RAXOR

XILTRI SECTOR WARRIORS: BOOK TWO

AVA YORK

STARR HUNTRESS

CONTENTS

Amelia

Raxor

Amelia

Raxor

Amelia

Raxor

Amelia

Raxor

Amelia

Raxor

Amelia

Amelia

Raxor

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Epilogue: Raxor

Are you a STARR HUNTRESS?

Opening Move: The Alien Games

Rogue Mate

Kazan

AMELIA

“I’m so going to miss you, baby girl. No matter where I go, it’ll never compare to what we’ve been through together. You’re my number one girl forever.”

I must’ve knocked some engine dust loose because my eyes watered under my safety glasses. I was all alone with my Aurore and I didn’t know when I’d see her again. My heart broke knowing I had to leave her.

“Me and you, Aurore. Me and you.”

Our song played on the garage speakers, loud and raucous, just like us on the track.

I swore when my comm rang, interrupting our last moments together. I decided to ignore it and pressed my hand to the heart of my beautiful beast. It’s what I loved to do, work on mechanical things. Sure, I had a knack for anything mathematical based - like languages - but building and working with my hands was what I loved the most.

Why won’t the comm stop ringing? I told everyone to leave us alone! Dammit!

I slid out far enough to fumble around for the comm and managed to push it in the opposite direction I wanted it to go. The comm tumbled into the engine compartment, banged against the sidewall and landed squarely on my forehead.

Fucking hell!

I rubbed my head with one hand and answered the comm with the other.

“WHAT. THE. FAWWW--?!”

“What’d you just say?”

Oh shit.

“ ‘Ama…is everything ok?”

“Yes, Meli. What’d be wrong with your mom checking on you?”

Here we go.

“ ‘Ama, you know I –”

“Yes, Meli, I know you’re with that car. I don’t know why you’d spend so much time saying goodbye to a car when you could be with your family. Unless you’ve changed your mind and you’re going to stay?”

“Aurore is family, too, ‘Ama.”

“Aurore. I don’t even know why you gave that ugly car a name, or why it’s a pretty one.”

“Because she’s a sleeping beauty, Mom. She’s what Daddy and I wanted to build and race together. That’s why.”

Mom must’ve caught the same lump in her throat I had because her voice sounded sad when she spoke.

“So you’re still going? How am I supposed to talk to you so far away?”

“I got the hookup from the boys in J-town, Mom. They were so happy to stop losing races to me and Aurore, they practically paid for this intra-galaxy comm themselves. They say IGCs get reception anywhere.”

“Okay, Meli. I’ll just miss you so much.”

“I’ll miss you, too, but I’ll be home soon, and with the money they pay me, you won’t have to worry about my schooling, or my tools, or paying for the house, Mom.”

We talked a little longer, but I don’t remember what about. I just remember in that call, I felt like our family was whole again, and I was saying goodbye to them.

It took me a few minutes to gather myself after we hung up. Family was everything to me, but it was something I had to do.

I grabbed my tool pack and stuffed it into the bottom of the bag of clothes I was allowed to take with me. I walked to the door, flipped off the shop lights and blew a kiss at Aurore.

“I’m coming back for you.”

My ride waited right outside the door as I locked up. My favorite cousin, Johnny, leaned back in the driver seat, smiling.

“Hey Mel. I thought it’d be better than a limo to drop you off.”

His lowrider was one of those giant cars from the 1970’s with a hood you could land aircraft on. It was painted green with gold metal flakes, gold trim, with a white, leather interior, and stood about a half inch above the ground.

“Oh, my God, Johnny. For real?”

“Well yeah, cuz. This one has an Aztec mural of a virgin sacrifice, so I thought it’d be like, appropriate and shit. You know?”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I slid into the passenger seat. We made jokes and laughed all the way to the testing facility.

I knew Johnny would make me laugh so hard I wouldn’t change my mind and chicken out. That’s why I’d asked him to take me. If it’d been my mom, I wouldn’t have made it out of the car.

By the time Johnny drove away from the testing facility, I felt optimistic and confident again. As he turned out of the parking lot, he hit the hydraulics and gave me a three-wheel salute.

All right, Mel. Let’s do this.

I still don’t quite remember everything that happened after that. I remember walking into the facility and it being full of people rushing in every direction. I heard crying, a few screams, and a lot of cursing.

The people in lab coats tried to escort women, one-by-one, through a set of doors. They just weren’t having a lot of success getting them to the other side.

“Birthdate?” said a deep, raspy voice.

“Ahh.. no. I’m a volunteer, not a lottery candidate.”

“Even better.”

Before I knew it, I was being rushed through the doors and into an exam room. Not a minute later, another white coat walked in muttering to himself about lottery weekends and took a drop of blood from my finger.

“There we are. Now, I’m just going to slide this into the machine, and we should have an answer in no time.”

“That’s the whole test? No physical or anything?”

A light on the machine turned bright green and a bell chimed.

“Well, there is one more thing. Walk over to that wall and let me see your head.”

“Okay. That’s weird.”

“Part of the exam.”

“Okay, then.”

“Take a deep breath in.”

I did and then the doc punched something into my temple so hard I dropped my bag. I heard the sound of metal hitting the pad underneath my feet, and saw the doc raise an eyebrow.

Oh, shit!

The world spun now, and all I could do was drop myself on top of my bag before he snatched it from me.

Oh, hell no.

Suddenly, the spinning stopped. Dizzy and still swaying, I forced all my strength into my hands. I felt the hardness of metal in my hands.

Thank you, God or goddess, or spirit, or whatever alien beings make miracles.

Relief and nausea ran through me. I made it and my plan will work.

I opened my eyes, trying to keep the spins at bay, but it was no use. All I saw was a large, orange blob with horns coming towards me. It looked annoyed.

Do I throw up or scream?

In the end, instinct took over. I whirled my bag at the orange blob’s head area, but it ducked my swing and tried to take my bag from me.

Stupid orange blob!

I might’ve yelled that, and right before I passed out, I made my fingers lock around the straps of my bag.

RAXOR

The celestial sea slipped past my porthole window in its endless ebb and flow, but I didn’t have time to appreciate the beauty.

I didn’t even have time to appreciate the potential glory of being a Vaznik warrior stationed on one of the mightiest cruisers on the fleet, the Sunder. The datapads piled before me demanded my full attention, even here in the far reaches of the Xiltri Sector.

I picked up the top one, my orange hand contrasting against the dark, heavy-duty touchscreen. It blinked to life when sensing my body heat, displaying text that our best translator circuitry couldn’t handle. It wasn’t an alien tongue, or a long-forgotten dialect. Rather, it was the coded journal of one Dr. Garcia.

The fact she’d written her journal in code proved especially vexing, because the biggest mystery about her disappearance wasn’t the fact she was missing, in and of itself. Rather, it boiled down to one question.

Was Dr. Garcia a hapless kidnap victim—or was she in full allegiance with the strange armored mercenaries who wiped out the research center on Yimïk III, where she’d worked as chief scientist?

I set the coded journal pad down and rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t cut out for all the paperwork that went with a command position. I really envied my best friend, Kavok. He was on his honeymoon with his new mate, Helena.

I didn’t envy his mate—to be honest, I never gave much thought to being matched with a human woman. The odds seemed astronomically low it’d ever happen, so what was the point in worrying about it?

I envied that he didn’t have to sit at a desk during his ostensible off hours poring over intelligence reports. I was more of a man of action. I’d always been content with letting Kavok take the lead, because it freed me up to do more of what I wanted.

But when you’re just a smidge too competent in the Vaznik military, they have an annoying habit of promoting you. They promoted Kavok, and I was bumped up into his position as squad leader just to see if it’d be a good permanent fit.

I hadn’t realized there’d be so much padwork to do. My eyes had grown strained from staring at the lighted screens, my neck had developed a crick, and worst of all, I was no closer to figuring out what happened to Dr. Garcia than I was when I started sifting through the mess.

I tried a different pad, this one with photos, video, and telemetry taken from the research center on Yimïk III. The Hep Tháblois Bouhek Research Center had been abandoned by anything living before our team investigated.

The memory of its cold, silent halls, the sight of crumpled bodies laying in twisted agony, came back to my mind unbidden. Whoever those armored thugs were, they lacked honor or integrity.

I vowed to find them—and make them pay. If Dr. Garcia was innocent, then she’d be freed. If not, then she’d face justice along with all of the others.

Of course, before I put these grandiose schemes into action, I had to actually find them first. We had teleportation pad coordinates, but were waiting for a go-ahead from top brass.

In the meantime, I tried to make it all come together in my head. Kavok’s mate was a fan of mystery stories. I never was. I was the type who’d scroll to the last page to get the answer without going through all the actual evidence.

Maybe I was being punished by the patron deities of mystery writers by being forced to slog through all of the information.

I decided to summarize things on a pad to get my head around them. I typed out what we knew, which wasn’t very much, quite frankly.

At some point in the last few weeks, a group of unknown armored sapients—soldiers? Mercenaries? Private army?—attacked the Hep Tháblois Bouhek Research Center and killed all of the staff with one notable exception.

Dr. Garcia.

Dr. Garcia had traveled to two different derelict spacecraft in the Yimïk system, and had been either pursued or accompanied by the armored murderers. Then she’d departed for a third ship, an ancient, hulking alien craft becoming the sight of a bloodbath between us and the armored thugs.

Dr. Garcia had used an ancient teleport pad on the ship to go someplace else, and at least some of the armored soldiers went with her.

We still didn’t know quite what she was looking for, what we might expect to find at the coordinates, and whether or not she was a victim—or a bad actor.

“Raxor.”

I stared at the sound of the intercom on my wall buzzing my name. It sounded like Captain Thadood’s voice, calling me in person. I was either in a lot of trouble or about to get some kind of commendation—which always meant more trouble.

“Yes, captain?”

“I have excellent news for you. Your mate has arrived.”

At first, I heard him, but didn’t really comprehend it.

“What?”

“Report to teleport pad A immediately. And congratulations.”

“But—I didn’t even know I was signed up for one.”

“All Vaznik have their DNA entered into the system to find a match.”

“I—what if I don’t want to?”

A long silence.

“There’ll be no more talk of this ‘not wanting’ a mate. You’re a lucky Vaznik, Raxor. You’re being eyed for a promotion and you just got matched. Things will get mighty interesting for you from here on out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mighty interesting. That’s great in most walks of life, but when you’re a soldier, interesting usually means getting shot at.

Perplexed and utterly discombobulated, I’d little choice but to leave my quarters and meet my match.

At least I got out of the paperwork.

AMELIA

It’s fucking cold

I don’t know if it was the voices I heard or the shivering that woke me up. I drifted from the black and felt bright lights pointed at my eyeballs.

“I assure you she’s fine. It’s quite normal for humans to faint upon arrival, especially given that the protocols used are often… traumatic.”

“Why would it be traumatic? Teleporting is very common, are their systems not able to handle reconstitution?”

“Let’s just say, post-selection protocols are expedited in order to prevent ermm… crises.”’

“What if she’s defective?”

“She had enough presence of mind to defend herself and call you stupid, which makes her an exemplary model of human wellness and intelligence.”

“Well, of course my match would try to- Now wait a ztahking minute, Doc, what’re you trying to say?”

I opened my left eye just the slightest bit so I’d adjust to the light. I saw a white coat and a large, orange being.

Stupid Orange Blob. What the? He better not have jacked my tools!

I groaned a little as I raised myself off the table. White Coat noticed and started to come toward me, but Orange Blob turned around and pushed him aside.

Alrighty buddy, if this is how it's gonna be, let’s get it over with. I’ve taken out guys your size before. Big Ray ain’t much smaller than you.

When it came to fight or flight, I learned long ago that one had better results than the other. It helped that people underestimated me. I was small and fast, and lifting parts had made me strong.

I slid off the table and steadied myself for what might come. My mind was willing, but my body just didn’t want to cooperate. For some reason I didn’t understand, my body wanted to go all soft and feminine.

Orange Blob seemed just as confused as I was, because he stopped just outside my reach and put his hands up.

“Are you Amelia Robeson?”

“Who’s asking? And who has my tools?”

White Coat had a hard time containing his snickering.

“I told you she was an exemplary model of intelligence, Raxor.”

“Shut up, Doc.”

Just then, my IGC rang. I’d left it on so I could let my family know I’d arrived safely. Raxor nodded to the table on my right.

“I put your bag over there. I gathered all your things for you. A few flew out when you swung it earlier, but I think I got them all.”

“Thank you. Raxor, is it?”

“Yes. And you are Amelia, right?”

The ringing stopped. We looked at each other with curiosity and wariness.

“You’re the stupid Orange Blob!”

“Raxor.”

“Yeah, sorry. Lots happening real fast, here. Can we start again? I’m Amelia. I volunteered for the Mahdfel program and I was matched.”

“Hello Amelia. I’m Raxor, and I’m the Mahdfel you were matched to.”

I’ve never been so grateful for a comm ringing. Raxor stayed where he was while I fished it out of my bag.

Twenty-three missed calls. Oy.. only one person would call that many times.

“ ‘Ama? Is this you? Why are you calling me so much? I just got here.”

“Meli, are you ok? Johnny told me when he left you at that place and I’ve counted the minutes till I heard from you.”

“’Ama, I’m fine. Everything is fine. I was matched and now I’m on a ship- I think.”

Raxor nodded.

I still have no idea how many of her questions I actually answered. She talked so fast, I barely kept up.

“I’m talking, so I’m obviously alive. ‘Ama, teleporters are very safe, even the intragalactic ones. No, they didn’t clone me in reconstitution, that’s not how it works. No tracking device either. What? You really have to stop reading all those conspiracy theories.”

I looked at Raxor, smiled and waved.

“‘Ama. ‘Ama! I have to- I have to go. Yes. Yes. I love you, too. Yes, I will keep my comm on. I know. I know. I promise. Okay. Okay. Bye. Yes ‘Ama. Okay. Bye. Bye.”

I ended the call and sighed. I looked up and saw Raxor staring at me. He looked both amused and scared. He had the oddest smile on his face.

“Sorry about that. My mom can be a little…much.”

“Does she always speak that fast?”

“Only when she’s awake.”

His eyes widened, and I let my guard down enough to laugh.

“I’m kidding. She’s just worried, and a little curious, I think. Mom’s really old school and never considered leaving her family to have adventures, so naturally…”

“She has a lot of questions.”

“Way more than anyone will ever be able to answer, but I guess that’s my job now.”

Just like that, we’d run out of things to talk about.

Awkward, but hell, at least I know he’s not a stupid orange blob. He’s actually kinda hunky when the world isn’t spinning. And he brought my tools, so there’s that.

“So what now, Raxor? Is there a ceremonial virgin sacrifice or something?”

“What kind of barbaric conspiracy theories have you read?! Of course not. Did your mother tell you that?”

He looked offended and suspicious at the same time.

I remembered the Mahdfel history then, and instantly felt like a jackass.

“I’m so sorry, Raxor. That was a really shitty joke for me to make. Just promise not to kill my cousin, Johnny, okay?”

“I won’t kill your relative if it displeases you, but I can’t guarantee this Johnny person won’t have some explaining to do.”

I imagined Johnny trying to explain Aztec murals to Raxor and almost lost my shit in the deliciousness of the image.

“You know what, Raxor? That sounds fair to me.”

“I think perhaps this day has been trying for both of us. I wasn’t even aware I’d been signed up for matching, and your travel here must’ve been equally sudden. Perhaps I should escort you to your quarters for some rest. I still have some work to do.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m currently working on a mystery of sorts. Possibly very dangerous if not solved soon.”

“I’m not really all that tired, Raxor, and I really like puzzles. You could say figuring out how things fit and work together is kind of my thing.”

“Perhaps a new perspective will provide new insights. If you’re sure you’re feeling well, we can head to my office and I’ll share this puzzle with you.”

·

RAXOR

What’ve I gotten myself into?

Now that the initial shock of her arrival had passed, Amelia seemed right at ease on the ship, as if she’d always lived on one.

I still wondered how she had smuggled tools and an IGC onto a classified vessel. Moreover, what strange idea had possessed her to do that? I knew from listening to Helena that humans weren’t really allowed to bring much, but Amelia didn’t seem to care about her contraband.

It’s not really that big of a deal. Not the tools, really. Where in the world did she get her hands on a comm like that, though?

Not that it was a serious offense, but her planet was halfway across the galaxy, so the reception was impressive. There were ships that didn’t have that kind of reach.

My initial awkwardness had yet to subside, so I was grateful for the constant interruptions of strangers and other Vaznik alike. It seemed word about a new match traveled quickly. Everyone wanted to meet Amelia.

Amelia greeted everyone as if she’d always known them. A stark contradiction to our own meeting. It brought up strange feelings I hadn’t experienced before.

Like I missed out on something. Cheated out of it.

I shook the thoughts off as being ridiculous. I simply adjusted to being responsible for an unexpected match.

In the few moments when Amelia wasn’t being hounded by strangers, she asked questions about the ship. She seemed utterly fascinated by the scale and variety of the technology aboard the vessel. Had I been a more suspicious type, I might think she was doing reconnaissance for someone.

Her eyes sparkle when she sees something new. Fascinating.

“Amelia, may I ask you something?”

“Sure, Raxor. What’s up?”

“How are you so comfortable here? Have you been aboard a vessel like this before?

“I friggin’ wish.”

“What is this ‘frig' you wish for?”

She laughed. Not dainty and delicate like other human women I had met. Deep, loud, and full-bodied. We had to pause our walking for her to recover herself.

“Raxor, you’re gonna make me pee my pants with questions like that!”

“It appears your turn of phrase is more specialized than I thought.”

“Oh, God no, I’m not one of those refined, lady types. Nothing against them, but I’m just more casual when I talk. I grew up turning wrenches, so my vocabulary is a little more colorful. Not that ‘Ama didn’t try, it just never felt right for me.”

“Colorful?”

“I curse a lot, and I don’t use fancy words unless it’s the name of a part or process. Big words just make the people listening feel dumb, and what’s the point of that? No one wins.”

“That’s a good point.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I have manners and I can shine up real bright, when the situation calls for it. I just think it makes regular folk uncomfortable outside of those occasions.”

“You think a lot of other people. You’re very open to meeting them.”

“Maybe more than others, but that’s normal where I grew up. Everyone you know is either family, related to someone that is family, or dangerous to offend or alienate.”

“You didn’t seem to think I was family-like when we first met. You tried to deck me with your tools.”

“That’s different. I was halfway passed out and didn’t know you were my match. All I knew is that I was alone, dizzy, and trapped. I wasn’t about to go down that way. That can get you hurt, or worse.”

She has a point.

Some unknown part of me swelled with pride. My mate was a fighter. She wouldn’t allow herself to be intimidated by anyone. Confidence like that was a rare trait in any species.

“You wouldn’t have won that fight.”

“With you? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe we’ll spar one day and find out.”

The wicked sparkle in her eyes told me she wasn’t joking. She had every confidence she could hold her own. Intrigue and desire raged through me.

“You sound fairly confident about your abilities.”

“I’m no trained warrior, but I’ve been in my fair share of bad scenes. The only rule is, there are no rules. So joo-doh is something you need to know.”

“Isn’t judo a form of combat training?”

“Judo is. Joo-doh is just fighting with whatever your wits find. Its basic tenets are: joo doh know if I have a knife, joo doh know if I have a tire iron, joo doh know if I…”

“Are you telling me you’ve had to do that?”

“Oh, no. I mean, of course I carry a knife, who doesn’t? But my joo-doh is mostly using my opponent’s strength against them. That’s usually enough to embarrass them into walking away and squashing things. Embarrassment is a powerful thing.”

I sent a silent thank you to whatever Higher Power had made this intelligent, beautiful, talented, intriguing woman my mate.

“How’d you even end up in those situations?”

She shrugged.

“All I wanted to do was race. Lots of people underestimated me and losing to a girl in a beater of a vehicle kinda makes them mad. Collecting bets can get dicey.”

We reached my office and I opened the door for her to enter ahead of me. She smirked when she walked past me. She looked into my eyes from under her eyelashes.

“You know, Raxor, I think you and I will get along real nice-like.”

Audacity and charm. I’m fucked.

And I couldn’t be happier about it.

AMELIA

I stared at the engine schematics for the Sunder on my computer pad while Raxor bustled around in the supply depot, gathering equipment for the upcoming excursion. I spread my fingers out, zooming the view onto the fusion intake nexus.

I then overlaid the extrapolated schematics for the mysterious ship Dr. Garcia and the unknown soldiers teleported from on top. I tried to figure out what the alien ship used for its engine drive. So far, I’d come up with exactly nothing.

I took my eyes off the screen and instead put them where they belonged—on the broad, well-muscled back of Raxor. He moved with efficiency and grace as he clambered around different shelving units searching for the equipment on his list. I took some time to appreciate him before I spoke.

“So, according to the computer, the coordinates the good doctor and her entourage/kidnappers went to are unexplored. At least, according to the official record.”

He glanced over his shoulder, one arm rummaging around in a magnetic storage bin.

“Yes, that’s true. We don’t know what to expect when we get there.”

“Cool,” I said with a wistful smile.

Raxor set his foot back on the floor and turned around to face me fully. His face furrowed in confusion under his curving horns.

“Cool? I just said I have no idea what we might find there. It could be giant carnivorous insects, or a sun on the verge of a supernova—”

“Or something a lot less dangerous, but still cool, like ancient ruins.”

“Ancient ruins?” Raxor’s mouth gaped open. He appeared equal parts incredulous and amused. “Ancient ruins?”

“Yes, like the ones you encountered at the dig site on Yimïk III.”

“That was a crashed alien spaceship.”

“It was still ruins.”

“It wasn’t exactly safe, either. I mean, my friend, Kavok, and his mate got lost in the bowels of the ruins—”

“Ha! See, you just called them ruins.”

“—it was a slip of the tongue, and they barely made it back with their lives.”

“Hmm.” I cocked an eyebrow at him and tapped my nails on the computer pad in my hand. “So you’re saying you don’t think there’ll be ruins there?”

“I’m saying I don’t know.”

“I can’t wait to find out.” I practically danced with gleeful anticipation.

“Why?” Raxor asked, tilting his head to the side like a confused dog.

“Um, well, because I’ve always wanted to explore some ancient alien ruins.”

“I don’t know about all of that,” he said, stiff and sullen.

The smile faded from my face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It could be dangerous, Amelia.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to come with me.”

I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. He had the good sense to blanch, and drop his gaze.

“You think you’ve got the monopoly on toughness? Ha!” I leaned forward and narrowed my gaze. “I grew up on the mean streets of El Paso. Every night, it sounded like firecrackers going off—but it wasn’t. It was gunshots. Some alien ruins should be a piece of cake.”

“I—I don’t even know if there will be ruins there for us to explore in the first place, Amelia.” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “I’m just—I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, that’s all.”

“That’s sweet, Raxor, but you’re only a mortal being. You can’t control the entire galaxy. Now, it could be I might go to these ruins—”

“If there are ruins.”

“—and maybe I might get hurt. I could fall down a well, or get caught in a cave-in. BUT…”

“How can you sound so eager?”

I gestured around me, at the ship in general.

“I could just as easily get hurt staying here on the ship. What if there’s a reactor leak? Or an overload? Or sabotage? I could die just as easily right here waiting for you to return to me.”

“Well…” He scratched at the base of his horns. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”

“It’s all a matter of degrees. More people on Earth still die from slipping on soap in the shower than they do in all of the spacecraft accidents, combined. It’s all a matter of choice. I choose to explore alien ruins—”

“If there are ruins. If.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him, lips stretched in a rueful grin.

“You’re pretty confident there won’t be ruins, aren’t you?”

“I’m not confident of anything, that’s my point. My point is, we don’t know what we might find when we reach the coordinates.”

“Uh huh. Well, I bet there will be some ruins. In fact…I’ll bet you five credits there’ll be some kind of ruins there.”

He laughed at the absurdity of betting such a low sum. You could barely get a pack of chewing gum for that these days.

“And ships count as ruins?”

“Ships count as ruins.”

“Wait, so our ship would count as ruins?” he asked.

“Of course not. There are people living here.”

“So a ship is only a ruin if there’s nobody living on it?” He appeared to consider it for a moment. “So, any salvage ship is automatically a ruin? Even if it was just built last year—”

“You’re being willfully obtuse, and I stand by what I said.” I thrust my chin up at him defiantly. “Ships are ruins, and you know which kind of ships I mean when I say ships are ruins.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then laughed.

“All right, I’ll take that bet.”

I laughed and shot him another dimpling smile.

