“It’s relaxing, isn’t it?” said Taos. “K’ltlei, it’s called. No one knows what the name means or who gave it, which usually means that someone named it after themselves but just didn’t have the stones to claim it.”

Myassa took a deep breath, the fresh cool air stinging in her lungs a bit. Strange animals called placidly from the distant floodplains, and clear cool water coursed all about the ruins in an elaborate aquatic ballet. “It’s better than the atmosphere of that ship,” she said. “I’ll give it that.”

“Now that we’ve returned the ship to its homeworld, I have a confession to make,” said Taos.

“You regret kidnapping me?”

“Quite the opposite. I regret not kidnapping more of you. But you understand that I was in a hurry, under attack, and just learning how to pilot a R’de dreadnought that’s older than most life on earth.”

“More of me?”

“I was able to use the ship’s teleporters to take a few local folks. I think you might have met some of them? They would have been glassed by the Vyeah, so I really did them a favor.”

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