. Turned off and uncuffed. The pressure on his olules was suddenly gone, letting them wav freely, angrily, in the air. Serval barely had time to marvel at his freed hands before Korvii was up and out, sprinting into the hall, yelling Hela’s name like an ivai.
Cursing, he chased after him. He knew he was worried, but he was going to get them into bigger trouble if he just ran around thoughtlessly.
But there was Lucky, keeping up with them. Darting ahead of them, stopping at a corner. It flashed, indicating which way they needed to go. Korvii needed no further encouragement. He skidded around the corner, Serval right on his heels, head turning to keep a lookout for guards.
In the distance, he heard something pop, multiple times, then crash. He frowned, looking back, but saw nothing.
Before he could figure out what that sound was, Korvii was letting out a chilling snarl.
He turned forward again to see two males in the same dark uniform as the ratchi at the entrance chasing after a combot that was taunting them. There was no other word for it. It was playing with them, leading them around with quick, teasing motions.
One of them looked down at the sound of Korvii’s snarl but wasn’t able to react in time to stop the large, angry, domini male from leaping upon him, grabbing his head, jerking it back, and ripping out his throat with his bare fangs.
Messy, but effective. Serval ran past them as they fell, pulling back his fist. He slammed it down towards the second male, but he brought his arm up in time to block it. Serval continued forward, pushing his arm out of the way, creating a small opening for one of his olules to strike, caressing across his neck.
The male’s eyes went wide as he realized what had just happened a moment before the pain struck and he fell to his knees, screaming.
“Hela!” Korvii was already up, chasing after Lucky.