“You’re going to regret it when we get there and we find ancient ruins.”

RAXOR

I had to capitulate to Amelia joining us on the expedition to the mysterious coordinates…and not just because I was pretty sure Admiral Ausym would agree with her. As far as Ausym and the others in Vaznik command were concerned, right now, having a successful match trumped all else.

Not that finding Dr. Garcia and the murderous bandits, who may or may not have kidnapped her, wasn’t important to them.

They just had different priorities than we grunts on the line did. I wanted to move up in the ranks and get my share of recognition and glory, like anyone else. Having my mate thrust so suddenly into my life at this crucial juncture caused me more than a little bit of confusion.

Yet, the more time I spent with her, the more I had trouble imagining a galaxy without Amelia in it. Already her perky, can-do attitude and snarky charms eroded away at my resolve. I found myself looking forward to the expedition because I’d be able to spend more time with her, rather than advancing my career and potentially rescuing a hostage.

I finished gathering the supplies I needed for the trip. That included not only a flight suit, but an encounter suit as well. Two weeks worth of rations, as per standard protocol. A small climbing kit, not enough to scale an entire mountain, but sufficient to, say, climb out of a pit we might fall into. I also brought two illumination discs and plenty of extra ammo.

“Hey,” Amelia said, stirring me from my equipment check reverie. “Do I get a suit, too?”

I stopped cold, my stomach bottoming out. Of course, I was an idiot. She’d need a pressure suit, an encounter suit, rations, survival gear—

“Of course,” I said, trying not to sound as awkward as I felt. “That is, um, we don’t actually have the human-sized suits here. I’ll have to have one fabricated for you.”

“Cool. Maybe you could give me a tour of the ship while we wait for them to beam over?”

“Beam over?”

“It’s an Earth thing, and a lot easier to say than ‘teleport,’ wouldn’t you agree?”

I shrugged.

“As you like, I suppose. Here, let me show you to the observation lounge. The view of the stars there is most extraordinary.”

“Lead on.” She beamed a smile as I grabbed the few supplies she could use from the Sunder’s depot. I carried both of our packs as we made our way to mid decks.

The observation lounge is more or less a green space designed to look like a leisure area. The plants growing there did more than just relax the viewer—they also helped to clean the ship’s air. Plus, there’s just something nice about standing under a tree.

“Wow.” She raced ahead of me, taking the shallow steps leading to the lounge two at a time. Her tool belt jangled as she stopped in front of the big viewing panel, her mouth agape at the celestial sea.

“You see why I like to come here?”

“Yeah, I do.” She turned around and grinned. “I have to say, though, I’ve always wanted to see a Vaznik flux coupler up close. Do you think you can take me to one of those?”

“Ah, I’m not an engineer, but I’d imagine we’d find one in the engine room.”

“Then let’s go to the engine room.”

She leveraged herself off the wall and strode toward the steps.

“Don’t you need me to lead the way?” I asked.

“Nah,” she made a dismissive wave with her hand. “I memorized the Sunder’s schematics already.”

“You did?” I shook my head in wonder as I fell into step beside her.

“Yeah—for example, I know the secondary plasma conduits run right over our heads.” She pointed at the ceiling panel. “You can even hear them, if you listen. That little buzz?”

“I do hear it, yes.”

“Yeah, so, if a torpedo hit this area of the ship—”

She ran her hand across her throat and made a choking sound.

“K-t-t-th! That’s all she wrote.”

I tilted my head to the side.

“That’s all who wrote?”

“What?” Now she looked confused.

“What?”

“I asked you first.”

“You said ‘that’s all she wrote.’ Who is she, and what does she have to do with a torpedo striking this section?”

Amelia burst into laughter, her cheeks turning a merry shade of red.

“Oh man, that’s so cute, you thought, you thought that—” She laughed a little more before composing herself at last. “Sorry. It’s just an expression. It means ‘it’s over.’”

“I see. Metaphor.”

“Yes, that thing. I flunked grammar so I only speak two languages. English, and Bad English.”

She looked at me like I was supposed to laugh. I gave a courtesy chuckle, even though I didn’t get it.

After I showed her the engine room, and she spent some half an hour oohing and aahing at the designs of our drive systems, she mentioned being hungry. That was something I could easily remedy.

I led her to the commissary, which wasn’t quite as nice as the food court on the Honor, but still made pretty decent food.

“Oh boy,” she said, rubbing her hands together eagerly as she looked at the line ahead of us. “You know it’s a good chow line when it’s nice and crowded. Everything’s hot and fresh, everybody’s stuffing their faces, it’s great.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I said as Zaen waved at me.

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. It seemed as if the lunch might be more arduous than I expected.

AMELIA

I spooned the grayish morass into my mouth with gusto, enjoying the salty flavor and the occasional whoosh and crunch. I had no idea what was in it, but it was delicious. The brick-red, mini-loaf of bread that came with it was divine, with a flavor and texture similar to pumpernickel, only the bread seemed to evaporate when it hit your stomach rather than feeling heavy.

“I guess you really worked up an appetite on our little tour,” Raxor said.

I looked up at him and nodded before shoving a dollop of crunchy protein into my mouth.

“Yeah, I did.” I patted my lips with a napkin.

“Did you get enough to eat?” he asked. “Do you want some of mine?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t eat another bite. I’ll take some more of this—what’d you call it?”

“Vaznut milk.”

“Yeah, I’m not calling it that. I’m getting some more.”

I rose from my seat at the long table and went to refill my glass. On the way back, I happened upon several members of the crew watching a holo-show at one of the adjacent tables.

“No way, is that As the Galaxy Churns?”

A blond human smiled at me from a long lounge crowded with fans. She waved and answered on behalf of the crowd.

“Yes it is. Are you a fan, too?”

I nodded and walked up to her. “Yes, I am,” I said. She shook my hand.

“Hi. I’m Sylvia, one of the scientists running around Honor. Join us. We’re about to start the latest episode.”

I crowded in behind the others. “I’ve missed an episode or two of the new season. What’s going on?”

A Galfian turned his fishbowl ‘head’ toward me. The little mollusk swimming inside ‘spoke’ but the mechanical voice modulator on his suit actually did the talking.

“It’s considered rude to ask such queries during a tense moment such as this one.”

“Hey, Doctor Bildeploop,” snapped a green Vaznik who towered over the others. “Be nice to Raxor’s match.”

“Yeah, don’t drive her off. We like her more than we like you.”

Raxor stepped up beside me as we turned our attention to the screen.

“We’re about to find out if D’onnel is going to confess his feelings for Florsha or not,” the green-skinned Vaznik said.

On the holo display, a writhing mass of phosphorescent purple tentacles ambled up to what looked like a lamp post.

“My dearest Florsha,” the tentacled, writhing mass sputtered in a voice that sounded like it came from underwater. “I have come to confess my love for you, and make you my mate. We are fated to be together.”

I gasped. “But his inheritance—he’ll lose it if he marries her, that’s what D’onnel’s father said.”

“I know,” the green Vaznik said with a sigh. “Isn’t it romantic?”

“It’s stupid is what it is,” Dr. Bill said, somehow managing to sound condescending even with a mechanical voice. “I mean, investing all this time and effort on an emotional attachment, in exchange for a slim chance to perform the reproductive act.”

“Not all of us can release a cloud of eggs and sperm, you ingrate,” the green Vaznik said.

“Yeah, Drayk’s got a point,” Raxor said. “Now shut up so we can hear the holovision.”

The lamppost alien—Florsha—covered her face with her hands.

“I’m sorry, my love, but we can’t be together. You see, we’re actually twins with different mothers. We can’t be mates.”

“They could, if they don’t mind ten-toed babies, am I right?” Drayk punched Raxor in the arm.

“Don’t be gross in front of my—in front of Amelia,” Raxor’s voice had an edge of menace, but Drayk didn’t seem to notice. They were back to watching the show.

The tentacled mass wrapped itself around the lampposts’ legs.

“Oh, but we can be mates, my darling. You see, I was switched at birth by a psychotic nurse, then sent to be raised by humans on their primitive Lunar base.”

“Hey,” I said. “What gives?”

“That means he grew up mean and tough,” Drayk said.

“Yes, it’s true,” Dr. Bill added. “Those humans are known to be prone to random outbursts of violence.”

“Will you stop insulting her species?”

I laughed at Raxor being offended on my behalf. “It’s all right, Raxor. Our world did try to blow itself up a couple of times.”

“Shhh,” Drayk held his finger to his nose. “Florsha is about to respond.”

“D’onnel, all I can say is—”

The image flashed to a Kimicusian in a loud suit.

“Hey, are you in the market for a wacky, inflatable-arms, advertising droid but were afraid to ask where you could get a wacky, inflatable-arms, advertising droid for a price so low, you’d never expect to get a wacky, inflatable-arms, advertising droid for—”

“Man, what a place to slide in a commercial.” Drayk threw his fork down in disgust.

“It’s only happening because Dr. Bill is too cheap to get HoloTube Premium,” Raxor added.

“You should all be grateful I let you sign into my account at all,” Dr. Bill said.

The show came back from commercial, and it turned out, Florsha had already been promised to Prince Rotol of the Nublonian Empire. Then the episode ended, and the others had to go back on their duty assignments.

“Hey,” I said as Raxor and I filtered out of the commissary. “Walk me to my quarters?”

“I’d be delighted.”

His face stretched into a goofy grin, and he fell into step beside me. There was something about Raxor that put me at ease. Maybe I was just used to big, awkward guys having worked in a garage, but I found him easy to get along with.

When we reached my quarters, we lingered in the corridor talking for so long we wound up leaning against the wall. Only when he got called away for his duties did we finally part.

“Will you join me for dinner, Amelia?” His soft voice pronounced my name like it was made of silk.

“Yes, I look forward to it.”

I watched him go, feeling that maybe, just maybe it’d work out after all.

RAXOR

I felt as if I were floating through the air rather than walking as I left Amelia’s quarters. The knowledge I’d get to see her again at dinner kept me going as I resumed my duties.

I had my head in the clouds while Dr. Bill told me all of the equipment he’d need for the excursion. I only needed to listen with half an ear anyway, though. I already had his list of requirements. The doctor was just intent on explaining why he needed those things, which was, of course, completely unnecessary. I trusted him not to make us haul around a bunch of junk that wasn’t essential.

My friend, Kavok, had spoken of Dr. Bill with praise, though it came grudgingly. While no one liked the doctor, they still liked having him on their away teams. I saw him as a necessary evil—a human concept I’d just begun to learn about.

I managed to float through my entire day like I was drifting with the clouds in the sky of a high water volume planet. I imagined what I might say or do with Amelia next. Every one of the little scenarios I imagined ended the same way—with my stealing a kiss from her lips.

Do you want to know another necessary evil of military life? The endless meetings.

I headed up to the bridge and entered Captain Thadood’s ready room. There, I found several of the expedition members, including Dr. Bill.

“So glad you could finally join us,” Dr. Bill said icily.

“Leave him be, Doctor.”

I was surprised to hear Admiral Ausym standing up for me, since I really was running several minutes late.

“After all,” the admiral continued, his hologram shooting me a wry grin, “our boy Raxor has a new mission of his own that may have made him a bit tardy. I think we can all be a little understanding; don’t you think?”

There’s an old saying in the Vaznik fleet. Beware when the admiral is in a bad mood. But really, really, really beware when he seems to be in a good one. I wanted to shrink down to nothing in my chair, to vanish and escape his notice.

Ausym turned back to display, featuring a star chart. It looked as if it were tracing our trajectory to the mysterious coordinates.

“As you can see,” Ausym said, “we’re making good time with our Faster-than-Light jaunt. I expect us to arrive at the coordinates within forty-eight hours.”

“Forty-eight hours?” Even through the flickering of his projection, Captain Soanzo of the Honor appeared perturbed. “And we still don’t have any idea what might be waiting for us when we arrive?”

Ausym turned to me.

“Raxor, you’ve faced these armored foes in combat before. Can you say as to what we might encounter?”

“There’s not much to go on, Admiral.” I straightened up in my seat and cleared my throat. Having all those commanders with their eyes on me felt like a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.

“I understand you’ll have to fill in the gaps of your knowledge with speculation. So, speculate.”

“Well, my first impression was that they didn’t fight like they had military training. They were more akin to a group of thugs, fighting as individuals instead of protecting each other’s flanks. It was one of the reasons we had such a low casualty count on our last encounter with them.”

“So, not likely to be an opposing army?”

“No, sir, not in my opinion. Security force, or some kind of criminal gang is my best guess. They have some training, as in they know how to use their weapons and armor. They just don’t seem to be in the same league as a Vaznik warrior when it comes to small-unit tactics.”

“Well, to be fair, who’s in our league?” Captain Soanzo quipped.

Laughter went around the table, until Ausym held up his hand.

“The enemy is unknown, and has comparable equipment and weapons to our own, even if they don’t have the same level of skill. We can’t dismiss this threat. I want the crew of all three ships at battle stations when we come out of FTL.”

“Yes, sir,” the captains said, almost in unison.

“We have forty-eight hours to prepare. I suggest we make the most of it.”

The meeting ended, and the others filtered out. I wasn’t so lucky.

“Raxor, will you wait a moment, please?”

I cringed on the inside, but I kept it off my face.

“Yes, admiral.”

“I think it’s time we made certain you know what your mission priorities are.”

“I’m aware, sir. Find the scientist, engage the enemy—”

“No, no, not that mission. I assume you’re capable of focusing on two things at once.”

“Yes, sir!” because that was the only answer.

“I just want you to remain aware of the bigger picture here.” Ausym nodded firmly. Then his eyes grew hard. “Don’t disappoint me, Raxor. It’s your duty to make that human happy enough to fall in love with you.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Have you scheduled a date with her yet?”

“Sir, yes, sir! I’m taking her to dinner on the Honor, sir!”

“Yes, yes, very good! Now go, and make us all proud, boy!”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

I stormed out of the ready room, determined to be the best date possible.

AMELIA

As the dinner hour approached, I was aware of something Raxor may not have known.

It’d our first official date.

Sure, you could say the first time he dragged me around the ship on a tour was a first date. Or, maybe the meal we grabbed in the mess hall before we watched As the Galaxy Churns with the others.

I preferred to think of it as being our date. All good dates begin—and end—in the dark, at least in my philosophy.

While night and day are a relative thing on a starship, there’s just something more relaxed and fun about the evening hours. I intended to have fun with Raxor on our date.

I considered my wardrobe choices—there were none. I’d come with just my toolbelt. I figured I had enough credits to buy an outfit. The fabricator on board Vaznik ships was only suitable for creating utilitarian clothing. Fashion required creativity, something computer programs had yet to master.

I teleported over to the Honor’s Blade and availed myself of a clothier who introduced himself as Bokchoi. For an alligator-vegetable person, he had exquisite taste. I wound up purchasing a knee-length skirt and matching blouse. The blouse featured antigravity weaving, meaning I had no need for a bra. Now that’s technology I could get behind.

I even put my hair up into a French braid, baring my neck. I might’ve been covered in engine grease most of the time, but I could doll myself up with the best of them. I added a bit of lip gloss, checked my reflection, and started for the door when I heard the chime sound.

I paused, considering my tool belt. I’d feel naked without it. Yet, I couldn’t think of any reason I’d need it on a date…

The chime came again, and I decided to answer the door first, and then make a decision about taking my tool belt. It’d totally clash with my outfit, after all.

I opened the door and found Raxor standing in the corridor. He wore a freshly pressed dress uniform, all symmetrical, military lines and athletic grace. His eyes winded when he saw me in the skirt.

“Amelia,” he said, pronouncing my name with a tinge of awe. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks,” I said, trailing a lock of hair around my finger. He looked good enough to eat. “Um, I’m almost ready, I just have to…”

I turned back and regarded the tool belt. I just had to, what? Strap on my bulky, noisy, grease-monkey accouterments?

“What’s the matter?”

“I, um, I don’t know if I should take my tool belt or not.”

“Oh, why not bring it?” he laughed. “I’m not sure I recognized you without it.”

For some reason, hearing him say that made me happy. I laughed and picked up the toolbelt, buckling it on over the blouse.

I supposed it didn’t clash all that badly, after all. Since I took the tool belt, I went ahead and grabbed a couple of spare battery packs for my omni wrench. You know, just in case. I strapped them to my thigh and then nodded to myself.

“Okay, now I’m ready.”

We stepped out into the corridor and walked abreast to the teleport pad. He kept gazing at me out of the corner of his eye, particularly at my leg. Well, all that crawling around in engines builds up the stems, if you know what I mean.

I could tell he wanted to say something to me but held himself back. I didn’t want to hold back at all. I decided I had to jolt some life into him before this wound up being a silent date.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re not allowed to be this quiet on our first date.”

“I’m not?”

“Nope. You’re supposed to be entertaining me, so—entertain me.”

His face scrunched up in confusion for a moment, then I saw the light of realization dawn in his eyes.

“Razzamatazz,” he said, doing jazz hands. I have no idea who taught him how to do that, but they should be executed for crimes against humanity. “Razzamatazz, RAZA—”

“Click,” I said, pantomiming using a remote. “You’re muted for that shit.”

He burst into laughter, relaxing noticeably. We stepped up to the line weaving toward the teleporter pad. We weren’t the only ones looking to go to the larger vessel for dinner.

“I’m not sure if Vaznik know how to be entertaining. We’re warriors first and foremost, officers second, and well—”

He stopped himself, and shook his head.

“No, that’s the excuse of a coward too lazy to fight. I will be entertaining for you, Amelia. No matter what it takes.”

His eyes widened, and an eager smile spread over his face.

“I’ve studied your Earth culture, Amelia.”

“Oh, have you?” I smiled, wondering what he was going to come up with.

“Yes. I’ve been particularly fond of one of your fine art forms.”

“Oh really?” I was a bit surprised. “Are you into painting, or music, or—”

“I believe it’s a classical dance form known as the ‘twerk.’ I have discovered my hips have a particularly flexible nature which aids me in the completion of this performance art. Observe—”

“Um, not, that’s okay,” I said quickly.

“Are you sure? I’ve worked on it just to please you—”

“No, you can’t, um, there’s no music.”

“What?”

“Yup, you can’t twerk without music.”

In reality, I didn’t think I’d be able to take watching a seven-foot-tall, horned alien try to shake his booty. I believed I’d quite possibly die laughing, which I’d probably deserve for demanding entertainment.

Thankfully, our turn for the teleport pad came up next and I didn’t have to answer any more awkward questions.

I didn’t have to watch Raxor try to twerk, either.

RAXOR

We teleported over to the Honor. I felt both stoked and a little bit overwhelmed by the prospect of my first date with Amelia.

For one thing, the admiral’s voice still echoed in my head. I knew I had a solemn duty to uphold, and that it was important, oh so important, but…

The truth was, I would’ve looked forward to the date, just as eager for it, if there’d been no solemn duty at all. Amelia had already changed the way I saw my ship, my crewmates, and even something as mundane as an engine valve intake.

I looked forward to seeing what else would be illuminated by her company.

“This ship is so much bigger,” she said, keeping pace beside me.

“It’s the flagship of the fleet. Some of the Vaznik call it a cruiseliner. In a lot of ways, I suppose it’s an apt analogy. The truth is, though, when you’re on a long voyage, you want a lot of these things with you.”

“I’m not complaining. Not one bit. If you’re going to find new life and new civilizations, you might as well boldly go in style.”

“Indeed. Also, terrestrial species tend to go quite mad without physical space, distraction, and plant life.” I frowned. Her speech sounded like something of a ritual chant, but I was too dazzled and distracted by her to mention it.

I’d expected her to want to eat first. Instead, she tugged me toward the commercial deck, which most people who weren’t in command called The Bazaar.

“Hey, do you mind if we go here first? I saw a couple of places I wanted to check out.”

“Certainly.” I would’ve gone to the very edge of a black hole’s accretion disk just to be with her.

We moved past the shops and stylists to an area usually reserved for dedicated gear heads. There were sections with piles of scrap cordoned off by metal barriers. Her eyes went wide and shiny when she gazed over the barriers at the odd bits beyond.

“Oooh, they have a Horus IV micro fusion drive,” she gaped. “I could use that for, oh, a million different things. Come on, let’s go see what he wants for it.”

The proprietor came from a species resembling a large flying rodent, his features heavy and drooping with age. He came to life well enough when Amelia inquired about the micro fusion drive.

“So what do you want for this?”

He slithered off his stool and waddled on his legs/wings/arms over to where she stood. The proprietor sniffed and looked up at her.

“Fifteen-thousand credits, and it’s yours.”

“Fifteen-thousand?” she sputtered. “Are you insane? There’s not even a ceramic polarizer buffer on this thing. That alone should drive the price down to the low thousands.”

The proprietor’s eyes narrowed. He’d underestimated his prey. I grinned and crossed my arms over my chest, content to enjoy the show. It looked like I wasn’t the only one who Amelia raced circles around.

“Well, it’s still a functioning micro fusion reactor. I can’t just let it go for a song.”

“Hmm,” she said, squatting down and examining an open panel. “Oh man, the entire carbon manifold is missing, too? Why do you even have this in the engine section when it needs so much work? It’s like a suggestion of an engine at this point—”

In the end, she walked out of there with the micro fusion reactor and only parted with around three-thousand credits. That included other items in her purchase, like the dinged-up hover cart I now pulled behind me. It seemed I’d been drafted into carrying her purchases.

I didn’t mind, though. Not one bit. We stopped by a beverage bar and suckled on fruit juice dessert concoctions while we took a brief rest.

“I’m having a great time with you, Amelia,” I said between slurps.

“Oh yeah?” She turned that dazzling smile on me, and I felt myself get light headed again. “Well, I’m having a great—”

She scowled as her communicator flashed in her pocket. Amelia snatched it up and put it to her ear.

“‘Ama, what is it? I’m in the middle of a date—yes, with the alien guy, who’d you think? Wait, Uncle Steve said what? You put him on the phone right now. Steve, is that you? I want you to slap yourself in the head. Harder. Harder! Good. That’s for being such a jerk to ‘Ama. Now, you listen to her and do what she tells you, you hear?”

She ended the call and rolled her eyes.

“What was that?”

“Just some family drama. Come on, I saw another junk shop up the way. I bet they have flux capacitors, the good ones with the rubber seals.”

“Whatever you wish, Amelia.”

I tugged her purchases along behind us as we headed to the next junk shop. She kept me guessing, my mind bouncing from one thing to the next. I was so enchanted with Amelia, I felt like I was trying to complete an obstacle course while drunk on juniper berry gin.

I eventually gave up and stopped trying to manage the situation. I just let Amelia lead me along, laughing and a bit confused, but absolutely delighted, wherever she wanted us to go.

Of course, it might have helped if her mother didn’t pick the most inopportune moments to call. The drama with uncle Steve continued for most of our date, with Amelia getting updates from her mother and other members of her family, as well.

I didn’t let it detract from my enjoyment of the date itself. I could tell she had a very large, very close-knit family. Vaznik considered family sacred, so I wasn’t about to complain.

I was happy just to bask in the glory of Amelia’s presence.

AMELIA

I had to admit Raxor was being a good sport about the whole first date devolving into a series of junk dives. My new dress already had some grease stains on it, but oh, the treasures I’d uncovered during our date more than made up for it.

I was really glad I’d let Raxor talk me into bringing the tool belt along with me. It’d been indispensable. A lot of the junk yards were of the ‘you wrench it, you buy it’ variety. My favorite, actually, because a lot of those salvage yards where they do the cutting themselves, you wind up with half your manifold missing. That’s frustrating as hell.

Raxor proved to be quite the gentleman, for a hulking alien warrior who could probably snap me in half without breaking a sweat. He dragged the hover cart along behind us without complaint, stopped in every dirty junk bin I wanted to root around in, and never once gave any sign he was impatient with me.

“Hey,” I said, bumping my shoulder into him. He started, then turned to look at me.

“Yes? What is it, Amelia?”

“I just wanted to thank you for being awesome today. I know it can’t be all that much fun to watch me root around in junk piles.”

“You’d be surprised.” He chuckled. “I actually have a lot of fun watching you root around in junk piles.”

“Really?” I twirled hair around my forefinger. “You really had fun?”

“Yes. Your face lights up with joy when you find some particular trinket that catches your eye. I find myself anticipating your finds as much as you do, if not more.”

“Well, gee, mister,” I said, giving him a wink. “You sure know how to sweet talk a girl.”

I spotted something in another junk store and squealed.

“Oh, look, a gyroscopic actuator, and it still has most of the base.”

I dragged him into the shop. The proprietor took one look at our cart filled with engineering goodies and decided he’d hit the jackpot. He became more fawning and obsequious with each new purchase.

“Oh, you want to purchase a memory cell relay as well?” He rubbed all ten of his hands together, his compound eyes glittering with avarice. “Yes, yes, I can supply you with one of those. And with a money back guarantee of course.”

“Of course,” I said, smiling back.

I went over to a rack filled with servo motor gears of various sizes. I picked them up one after another, holding them next to my eye and inspecting them closely.

“What are you looking for?” Raxor asked.

“I’m looking for microfractures,” I said, holding the gear out to the proprietor. “Like this one right here. I sure hope you didn’t know about that before you put it on your sales floor. If someone put this in a machine and it fractured, you might be liable for damages.”

“It was just an oversight, I assure you,” he said, taking it off my hands quickly. He made it disappear somewhere on his big, leather-cloaked personage.

I went back to inspecting the servo motor gears. I didn’t find any others with micro fractures. I did find that most of them were unfit for use in anything that wasn’t about six months from breaking down.

Feeling a bit disappointed, we left that shop behind. I was able to find some decent servo motor gears at another plea, though, and soon we headed to the turbo lift.

“So,” he said. “Where to now?”

“Well, it’s time to find a machine shop.”

“Machine shop?” he cocked his head to the side like a confused dog.

“Yeah, a machine shop. I assume you have one of those on board a ship this fancy?”

“There are over a dozen, in fact.” He shrugged. “I can easily lead you to the closest one of all. I’m just curious as to why you want to go to a machine shop now, of all times?”

“Why,” I said with a grin. “To continue the next phase of our date, of course.”

“The next phase of the date?” He looked a bit panicked. “I—no one told me human dates had phases! Admiral Ausym made no mention of such. In fact, none of the research I’ve done even suggests there are different phases to—”

“Hey, relax, big guy,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. He stopped gushing out of his mouth and stared at me like I was a revelation. “Take a chill pill. Breathe.”

I looked at him for a moment.

“Come on, I’m serious, breathe.”

He took a deep breath, held it a moment, and let it out.

“There we go. Feel better?”

“Yes, somewhat. I’m still confused about this whole date-phases thing.”

“Relax, sunshine, I just turned a phrase, that’s all. There aren’t really phases to dating any more than there are to anything else. So chill.”

He took another breath, held it, and let it out in a sigh. Then he nodded.

“Good. Now, are you ready to lead me to the machine shop or what?”

“I am.” His lips stretched in a grin. “I’m curious as to what we’re going to do when we get there.”

“Well, my dear, that’s for me to know—” I winked at him. “And you to find out.”

“Is this another human phrase?”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s…maddening.” He laughed helplessly.

“Yes, it’s maddening—and you love every minute of it.”

He shook his head, grinning ear to ear. My Vaznik warrior was too honest to deny I was right on the money about him.

He really was loving every minute of it—and so was I.

AMELIA

The hoverkart hummed along behind us as Raxor led me to the machine shop a few decks above The Bazaar. We were talking and laughing so much, my cheeks hurt. I tried to remember the last time I smiled so much my cheeks hurt, and the best I came up with was that it hadn't happened since childhood.

Raxor led me to the wide-open door of the machine shop. My eyes widened, and I felt a great bump of respect for whoever was in charge of maintaining it. The walls were so clean they gleamed, and even though everything had a look of being used, it didn’t look worn out.

I saw equipment I couldn’t even identify mixed in with familiar favorites like laser levels and good, old-fashioned hammers.

“Now this,” I said with a contented sigh, “is a machine shop I’d feel privileged to work in.”

“I’ll be sure to pass along your praise.”

I walked into the shop and watched as a Vaznik engineer used a drill press to make a pattern of perfectly rounded holes in a sculpted bit of metal. I watched for a bit, trying to figure out what he was making. Then it finally hit me.

“For the plasma junction buffer, right?” I blurted.

He glanced over at me as he lifted the sheet of metal from the press.

“That’s right. Most people couldn’t identify this part when removed from the buffer.”

“She’s kind of a wizard with engineering, Plagus.”

I looked back at Raxor and smiled.

“Aw, you say the sweetest things. Flattery will get you everywhere, Raxor.”

I picked out a workbench and moved over to it. Raxor followed a moment later, bringing our cart with him.

“So, what is it that we’re doing here?” he asked.

I grinned at him, gesturing at the junk we’d collected.

“Can’t you guess?”

“No.”

“Good. Then it’ll be that much more fun.”

“You’re not even going to give me a hint?”

“Hmm.” I considered it for a long moment. Then I nodded.

“All right, Raxor. Just one…teeny…tiny…hint. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“All right.”

I bent at the waist, distended my jaw and opened my maw as wide as it could go, and pulled my arms up next to my ribcage.

“Rawr,” I said, growling and snapping and snarling.

Raxor stared at me for a long moment. Actually, everybody in the machine shop was staring at me. I couldn’t tell if they were in shock, or just waiting to see if my little demonstration was finished before reacting.

“Well, you’ll figure it out,” I said, my cheeks burning.

I set to work, or I should say, I set his ass to work. He did a lot of the heavy lifting, such as positioning the micro fusion reactor in the center of the work table.

I nodded to myself, and then took some of the curved flanges I’d salvaged from one of the junk shops and held it to the side.

“Yeah, that’s going to look great.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, as I still don’t know what you’re doing.”

“You’ll figure it out. You’re a smart man.”

I gave him a teasing smile. He laughed, and continued to assist me.

I flipped down my polarized goggles and fired up the arc welder. Sparks flew as I welded the flanges onto the bottom of the micro fusion reactor.

Next, I had Raxor hold up the coiled spanners from a different shop.

“A little more to the left…no, my left, not your left…there we go.”

I took a step back and considered how it was all coming together.

“No, I think it needs to be a bit higher. Can you lift it another inch?”

“Of course,” he said, smiling. I noticed some strain around his eyes.

“I’m sorry, is it too heavy?” I asked, feeling concerned.

“Heavy?” He scoffed, but his voice sounded strained. “Ha, ha, ha, it’s so easy. I could do this all day.”

Well, he said what he said. I shrugged and went back to business.

“All right, in that case, can you rotate it about fifteen degrees toward me? No, that’s too much, more like twenty degrees. You know what? Just put it back where it was in the first place—”

Hey, if he was going to pretend like it was all so easy, I wasn’t going to take it easy on him. He huffed and puffed, but finally got the assemblage in a place where I was happy with it. Down came the polarized lenses, and I went back to welding the pieces together.

I think, when we used the conical carburetor hood on top of the pile, Raxor finally caught on to what we were doing.

“We’re making a statue, are we not?”

“Well, I’d like to think of it as a sculpture, but ‘statue’ is close enough, sure.” I laughed and went back to sharpening triangular scraps of metal to a glossy, sharp sheen.

Little by little, my—no, our—sculpture of a dinosaur took shape. And I’m not just talking a static sculpture, either. I’m talking a full-blown, motorized installation. The metal beast could open its jaws, pivot about on its radial axis, and even lift its legs and simulate walking, thanks to the servo gears we installed.

“It’s magnificent,” Raxor said as we beheld our handiwork. “Absolutely brilliant. What is it?”

I laughed, leaning back to get a better appreciation for what we had wrought.

“It’s called a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They used to live on Earth a long, long time before humans evolved there.”

“It looks like a fearsome beast, indeed. Is this a full size replica?”

I stared up at the eight-foot metal sculpture and shook my head.

“Oh, no, no,” I said with a laugh. “Much bigger. Like thirty-feet tall.”

“Thirty feet?” he gasped. “How glorious it must be to fight and vanquish such a creature.”

“Hey, nobody’s vanquishing our sculpture. We worked hard on this.”

“Yes, we did.” He put his hand on his hips and stared up at it with satisfaction writ large on his handsome face. “You know, it’s a shame more people don’t get to see it. Why don’t I see if we can get it set up in the gardens on the Ag deck? Then lots of people would get to see it.”

I gaped.

“Really? You could do that? That’d be awesome.”

“Yes, I have a cousin who works on the Ag deck. He always complains he wants some more artistic flair to the gardens. I think it’s just the thing.”

I loved the idea. And more than that, I loved the light in Raxor’s eyes. He’d never realized before how satisfying it was to make something with his own hands.

If I hadn’t already fell for the guy, I sure as heck was by then.

RAXOR

I stared up at the Tyrant Lizard sculpture I’d created with Amelia. My cousin installed it right at the entrance to the green deck. Amelia stood beside me, our arms touching as we leaned on the rail separating us from the sculpture.

“Looking at it now, it’s hard to remember it used to be just little bits of scrap.”

She laughed, arching her delicate brows as she caught my gaze.

“And you were so perplexed at the things I bought, too.”

“I never complained.”

“No, you didn’t,” she said, and gratitude shone in her eyes. “Not once. Not even when you had to drag around the hover cart.”

“It was a fun date.” I glanced over at her and swallowed. I wanted her so much it was almost painful. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.” She patted my arm and then, just for a moment, brushed her head against my shoulder, as if she were going to let it rest there.

We stood looking at the sculpture as it silently went through its motions. She sighed as it moved with smooth precision.

“Look what we did.”

“It was all your idea, your vision. I just did some of the heavy lifting.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. We made it together, and quite frankly I think it’s among my best work that doesn’t involve Aurora.”

“Aurora?” I cocked my head to the side.

“My hovercar. A real beaut. I’ve been restoring her for years.”

The wistful, melancholy light in her eyes made my heart dip with sorrow. I reached out and patted her on top of her hand.

“Maybe we’ll find a way to bring this aurora car here?”

“Maybe. You’re talking a lot of teleportation credits.”

“I have a lot of teleportation credits.”

She grew silent, staring up at the sculpture. I sensed she balanced on the razor’s edge of homesickness and enjoying herself in the here and now. My heart ached for her, but I didn’t want to see her suffer.

As a Vaznik warrior, I’d been taught to overcome adversity, and to fix perceived wrongs with deeds, not words. Yet, in this case, all of my strength and military training were useless. There was nothing I could do about her homesick heart—save try to make the here and now that much better.

“I still can’t believe that these…things…used to walk the surface of your Earth.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, brightening up. “To tell you the truth, this isn’t even really my favorite dinosaur, I just couldn’t find the right parts to build the other one.”

“Then what is your favorite dinosaur?”

A huge smile spread over her face.

“Do you know how long it’s been since someone asked me that?” She beamed at me, and my heart caught in my throat. I longed to caress her smooth cheek, to feel those soft lips against my fingertips…

She spoke, breaking me out of my reverie.

“The triceratops is my favorite.”

“Triceratops—three horned? Is that translating correctly?”

“Yes, and it’s the coolest dinosaur ever. It’s got these giant spiked horns on its head, and another on its nose.” She pantomimed the physical appearance of the three-horned beast. I guffawed at her antics, so much my ribs hurt. Especially when she put her fingers on her head and stabbed me with her horns.

“And they stab you with them like this! Rawr!”

I laughed, backing away from the charging beast.

“Next time maybe we’ll make a triceratops.”

“Yeah, maybe—are you asking me on another date?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “I am. Though we’ll soon reach the coordinates Dr. Garcia teleported to. I’m not sure when we will be able to convene for our next date, but I promise it’ll be at the earliest opportunity.”

“Hmm. Well, I guess going on the excursion is sort of like a date.”

She stifled a yawn, and I turned toward the exit, gesturing with my open palm.

“Would you like to return to your quarters now? It’s quite late.”

“The spirit says no, but the body says…yawn. Obviously.” She laughed. “Yes, I’d like it if you’d walk me back.”

She put her hand in my open palm, smiling up at me like a living sun. I felt my mouth go dry. I held her hand. The surprising warmth pulsed through my skin.

We walked out of the green deck just like that, holding hands. I knew it was a human ritual. I’d seen my friend Kavok holding hands with his mate, Helena. I just hadn’t known the experience would be so…warm. We teleported back to the Sunder and I saw my fellow Vaznik giving me firm nods of approval and envy as we went through the curving corridors of the cruiser.

Holding hands was an important milestone in a burgeoning relationship like ours. Clearly I wasn’t screwing things up too badly.

Of course, the holding of hands is merely a step along the way. Nothing is more important than the first kiss. All of the human literature I had read reinforced this notion. The first kiss was widely regarded as even more important than the first copulation.

Unfortunately, there was precious little instruction on how to kiss. I knew it involved touching mouths and tangling tongues. All Kavok would tell me was that it was all about relaxing and just mingling with the other person, and technique would take care of itself.

Easy for him to say, he’d already won his mate’s heart. He didn’t have the legendary Admiral Ausym—who was mated to a human woman, himself, and very happy with the arrangement—breathing down his neck.

“Well, here we are,” she said, pausing outside her door and stifling another yawn. Her face lit up with a smile. “Thanks for taking me out. I had a wonderful time.”

“As did I.” We were still holding hands, though we’d turned to face each other. “I enjoy being with you, Amelia.”

That was the right thing to say. Her eyes half lidded and grew glassy. A bit of color came to her cheeks and lips. I felt the blood rushing through my body. I didn’t plan it, it just happened.

I kissed her. At first, just a tender meeting of our lips. Then, the kiss deepened and her lithe body melted into me. I didn’t even mind that her toolbelt’s protrusions dug into my abdomen.

My tongue darted inside her mouth of its own accord. I loved the way she tasted. She made a little gasping moan into my mouth and lashed her tongue against mine. I swept my hand up through her silken mane, our essences melding into one.

Golden threads were all around us, weaving a glowing web seeming to grow stronger by the moment.

At last, we pulled away and just stared at each other for a long moment, panting, breathless, heads spinning and lost in each other. Then she patted my chest and gently disentangled herself.

“Good night, Raxor.”

“Good night, Amelia.”

The door slid shut behind her. I stared at her door far longer than I had any reason to stand around with my mouth open in a vacant grin. I drew in a deep breath, turned around, and jumped in the air. I pumped my fist and gave a Vaznik war cry.

Victory tasted sweet.

RAXOR

I awoke the next day feeling energized, like every cell in my body brimmed with power. The memory of the kiss lingered on in my nerve endings. I swore I could still taste Amelia on my lips.

I prepared for my day with more gusto than usual. Nothing could get my spirits down, not even the knowledge we had to do a bunch of pointless drilling that day.

I headed out the door with a little extra spring in my stride. The first Vaznik I came across was the normally untalkative Irev. He gave me a very human thumbs-up gesture. I wondered who’d taught it to him.

“Good job, Raxor. You’re a credit to our squad.”

He clapped me on the shoulder and I continued on my way. I wondered what he could be talking about—unless, somehow, everyone knew about the kiss.

To my knowledge, I hadn’t told anyone, and we’d been alone in the corridor when it happened. I had no idea how so many people seemed to know exactly what was going on with my love life.

The congratulations continued as I made it into the early morning muster. Drayk saw me coming and pointed at me with a wide grin on his face.

“Here he is. Raxor, the true warrior.”

Applause rippled up through the cargo bay where the drills were being held. We were supposed to break down torpedoes and then put them back together. Mindless drilling we’d most likely never need to use.

“Way to go, Raxor.” Sakor slapped me on the back.

“How is it that you all know about my kiss?” I asked Zaen.

“Oh, you can thank Admiral Ausym for that. Check it out.”

He showed me his computer pad. On the screen, I saw security footage of myself and Amelia in the corridor after our date the previous evening.

There was no audio on the security footage. However, the admiral had thoughtfully provided his own narration. He’d also spiced up the static video with animated exploding hearts. Only, I don’t think Admiral Ausym learned about the double-ice-cream-cone-shape humans used to represent their hearts. He had animated actual, photo-realistic, exploding hearts on the screen.

The blood ran down and formed the words ‘our man Raxor’ at the bottom of the screen.

“Admiral Ausym did all of this?”

“Yes, he’s quite proficient with all holo-net uploading techniques.”

“Hey,” Drayk asked. “When are you seeing her again?”

“This morning. After our drilling, I’m going to invite her to join me for breakfast.”

“Sweet!” Drayk nodded. “Another romantic date—and we’re coming with you.”

“What?” I sputtered.

“We all are,” Sakor added. “I mean, we need to take notes and see how it’s done by a pro, just in case we get matched up.”

The last thing I wanted was a bunch of Vaznik warriors dragging around, following me on my breakfast date. I wanted to spend time with her. Alone.

Yet, I couldn’t deny my brethren the chance to glean knowledge from me, the supposed expert. I ate up their praise, puffing up my chest.

“Well, if you must know, it's a combination of skill and concentration. Kavok told me of the secret human techniques of charm and savoir faire.”

“What are those?” Drayk asked.

“Well, ah,” I said, clearing my throat. “Well, you see, they’re to be implemented when faced with, um, certain sociological situations that—look, I could explain the complicated theory behind it, or you could just watch me apply it in action.”

“Oh, I’d rather not bother with theory,” Drayk said. “I’m a practical warrior. For example, I’m dying to know, which of you scored the most points?”

“The most points?”

“Yes, you know humans call kissing tonsil hockey. I imagine that your superior tongue length was able to overcome her defenses and score more points on her tonsils.”

The entire cargo bay went silent.

“Ah, Drayk, my friend,” Zaen said. “You do realize tonsil hockey is just a clever metaphor? No one’s actually trying to hit their partner’s tonsils during a kiss.”

“They’re not?” He frowned. “But—but I’ve been doing all these tongue exercises.”

“Remember our classes on pleasuring human women,” I said. “Those tongue exercises will not go to waste, friend.”

“Yes, I guess you’re right,” he said, brightening up.

After the drill, I knocked on the door to Amelia’s quarters. The door slid open, and she stood before me, a smile on her face.

“Hey, you,” she said, her eyes shining. “Good morn—what the hell is going on?”

She gaped at the corridor, which was filled to capacity with Vaznik warriors.

“They’re, um, coming along with us to breakfast,” I said sheepishly.

“Oh. Okay,” she shrugged. “Let me just grab my toolbelt.”

“Do all human females take their tool belts with them when they leave the house?” Drayk asked.

“No, I believe she is unique in this regard.”

On the way to breakfast, I couldn’t even get a word in edgewise with Amelia. Not only were my brethren constantly barraging me with questions, but Amelia’s mother kept calling.

“‘Ama, I don’t care if cousin Edward wants to open a food truck. It’s a very trend-forward thing to do. No—no, I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to sell deep-fried Valrusian sphincters, but he has to follow his dream, ‘Ama.”

Somehow, she managed to get food in her mouth while keeping up a constant conversation with her mother. My fellow Vaznik warriors crowded into our table to the point I felt squished.

It came as a huge relief when the announcement came over the intercom.

“We’re coming up on the coordinates. Get your team ready, Raxor.”

I looked at Amelia and nodded eagerly.

“It’s go time.”

AMELIA

My heart skipped a beat, then thudded heavily in my chest. We were at the coordinates at last. It was time for the mystery to unfold itself before our eyes. Hopefully.

Raxor brimmed with energy, practically bounding down the hallway on his long-ass legs. I could barely keep up with him.

“Hey, slow down,” I panted.

“Sorry.” He slowed his pace a tiny bit and I sort of caught up. “I’m just anxious to teleport over to the Honor’s Blade and meet this mystery head on.”

“Why so nervous?”

“Yes, Admiral Ausym will be there, as well as the other members of our team.”

We made it to the Sunder’s teleport pad and jaunted over to the big ship. I wondered what we’d find at the coordinates. I’d bet the family farm on ruins. Well, okay, I bet five credits, but there was a lot of pride caught up in that meager sum.

I checked my tool belt to make sure it was fastened tightly before following Raxor up to the bridge. I gaped in awe at the size and scope of the bridge, with its many duty stations and a captain's chair with floating consoles on demand.

The view screen was the largest I’d ever seen on a ship, curving around the interior hull organically. In reality, it was just a screen projecting what was on the other side, mimicking a window. A real window would’ve been a structural weakness.

A Vaznik with a slight stoop from age and a very fancy military uniform, numerous badges and medals dangling from his chest, held court in the center of the bridge. Raxor stood at attention before him.

“Reporting for duty, sir.”

“At ease, Raxor.” He turned his gaze to me and smiled. “And welcome to the bridge, my dear Amelia. I trust it meets with your approval?”

“Are you kidding? This is like something out of a holo-movie.”

He chuckled. “Are you ready to make history? No sapient being has ever been to these coordinates before.”

“Except for the people who teleported here ahead of us, with Dr. Garcia,” Captain Soanzo added.

Ausym grew tight-lipped, and briefly rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

“Fine. No sapient being has officially come to these coordinates before. It’s still a momentous occasion.”

“Actually, the teleportation logs from the alien craft were entered into our ship’s computers, so it’s a matter of official record that…”

Soanzo wisely let his words trail off as the admiral glared at him.

“We’re coming up on the coordinates now, admiral,” the helmsman said.

“Put it on screen,” Ausym said.

A planet hung before us in the void of space, marbled in streaks of dark gray, black, and white. Ausym got out of his chair and walked forward, his eyes wide in wonder.

“Is that a planet I’m looking at?”

“Yes, sir. I’m reading seventy-percent water content and nearly perpetual storms on every one of the five main continents.”

“Perpetual storms, eh?” He scowled. “Might make it hard to get an away team down.”

I suppressed a shiver. Something about that planet gave me the creeps. Judging by the tension on the bridge—so thick you could cut it with a knife—I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

“I’m picking up some kind of energy signal from the surface,” the sensor tech said.

“What’s generating it?”

“Unclear, sir.”

Admiral Ausym stared at the planet on the screen, stroking his chin thoughtfully. I checked the readouts on the sensor tech’s console, and realized it wasn’t quite as bad as it looked.

“The winds are only around thirty miles per hour, on the average,” I said. “One of the Vaznik shuttles could make it without too much trouble.”

“It’s so ominous.” Ausym pursed his lips in thought as he considered the screen. “I think there could be peril in sending an away team.”

“What if Dr. Garcia is down there somewhere?” Raxor asked. “What if the criminals who murdered those innocents at the research station on Yimïk III are hiding down there? Are we just going to let them escape justice?”

“Of course we’re not,” Ausym snapped. “We’re Vaznik warriors. A little squall has never stopped us before. Did Dunderhed of Sigornia quit when he was faced with a sea of moving ice? No. Did he stop when everyone told him he’d freeze to death or starve when his boat got mired? No. Did he die a horribly painful death while stuck in the sea of moving ice? Yes, but…”

Ausym frowned.

“I forgot where I was going with this. It was supposed to be inspiring, but it’s kind of a depressing story now that I think about it.”

He whipped his silver-tipped crop through the air with a whizz.

“Men, I order you to forget everything I just said about Dunderhed of Sigornia. Listen to what I’m saying now. We’re Vaznik warriors, and we don’t know the meaning of the word quit.”

“What word was that, sir?” Jakar shouted.

“That’s the spirit,” Ausym said.

“I actually didn’t hear what you said—”

“Raxor, assemble your team in the shuttle bay and get me some boots on that planet.”

“Yes sir!”

“And you’d better continue to be good to your human match.” He jabbed his fingers at his eyes and then jabbed them at Raxor. “I’ve got my eye on you—”

The crop flew out of his hand and clattered across the floor. Everyone stared awkwardly at it for a moment, before Soanzo picked it up and handed it to the admiral.

“I order all you men to forget what you just saw. Raxor, what are you still doing here? Move it, move it, move it—”

Raxor grabbed my hand and we practically ran out of there toward the shuttle bays. My first away team mission.

I was so excited I nearly puked.

RAXOR

I assembled my team in the shuttle bays, including Amelia. I confess to a great deal of trepidation about having her along. There was a distinct possibility we’d get shot at before the end of the away mission.

The team struggled into their encounter suits. After what had gone down last time, I wasn’t fucking around anymore. Everyone would pack a plasma rifle, myself included. We wouldn’t be outgunned again, like we’d been on the relic ship when we first encountered the onyx-garbed warriors.

My team could’ve been worse. My second in command was Zaen, a red-skinned warrior with a specialty in security. His sharp tongue hid an inscrutable mind. Also along for the ride, Irev, a deep violet warrior with a penchant for stealth and silence in more ways than one. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, people tended to listen. Smart people, at least.

Of course, I needed some meat for the grinder, and that came in the form of Drayk. Drayk was big even for a Vaznik and a champion wrestler. While his specialty was unarmed combat, he would and could employ firearms with as much skill as you’d expect from a Vaznik.

Sakor, I brought along because he’s a solid guy. He’s an underrated shot with a rifle, and usually just does his job without bitching about it.

I can’t overstate how rare that is in the Vaznik fleet—or any military body, for that matter.

Jakar, I wanted on the control stick, because while I doubt he’s really the best pilot in the fleet, as he claims, he’s at least above average.

For my scientist-type person, I brought along Dr. Bill, who had some experience with the alien ruins. The little mollusk had improved his exo-suit to function in a vacuum, so he didn’t need an encounter suit on top of it that time around.

Last, and most certainly not least, I had Amelia, who fulfilled the role of engineer on this excursion. Her encounter suit had been fabricated with a few improvements based on Helena’s feedback.

I gave her a crash course on how to operate the encounter suit, but to be honest, she almost didn’t need my help.

“You’re taking to this like a fuck to water,” I said, as she pranced about adroitly in the exo-suit.

“Like a what?” She laughed, pointing her armored finger at me. “Oh my god. Like a duck. Like a duck to water.”

“I thought a duck was a bird.”

“It is, but it can swim, too.”

“Wait, there’s no way something could be adapted to swim and just launch itself from underwater into the air,” I said. “That doesn’t sound feasible.”

“I don’t know.” She cocked her eyebrow. “I mean, it’s a huge galaxy, with billions of stars in this arm alone. It stands to reason, with all that potential to draw on, there could be a fish swimming up to the surface and breaking free majestically to fly into the sky.”

“I still don’t buy it, but I’ll take your word for it on the duck thing.”

The shuttle was prepared at last. Since we might have to face hostiles, we used one of the armed shuttles. Jakar bitched about that, because the unarmed teardrop shuttles were much easier to pilot, as well as much sturdier.

“He’s done an awful lot of bitching for the fleet’s best pilot,” Zaen noted.

“Fuck you. Do you have any idea how dangerous this landing will be? You should be thankful I got stationed with you instead of somewhere else in the fleet.”

The shuttle resembled a long, tapered cylinder with sculpted wings for use in atmospheric conditions. Cannon graced the hull on top, bottom, and the starboard side. The port side featured a heavy gatling cannon which could be deployed if you had a gunner handy.

We filed onto the shuttle, securing ourselves to the seats and stared up the cabin and out the cockpit viewing ports.

I glanced over at Amelia. Her hands were folded on her lap. Her knees bounced like crazy, and she bit her lip behind the faceplate of her encounter suit.

“Are you all right?”

She smiled at me, but fear tinged her gaze.

“No,” she admitted. “I’m nervous as hell, but no way I’d miss out on this for anything in the world. An unexplored alien planet, a mysterious mission—it’s like I’m in a holo novel.”

“I notice you don’t have your communicator handy. How are you going to speak to your mother?”

She smiled wanly.

“I told ‘Ama I’d be pretty busy today, maybe tomorrow, too. I mean, how long does it take to explore a planet?”

“Once we’re in the atmosphere, it should be a lot easier to track that energy signature to its source. We’ll hopefully fly the shuttle right up to it.”

“Right up to what?” she asked, a sly grin pulling at the corners of her lips.

“You know, the source of the energy signature.”

“You mean the ruins. There’s going to be ruins.”

“We’ll see. If there’s not, I already know how I’ll spend those five credits you’ll owe me.”

She laughed.

“Oh, is that how it is? And how will you spend them?”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you,” I scoffed.

She gave me a funny look, and for a moment, I thought she was mad. Then, she burst out laughing.

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps.” I let the smile spread over my face.

“Well, the student has become the master. Nice job.”

The shuttle gave a lurch as the magnetic couplings came loose. Jakar guided us out of the hangar bay. The klaxon echoed through the hull until we passed through the membranous force field into the abyss of space. Then the only sounds were our engines and our own breathing inside our encounter suits.

“Hey,” Jakar called. “What’re we calling this planet?”

“This system has no official designation, so for the time being, we’ll call it planet…planet…”

“Planet X?” Amelia said.

“Planet X,” I nodded.

“Planet X directly below. We’re hitting the upper edges of the atmosphere now. It might get a little bumpy. Or a lot.”

“I thought you said it was safe to descend?”

“The winds in this area are around thirty miles per hour or so—but they occasionally gust to well over three times that, and this is a moderate storm on this planet.”

The hull shook, and he flipped switches and adjusted our heading slightly. The shaking stopped. The nose of the shuttle heated up into a red-amber nimbus from the friction of entering the atmosphere.

“Hull plating is holding steady, as are the force fields buffering it. I’ll angle us just a little bit less.”

We skimmed along the atmosphere, slowly descending through it. We entered the densest cloud cover, and it became black as night outside. Occasional flashes of lighting dazzled our eyes, bringing light to the darkness.

Once, when the lightning flashed, we spotted a funnel cloud a mile wide not three-hundred yards off the foredeck. Amelia squealed and grabbed my hand.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Jakar is using instruments, not his eyes. He was well aware of the cyclone and kept us at a safe distance.”

“I know. He’s the best pilot in the galaxy, right?” She laughed.

“I never said the best in the galaxy, just the fleet,” Jakar said.

“Be he ever so humble,” Drayk said and everyone laughed.

We plunged beneath the boiling cumulus clouds and flew over a storm-tossed ocean. Some of the waves looked to be over a hundred meters tall. I really hoped we wouldn’t have engine trouble and go down in that mess.

“I’ve got a lock on the energy signal,” Jakar said. “It appears to be due east on a land mass fifty miles or so away.”

“Take us there, Jakar.” I looked over at Amelia. “Looks like we’re going to have some answers soon.”

“That,” she replied with a worried frown, “or even more questions.”

AMELIA

I tried to put a hand over my mouth, then remembered I was wearing an exo-suit when my hand banged my vizor. Looking at the rolling, chaotic sea made me nauseous.

I tried looking away, but I still knew it was there. The wind’s constant buffeting didn't help, making us feel as if we were some bit of flotsam or jetsam in that horrifically storm-tossed ocean below.

I was determined to think it out, though. When Raxor clapped me on the shoulder and asked me how I was doing, I didn’t hesitate.

“I’m good!” I smiled, giving him the thumbs up. Then I caught a wave so dizzyingly high, it cast a shadow over us as we passed. I felt queasy and had to squeeze my eyes shut.

“Are you sure?”

“Never better!”

“Jakar might be a bit of a blowhard, but he always gets us home in one piece.”

“Aw, thanks, Raxor. See, Zaen, not everyone in command is a dick.”

“Just keep us away from the taller of those waves, flyboy,” Zaen said, looking a little—well, if he were a different color, I’d say he looked green around the gills. He looked like he wanted to puke almost as much as I did.

“Oh, does it bother you?” Jakar tilted the shuttle crazily to the left. Inertial dampeners meant we stayed up, but the view shifted as we did a barrel roll. The ocean was now the sky, and vice versa.

“Knock it off, you bastard,” Zaen said. I put my hand on Raxor for support. He quickly darted a glare to Jakar.

“Hey, set us right, Jakar. This isn’t the time to show off or fuck with Zaen. You’re freaking Amelia out.”

“Oh man, sorry, Amelia,” Jakar quickly righted us, flying high enough we couldn’t see the waves any longer. “Is this better?”

“Yes, thank you, Jakar.”

“What, she gets an apology, but I don’t?”

“That’s right. You, I don't give a shit about it.”

The cabin filled with laughter. A light on the console flashed, and Jakar checked the telemetry.

“We’re coming up on that land mass, Raxor. Wow, I’m reading incredible biodiversity.”

“What?” Dr. Bill—who’d spent the entire descent and skimming ride along the ocean staring at his com pad—looked up at last. “Biodiversity, do you say? All those organisms, all without a scientific designation. Imagine, a breed of fungus named after—me! Why, it’s the culmination of my life’s dream.”

“Gee, Doc,” Drayk said sarcastically, “why not just name the whole planet after yourself?”

“That’s an excellent idea, my good sir—only, it strikes of hubris. Perhaps, even, dare I say—arrogance? But no, it must be my burden to bear. I’ll compose a letter to the galactic cartographer’s society to call this planet Bildeploop.”

“I was being facetious,” Drayk grumbled.

“You should’ve known he wouldn’t get it,” Irev replied.

“Hey,” Zaen said, pointing his finger. “What’s that on the horizon?”

We stared out through the cockpit, and saw a hump thrust up from the landscape, blurry with distance and haze.

“That,” Jakar said, checking his sensor array, “is an active volcano. Looks like this whole land mass is sitting on top of a super volcano.”

“Inviting place,” I said.

“Any sign of that energy source?”

“Yes, but—it’s really hard to pin down. Between the incredible amount of electromagnetic energy in the atmosphere, and the density of organisms in the rain forest surrounding the volcano, the best I can do is say it’s within a hundred miles of here.”

“A hundred miles? You really can’t pin it down more than that?”

“Hey.” I moved up to the cockpit and stared out of the viewing port. I pointed a finger at the ground below. “Is it just me, or does that look like a road?”

Jakar gaped. “It’s a road. I’m bouncing sensors off the ground and getting about six layers. Whoever built this thing built it to last.”

“It still looks pretty torn up and overgrown, though.” I grimaced. “Looks like it’s been there a while.”

“Jakar,” Raxor said, joining us in the cockpit. “Do you see any signs of the doctor, or any other spacecraft than us?”

“No, but given the interference—”

“Yeah, I get it. It was too much to hope for.” Raxor’s lips twitched as he regarded the ground. “Generally speaking, Jakar, do you think this road might lead to the energy signature we picked up earlier?”

“I—I don’t know. It looks like the road winds around quite a bit, due to the natural topography, but—sure, it might.”

“Then take us down lower, just over the canopy. Let’s follow this road.”

“You’re the boss.”

The engines hummed as he took us down. I spotted a brightly colored avian flashing through the treetops. It appeared to have bioluminescent feather structures on its head. Peering through the mists, it looked like many of the jungle’s denizens, both flora and fauna, had similar features.

“Fascinating,” Dr. Bill said, joining us in the cockpit. It’d gotten crowded in there. “The life forms of this planet have evolved to adapt to very little sunlight throughout the year. Unless I miss my guess, the flora are relying on volcanic energy to achieve a form of photosynthesis.”

“Why would that make the critters glow in the dark, Doc?” I asked, fascinated.

“There are many advantages. For one, they might use their luminescence to entice prey close enough to snatch. Of course, there also might be applications to mating practices, like the lightning bugs of your planet, Amelia.”

“Oh, this is way cooler than lightning bugs,” I said wistfully. “Hey, look at that!”

I pointed at a sleek, black, loping form. It looked like a cross between a giraffe and a black panther, with spikes like a porcupine and two glowing globes dangling from a wattle-like structure on its long neck.

“Extraordinary. The Bildeploop gazelle.”

“Stop naming everything after yourself! And anyway, Amelia spotted it, she should get to name it.”

“Raxor,” Jakar cried, cutting through the din of laughter. “Look.”

We all fell silent, because there below us, in the heavy mists, lay a badly overgrown, but vast, complex of structures which were clearly not naturally formed.

“I told you there’d be ruins,” I said, slapping Raxor on the arm. “Pay up!”

RAXOR

The shuttle vectored in for a landing, the thrusters on maximum. A wind kicked up by our engines made the leaves of the flora shiver like mad. A couple of branches snapped as we settled onto the rainforest floor.

“Hey, try not to wipe out indigenous life forms, Jakar.”

“Fuck you, Zaen. You see a landing pad anywhere? No? Then shut your hole.”

“Hey, can the unnecessary chat,” I growled. “We could walk into danger. I want everybody out and ready to recon that ancient city—”

“You mean that ruin.”

“—in less than five minutes. Jakar, you’re not joining the muster, because you’re staying with the ship.”

“No glory for you,” Zaen taunted.

“No insect bites or swamp rot in my boots, either.” Jakar kicked his feet up on the console and put his hands behind his head. “Have fun with the balls soup.”

“Balls soup is—”

“I know what balls soup is, Raxor,” Amelia said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “I did grow up in a machine shop, after all.”

The gangplank extended out the aft deck, settling onto the soggy ground. A dense, gray-bladed grass kept the terrain together enough to stand and walk on, but every step was accompanied by a squishing sound.

My Amelia looked so small compared to all of the Vaznik, especially Drayk. I felt a stab of worry, but I knew she’d chosen to be here. I knew Admiral Ausym never would’ve let me leave her behind, either.

I tried to remind myself she was a competent, intelligent, and pugnacious young woman. I trusted her to have our backs on any engineering related matters, and if necessary, the photonic emitter on her armor could function as a weapon. I loathed to see her go into combat, however.

“Irev.” I turned to the best scout in the fleet, and that’s not an exaggeration. “Can you get a sense of how big this place is?”

He stared at his scanner, making adjustments to the settings as his eyes squinted.

“It’s hard to get an exact reading. The city has been encompassed into the rainforest, and it’s hard to tell where it ends.”

He gestured at the cluster of vine-covered, domed structures deeper in the rainforest.

“If you call this greatest cluster the downtown area, and extrapolate, I’d say it’s bigger than Orion Star Port.”

“That’s huge,” Sakor said, his face twisted up in disgust. “It’ll take us forever to reach it.”

“I guess we’d better get started, then, shouldn’t we?” I turned to Irev. “Scout us a path through this mess to the downtown area.”

“I’m on it.”

We began our journey, stepping carefully as we went, and only where Irev said it was safe. The ground steamed with heat. It created fog when combined with the nearly omnipresent cold rain. I felt the lava flowing beneath our feet.

The jungle itself was a magnificent, if deadly, distraction. Everywhere I looked, there was a glowing creature. Veins of amber-red ran through the trunks of the trees, pulsing almost like a heartbeat within. Slugs with fine crystalline structures on their backs glowed with inner light, weaving leaves together into a kind of nest. A serpentine creature, with fur like a primate and a glowing neck flange, slithered through the branches, apparently tracking the glowing slugs.

“The food web here is enormously complex,” Dr. Bill said. “Why, who knows how deep it truly goes? And it all starts with the lava flow.”

“Hey,” Irev said, “there’s a cluster of those glowing slugs ahead. I’ll just lead us around them.”

“Yes,” Dr. Bill said. “The Bildeploop caterpillars will require more study to deem them safe for physical contact.”

“Are you sure they’re caterpillars, though?” I asked.

“I discovered them. I get to decide what to call them.”

I shared a glance with Amelia. She grinned, clearly having fun, even though we were, for all intents and purposes, slogging through a swamp.

“Heads up.” Irev said. “There’s a cluster of organisms coming our way. At least twenty of them.”

“Are they hostile?” I asked.

“Uncertain, but judging from these biosignatures, they have an herbivorous diet.”

“Then they’re not predators, at least.”

“If I may,” Dr. Bill said. “If they are herbivorous herd animals, just remaining still and letting them pass might be the best course of action.”

“I’m not about to argue with a man who’s named so many important discoveries,” I said. “Everybody chill out and try to look unobtrusive.”

“That’s going to be tough, with my good looks.”

“Not to mention your big mouth, Zaen.”

We quieted down, and I saw the first of the creatures coming through the mist. I saw a long, spindly leg, supporting a dumpling-like body covered with furry tentacles. The tentacles reached up and snatched fruiting bodies from the branches as they moved through the forest.

I didn’t see anything that looked like an eye, but a big orifice on top of their dumpling-like bodies appeared to be a mouth. They stood about twenty-feet tall, and moved with an elegant, slow, graceful stride.

They had pulsing, colored lights going up the sides of their bodies in rivulets of green, red, and blue.

“They’re beautiful,” Amelia whispered.

One of the creatures paused, turning its shaggy form toward us. Was it looking our way? Trying to figure us out, just like we were trying to figure it out.

After a moment, it made a deep bleat and turned back to follow the others, again plucking fruit from the branches overhead.

“Okay, that’s the end of them,” I said. “Let’s march. We’re almost in the downtown area.”

“What amazing creatures,” Dr. Bill said. “The Bildeploop Forest Fruitarian Forager.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” I said with a sigh.

AMELIA

The first building of the ruins loomed out of the mist ahead. Thick brown and black vines crawled all over the structure, but it looked like the same onyx metal the other team had reported finding at the dig site and the relic ship.

Bioluminescent flowers sprouted at random intervals on the vines. Some kind of insectoid, resembling a glass bumblebee with glowing, fully visible pulsing organs, visited the glowing blooms.

“Irev, do you detect any life signs from inside?”

“No, but with all the interference, I don’t think we can trust the scanner.” Irev peered around and shook his head. “I don’t like it. It’s too quiet.”

“Isn’t quiet a good thing?”

“Not if it’s too quiet.”

Raxor cocked his head to the side. “Wait a minute, what constitutes too quiet? Can we get some kind of calibration here?”

“I mean, it’s not something I can put my finger on,” Irev admitted. “If there were danger, then the fauna would stop making noise, or vacate the premises. So it’s nothing overt, just more like a feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“Like we’re being watched.”

I looked around and suppressed a shudder. Given the fog, the dark, and the dense clusters of structures, it’d be very easy to sneak up on us.

I found myself standing a little bit closer to Raxor. I felt better near his comforting bulk.

“All right. We’re going to do a grid search of this downtown area.”

“A grid search?” Zaen groaned. “For real?”

“No, Zaen, not for you. You can sit around and pick your nose.”

“Really?”

“No, of course not really. Get your ass in gear. Just for all that bitching, you get to take point.”

“Great, but if some alien creature lays eggs in my chest and kills me—I’ll never talk to you again for as long as I live.”

I paused, trying to digest that word salad.

“That’s…true?”

Amelia patted my arm. “Best not to think about it too hard.”

The structure featured a yawning, dark opening. Bioluminescent vines grew inside as well as out, lighting our way. It was dark, eerie, and hauntingly beautiful. I kept thinking there was no way I’d be able to adequately describe this all to my family on Earth.

One of the glass bumble bees flew close. I froze. It landed on my shoulder, crawling on strangely webbed feet toward a glowing focal point on my exo-suit.

“I think it thinks I’m a flower.”

The bumblebee crawled around the light, and deciding it wasn’t a flower, lifted off my shoulder again. The wings moved in a silent blur. I wasn’t sure how it pulled off the silent flight, given its bulbous body, but I figured it was lit up like a Christmas tree. It had to have some kind of defensive adaptation, and I didn’t see a stinger.

“Look at these creatures,” Dr. Bill said. “The Bildeploop Pollinators.”

“I don’t think there’s anything in here,” Zaen said, walking back out of the structure. “I can’t say as to its purpose, but it’s just the one chamber.”

“Did you see anything looking like those weird consoles we saw at the dig site on Yimïk III?” Raxor asked.

“No, nothing like that. It’s the same metal though.”

To demonstrate his point, Zaen stomped his boot onto a bare patch of the metal floor. The sound was oddly muted.

“Don’t do that too much,” Raxor said. “The last time we were in a place like this, there were booby traps.”

“Right,” Dr. Bill said. “Don’t touch anything—Sakor, what in the world are you doing?”

“It’s cute, I thought I’d pet it,” Sakor said, brushing his hand along the back of what looked like a basketball-sized, furry arachnid with fifteen eyes, but behaved like a cat. It made a purring sound, rubbing its many legs against his hand.

“It could be dangerous,” Dr. Bill said. “Although…the sound it makes is kind of soothing.”

“Well, he’s a cuddly little guy.”

“I believe the creature is only interested in you for your body heat. I think it’s herbivorous despite its resemblance to Terran arachnids.”

“Can I keep it?”

“No, you idiot,” Dr. Bill said. “Are you trying to create an ecological disaster?”

“Hey.”

We looked up the avenue, where Irev had stopped beside one of the larger pyramidal structures. He’d found one of the consoles—and it was glowing.

“Tell me that’s some kind of fungus,” Raxor groaned. “And not an activated console.”

“Irev, you dumb fuck,” Zaen yelled.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “It turned itself on when I passed about five feet in front of it.”

“Well, don’t touch anything,” Dr. Bill said. “In fact, nobody does anything at all. Don’t even breathe.”

“Come on, Doc,” Raxor said, “aren’t you being a little bit melodramatic—”

A hard thump we felt as much as heard echoed through the rain forest. We all froze, looking about in all directions.

“What was that?” I frowned. “Which way’d it even come from?”

“I don’t know—”

Suddenly, the ground lurched beneath our feet. I almost toppled over as the avenue we stood on split in half. The segments had interlocking sections which drew back, revealing a dark pit so deep, I couldn’t see the bottom.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, we activated something,” I gasped. “A defensive measure, maybe.”

The avenue slammed to a halt so suddenly, I pitched forward. To my horror, I saw I’d tumbled right over the edge and into the yawning chasm below.

“Amelia!”

I dropped past the edge, too shocked to even scream. His hand snagged a hold of my ankle, jerking me to a sudden halt.

One of my coil spanners fell out of my tool belt and flipped end over end, falling into the abyss below. It vanished, and I listened, but didn’t hear it hit the bottom.

“Pull me up,” I cried.

“I’m trying,” Raxor groaned. His metal gauntlets scraped along the metal avenue, unable to gain purchase.

Inexorably, we dipped further toward the canyon, before his grip slid all the way off and we plunged into the darkness.

RAXOR

I didn’t panic.

Things were dire—tumbling into a bottomless pit is definitely as dire as it gets—but I knew panicking wouldn’t help matters. Unfortunately for us, I also knew that taking a moment to gather my thoughts and come up with an absolutely brilliant plan wasn’t really an option. And so, I did the next best thing.

I stretched my arm to the side, felt the hard-packed walls we were diving past at breakneck speed, and slapped my right hand against them as hard as I could. I turned my hand into a misshapen claw a split-second before impact.

My fingers burrowed past the surface and into the earthen walls. It was blind luck the walls hadn’t been made of metal. Had they been, Amelia and I would’ve both ended up as blotches on the ground…wherever the fucking ground was.

Gritting my teeth hard, I kept a hold on Amelia as I tried to gain purchase, the fingers of my exosuit raking across the wall. We were no longer falling, but we were still sliding down into the abyss at an alarming rate.

“Come…the…fuck…on…” I groaned, ignoring the pain on my joints as I tried to hold on. Luck struck again, and I grabbed a fistful of ancient vines we slid past. They entangled Amelia, breaking our momentum, and that did the trick.

“Are we dead?” Amelia’s voice came to me as a whisper. With the fingers of my right hand firmly pressing into the wall, I looked down at Amelia’s ghost-white face. She hung from my arm, holding on for dear life, the muscles on her forearm so taut, they seemed ready to pop.

“Not yet.” Probably not the right thing to say, but Vaznik warriors weren’t exactly trained in the fine arts of rhetoric and motivational speeches. “Are you okay?”

“Depends on your definition of okay,” Amelia threw back at me, her fingers digging into the palm of my hand like daggers. “I just hope I didn’t…” She trailed off, patting her waist with her left hand, and sighed with relief. “Nope, my toolbelt is still here. We’re good.”

“Are you kidding me? We’re hanging by a thread here and you’re worried about your toolbelt?”

“It’s not just any toolbelt,” she protested. “It has sentimental value, okay?”

“Yeah, well…” I looked past Amelia and at the bottomless darkness stretching beyond her. “I just hope all that emotional value isn’t weighing us down. Because I’d really hate to fall to my death over a toolbelt.”

“I’m not dropping it, if that’s what you mean.” She didn’t miss a beat as she said it, and her cheeks acquired their natural rosy complexion. Amelia was no longer terrified—just annoyed we were talking about her toolbelt. Her priorities weren’t exactly right, but it was hard not to be impressed. There was no match for the bravery of a Vaznik warrior…but human females certainly came close.

“How about a little help down here?” I shouted, craning my neck so I could look up. My team was gathered at the edge of the chasm, their heads as tiny as the head of a needle.

“Just hold on,” Zaen shouted back. “We’re gonna throw you a—oh, crap.”

“What is it?” I asked, but I didn’t get a reply. The gargantuan sound of rolling gears swallowed up all noise, and the metallic plates overhead moved back into place. “Hurry the fuck up!” I shouted again, watching as the monstrous avenue resumed its original form and locked us in the darkness. “Just throw us a damn rope or we—!”

I didn't finish my sentence.

The plates snapped back into place with a deafening clank. The shadows rushed down, swallowing all light.

“This isn’t good,” Amelia said, anxiety filtering back into her voice.

“No, not exactly.” I looked back at her but I couldn’t see shit. I could activate the embedded flashlight on my exosuit, but with no free hand to activate it, the damn thing might as well be nonexistent.

“We need to get out of here.” Amelia’s voice was now flat, and that worried me. Our life was at risk, there was no denying it, but I still didn’t want her to despair. “All right, hear me out. I think I have a plan.”

I’ll be damned.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Help me up, first,” she said, squeezing my hand hard. With a groan, and careful not to let my fingers slip from their improvised hold on the wall, I heaved her up until she could loop her hands through my belt. She reached up and tapped on the tiny shoulder-mounted flashlight, her face suddenly coming into focus.

She bit on the corner of her bottom lip, turning the flashlight around so that it was pointing at the wall opposite us. She did it for almost a minute, saying nothing. What she was looking for, I had no idea.

“What exactly are you—?”

“There must be an access shaft somewhere down here.” She cut me short. “Think about it. Whoever dug this up had to access this place, right? The metal plates overhead were hinged from the inside, and I noticed there were circuitry boxes bolted beneath those hinges. Whoever built this place needed a safe access route to them. In case they needed to perform maintenance or something.”

“Right,” I muttered, impressed at the amount of detail Amelia had noticed while plummeting to a quick death. “So…how’s that supposed to help us? This damn hole is probably a mile deep. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the Mahdfel don’t exactly have wings.”

“Wings would be handy,” Amelia said, “but I don’t think we’re gonna need them. All we need is this.” She tugged on the trunk of a weathered vine sprouting from the wall.

“I don’t get it.”

“Look there.” She pointed at the wall opposite us. “See the vines covering what looks like an outcropping of rock? I’m betting that’s an access door. All we need to do is grab this vine, swing across the chasm, and—”

“Are you insane?”

“Do you have a better plan?”

I didn’t.

I figured there wasn’t much of a difference between falling to my death or swinging toward it, and so I took a hold of the vine and eyed our target.

AMELIA

The vine crackled in Raxor’s fist as he tightened his grip. He leaned back, putting his full weight on the vine. He yanked hard, corded muscles in his arms growing taut and distinct. Once he was certain it’d hold, he nodded and turned his gaze to me.

“I believe this vine is most securely anchored.”

“Third time’s a charm,” I said, staring at the two other broken vines now dangling out of reach overhead.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Third time’s a charm—it’s an Earth expression. It means we might have failed twice, but the third time will be a success.”

“Of course it will.” He smiled. “I’m going to get us out of here, Amelia.”

“I believe you. I also think you’ll probably need my help at some point.”

He laughed.

“Of that, I’ve no doubt.”

He held out his free arm, and I moved to him. He wrapped his arm around my waist, looking down at me.

“Are you ready?

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Raxor stepped off the edge, and our combined weight fell on the vine. I heard it popping and creaking, and I clenched up, expecting at any moment the telltale crack which would foretell our doom.

The swing over the canyon wasn’t a very long one, yet it felt like forever. It soon became obvious we didn’t have enough vine to make it all the way across. Raxor grunted, and then I went sailing through the air.

Did he—did he just throw me?

I didn’t even have time to scream before I hit the ledge on the other side. I skidded into the concealed door panel and came to an unceremonious halt. I felt a little banged up inside the armor, but I had no broken bones.

I heard a yelp, and thump, and then looked up to see Raxor teetering on the edge of the chasm, his arms pinwheeling wildly.

It looked like he might’ve been about to pitch over. I rolled over onto my belly, stuck my boots to the metal door, and kicked on the magnetic coupling.

I whipped the grapple gun out of my toolbelt, which I normally use to retrieve components or tools that fell into the bowels of an engine, and used it to shoot Raxor in the chest.

I set the exo-suit’s gauntlets to lock mode, so I couldn’t let go of the gun if I tried. Raxor pitched back until the slack in my grapple line ran out. I felt a hard yank on my shoulder, but the exo-suit’s servos kept me from getting a dislocation. It still didn’t feel good, though.

I groaned in agony until he managed to make it onto the cliff. Then I sagged on the rocky, vine-strewn ground and sighed.

“Amelia, are you all right?”

He loomed over me, helping roll me into a sitting position with my back against the door panel.

I looked up into his concerned frown and tried to smile even though I ached all over.

“I’m all right, big guy. I’ve taken worse tumbles falling into the intake manifold of a sub-light drive.”

“What? No way. You couldn’t have survived.”

I laughed and accepted his hand, struggling to my feet.

“Remind me to show you the vid sometime. My jerkwad cousins filmed it instead of helping.”

We turned our attention to the concealed door panel. I ran my fingers along it and found what I was looking for—small concentric holes, ports I could use.

“I can get this open.”

“You can?”

“Yeah, I carefully studied all the intel from the first expeditions, including photos of these induction ports. I can run a little power from my exo-suit, just enough to power up the servos on the door.”

I fixed an orange cord from the battery pack of my exo-suit, then plugged the jack into the alien fixture. At first, nothing happened. I took the plug out and deployed a hovering, disc light to give myself a chance to see.

Grumbling, I withdrew a conical-shaped, wire brush from my toolbelt and used it to scour away corrosion and vegetable matter caked into the port.

“Couldn’t get a good connection the first time,” I muttered. I plugged it in a second time.

The panel hummed to life, and the door shuddered as it slid to the side. When it was about halfway shut, it got stuck, but we still had room to squeeze past.

I pulled the cord out of the intake port and we sidled into the corridor beyond. Raxor sent his disc light ahead, illuminating the way.

“Looks a lot like the last place,” he said. “Same technology, except it’s not a star ship.”

“Be careful,” I said. “Watch where you put your—”

Raxor suddenly pitched forward, his foot snapping through a mesh barrier. I shone the light where he’d fallen through. It turned out only the middle of the corridor was for walking on, a sort of catwalk. The side sections consisted of mesh screens over some sort of ventilation duct.

“Feet,” I finished as he struggled back to a standing position.

“Thanks,” he said with a chuckle. Much more cautiously, we proceeded down the corridor.

It widened out into a full-sized corridor, without the ventilation ducts on the sides. We came upon a T-junction, with no context as to how to proceed.

“Wait a moment,” I said, lingering near some of the alien writing on the wall. “I want to see if the translator’s had any more luck.”

I ran the computer pad over the writing, scanning it into the hard drive. After a moment, the message incomplete translation appeared on the screen.

“I’m getting—surface, passage, and something the computer’s only thirty percent sure of.”

“Thirty percent?”

“It either says ‘hazardous’ or ‘avoiding hazards.’”

“Which way do we go?”

I looked left, then right, and then followed my nose.

“This way smells more like fresh air.”

We turned to the left, and I sincerely hoped I was leading us the right way.

RAXOR

We worked our way through the labyrinthine corridors beneath the surface. Following Amelia’s hunch that the smell of fresh air would lead us back to the surface, we turned several more times down different junctions.

The sub basements of the downtown area appeared just as impressive as the surface. Immense time had worn the complex down, and even cracked and crumbled it in some places, but I never felt as if we were unsafe, or in danger of a collapse.

“Hey,” she said, pointing at a section of the wall ahead which appeared as a dark, yawning mouth. “I think that’s where the fresh air is coming from.”

I paused in front of it, commanding the drone light to fly through the aperture. It lit up a natural tunnel, lumpy stalactites and mounded formations making the floor uneven and hazardous. The constant drip and trickle of water permeated the air, as did a chilly humidity.

Bioluminescent moss, and perhaps other forms of life, lit up the darkness in the path ahead.

“Either choice presents a risk,” I said. “The alien complex will likely be safer, but we might never be able to find our way out.”

“Or we might come to a door or passage I can’t get open.” She gestured at the dark cavern tunnel beyond. “If we can at least get close to the surface, I’m betting we can tunnel out using this mining laser on the exo-suit.”

“Mining laser?”

“Yes, when you fabricated these human-sized exo-suits, what’d you think that was for?”

“An offensive weapon.”

“It’ll work as one, I suppose.” She shuddered. “I’d hate to see what it’d do to living tissue, given the way it works. it’d be a nasty way to go.”

“I think we should enter the natural cavern complex.”

“Me, too.” She nodded, and stepped through the aperture. She carefully picked her way over the slick, uneven stone floor, using her hands to brace herself on the narrow passage walls.

I didn’t have issues with balance, so much as I had a hard time squeezing through some of the tighter crevices. It seemed as if we were working our way through a fissure worn down over thousands of years by trickling water. It was never meant for the passage of sapient beings, much less sapient beings wearing bulky exo-suits.

The going was tough, and repeated attempts to contact the other members of the team over comms proved to be failures. After several hours of rigorous travel, we’d both fallen over repeatedly, and were both banged up and miserable.

At last, the tunnel opened up ahead into a large cavern. I frowned at the pile of rubble on the floor of the cavern where shards of white and red crystal had tumbled like a child’s blocks after a tantrum.

A crystal-clear pond fed by a tiny trickle escaping from a straw-thin hole in the rock bore swimming forms pulsing with their own inner light. Here, warm air from the spring-heated water made the cavern far more comfortable.

A carpet of lichen cushioned our tread as we checked out the cavern. The other side of the cavern featured a continuation of the fissure, and another breath of fresh air.

“I’d suggest we camp here for a time and regain our strength,” I said as the luminescent creatures on the ceiling pulsed and rippled with a rhythm all their own. “However, I fear another cave in.”

“Oh, you do?” She shone her spotlight up on the ceiling. “Nah, look at what happened after the cave in. We were left with an arch—and that’s the strongest of all natural structures.”

“Then perhaps we should camp here.” I undid the fastenings on my exo-suit and slowly removed it, piece by piece. I gasped as feeling rushed back into my extremities. The suits will keep a Vaznik warrior alive in battle, but were never meant to be comfortable.

She followed suit—no pun intended—and I had to struggle against the temptation just to watch her remove the outer armor. Bit by bit, her body was revealed to me. Under the exo-suit, she only wore a skintight membrane, as much to wick away sweat inside the hot armor as modesty.

She caught me looking, and smiled. Amelia turned about and walked over to where I’d spread out the survival blankets.

“I’ve had worse camping spots, to be sure.” She settled down on the blanket, stretching her legs out and wiggling her toes. She tossed her hair back and let it cascade down her back as she stretched like a jungle cat. I was mesmerized by the display, longing to run my fingers through her silken mane.

I lay propped up with my back on a mossy mound. When she shivered, it just seemed natural that I offer to share body heat.

“Come here.”

I held my arm out, and she clambered over to lean against me. Her bare hand touched the skin on my shoulder. My tattoos flashed silver, bringing something akin to moonlight to the cavern.

“That’s so cool,” she sighed, tracing her fingers along the grooves of and whorls of my tattoos. A spark of light followed her finger as it swept along. “Tell me we’re getting out of here tomorrow, Raxor.”

“We’re getting out of here.”

“Good.” She snuggled up close, and my heart went aflutter. I put my arm round her and drifted off to sleep, my mind awash in realization that my feelings for her had deepened far more than I would’ve believed possible.

AMELIA

I awakened next to Raxor’s warm, comforting bulk. It took me a moment to recall we were underground.

I checked the computer pad and found we’d slept for around five hours. Ravenous and thirsty, I moved carefully so as to not disturb Raxor, then went to our supply packs and drank from the canteen before chewing on dried protein rations.

Raxor rolled over onto his side and groaned. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as I came over to his side.

“Here,” I said, handing him the canteen.

He tilted it back gratefully and smacked his lips together as he handed it back.

“Thanks.”

“According to the scanner, this pond water has a mineral content making it potable. I’m not sure I want to sample it while we’re trapped underground, though. Just in case.”

“Yes, that makes sense.” He smiled at me. “If I must be lost in an ancient alien ruin, then I’m glad I’m lost with you, at least.”

“Aww,” I said. “That was sweet. I think.”

We donned our exo-suits, continuing through the crevasse. Soon, we came upon a new chamber filled with a bulbous, crusty-looking mushroom growing everywhere. The mushroom caps looked about the size and shape of soccer balls. Some of them glowed with an inner red light.

“I think our path lies through here,” I said. “I’m not sure about those fungus, though. I don’t like the look of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every other mushroom or vine we’ve seen has evidence of predation. All of these mushrooms are pristine. Not one bite taken out of them.”

“Maybe they’re poisonous?”

“Maybe.” I thought about it for a moment, and then I picked up a loose stone from the floor. “Might want to brace yourself. I have no idea what’ll happen next.”

I tossed the stone about twenty feet out into the middle of the mushroom field. It tumbled through the air, coming down in an arc. The jagged edge of the stone took the top off one of the caps before vanishing out of sight behind the stalk.

Fizzing, red sparks shot out of the top of the sundered cap. I thought that’s all there’d be to it, but then I noticed a series of red fissures spreading over the mushroom’s flesh. It sort of looked like lightning in slow motion.

“Run!”

We turned and flew back through the narrow fissure. I think we got all of ten feet into the cramped, undulating tunnel when the mushroom cap blew. It set off a series of pops, as other caps ruptured as well.

Heat and light rained down from the ceiling, hitting us even deep in the fissure. By the time we made it back to the cavern with the pond, the explosions had stopped.

“No wonder there were no signs of predation,” I said between pants. “I think we’re going to have to chance it in the underground city again.”

“I think you’re right.”

We went back through the hole in the wall, and continued on our way. I no longer used fresh air to navigate. Instead, I tried to make sense of the alien language as best I could. The translator circuits had worked on the language for some time. I hoped it might be enough to at least get me in the general ballpark.

Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to get us any closer to an exit. I did, however, find signs that someone—presumably Dr. Garcia and her captors/allies—had been through the corridor recently.

“Look.” The light drone hovered over a shiny object on the floor. I picked it up gingerly in my armored fingers. “A Cyclonic Energy bar wrapper. Someone’s trying to keep their protein up.”

“It’s formulated for human nutritional requirements,” Raxor said when I handed it to him. “It must be Dr. Garcia’s.”

“It seems a reasonable assumption. Let’s keep going.”

We crept along more cautiously than before. He hefted his rifle and put a magazine into the bottom of the stock. I swallowed, trying to keep my breathing level as we moved through the alien labyrinth.

“There’s a chamber up ahead.”

He moved flush with the wall and edged up silently to the entrance. After a moment of intense gazing, he relaxed and motioned me forward.

I entered the room and my mouth gaped open. It appeared to be a control center of some sort. Dozens of consoles similar to those found on Yimïk III lined the walls, along with apparatus that hadn’t appeared before. Twin pillars, a golden-bronze hue, dominated the far wall, along with a series of translucent panels above the consoles.

The pillars featured carvings on them, resembling a tuning fork. As we watched, an arch of red electricity ran up between the two like a Jacob’s Ladder. As it went up, the alien writing flashed red.

“What in the world is this place?”

“I don’t know,” Raxor said, “but it’s not empty. Step back, Amelia.”

That’s when I heard the chittering, a sound like the scrabble of hard pebbles dropping onto a ragged stone surface. Something in the shadows of the room shifted about, and I saw a light glint off what looked almost like a segmented, metal plate.

With trembling hands, I sent my drone deeper into the room and angled its light into the shadows.

The pool of radiance fell upon a monster out of a nightmare. An insectoid the size of a pony, with a dozen eyes and clacking mandibles longer than my forearm. It possessed dozens of legs which ended in sharpened spikes, which made the pebble-rain sound.

“Maybe they’re not hostile?” I asked in a trembling voice.

As if on cue, the thing clacked its mandibles together and shuffled toward us on all of those legs. Raxor flipped the safety off his rifle and tried to interpose himself between me and the charging creature.

Worse, it seemed it wasn’t alone. Two more of the monstrosities came skittering down the edge of a stalactite, defying gravity and my rational mind.

I remember thinking, if we died down there, who’d find our bones to bury them?

RAXOR

When the advancing beast got within ten feet, I decided that was close enough. I fired a warning shot at its feet to see if it’d frighten it away.

The insectoid indeed stopped its advance. It recoiled, lifting its many legs in the air and almost galloping backward. The two others dropped off the stalactite and landed on the floor in front of the first.

“Maybe that’ll scare them away,” she said, voice tinged with fear.

One of the insectoid things clacked its mandibles together, and then they all moved forward. This time, I wouldn’t fire a warning shot.

I curled my finger around the trigger and sent a short burst down range. The three-round burst tore into the lead insectoid’s shiny, black carapace. Thick pink goo oozed from the wounds. The insectoid collapsed to the floor and writhed about in agony.

The other two surged forward with a renewed burst of speed. I couldn’t believe how quickly they moved. I barely had time to fire again. This time, I kept my finger on the trigger, even as my foe exploded into pieces.

Unfortunately, the two creatures diverged and one went after Amelia. She cried out, flinging a heavy wrench up between herself and the thing. Its mandibles clacked shut on her wrench. She struggled for a moment before it yanked the tool clean out of her grasp. The wrench spiraled through the air and slammed into the translucent panel over the consoles, cracking it in a spiderweb of tiny fissures.

I turned the rifle on this beast, but it was too close to my Amelia. The thought of accidentally shooting her almost made me freeze up. Almost. But I was a Vaznik warrior and we don’t even know the meaning of the word quit.

I lashed out with my foot, striking the carapaced creature in its flank. It flew backward and landed near the giant tuning fork. I unloaded with a long burst, tearing it to bits with the energy rounds until it shuddered into a steaming mass on the floor.

“They don’t die easy.” I sent the drone up into the ceiling, making sure there were no more. “I think that’s the last of them. Why’d they suddenly speed up when one of their own died?”

“Pheromones, maybe?” She shrugged. “Like when you swat a bee, and then the other bees come to get you, too.”

“I’m not certain what a bee is, but I understand in principle.” I looked around the room. When I peered through the translucent panels, I was surprised to see a river of magma rolling along beside the chamber.

“What is this place?”

“I’m not sure, but it might be a control room to manage systems for this base.” She walked over to one of the strange apparatuses, which looked like a ten-foot long, metal, claw device with suction cups on the end.

Her fingers traced over the suction cups, and she pulled out a bit of hair. Human hair.

“Dr. Garcia used this device,” she said.

“What does it do, though?”

Amelia put the suction cups on her temples . The pillars suddenly lit up at the base. As we watched, the arc of energy climbed up the pillars about halfway, and then stalled.

“How are you making it do that?”

“I’m not. Well, not deliberately.” She pursed her lips. “I think the alien writing corresponds to numeric characters. This is some kind of meter or measuring device.”

“What does it measure?”

“I’m not sure. Relative cognitive capacity, maybe.” She shrugged. “I know two things, though. One, the species who built this place might have been short, but they had very large craniums, and two, they were a lot smarter than us.”

I frowned.

“I don’t follow how you reached those points of conjecture.”

“It’s simple. Take this device. It’s obviously made for a much wider, larger head than our own, right? And I could only make the pillar light up halfway. Besides, look at this place. Do you know how many cultures have tried and failed to harness geothermal energy in this way?”

“I guess those are valid points.”

We poked around the room some more but didn’t find much else. As interesting as the room was, it appeared Dr. Garcia and her companions had moved on.

“She’s definitely not traveling alone,” I said, inspecting a rag which had the telltale ash markings of having been used to clean out a gas vent chamber on a plasma rifle. “There are signs that someone used the room at the other end as a latrine.”

“Gross.” Amelia and I continued down the corridor, alert to any sign of our quarry. “The only question I have is this: is Doctor Garcia with them because they’re forcing her to be, or because she wants to be?”

“I guess we’ll find that out soon enough. Assuming they’re still alive.”

I thought about the exploding mushrooms and other hazards we had faced. It was possible Dr. Garcia and her crew might have encountered similar troubles. That, or had succumbed to the more mundane, but no less deadly, threats of dehydration and starvation.

“There’s another chamber up ahead.” I dimmed the lights on the drone and crept up, keeping my back flush to the wall. I peered into the chamber and saw it was bereft of any life more complicated than a lichen, which was a relief.

On the other hand, the signs of a group having camped there were quite disturbing. The signs were they intended to return at some point.

“Look,” Amelia said, pointing. I followed her finger and saw a blobular, alien monitor, with one of the consoles beneath. “I think there’s power still running to that.”

“Do you think you can access it?”

She grinned at me and patted her toolbelt.

“Only one way to find out.”

AMELIA

I crouched in front of the terminal, digging through my bag of goodies for the power converter cable. If I could just activate the device, I might glean an understanding of what Dr. Garcia was up to.

I plugged the jack into the terminal and connected it to the battery pack on my armor. The screen remained dark. I sighed and pulled out the wire, reaching for my trusty wire brush. Sure enough, there was corrosion on the ports. I wondered how Dr. Garcia had accessed it, if she had at all.

“Hey, Amelia.”

I turned to see Raxor’s handsome face hovering over me.

“What is it?”

“Look what I’ve found.”

He handed me a bundle of notebooks. I unwrapped the bundle and my eyes widened.

“What are they?” He asked.

“Journals, I think.” I undid the hasp on the bundle and released the tomes from its grasp. The top volume was the smallest, a dark-brown, leather-bound tome. I opened it up and found handwritten notes. In English.

“What is it?”

“I think—I think it’s some kind of personal journal. It looks like she just started it.”

“Can you read it?”

“If you shut up and let me, maybe.” I shot him a grin to take the sting out of my words and went back to the journal.

Turk is angry at lack of progress. I’m angry too. Does Turk think I want to prolong this experience? Explore the vorpal snicker snack with grabe.

“Wait, that last bit didn’t translate.”

“No, it didn’t.” I thumbed through the journal. “It looks like it’s written in code.”

“A code?”

“Yeah, just like the electronic files we found. Dr. Garcia may or may not be a criminal, but she certainly keeps her secrets close to her chest.”

I shook my head as I reached blank pages.

“It looks like the only thing she didn’t write in code were her personal, non-scientific related thoughts. And she barely recorded any of those.”

“Maybe she was being watched?”

“Maybe.” I opened the next tome. This one was of interest to me, because it contained a lot of sketches which seemed to correlate to phonemic characters in the ancient alien writing.

“Garcia’s been researching the language, too. I guess her translator wasn’t having any more luck than ours.”

“I don’t get why the translator is having such a hard time.”

“Most of the new languages the translator encounters are based on previously known examples of lexicon and syntax structure. This alien species lived so mindbogglingly long ago, their language resembles nothing currently in use in the galaxy.”

“I love it when you talk all smart.”

We settled in to look at the journals together. He put his arm around my shoulder, and I leaned against him. It felt good, right. Natural. Nothing was forced, we just sat together.

I recalled how nice it’d been to snuggle up next to him in the cave when we camped the night before. It was hard to look at the journals, though, because I kept thinking about how much I wanted to kiss him again.

Oh, big guy, I wonder if you thirst for me the way I thirst for you.

“This symbol seems to come up an awful lot.” He pointed at a scrawl which looked sort of like a footprint left by a four-toed chicken, with a little loop on the end.

“Yes, it does.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. The translator can’t make heads or tails of it, and it looks like Dr. Garcia tried to use context to tease out the meaning.”

“How’d that work for her?”

“It’s hard to tell, but I don’t think she ever quite got all the nuance right. Given she’s written this in code, I can only guess.”

“Is there a way to crack her code? A cipher program, perhaps?”

“Maybe, but personal codes are often highly subjective and hard to crack. We might have a better understanding if we try to puzzle out meaning on a case-by-case basis.”

I tapped on the page.

“The word grabe comes up a fair amount. I think it might mean the energy signature that brought us here in the first place.”

“Are you sure?”

“Not even remotely,” I said with a laugh. “It could mean that, or it could mean something else entirely.”

I shook my head.

“I’m not sure if she’s a captive or not, either. I do know she doesn’t seem fond of that Turk fellow. She might even fear him, but there’s never anything overtly said one way or the other about her being their captive.”

I gestured about the camp.

“That looks like her bedroll, judging by the size. They let her sleep, at least.”

“Maybe under guard, or restrained somehow.”

“Maybe.” I pictured the poor woman being hogtied every night and shuddered. “I'm not sure what’s worse. Thinking she might be a criminal and in cahoots with murderers, or the hostage of murderers.”

We kept going through the journals, reaching the third and final book. This one bore crude maps I realized corresponded to the dig site on Yimïk III as well as Sat-13. There was nothing in the alien metropolis swallowed by the jungle. Maybe she had that volume with her?

“Do you think you might be able to figure out the code after all, Amelia?”

“I’ll keep trying.” I looked up at him and nestled in a bit closer. “I might not be a Vaznik, but maybe I don’t know the meaning of the word quit, either.”

He laughed, and squeezed me a little tighter. My heart melted some more, and then I went back to trying to puzzle out Garcia’s motives.

RAXOR

She definitely has the will of a Vaznik. So determined.

Amelia’s brow furrowed as she tried to decrypt the journal’s code.

“Maybe these aren’t all letters. Maybe some are words. Like pictographs or hieroglyphics.”

“That’d explain some of the recurring characters.”

“I’m starting to think there is more than one language here. See how some are dots and lines and others are independent shapes or glyphs?”

“Is it even possible to communicate in more than one language at the same time?”

“Most definitely. We speak Spanglish all the time back home. Sometimes there aren’t words in one language to fully express the feeling or weight another conveys. If the doctor’s mind is trying to sort things out, with her background, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that this is her mind’s shorthand just glomming things down before the thought passes.”

“Amelia, that’s brilliant!”

“You think so? Do I get a prize?”

“A prize?”

“Well, yeah. I’m only codebreaking a cipher that could potentially save the galaxy.”

“If you succeed, there will be honor and glory.”

“I was thinking of something more personal.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Maybe another kiss would be a good start.”

Her casually veiled invitation had my blood rushing toward my cock. I remembered Kavok talking about a human mating ritual called teasing.

You little minx. Two can play at this game.

I turned and kissed her temple.

“Your prize, Amelia.”

“Uh, helloooo. Saving the galaxy here with my Spanglish-heiro-glyphy-cipher skills.”

“Yes? So?” I thoroughly enjoyed her pouting.

“That wasn’t nearly what it should be. Not even near the immensity of the work I’m doing here and a total waste of this dimly lit, totally romantic setting.”

“I see.”

“Do you, though?”

“I believe you’re unhappy with your prize, correct?”

“Damned straight.”

“And you require satisfaction.”

“You bet I do.”

She had stopped pretending to work now. She bit her lip and breathed fast. Her pulse raced just under the skin of her neck.

“Then allow me to satisfy you, Amelia.”

I lowered my mouth to taste her racing pulse. She inhaled and turned her head, giving me better access. Her next words were barely a sigh.

“Ohhhh… That’s a very, very good start.”

I continued my gentle assault on her sensitive neck, kissing my way up along her jaw, eventually taking her delicate earlobe between my teeth.

The golden threads burned white hot between us.

“Amelia,” I breathed into her ear, “You are delectable.”

Her little whimpers of pleasure thrilled me. I unfastened the armor on her shoulder and watched her fingers claw the ground.

“I’m going to devour you.”

I nipped at the newly uncovered juncture of her neck and shoulder. She moaned my name.

I unfastened her armor from behind, letting it fall around us. The only thing between her flesh and me, a film of fabric. I cupped one breast while I kissed her down her neck and spine.

“Raxor,” she gasped.

“Your demand will be satisfied, Amelia.”

I lowered my head to the top of her shoulder, savoring each primal sound she made when my mouth teased and tortured her.

Her surrender to my touch swelled my desire to ravish her.

I positioned her on her knees in front of me and unfastened the bottom portion of her armor, brushing it out of my way. I knelt behind her, letting my hands explore her perfect form.

Her delicate collarbone. The valley between her breasts. Down her stomach to the juncture of her thighs.

My thumb gently pressed against her pubic mound as I extended my fingers to stroke the source of her heat. Her cry of ecstasy echoed around us.

“Don’t stop, Raxor.”

I growled in response.

Her gasps and hips moved in tempo with the strokes of my fingers. Her nectar-soaked garment, useless against my patient assault.

She pressed herself against my fingers and groaned. Instinct took over.

I grabbed her hips and put her on all fours, gloriously exposing her thinly veiled backside and pussy to my advantage. I used my thumbs to shift her bottom upwards, lowering my mouth to her wetness.

She screamed and beat the floor with her fist. I delved deeper.

She looked at me over her shoulder and I ran circles around her clit with my tongue. Her hips bucked against me.

Feral need engulfed me.

I ripped open the fabric between us, revealing her soaked and swollen slit. I rolled her clit between my fingers, letting my tongue explore and savor the delicate moist velvet of her folds.

One finger slid into her, then two. Only guttural noises from both of us as I feasted on her.

I slid my fingers in and out of her, turning and bending them to touch all the sensitive places inside her. Increasing the pace with each thrust.

She went wild, writhing against my hand and mouth, moaning incoherently.

I felt the walls of her insides tighten, watching as her body went rigid in anticipation of her release.

Carnal hunger roared through my veins. I pulled her hips to my face, burying myself in a gluttonous frenzy.

Her body convulsed with each exquisite contraction. Her orgasm gushed onto my eager tongue.

I’d thirst for this forevermore.

I leaned back and pulled her to me, not wanting the connection between us to end. She turned into my arms, languid and earthy. I tucked her head under my chin.

“Raxor?”

“Yes, Amelia?”

“I think I’m satisfied now.”

“Amelia.”

“Mmm hmm?”

“I’m not.”

AMELIA

I awoke the next day snuggled up to Raxor’s warmth. I sighed, exulting in the touch of his skin against my own.

Yes, Amelia. Going to space was the best. God. Damn. Decision. You ever made.

If I sort of half closed my eyes, I saw the golden threads binding us together. They were like a warm nimbus I felt even when I couldn’t see them. My heart had never felt so light in all my life.

It was as if Raxor had lifted the weight of the world off of my heart, and now bore it on his powerful shoulders. I’d never had such a wonderful feeling in all my life. I played the events of the previous night over in my head, unable to believe how lucky I’d been.

I slithered around until I lay on his chest. I looked at his sleeping face for a time, growing increasingly impatient.

I poked him in the cheek. He sniffled and tossed his head to the side, trying to fall back into a deeper sleep. I kissed his neck, snuggling up to him some more. I whispered softly in his ear.

“Hey, Raxor, you going to sleep all day?”

“Uh? ‘Melia?” His eyes fluttered open and focused on me. His face split in a wide grin. “Hello, beautiful. I have no need of the sunrise trapped below ground so long as I can look at your smiling face first thing upon awakening.”

“Careful with that kind of talk or we’re never going to get out of the blankets.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m saying we’ve gone through three days worth of rations in two days and maybe we should look at trying to get out of here.”

“True.”

We reluctantly got to our feet and dressed ourselves. I took a moment to appreciate his muscular thighs and cute little tush before he covered them up with all that bulky armor.

Once we were suited up, I went to collect the bundle of journals. Unfortunately, I hadn’t secured the strap as well as Dr. Garcia had, and the whole mess tumbled to the floor.

“Aw fuck,” I sputtered. I chased after loose pages which had fluttered out. One by one, I gathered them up, but then I noticed something.

The smallest, leather-bound journal had a secret. A small pouch hid on the inside leather jacket. I poked my finger inside, and felt a folded up packet of paper.

“What’s that you’ve found?”

I turned to Raxor and held up the bit of paper.

“Another secret.”

“Why would she go through the trouble of writing that on a small bit of paper, if she was going to write in code, anyway?”

“Maybe she was trying to keep it a secret from this ‘Turk’ person?” I unfolded the bit of paper, and my eyes narrowed as I struggled to read the very small printed text.

Dream journal.

Ever since I used the alien cognition device, I’ve had the same dream. A floating disc the size of a continent floats overhead. It flashes symbols in a pattern, over and over again. I think I’m supposed to respond, but I can’t figure out what the symbols mean. I’ve only translated what less than half of them correspond to.

My mouth gaped open.

“She’s translated some of the alien symbols—and they’re computer code.”

“Does it tell you what she was looking for?”

“No, but I think I can use them to access the computer terminal.”

I took the loose leaf pages over to the globular terminal, and then felt the raised bumps on the keypad. I found the symbols corresponding to the ones on the dream cheat sheet.

Nothing happened—then I remembered I hadn’t cleaned the terminal, let alone connected it to power. I took out the wire brush and went to work. Once I thought I had it cleaned up enough, I tried plugging in the jack.

The globe lit up with a smoky, green light. Symbols appeared on the screen, followed by a symbol I recognized to mean ‘query.’

The terminal asked me what I wanted it to tell me.

“Okay,” I said, cracking my knuckles. “We’re in business.”

“I don’t see what good access will do us if you can’t understand the alien language.”

“I think the translator might have an easier time now. We have contextual clues, and a lot more of the alien lexicon to work with.”

I scanned the screen into the computer pad and let it go to work. I turned to smile at Raxor while we waited for it to go through the process. The computer did the heavy work of translating, but it still required data to be scanned in.

“So, how’re you feeling today?”

His face crossed with a goofy, lopsided grin.

“The entire world looks new!” He held his hand in front of his face and beamed a smile. “I’ve never realized how everything just kind of fits together in the universe.”

I laughed, and then the computer pad in my hand beeped. I flipped it on, and a translation appeared on the screen,

Welcome to the Archive. Please enter your query.

“Raxor,” I said with excitement. “Look.”

“The translator is working?”

“It’s working for that sentence at least. Let’s hope there’s more.”

I dove into the archive, hoping we’d soon solve the mystery of Dr. Garcia’s allegiance.

RAXOR

I leaned over Amelia, reading over her shoulder, my arms propped on either side of her. I felt so much closer to her than I had before we’d slept together.

Now, I felt more comfortable being so close. Close enough to smell her scent, close enough to feel her body heat.

Her fingers flashed over the terminal as she tried to type in her queries. Then she had to wait for the translator circuits to puzzle out what had been said in response. Sometimes, the translation worked well, and other times it didn’t.

“How’s it coming?” I asked as she sighed and straightened her posture. Amelia rubbed her temples and grimaced in pain.

“Well, I’ve only just now figured out how the archive keeps information organized. It’s got its own Dewey Decimal system.”

“Dewey Decimal system?”

“It’d take too long to explain. A way of organizing information archives we call libraries on Earth.” She sighed again. “I just wish this stupid console wasn’t so low to the ground. My neck is killing me.”

“Here.” I took off my gauntlet, pressing my thumb against the tension knotted muscles where her shoulder met her neck. Her mouth flew open as I moved my digit in small circles.

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “That’s just the spot.”

I massaged the rock-hard muscle into limp submission. Feeling better, she soon returned to the archive.

“I keep seeing references to the dream,” she muttered. “A giant flying disc, larger than some planets.”

“Is that a good sign?”

She shook her head and turned a grim expression my way.

“Well, I hardly think it’s a good thing at all.”

I frowned at the restless, haunted look in her eyes.

“Amelia, what do you mean by that?”

“Well, this object, real or imagined, that the doctor saw in her dreams gets mentioned several times in this archive. It’s called The Annulus, or at least that’s the best translation the circuits can come up with.”

“Annulus?”

“Yes. Every time it appears, I mean every single time, there’s some kind of massive natural disaster.”

She typed on the keyboard and came up with a new file directory.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I think it’s a recreation of one of the disasters. Listen to this.”

She cleared her throat and read off the screen.

“The signal continued for seventeen nights. On the eighteenth night, the Papacy agreed they weren’t a sign from the Higher Power, and they did prepare for war.”

A chill ran down my spine. I got the feeling immense time had passed since this recording had been made.

Likely the low, hilly mountains on this planet had once been jagged and sharp when the message was left for future generations to find.

“Weapons were conceived of and built. The people gave up their devotion to the Higher Power and Pursuit of Intellect and instead concentrated on battle. However, the foe which appeared on the one-hundred-and-eighteenth day was one which could not be faced with force of arms.”

“They were talking about the Annulus, aren’t they?” I asked. “The foe which could not be faced with force?”

“Yes, I do believe so.” She cleared her throat and began again. “The Annulus hovered in the air, moving slowly over the land and sea. Wherever it went, the seas boiled as if at storm, and the land erupted in fiery boils which belched poison smoke into the skies, until the sun itself choked off from us forever.”

She looked up at me, mouth wide open in wonder.

“Do you know what this means?”

“I think so. The Annulus is not to be fucked with?”

She rolled her eyes and groaned.

“No, I think that this record refers to this planet, specifically. Planet X.”

“Don’t you mean Planet Bildeploop.”

“Don’t make me bonk you on the head with my wrench.”

We laughed, lessening the tension, but her smile faded as she went back to regard the terminal once more.

“I mean, the skies weren’t always covered with the perpetual storm. I think this planet died and was reborn in its current state.”

She scrolled through the archive again and came across another entry.

“This one is more recent, I think. The translator’s having an easier time with it. The Annulus remain impenetrable to our best scanning technology, and if anyone dwelled within they would not or could not respond to our repeated hails. It seemed to have little function except to use gravitonic waves to disrupt our ecosystem. Our people now shelter far beneath the surface of the planet, having surrendered the upper crust to The Annulus and its relentless hunger.”

She shook her head as she flicked through several more entries.

“It’s always the same. The Annulus shows up, and the entire civilization falls. Another rises in its place, and then falls again.”

“Do you think it’s for real, or some kind of crazy metaphor?”

She paused for a long moment, as if considering it.

“It’s entirely possible it’s a metaphor. However, I don’t think it’s likely—”

She gasped.

“What is it?”

“I just figured out that the text is slightly fainter when someone’s already looked at an entry. See how it appears when light is shining on it?” she pointed at the terminal. “I think I can extrapolate and figure out what the last thing Garcia looked at was before she closed the terminal.”

The terminal came up with a map of several star systems. One of them had a red dot blinking next to it.

“What’s that red dot?”

“Sort of like a cursor, or a placeholder. This is what she looked at last, all right.”

I took my computer pad out and snapped a digital hologram of the star maps, including the written coordinates.

“Can you find anything about that system that makes it so special?” I asked.

“I can try.”

She punched in a command—and the screen went from green to red, the text vanishing. It pulsed on and off, symbols appearing in rapid succession.

“Uh oh,” she said.

“What’s happening?”

“I think—I may have triggered an alarm.”

“Fuck,” I said.

AMELIA

“What do you mean, you set off an alarm?”

Raxor put his palm on the flashing globe, looking at me in horror. “Make it stop.”

“Make it stop?” I said with a glare, pounding the keyboard furiously. “Gee what a great idea, wish I’d thought of that.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Raxor, you’ll have to learn to distinguish when I’m being sarcastic. What do you think I’m trying to do right now? I’m trying to shut it down.”

“Oh. Um, are you—”

“No, obviously I haven’t figured it out yet because the alarm is still going off, Raxor.”

I punched in a long command code and waited to see if it’d work.

“Look,” he said. “Something’s happening. I think you did it.”

A series of opaque panels slid out, covering the entry keypad.

“Yeah, I did something, all right, I locked myself out of the archive.” I sighed and considered taking my wrench and beating the damn thing. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d used a wrench to beat something into working.

“What should we do?”

“You know what?” I stood up and stretched, rubbing my lower back. “I don’t think we have to do a fucking thing about it.”

“You’re not worried about the alarm?” His brow furrowed with confusion beneath his horns. “Alarms usually exist to bring some sort of assistance, Amelia.”

“I know that, but look at this place. Ninety-nine percent of this shit doesn’t even work any longer. What are the odds, I mean, really, what are the odds the security system still works?”

I gestured around.

“There are no poison gases being emitted, no lasers popping out of the walls, and no killer robots bent on our death and destruction. I think we’re—I think we’re good.”

“Oh, okay,” Raxor replied. “That makes me feel much better.”

“Yeah, for sure. You got the photograph of the coordinates before I fucked everything up, right?”

“I did, indeed.” He showed me the computer pad. “I also memorized the coordinates of the star system she apparently looked at last.”

“You did?” I grinned. “You’re so smart.”

I reached up and pinched his cheek. He smiled, and I got up on my tiptoes to steal a little kiss. The world seemed to fade away, even the constant flashing of the alarm I’d set off.

Then, he broke away from me.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

“All I can hear is my own heartbeat,” I panted. “Come here and give me some sugar, baby—”

“No, I definitely hear something.”

Much to my chagrin, he pulled away from me and looked down the corridor we came down before. There, thirty feet or so from the hallway junction, something moved.

“Is that one of your crew?” I asked.

“I’m quite confident it’s not.” Raxor hefted his rifle. “Look sharp, Amelia. I it’s a hostile entity.”

The hostile entity finally passed into range of our light drones. At first, I was very confused. It resembled nothing so much as the Jacob’s Ladder pillars in the control room before, only this one was about three feet high, instead of twelve.

It was also ambulatory, moving about on a singular, spherical wheel. As it drew closer, the alien runes scrawled on the twin pillars began to glow.

“I don’t like the looks of this—”

The Jacob’s Ladder effect went off, only the spark shot out of the tip instead of dissipating. A jagged bolt of red lightning crackled through the air. The bolt sizzled between me and Raxor, scorching a black streak on our exo-suits.

A split second later, a deafening thunderclap made me scream in pain. My ears rang like mad, I saw the robot trundle closer.

Raxor opened his mouth in—to my point of view—a silent scream. The gun in his hand coughed and jumped as it expended plasma charges. The air filled with streaks of green. Our attacker stopped its advance, bullets ricocheting off its golden, armored shell. A fragment of the armor flew off and skipped across the floor.

A moment later, a reddish nimbus appeared around the robot. When the plasma rounds stuck the bubble, they flared brightly and vanished.

“That thing has a shield,” I cried. My throat hurt, I screamed so loud, and yet my voice sounded distant and muffled.

Raxor continued to fire with one hand, letting go with the other. He reached behind himself and retrieved a football-sized object shaped like an hourglass.

He flung the metal hourglass toward the robot. It spun in the air and clacked down beside the robot’s shield.

Raxor clapped his hands over my ears and I felt a dull thump ripple through the hall. I turned to see the robot’s shield had been overloaded. One of the twin prongs now hung broken, dangling by sparking wires.

Raxor went to reload his weapon. I recalled some dimly remembered experiences from my self-defense classes and took aim with the mining laser.

I depressed the trigger studs, grunting with the exertion. A moment later, a pure white beam lanced out of my gauntlet. I aimed the laser for the damaged portion of the robot’s armor.

A light flared so bright I had to look away. When I turned back, the robot was an inferno, engulfed in aggressive flames which seemed to be melting its metal armature.

“Nice shot,” he said.

I smiled, but it faded from my face soon enough as another one of the security bots appeared. And another. And, yet another.

“Um,” I said. “Do you have any more of those grenades handy?”

“No,” he said. “I dropped most of them down the fissure when we were first separated from the others.”

“I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

I looked down the other corridor. We had no idea what awaited us that way. It might even have been more killer robots.

But what choice did we have?

“Run,” I cried, tearing off down the hallway. Raxor followed a step behind, firing his rifle blindly as we fled certain death.

RAXOR

We fled down the corridor, streaks of electricity turning the walls into a glowing mass of molten metal.

The security bots didn’t fear my rifle. They were quite capable of using their shields and their weaponry at the same time. The only reason we weren’t dead yet was the fact the robots seemed to have little-to-no targeting software. Their shots went badly wide, every time, and yet we took so much residual damage from the thunderclaps both our ears bled.

They almost didn’t have to hit us with the lighting to kill us. But if they did…I just hoped our armor would hold. Or that I’d be the one struck, rather than Amelia.

“The corridor splits up ahead,” she cried. “I have an idea.”

She ran down the left corridor and slammed her gauntleted fist into a metal panel. I ran past her, out of range of the robots…for a few seconds, at least. When they couldn’t see us, they stopped firing.

Amelia crossed a pair of wires, grabbing my arm and ran like mad. I followed along, perplexed.

A second later, a wave of force struck me in the back. Amelia was thrown off her feet by it, sprawling on the floor.

I scooped her up without slowing down and put her back on her feet. I risked a glance back and saw the hallway was filled with billowing smoke. Soon enough, the bots would come through the other side of the smoke screen, but she’d bought us a few moments.

We ran to the end of the corridor, when it bent hard to the right. Amelia skidded to a halt when she saw the passage had a downward grade.

“Damn it,” she sputtered. “We’re trying to get up, not down.”

One of the bots shot a bolt of jagged red lighting our way. I shoved her on the back and she ran.

“It doesn’t matter. Run!”

We rushed down the grade, hitting another bend in the passage. I was grateful for that. It kept the bots from firing constant electrical jolts, since they couldn’t get a consistent line of sight.

We ran toward colored lights glowing ahead, more lichen and mushrooms. The ceiling suddenly leaped up and vanished, and we found ourselves standing in the midst of an underground metropolis.

“Holy shit,” Amelia muttered. “Where are we?”

I couldn’t answer. How could anyone? I saw what looked like glass tubes connecting some of the larger, pyramidal structures to one another. We appeared to be on the flat roof of one of the biggest structures of all.

I heard the telltale hum of the robot’s servos, and grimaced.

“We can’t stay here,” I cried.

“Where are we supposed to go? Are you hiding a jetpack in that thing?”

“I wish.”

The first robot made it down the grade and fired at us. I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out of the blast in the nick of time. The lighting bolt struck the roof near our feet, and something shorted out.

A dull whump preceded our flying through the air. With horror, I realized we’d been blown clean off the roof.

I flexed my abdominal muscles, twisting our bodies in the air so I’d land first and take the brunt. I managed to get my legs under me and saw one of the glass tubes coming up for us.

I feared cutting ourselves on the glass, but Amelia thought quickly. She aimed her mining laser and melted the translucent tube’s roof like hot wax.

I landed inside the tube, hard, bending my legs to absorb the impact. My ass cheeks slammed into my heels and I toppled over. Amelia tumbled away from me, her metal suit clinking against the glassy substance.

“Amelia,” I cried, struggling to my feet. My legs ache terribly, especially the bottoms of my feet. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” she gasped. She scrambled up onto a wide, flat platform which seemed to hover in the middle of the tube with no means of propulsion. As soon as her feet touched it, panels lit up along the side.

“What is this?”

She grinned.

“I recognize that symbol. It says transit. Climb aboard, sweetheart. We’re about to travel in style.”

I clambered aboard, and the platform silently shot along the tube. I steadied myself and stared ahead. We left the killer robots behind, shooting through the translucent tubes.

“Hopefully, that’s the last we’ll see of those bots,” she said.

“I second that, wholeheartedly.”

The tube took us to a six-way nexus. The platform slowed as she manipulated the panels with her feet.

“Which way?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I laughed. “That way, I guess.”

“Good enough for me.” She grinned and propelled us along. We came to a point where the tube intersected one of the buildings.

We passed into the darkened interior, and found the tube had an oval cut out in the side, allowing us to step off the platform and into the building’s interior. My mouth gaped open as I beheld a magnificent grotto, with a waterfall spilling out of a dark hole in the ceiling and pooling in a massive bath.

Massive support pillars held up the high ceiling, and the walls—well, there were no walls. It was open on four sides, allowing a spectacular view of the rest of the city. I looked at the distant roof we’d left the robots on, but didn’t see any sign of them.

“I think I need a break,” she sighed, sinking into a crouch.

“You and I, both. Let's camp here for a bit.”

I frowned as she wearily nodded her head. It hurt my heart to see her suffer. I vowed again, I’d get us both out of there alive.

Or die trying.

AMELIA

I double checked the scanner readout just to be sure. A grin spread over my face as I got the same results I had the first time.

“Is the water safe?”

I turned to look up at Raxor and nodded.

“It’s safe.”

“Safe for drinking, or bathing, or—”

“All of the above. The PH level of the water is in The Goldilocks Zone for both human and Vaznik skin, and the minerality prevents the formation of harmful microbes. Of course, the minerals will likely make the water taste funny.”

I sat on the low basin wall which ran around what I thought of as a bathhouse. The water was set at a comfortably warm temperature, just about perfect for bathwater. Looking around at the open sides, however, made me think whatever race used this bathhouse before probably didn’t have any notions of modesty.

Raxor fiddled with a computer pad attached to his gauntlet. He’d set up motion detectors in the glass tube transit system to alert us of any killer machines or dangerous fauna which might try to sneak up on us.

I believe he said they were set up to give us at least six-and-a-half minutes of lead time. Which just happened to be how long it took to fully don an exo-suit.

What it translated into, his preparations for an attack and my testing the PH of the water, was that we both desperately needed to bathe and air out the exo-suits. They were miraculous devices capable of keeping the occupant safe and secure in any environment, be it the bottom of an ocean, the vacuum of space, or an open battlefield.

They were not, however, and couldn’t be comfortable for long-term wear. Not if they were to do their job.

I gasped as I peeled off one section of the armor after another. When I struggled with the seals, Raxor lent me a hand.

Soon we were clad only in the thin, hypo-allergenic jumpsuits worn under the armor. Then, we lost those as well, peeling off the layers and slipping into the tub.

Raxor held my hand while I stepped into the warm waters. I gasped as the heat seemed like maybe too much at first, but as I slipped in further, my body made the adjustment. The bathwater was about two-feet deep and gradually deepened toward the end of the pool where the waterfall cascaded down.

It felt glorious to get clean, but being in the heated water tired me out quickly. We dried ourselves and then laid down on a double layer of blankets together. I snuggled up to him immediately, my breasts resting on his chest.

He smiled, then moved in and kissed my lips. His hand moved up to the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair.

I rolled over on top of him, our kiss deepening. His tongue slipped inside my mouth to lash against my own. I felt his cock throb against me as it rapidly filled with blood.

“Amelia,” he mumbled into my neck between smoldering kisses and sensual licks. I felt a tingle spread all over my body, with the epicenter being in my clit. His hand slid down the curve of my spine until reaching the slope of my rear. Raxor grasped my cheeks firmly, prying them apart, exposing the growing wetness between my legs.

“Amelia, I want you so bad,” he gasped.

I shifted atop him, lifting my knee and spreading open my pussy lips. I hovered over his cock for a moment as he studied the shaft in his fist. Then I moved down, the tip sliding inside of me.

My eyes squeezed shut as I felt his magnificent length filling me, stretching me. A sudden groan escaped my throat as I settled fully onto him. My knees went on either side of his body. I put my hands on his chest and rocked my hips forward.

His mouth flew open, eyes wide under his horns. Raxor’s hands shot up and grasped my breasts. I moaned as his thumbs rubbed over my erect nipples, stroking them with sensuous grace.

I threw my head back as a shuddering climax pulsed through my body. Sweat poured off our bodies, mingling with the smell of the water basin and the heavy musk of arousal from my pussy.

Raxor rolled us over, putting me on my back. He kissed me deeply, penetrating me with tongue and cock, before rearing up. I appreciated the ripple of his muscle beneath his velvet-soft skin as he thrust into me.

My mouth flew open in a nearly continuous cascade of moans. It felt amazing to have him inside of me, working so hard to give me pleasure. I felt his body, taut as a bowstring, struggling and trembling to hold itself in check.

He wanted me to come before he did, and I was more than willing to go along with it. I arched my back, rearing up my hips and moving in concert with him. I clamped my teeth down on an involuntary groan as I felt the energy building toward a truly thunderous orgasm.

His thrusting cock shoved me right over the edge, and then some. I could barely even hear my own scream, loud as it was, because of the exploding lights behind my eyes. For a moment, I forgot how to speak, how to think, and could only ride the waves of rhythmic pleasure spreading throughout my body.

I collapsed back onto the blanket, shivering, my eyes shut as Raxor bent low to kiss my cheek. I suddenly clutched at him with all four limbs, holding him tight as I shivered and moaned and trembled through the aftershocks.

“You can do that to me all the time, if you like,” I gasped softly.

He cuddled up close, and I laid against his warm bulk. Knowing we had alarms set, and were likely alone in the underground city, allowed me to relax for the first time since we’d gone over the edge. Truly relax, that is, enough to fall into a deep, restful sleep in Raxor’s powerful arms.

RAXOR

After another blissful night in Amelia’s arms, I dreamed of what life might be like if we ever made it back out of the ruins.

I dreamed of us living together on the Honor’s Blade, sharing an officer’s quarters. Naturally, she came with me on every away mission because that’s what the Admiral wanted, in concordance with his wife’s visions. Things were going great. She was pregnant and we were due to rendezvous with another ship in the fleet.

Then, the Annulus appeared in the sky and I felt myself more than heard myself screaming. The scream became all too real as I sat bolt upright. The blanket flew off of me as I sat there, panting for air, my body glazed with a sheen of sweat.

“Hey.” Amelia stirred beside me. Her voice thick with sleep, she made a series of inarticulate sounds before speaking again. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“I—I’m fine, I think.” I shook my head to clear it of the nightmarish images. “I dreamed of The Annulus.”

“Oh no. Let’s hope it was just anxiety and not some kind of weird energy about this place.”

I looked at her, aghast.

“I hadn’t even considered that possibility.”

“I hadn’t either, until just now, but I think it’s probably just nerves. I mean, where did The Annulus show up?”

“On a planet—wait, no, I was on the ship…” I covered my eyes with my hand and sighed. “It was just a dream, I think. Nothing made sense, I don’t recall how I got where I was or how long I’d be there.”

“Well, dreams can still be important even if they’re not prophetic.” She leaned her head on my shoulder, her soft breasts draped over my arm. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I—well, the dream started off good. We lived together on the ship, sharing quarters, and I believe you were pregnant.”

“You impregnated me, you beast,” she said, with a laugh. “That sounds like a nice dream, except for the whole Annulus showing up and raining on our parade.”

“Indeed.” I reached for the canteen of water—and froze. My gaze fell on the tube we’d used to transfer ourselves to the grotto.

“What’s wrong?” She squinted up at me. “Are you not feeling good? You don’t look right at all.”

“Amelia,” I gasped. “The hover platform we used to get here. It’s gone.”

“It’s gone?”

She stared hard, and then her eyes widened.

“Oh no, you’re right. Maybe it’s on some kind of automatic return?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I believe the sound of it activating is what initially drew me from my slumber.”

She stood up, letting the blanket fall off of her. As a testament to how distracted I was by the missing platform, I was barely cognizant of her lovely nude form.

“We should suit up,” she said, a note of urgency in her tone.

“I agree.”

We hastily donned our clothing, and then our encounter suits. I slammed a magazine into the chamber of my plasma rifle and looked around the grotto. The raised dais around the pool was the most cover offered, other than the pillars. I decided the dais would provide better cover. I’d be more mobile there.

“Come.”

I guided her over to the opposite side of the pool, crouching behind the low wall. I braced the rifle on the wall and waited.

“Listen,” I hissed.

“I hear it,” she said in a low whisper. “It’s the hover platform, coming back.”

I swallowed hard, turning to face her.

“What do you think’s coming?” she asked.

“I don't know. I suppose it could be the security robots. Perhaps they’ve finally tracked us down?”

“I hope you’re very, very wrong about that.” She shuddered. Her eyes suddenly lit up with eagerness and hope.

“Maybe we’re worrying over nothing. It could be Dr. Bill and the others, come to rescue us.”

I considered the possibility, and nodded.

“I guess it could be.” I chuckled without mirth. “I’m not going to flip my safety switch on, though.”

“I can’t blame you one bit.” She squirmed about, trying to find a more comfortable position. My longer torso meant bracing myself on the wall was easy. She wasn’t quite the right height. “You know, it might be some kind of big, slavering monster.”

“A slavering monster who knows how to activate the hover platform?”

“Hey, it could be an intelligent, slavering monster.”

“Intelligent…slavering…” I shook my head and laughed. I supposed, if I was going to die, at least I’d die beside the woman I cared about more than life itself.

“Hang on.” She peered past the columns out over the city. “I think I see the platform coming. Look.”

She pointed at the tube system. My eyes squinted as I tried to make out the distant details. Gradually the platform came closer, and I was able to make out a dozen figures standing on it.

“Oh shit,” I groaned.

“What?”

“It’s the soldiers from before. The ones in the black armor.”

“Oh, no. Is Dr. Garcia with them?”

“Good question.” I shielded my eyes with my hand but saw no sign of the human doctor. “I don’t see her.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked, fear dancing in her eyes. “Can we get out of here before they show up?”

“Without a platform, I’m not sure.”

I curled my finger around the trigger. Should we try to flee, or should we make our stand?

What were we going to do?

AMELIA

I felt my stomach bottom out as the hover platform drew nearer. The constant splash from the waterfall mingled with the sound of my own pulse as it thudded in my ears. I felt like a sardine in a can wearing the exo-suit. Part of me wanted to shed it in exchange for greater freedom of movement. I knew that’d be suicide, though.

Besides, the suit gave me my one and only weapon, a stupid mining laser. Okay, so not so stupid. Actually, I guess it’s pretty cool. But I digress.

I looked over at Raxor, and that son of a gun looked downright eager for the coming fight. His eyes had narrowed to slits, nostrils flaring as he stared at the oval opening in the transport tube.

“You’re made for this, aren’t you?” I asked.

He grunted, still keeping his eyes on the aperture.

“I suppose so. We Vaznik have a proud warrior tradition going back thousands of years. The truth is, though, I’d rather not fight in this case. I just don’t see how we have much choice.”

“We could run.”

“Where?” He frowned. “I don’t mean to sound flip. But the only way down from here is that transport tube.”

“So we run through that.”

“We’d trap ourselves in an environment with zero cover and only one direction to run. It’s tantamount to suicide. I’m sorry, but unless we can get another platform somehow, we’re stuck fighting.”

He glanced over at me at last, and I saw fear dance in his gaze. Not for himself, but for me.

“Listen, Amelia,” he said. “Fighting insects or killer robots is one thing. Killing another sapient being is something else altogether. Please, just stay down and let me handle this.”

I gave him a look.

“What are our chances of walking out of here if you try and do this alone?”

He sighed.

“Not ideal.”

“If I help, on the other hand, does that increase our chances?”

Raxor pursed his lips and considered me for a long moment.

“Yes,” he admitted, clearly hating himself for it.

“Then I can’t just hide and let you risk your life.” I tried not to tear up. I’d found something with Raxor I hadn’t known possible, and I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to lose him.

We turned our attention back to the tube. The hover platform shot through the last junction before us without turning. I cursed under my breath. I’d thought perhaps they might go the wrong way.

“Do these guys have any weaknesses?” I asked.

“Their armor is formidable, and roughly equivalent to our own. That means the weakest points are the seams.” He pointed to his own armor, at the elbow and knee. “These are the most vulnerable joints.”

“I’m not sure I can aim that well when people shoot at me, but I’ll do my best. Any other tips?”

“Yes. These mysterious warriors are well equipped, and generally fearless, but they do not fight like a team. They fight like a bunch of individuals. I’d almost think they were robots, if not for the fact I’ve seen them die.”

“How’d you take them out last time?”

I grimaced.

“Kavok reasoned we’d use the zero gravity on the ship to our advantage. We adhered to the walls and caught them in a crossfire.”

“I guess that won’t work this time.”

“No,” he said with a sigh. “It won’t.”

The hover platform came around the final bend. I got a clear look at the warriors for the first time. Their armor appeared composed of shiny black plates and corrugated rubber around the joints. The faceplates were tinted to conceal their identities. They bore no type of insignia or coat of arms.

I noticed details convincing me they weren’t robots or drones. They weren’t all the same height, or the same girth. I believed there to be more than one type of alien species under that armor.

Of course, the biggest detail in my mind was their formidable looking weapons. I didn’t like the idea of the business end of those weapons pointing at me. Not one bit.

“Here they come,” he said. Raxor turned to me. “Listen, if you want to help, move about ten meters around the wall.”

He jutted his head in that direction.

“That way they can’t target us both with an explosive.”

I swallowed.

“Explosive?”

“They didn't use them last time, but you never know.”

“You’re doing a real shitty job of reassuring me right now, Raxor.”

He gave me a terrified look, and my heart ached for him.

“I wish I could be reassuring right now.”

He turned back to the oval shaped aperture. A moment later, the hover sled appeared, and he opened fire.

Streams of green energy rained down on their position. He went full auto, emptying half his magazine in the initial assault. Several of the onyx-armored soldiers thrashed about as they were torn to pieces by the superheated plasma.

They fell to the sled, and their brethren sought cover. They took up positions near the oval, firing at Raxor. He ducked below the wall as a barrage of more than six rifles bore down on him.

One of the soldiers took the opportunity to step through the oval and into the grotto itself. I cursed as he scuttled to the wall and crouched down behind it. Another tried his luck, but I was ready that time.

I aimed the mining laser at the rubber seals of his armor, near the knee. The white beam hissed through the air and punched a hole through his leg. He went down hard, holding his knee and letting out a mechanical-sounding screech.

I almost threw up when I saw his leg had been severed below the knee. His amputated limb lay a few feet away, twitching.

Raxor popped back up, screaming as he unleashed a barrage on their position. Another soldier went down, but two more stepped onto the grotto and ran for the cover provided by the basin wall.

I realized there were too many of them for my mining laser to hit before they made it to cover. Then, my mind clicked into overdrive. I saw the three-foot wide, crystal clear stream of the waterfall.

I rose to my feet and took aim with the laser. Not at them—but at the waterfall.

The thin white beam struck the waterfall and refracted, shooting out in a dozen directions at once. Three of the soldiers went down as the photon beams punched holes in their armor.

I yelped as they opened fire on me. I hit the floor belly first and stayed down, praying we’d get out alive.

I heard Raxor firing, but how long would his ammo last?

Had we come all this way just to die?

RAXOR

I grimaced as a shot refracted off my shoulder plate. I put the offending onyx-garbed warrior in my crosshairs and fired. Steam hissed from his body as the plasma rounds burned holes right through his armor.

I flopped behind the basin wall and jammed another magazine in. I came loaded for bear, but I was running low. The first wave of onyx warriors had been followed by a second one. Now I saw another group of warriors hustling along the tubes, bereft of a hover platform, but coming all the same.

“They’ve got reinforcements inbound,” I called.

I looked over, just able to see Amelia due to the curvature of the basin. She lay on her belly, hands over her head, as energy bolts rained down on her position. There were so many holes poked in the basin, she was getting wet.

“Amelia, come this way—no, don’t get up. Just belly crawl. Use your elbows, that’s it.”

She scraped along the floor away from the deluge, getting closer to me.

I braced my rifle on the basin wall and aimed in a slow sweep, firing short bursts. My main intention was to keep the reinforcements from making it onto the grotto itself. The warriors scrambled back into the tube for cover. However, the ones who’d made it to the basin wall inched their way around to flank us. It’d never do.

I looked over at Amelia and gestured at the basin.

“Amelia, can you set the mining laser to burn hot, not bright?”

“What?”

“I want you to shoot the water in the basin and—”

Realization dawned in her eyes.

“I can attenuate the lens, make it a thinner, but hotter beam.” She tapped on her gauntlet and it folded open. A few button presses later, and she nodded. “I’m ready.”

“All right. I’ll lay down some cover fire. Go!”

I popped up and swept my rifle around, firing wildly. I hit a few of them, but mainly I wanted to keep them from firing back while Amalia was vulnerable.

She stood up, aimed the mining laser, and fired a beam that was pure blue. It struck the surface of the water, causing it to boil and hiss, a cloud of steam rising.

Amelia swept the laser all over the surface of the lake. A dense fog sprang up, filling the structure until I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face.

They couldn’t see, either, however. And I’d memorized their poisons. I stood up and hustled around the basin. I swung the butt of my rifle into the faceplate of one of the soldiers. The resounding crack sounded sweet. I kicked the now limp body off the side of the structure and snatched up his rifle.

Wielding two weapons at once, I hollered above the din.

“Amelia, down!”

I swung both guns around, keeping the triggers pushed down. I spewed a stream of continuous death, green bolts of plasma and the hot, white lines of supersonic slivers of metal the enemy used.

I knew I’d hit my enemies when sparks flashed through the fog. My own rifle ran out and I slung it over my shoulder, taking a two-handed grip on the enemy’s weapon. I made my way around the basin, slaughtering all of the soldiers taking refuge there.

I made it around the basin back to our rear position just as the fog began to dissipate. I flopped to the floor behind the wall and checked on Amelia.

“Are you all right? Are you hit?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. I checked her over, apprehensive about her taking even a minor hit. I saw some scorch marks on her armor, meaning she’d taken some glancing blows, but nothing had penetrated her armor.

“I took care of our friends trying to flank us.” I popped up and fired the enemy rifle. It wasn’t as accurate as a Vaznik weapon, but I had to admire the large magazine size. Plus, it killed them just as dead.

For a moment, none of them were trying to advance. About ten or so of the armored warriors remained in the transportation tube, apparently speaking to each other about how best to murder us.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked over to the side and groaned when I saw another dozen of the warriors on their way.

“Fuck,” Amelia said. “This sucks.”

I turned to her and swallowed, hard.

“Amelia,” I said past the lump in my throat. “There is something I must tell you, in case we don’t make it out of here.”

“We’re not dead yet,” she said, but she didn’t sound too sure.

“Amelia,” I sighed. “Ever since I met you, my whole world has expanded. I never knew there were so many colors in the tapestry of existence before you opened my eyes.”

“That’s very sweet and poetic, but maybe act less like Oscar Wilde and more like Rambo right now?”

“Amelia, I love you.”

She sucked in a gasp of air, her eyes opening wide as twin moons. I checked on our friends, but they seemed content to wait on their reinforcement to arrive before trying to rush us.

“I love you,” I repeated. “And if we’re going to die, I just—I just wanted you to know.”

“Raxor,” she said with a sigh. “I love you too, you big lug.”

Amelia’s face was crossed with a look of determination.

“And no way in hell am I going to meet the perfect guy and then let him get shot to pieces. Hey, assholes!”

She rose to her feet and took aim with the mining laser in one hand and a discarded sliver gun in the other.

“When you get to hell, tell ‘em Amelia Ophelia Robeson sent ya!”

She screamed and let loose with both weapons. Onyx warriors went down or scrambled for cover as she seared a hot line across the glass transit tube.

“I love you so much,” I said, before adding my own barrage to the mix.

If we were going to die, at least we’d be together in the end.

AMELIA

I screamed like a banshee. I fought like a Valkyrie. I took dozens of rounds to my armored chest, but I didn’t stop firing.

My throat had gone raw from screaming, but I kept it up. I was determined to kill them before they could hurt my sweet Raxor.

The mining laser warning light flashed on my HUD. Growling in frustration, I dove behind the basin to give it a chance to cool down. My sliver gun was out of ammo, anyway.

I looked over as Raxor dove for cover as well. He looked my way and tried to smile. I could tell he was getting tired, though. I was tired, too.

“I think you’ve truly taught them the meaning of fear,” he said with a grin.

“They seemed to have stopped shooting.”

His face sprouted a thoughtful frown. He inched over and grabbed a bit of the enemy’s ceramic armor.

He held it up over the basin, using it like a mirror to see what our enemies were up to without exposing himself to their potential fire.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. They’re just sort of sitting there behind covered positions and…waiting.”

“What are they waiting on?”

He snorted.

“My best guess would be reinforcements.” He looked over at the glass transport tubes, but they appeared empty. “I’m starting to wonder how many people they brought with them.”

“Given the interference from the energy signal, and the nonstop storms on this planet, they could easily have hidden a ship at least as big as the Sunder or the Nova, if not larger.”

“True.” He stared into the bit of ceramic and grimaced. “Come on, you cowards. Do something.”

“Hey, I’m glad they’re giving us a breather.” I looked down at my mining laser and grinned. “My cooldown period is over at last. I can fire at will.”

“For now, let’s just wait,” he said. “The longer we wait, the greater the odds our people will find us.”

“Do you think they’re still looking?”

He heard the hopeless note in my tone and turned to look at me. Seeing such fear in my eyes must’ve felt like a stab to the heart. “

“I wanted to protect you, to take you in my arms and never let anything scare you ever again. Amelia,” he continued, taking a deep breath. “I know in my heart they’re still looking.”

“But…” My voice broke a little. “But they saw us fall over the edge—it’s quite possible they thought we fell to our deaths.”

“Yes, but they didn’t see us die, did they?” He laughed. “Trust me, for a stubborn bastard like Irev, that’s as good as confirming we’re still alive. They won’t give up on us. They haven’t, and they won’t.”

I smiled. When I spoke, my voice still held a tremble, though.

“You sound so confident of that fact.”

“I am confident,” he said with a grin. “Vaznik warriors never leave a man behind. Not ever. They’ll be here, and then we’ll show these amateurs, these pay-for-play soldiers, what it is to be a true warrior.”

“Yeah, these ham and eggers can’t hold a candle to us.”

I grinned at him, but he seemed quite confused, indeed.

“Ah, is it common on Earth to insult your enemies by referring to them as breakfast platters?”

I laughed, a bit too hard and a bit too loud. I worried I was bordering on hysteria.

“No, silly.” I snorted, barely keeping control of myself. “Ham and egger means they fight for a plate of ham and eggs. They’re mercenaries, and not even very highly paid ones.”

“I see. Ham and Eggers.”

He suddenly grew very angry and rose up from his covered position.

“Why don’t you make a move, you cowardly ham and eggers?”

“Fuck you,” one of them yelled back.

“Hey, that’s the first time we’ve heard them talk.” I laughed. “It doesn’t mean they’re still not going to try and kill us dead, but, I don’t know, it kind of makes them less scary.”

“What are you waiting for, your dick to get longer?” Raxor taunted.

“Nah,” the soldier taunted back. “We’re waiting on that.”

He pointed behind us, and Raxor almost fell over laughing.

“You must think I’m as stupid as you are if you think I’m going to fall for that one. That’s the oldest trick in the book!”

“Raxor,” I said.

“I know how this works. I turn around to look, and then you shoot me in the back.” Raxor guffawed heartily. “Well, not today, friend. Not today!”

“Raxor,” I said, a bit more urgently this time.

“Why, I’ll never fall for such a ruse, not in a million years—”

“Raxor, for fuck’s sake, look!”

He turned around at last, keeping his peripheral vision on the onyx garbed warriors. At first, he didn’t see anything. Then, he noticed the black smudge moving along the darkened cityscape, the amber glow of thrusters lighting it.

I thought it was some kind of small, one man vehicle at first. As it grew closer, the shape resolved itself into being roughly the same composition as a human or a Vaznik. By that, I mean it had two legs, two arms, and what seemed to be a dome-shaped head.

On the other hand, it had a dull, matte-black metal skin, and an overall design making it clear there was no way a human or any other species could fit inside.

“What is that?” I asked, shuddering at the sight of the large guns it had instead of hands.

“That,” Raxor said, “is a Mark Seven Personal Security Android.”

“Oh,” I said, swallowing hard. “On a scale of one to ten, how fucked are we?”

He sighed.

“An eleven.”

RAXOR

The android vectored in for a landing, and I considered trying to take a shot at it before it touched down. I rejected the idea immediately when the onyx-garbed soldiers fired on our position.

Good strategy, as much as I hated to admit it at the time. It really sucks when your enemies decide to get clever on you.

I managed to pop off a few shots at the android, but they did little more than leave scorch marks on the armor plating.

The android itself had a sinister cast to it. Its black armor was meant to be non-reflective and intimidating. The dome-shaped head had a white skull painted over it and red mascara around what looked like eyes, but were probably just decoration. An android like that one wouldn’t bother trying to replicate human vision. It’d just rely on a sensor suite, and see better than a Vaznik or human ever could.

I heard the thrusters cut out, and then it dropped the last five feet to the grotto floor. The metal floor thunked with that weird hollow sound, and the android rose to its full height, well over nine-feet tall.

Its red eyes flashed, and it raised its gun-arms to aim at our position. I grabbed the back of Amelia’s head and shoved her to the metal floor of the grotto.

A sound akin to a buzzsaw raised the hackles on my neck. The high-velocity, rapid-fire sliver gun turned the basin wall into powder. It caked our armor, creating a fine dust over both of us.

“What are we supposed to do against that thing?” Amelia shouted above the din.

“They aren’t invincible. There are weak points.” I tried to reassure myself as much as her. The heavy clanking of its approaching footsteps sounded like a death knell.

“Like what?”

The gunfire ceased. The android hadn’t shown mercy. Its combat computer had simply decided it was a waste of ammo to keep firing. All it had to do was come around the side of the basin and we’d be sitting ducks for those monster cannons it called arms.

I thought of inching along the other direction, but sooner or later we’d round the other side. Then the onyx warriors would have us flanked, and we’d be just as dead.

“We can’t beat it, can we?” she asked.

“Not with these weapons,” I sighed. “I’m sorry. Listen, I’m going to distract it. I want you to try and climb down from here—”

“Oh, are you going to sacrifice yourself and be all noble and shit?” Her face twisted up into a rueful smile. “Wouldn’t you rather win?”

“I just said, we can’t win—”

“We can't win by shooting. That doesn’t mean we can’t win.”

She rolled over onto her belly and aimed her mining laser. I wondered what she was doing. The android hadn’t yet come around the base enough to see, let alone fire upon.

She sent out a beam of white energy into the side of the basin. Water gushed out, puddling on the narrow bit of walkway between the basin and a sheer drop.

“I think it’ll wade over that water just fine,” I said.

Amelia didn’t answer. She took out one of her power tools and smashed it on the metal floor once, twice, and finally, a third time.

The carapace cracked open, and a white gas hissed out. She quickly turned the broken tool toward the puddle of water and tore the hole a bit wider.

A torrent of the gas hissed over the water, turning it to a solid sheet of ice, even freezing the hole in the basin into a stalactite wall.

The android came around the edge, its guns pointed our way. Its foot hit the ice, and it suddenly pivoted about, limbs scrambling for purchase.

“Now!” she yelled.

I leaped to my feet and sprang into the air. Both of my feet connected with the android’s carapace.

It slid over the edge and tumbled head over heels. I watched as it tried to engage its thrusters, but all it succeeded in doing was adding a nasty spiral to its downward tumble. It slammed into the rock wall a couple of times before plummeting into the darkness below.

“Great job, Amelia,” I said. “Now we--

A round ricocheted off my horn. I cried out in agony as my vision went white hot. I fell to the ground behind the basin, my head laying on cold ice as I cradled my injured headgear.

“Oh, jeez, Raxor,” she gasped, crawling over to me. “That must’ve hurt.”

“Is it bad?”

“You’ve got a little notch in your left horn now, but it’s acutely kind of sexy.”

“It hurts like a nightmare,” I groaned. “Listen, Amelia, I think this is it. They’re converging on our position.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” she replied, looking very sad. “Listen to all that gunfire. They’re going crazy shooting at us.”

Oddly, they weren’t hitting much, because our position wasn’t being fired upon. Maybe they thought we were in a different place?

“I love you, Amelia.”

“I love you, too, Raxor.” She gritted her teeth. “Let’s go down shooting.”

“You have a warrior’s spirit, my love.”

We both scrambled to our feet, both of us giving a war cry—

Only to gape in astonishment. The onyx-garbed warriors were being routed by our side. Drayk let loose with his gatling cannon, turning enemies to paste. Irev let loose with his sonic ax, slicing a helmeted head right off its body. Even that smartmouth, Zaen, looked bad ass, wielding a pistol in each hand and hitting almost every shot in spite of this.

Sakor worked his way over to our position, a huge smile on his face.

“Hey, sorry we’re late.”

“Late?” I laughed and hugged him so tight, we both nearly tumbled off the edge. “I’d say your timing was impeccable.”

“No it wasn’t,” Amelia snapped.

Shocked, we both turned to her.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they hogged all the fun,” she said. “Now there’s nothing left for us to kill.”

I looked at her for a long moment, and then I saw her lips twitch to a smile.

“You little minx.” I laughed, sweeping her into my arms. I kissed her right there, even as the battle raged behind us.

Who would’ve thought we’d get out alive?

AMELIA

“It’s so touching,” Taxan said as I lost myself in Raxor’s kiss.

“Look at his technique,” Zaen said with a wistful sigh. “The way he runs his hand down her spine, but doesn’t quite touch her bottom? He could, though, he totally could, and she knows it—”

I sighed in exasperation and pulled away from Raxor.

“You know,” I said, through gritted teeth. “At first I thought this whole thing with you guys wanting to follow us around was cute. Now, I feel like my trigger finger is getting mighty itchy…”

“Hey, we saw how you took down that android,” Irev said. “That was solid work, Amelia.”

“Thanks, Irev,” I said. “At least one of you knows how not to be annoying.”

“Actually, we kind of took it down together,” Raxor said.

Taxan snorted.

“You were the battering ram, the blunt instrument she used to execute her clever plan. Admit it, you could’ve been replaced by a heavy, toppling object and it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

I hid a smile behind my hand as Raxor sputtered.

“Hey,” I said, my eyes going wide. “Hang on for a minute. I need to see that hover platform.”

“Why?”

“I want to know if it has its own anti-gravity drive, or if it hovers by some function of that wacky transport tube.”

“Why’s that important?”

“Because,” I said, grinning at him. Then I went to work dismantling the cover panel of what I hoped was the hover drive engine.

The others talked while I worked, swapping stories to get caught up on each other’s adventures.

“When we saw you go down, Irev refused to let us call off the search,” Sakor said.

“I knew they were still alive,” Irev said firmly.

“Right. So we had to find our own way down, and that took a while. By the time we got down there, you guys were long gone. We found our own way into the undercity.”

“Undercity?”

“Yeah, that’s what Dr. Bill called it.”

“He’s not naming it after himself?”

“Shh, don’t give him any ideas.”

I got the cover panel off at last, and grinned.

“Eureka. We have an independent hover drive.”

“Great, my love,” Raxor said. “Now, why is that important?”

I gave him a grin, and explained my plan. About fifteen minutes and a lot of Vaznik sweat later, I rode the hover platform back to the grotto—with my new Mark Seven Personal Security Android. Okay, secondhand and a little dinged up, but I knew I’d get him working good as new. Or better than new.

We took the tube system back to the surface, where I’d never been so happy to see a cloudy sky before in my life. I hugged Raxor tight and kissed him on the cheek.

“We made it,” I said.

“I told you so.”

“Yes, you did. Thanks for taking care of me down there.”

“I’d say, we took care of each other.” He kissed me, this time on the lips. I felt a giddy warmth envelop me, and melted into his arms.

Jakar listened to the stories we had to tell while he took us back into orbit. The trip up was a lot less harrowing. It was like the weather gave us a little break. I figured we deserved it.

I wanted nothing more than a hot shower and an equally hot meal. Admiral Ausym, on the other hand, had other ideas. He insisted we be brought before him for a full debriefing as soon as we teleported on board.

The ready room was a little crowded, because the whole mess of us were in there. Also along for the ride, was the nine-foot-tall security droid I’d decided to call Humpty. I’d already replaced his gun hands with omni-tool systems, and had plans to install a cappuccino machine in his torso.

“I’m afraid we never laid eyes on Doctor Garcia,” Raxor explained, trying to maintain his stiff, military posture while also looking abashed. “We were able to find the journals, however which were of great help in deciphering the alien language.”

“Unfortunately, we’re no closer to finding out her true motives,” Ausym said, tapping his crop against his open palm. “She could be a victim, or the architect of a mass murder event.”

“I’d like to think she’s not like that,” I said. “But I have to admit, the evidence could point either way. Just because she doesn’t like the person she referred to in the journal as ‘Turk,’ doesn’t mean they weren’t on the same side.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Vrako said with a snicker. “I can’t stand Jakar, but we go on missions together all the time.”

“Really, Vrako? In front of the admiral?” Raxor glared at him until he blanched. Raxor turned his gaze back to the admiral. “It’s my personal belief that even if the good doctor isn’t a victim, she may not be in her right mind.”

“Yes, this Anal as you told me of—”

“Annulus, sir,” Raxor said,.

“Oh, right. Annulus. It sounds like bad news.” His face twisted into a frown. “I’m rather perturbed our enemies have refused to identify themselves, as of yet. What was it we said made for a good criminal organization the other day, Captain Soanzo?”

“Brand recognition?” Soanzo said, a puzzled frown on his pinkish face.

“Brand Recognition,” Ausym said with a snap of his fingers.

“Don’t worry, sir,” Raxor said. “We’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“That’s right.” I turned back to Humpty and patted his carapace. “These guys don’t come cheap, and there’s bound to be a transactional trail we can follow. I have the computer working on tracking down the serial number as we speak.”

“That’s a smart move,” Ausym said. He turned to the others in the room. “The rest of you may go, and a job well done. No, Raxor, you and your match stay a bit.”

The others filed out of the room, and I turned to face the admiral.

“So,” he said. “Have the two of you consummated your union yet?”

Raxor was scandalized. I blushed, but I laughed it off for the most part.

“Yes,” I said.

“Excellent. Raxor, I’m putting you on mandatory leave so you can take this brave young woman on a well-deserved honeymoon.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Raxor turned an eager smile my way. I smiled back.

Yes, I was definitely glad I went to space.

RAXOR

“Why’re we going to the commissary for dinner instead of one of the restaurants on the Honor’s Blade?” I turned to the side so a group of armored Vaznik could hustle past. There were troop restructurings going on throughout the three ships, leading to a tremendous bustle of activity.

Which meant going to the commissary, which was likely to be crowded and overrun with new recruits, made even less sense to me.

“Because I said so.” Amelia turned around and stuck her tongue out at me.

“That—that—” That was something I had no argument against.

We turned the last curving corridor and arrived at the commissary. The doors slid open, but curiously, it was dark inside.

“Is there an issue with power reaching this section?” I asked with a scowl. I reached inside the door and slapped the wall, looking for the light switch. Despite the fact it should’ve been right there, I had a maddeningly, ridiculously hard time finding it.

Cursing under my breath, I finally struck the light switch and the illumination levels returned to standard parameters. My mouth dropped open when I saw the commissary packed with my brethren, friends, and Dr. Bill, too. Unfortunately.

A big banner hung from the rafters, reading Congratulations Raxor.

“It’s your promotion party,” Amelia stood up on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek. “I thought it’d be fun to surprise you.”

“Well, I’m certainly surprised,” I said with a laugh, regretting my earlier, grumpy attitude. “Thank you all so much.”

Drayk approached me and slapped my arm with his big hand.

“You deserve this, Raxor. Just remember, while your butt’s getting used to that cushy command chair, I’ll be out in the field earning glory and honor.”

“Ha, someday, they’ll get you in their trap, too.” I cocked an eyebrow. “When the admiral takes you aside and says ‘you know what an organization growing as fast as ours needs the most?’, you know you’re screwed.”

“Listen to this guy, he never stops complaining.”

I turned around and found a blue-skinned Vaznik standing before me, his arm around a human woman.

“Kavok, Helena,” I said. “Back from your honeymoon, I see.”

“We got back just in time to hear the good news. Great job, Raxor. From the sound of things, you were an even more successful commander than I was.”

“To be honest,” I said, turning to smile at Amelia. “I’d have died a dozen times over, if not for Amelia. Her brains kept us alive as much as my brawn.”

Amelia took my arm and pressed herself against me, smiling a giddy smile. I’d just said the right thing, apparently, but all I’d done was tell the truth. It just didn’t feel right not to acknowledge Amelia’s part in the whole affair.

Kavok gestured over at the buffet table they’d spread out.

“I told them you liked Trellian squid cakes, so they got a triple order. You’d better hurry before Sakor sees them, though, or you might not get any.”

“Oh, I’ll make him pay if that happens.”

Our laughter died down, and Kavok got a serious expression on his face.

“Have you considered who’ll be your replacement yet?”

“Oh, yeah,” Amelia said. “Did you ever make up your mind?”

“I did.” My lips became a thin, tight line. “I just hope he doesn’t hate my guts.”

I noticed my target sitting at a table and excused myself. I sat down opposite him and fixed him with my gaze.

“Irev,” I said.

“Raxor.” He set down the computer pad he’d been studying and nodded at me. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. I guess you probably know why I’m here, right?”

“Your mate tricked you into thinking you were having dinner at the commissary?”

I shook my head.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

Irev’s nose twitched. “I hoped you’d take the hint. I’m a scout and a soldier, not a leader.”

“I disagree, and so does the admiral. You’ve committed an unpardonable sin, Irev. You’ve shown yourself to be too competent for your own good. When that happens, they try to promote you.”

“Well,” Irev said, sipping his ale. “I guess I’d hate to give up the search for Doctor Garcia when we’re so close.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“And if I’m in charge, I can order Vrako to shut his mouth.”

“Yes, you can.”

“And I can require that everyone wear one of those fancy, powdered wigs Kavok keeps going on about.”

“Yes, you—what?”

Irev chuckled. “And you guys say I don’t have a sense of humor.”

I laughed.

“The team is in good hands, Irev. Just watch your step with those armored guys. They keep busting out new gear every time we run into them.”

“I’ll be careful, Raxor. Maybe I’ll avoid losing my whole team the way you and Kavok did for half the mission.”

“Yeah—hey.”

He laughed and slapped me on the arm.

“Congratulations again. I’m going to go have some squid cake before that glutton, Sakor, has a go at them.”

I watched him move off. Already, he stood taller than before. Yes, that’s the effect command has on you. Not to mention, I think he just cracked his first joke in his entire life.

It occurred to me that Zaen would have to watch his mouth with the human Your Mother jokes now, because Irev could put him on report.

Amelia rejoined me, encircling her arm around my waist and leaning her head on my shoulder.

“Congratulations, honey.”

“Thank you. I consider this to be a far lesser achievement than winning your heart, however.”

“You just keep up that sweet talk on our honeymoon,” she said with a wink. “See what happens to you.”

Did she expect that to be a determent?

AMELIA

The smooth, warm, lavender sand squished between my toes as I strolled across the beach. I looked down the length of my arm at Raxor. His orange skin shone in the twin suns overhead, stretched taut over his rippling, catlike muscles. He turned his horned head out to sea, watching as the teal-hued waves rolled in. Pink foam frothed up onto the beach before washing back out to sea.

“I’ve never seen so many islands. Everywhere you look, there’s another one.”

I turned around and pursed my lips at him.

“Raxor,” I said, my tone gaining an edge. “You’re here on a private beach in a tropical paradise, your wife is wearing the most obscenely small swimsuit available at The Bazaar, and you want to look at the islands?”

He closed his mouth, eyes going wide in shock. He knew he’d fucked up.

“You have a point, my love.” He ran his gaze up and down my body. I adored the way he looked at me.

I tugged him to our beach bungalow and into the shade of its lightweight roof. Inside, our luggage sat undisturbed beside the huge, circular bed.

“Well, what do you want to do first?” I asked. “Swimming, snorkeling, maybe take the jet skis out—”

His big hand grabbed me at the small of my back. I yelped as he pulled me in tight against him. His mouth fell on mine. Raxor kissed me hard, deep, and true. I moaned into his mouth as he lashed his tongue against mine. The air filled with the smack of our lips and my soft cries.

I felt his cock twitch against me. I wriggled into him, enjoying the way the hardness grew and grew. His swimsuit wasn’t much more than a Speedo. Our skin rubbed together, and it felt nice, but not quite enough.

Raxor’s hand picked at the string of my bikini. The knot at the middle of my back came free, and the garment lay loose on my shoulders.

I pushed away from him and lifted the tiny garment from my body. I tossed it away, grabbing him by the horns. He gasped, his eyes fluttering closed as I stroked them with sensuous caresses.

He leaned his face into my breasts. His breath came warm and wonderful against my skin as he enveloped my nipple in his mouth. I continued to stroke his horns, soft moans escaping my mouth as he plied his lips and tongue over my sensitive skin.

His hand slid down the small of my back, fingers curving inward to the groove of my ass. My moans mingled with the crashing surf as he grasped my cheek firmly. He pulled my cheeks apart, letting the thin fabric of my suit floss itself through my pussy.

Raxor kissed and teased my breasts with his mouth, his teeth occasionally sinking into my nipple just right. I cried out, clasping his face to my chest, as he flicked the tip of his tongue over my dentally restrained nipple.

His fingers undid the knots on the hips of the string-bikini bottom. Raxor dragged the triangle of soft fabric through my dripping wet pussy, slowly removing it in the most teasing, agonizing way possible.

I cried out, coming as the long string worked its way through my crotch.

At last, I was naked against him. I rubbed myself all over his skin as he jerked at his Speedos. I pulled away and smiled up at him, grabbing the waistband and tugging down.

I slowly pulled his shorts down, and his cock sprang into view. I instantly licked the tip, long and hard, even as I kept moving his shorts down.

His muscular legs threaded out of the garment, and I felt his hand on the back of my head. I licked the crown of his cock like a lollipop,

“Oh, Amelia,” he gasped. “You’re so perfect, Amelia.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls who rub their faces on your cock.” Speaking of which, I stroked my lips along the side of his shaft. He shuddered, a bead of moisture appearing on the top of his rod.

I opened my mouth and enveloped his cock, just the tip. I looked him in the eye as I did so, enjoying the sublime look of pleasure in his eyes. It was as if he constantly questioned what he’d done to get this lucky.

I knew the feeling. The golden threads wound around us, forming a warm aura making me want to be sweet and dirty all at the same time.

I gripped his shaft and stroked my hand along its perfect length, my finger squishing a big, pulsing vein. I took most of his length, choking a little for my Raxor.

He cried out and released into my mouth. I pulled off him, smiling up at his orgasm face. Raxor sat down heavily on the bed, apparently lightheaded.

“Oh man, I didn’t kill you, did I?” I crawled on top of him. “Raxor? Oh no, I’d better give you mouth to cock resuscitation.”

He laughed and grabbed me in his arms. I squealed as he easily wrestled me beneath his muscular bulk.

“You’re a wonder,” he sighed, before kissing me hard. Then he held my head to his chest with his powerful grip, holding me desperately. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

I clung to him with all four limbs, feeling nurtured and appreciated and loved. I also felt like I hadn’t got to come yet. That couldn’t be tolerated.

Apparently, Raxor agreed. Or, he read my mind. He kissed me again, his lips moving down in a molten trail to my neck.

“Oh, God,” I moaned as he suckled hard on my nipple. His fingers wormed their way between my swollen pussy lips and nestled inside.

“My turn,” he mumbled into my flesh, kissing his way down, down, down.

RAXOR

Amelia’s scent washed through my nostrils, mingling with the smell of sand and surf as I traced circles around her navel with my tongue. She let out a soft moan, her back arching, pressing her soft belly into my lips.

“Amelia,” I sighed into her warm, pliant flesh. I kissed her beside her navel, moving my lips down below. She shivered, goosebumps rising on her skin as I traced my tongue along the sensitive area.

The scent of her dripping wet pussy intoxicated me. I moved over to her inner thighs, tantalizing us both by not allowing my mouth to touch her pussy. Not yet.

Her nimble fingers caressed my horns. I gasped as pleasure pulsed through my veins. I moved my mouth over to her outer labia. Turning my cheek, I latched onto her pussy lips with my mouth.

“Oh, God,” she cried, her grip on my horns tightening. I noisily suckled all the juices off her skin, exulting in how good she tasted.

I pulled my face out, stretching her skin. A spurt of pussy juice shot out of her clenching inner lips and dashed down my chin. I pulled until her lip popped out of my mouth wetly.

I kissed and mumbled my way over to her opposite labia, giving it the same treatment. I loved being enveloped in her musky, aroused scent. My fingers joined the fray, hooking into her pink tunnel and then tugging down, exposing her even more to my attention.

She let out a piercing scream as I worked my fingers in deeper and turned my lips on her clit. I enveloped it with my mouth, my tongue sliding and caressing the little lady. I felt her fingers grasp my horns with renewed desperation. I slurped on her clit, sucking hard, my fingers worming and stretching their way inside of her.

Amelia thrust her pelvis in the air, smashing her pussy on my face. Her long, undulating cry died down and she flopped onto the round bed. Panting like a landed fish, she jerked and spasmed as aftershocks ran through her body.

I lifted my face from her pussy, dripping with her juices. I licked my lips to get every last drop and then knelt on the bed between her thighs.

Her eyes opened halfway, glassy with desire and her recent climax. When she saw my cock, standing at attention and dripping with moisture, she whimpered and spread her legs wider.

“You want to feel me inside of you, don’t you Amelia?”

“Oh, yes, my love. Please, I want it so bad.”

“Then here it is.”

I pushed the crown between her swollen pussy lips. My eyes squeezed shut at the exquisite pleasure of feeling her tight, slick walls envelop my rod. I slowly worked my way inside, but she was slippery, hot, and wide open for me. I easily went in until my balls gently slapped her body.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, hooking one leg around my back. Her hands twisted in the sheets, yanking them free from the mattress. We make ships that fly to distant stars, but we can’t make fitted sheets that stand up to Vaznik-human lovemaking. Go figure.

I tried to think about the sheets rather than how much I wanted to blow my wad. I ached to fill her with my seed. Her pussy felt so good around my cock, it almost hurt with hardness.

I thrust into her, driving her deeper into the mattress with my weight. A guttural moan flew from her mouth. She wrapped her legs around my back and pulled me into her, her nails raking down my shoulders.

“Oh, God,” she groaned through clenched teeth. “I’m so full. Slower, slower, baby, but deeper.”

“Like this?” I slowed my rhythm, but I leaned into her until my cock simply couldn’t penetrate any deeper. She let out a long moan and nodded her head, eyes squeezed shut.

“Oh, perfect,” she cried as I continued the long, slow, deep, gliding thrusts. I felt her pussy clamp down on me like a vice, and I couldn't hold back any longer.

My mouth flew open in a cry as I came hard, shooting her full of my seed. I shivered on top of her, letting go of everything I had.

And still, somehow, I wanted more.

I rolled over onto my back, putting her on top. Her lips stretched into a wide grin. She planted her hands on my chest, fingers kneading the muscle there. Amelia rocked her hips forward and I moaned in delight. It felt so good to have her ride my cock.

Her soft thighs felt amazing on either side of me, and I had the best possible view of her breasts as they danced and shook and bounced right in my face. I realized whatever Gods there were surely must have favored me, because there was no Vaznik who could’ve been luckier than I was.

I came inside of her again as she thrashed about atop me like a woman possessed. I eased us over onto our sides and kept up the slapping of my hips into her body until she came again. She screamed into my chest, clinging to me with all of her limbs like a swimmer clinging to a rock in a storm-tossed sea.

We lay there panting as the surf rolled in outside. I watched sunlight trace shadows along her lovely, supple skin, made all the more beautiful by a sheen of sweat.

“I love you,” I sighed into her mane of silken hair

“I love you, too, Raxor.” She rested her cheek on my chest and I stroked her mane softly.

There are few perfect moments to be had in the galaxy, and that was one of them.

EPILOGUE: RAXOR

I bent low to pick up a long, chrome cylinder, as long as I was tall. I slung it over my shoulder and straightened up. My hand just fit around the cylinder, which happened to be a drivetrain from a motorized land vehicle.

Amelia was able to safely move beneath the drivetrain, given our different heights. She ducked down below and dug through the junk pile, using thick leather gloves to protect her hands.

“I know I saw a fan shroud from a mini shuttle in here somewhere the other day.”

“Maybe they sold it?”

“No way, nobody else would want that piece of junk. They just dumped a bunch more stuff on it—oh, hey, what do we have here?”

She sat down on a pile of junk and closely examined a dirt-encrusted circuit board balanced across her palm. Amelia took a small monocle out of her tool belt and squinted her eye around it.

“Let’s see here…oh, yeah, it’s a Paradigm Industries intake relay switch. I’ll just add that to the wagon.”

I grinned as she tossed it over onto the hover wagon, already laden with piles of stuff from the other scrap heaps we’d hit that day. True, there were other ways we could’ve spent our honeymoon—besides the obvious answer—but few of them would’ve made her as happy as she was now.

I lived to see Amelia happy. It was, as her people would say, a ‘no-minder’ to make the decision I did.

“Hey,” she said, “put the drivetrain on the wagon and give me a hand lifting this fusion block. I think I saw the fan shroud under here the other day.”

I turned around with my awkward burden and set it down on the hover wagon. Of course it was much too long to fit, and tried to roll off the end. Eventually, I turned to the proprietor and leaned the drive train against the wall of his stall.

“Can you have that delivered to the machine shop on deck eighteen?”

I went over to Amelia’s side and bent low. I grabbed the edge of the block and lifted it out of her way.

“There we are, come to momma.”

She dragged the fan shroud out. It had a vaguely half-circle shape and appeared to have the buttresses broken off. There’d be no easy way to anchor it in place, so I assumed it had an artistic, rather than esoteric, function.

“Say,” she said, pursing her lips as she stared up at me. “You look thirsty. Want to grab something to drink?”

“I’d be delighted.”

We paid the proprietor for the parts—junk—we loaded onto the wagon and then moved across the avenue to where a juice drink merchant had set up. His stand was completely open air, so to speak. You could do that on a starship like Honor.

We settled into a table with our drinks. I reached out and used my thumb to gently wipe away a smudge of grease from her cheek.

“You’re so sweet,” she said, batting her eyes at me. She gave me a look suggesting we’d get back to the more obvious honeymoon activities soon enough. We had a mission to achieve, however, one I’d had in mind since our first date.

Feeling refreshed, we took the hover cart up to the eighteenth deck, entering the machine shop where Plagus reigned supreme.

Our station waited for us, clean and with a power block adjacent. Amelia had plenty of ports to plug her power tools into. I was pleased to find the drivetrain lay against the wall near our station.

“I saw two humans struggling to carry that in here,” Plagus called over his shoulder. “It was quite amusing.”

“This lightweight thing?” I picked it up and put it through a few spin moves like it was a staff.

“Hey, if you break my horns, I’m going to be very upset with you.”

I chuckled and set it back down.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Less talk, more work. Get your ass over here and help me.”

I laughed and went to join her. We assembled a new sculpture, in the same vein as the first. This one, however, was a quadruped.

Being a quadruped, it was much more stable than the other. Which was a good thing, because the drive train was sliced in half and then sharpened into three separate horns—and they were heavy.

“Turn the fan shroud just a bit more to the left,” she said. I moved it as directed. “Hmm. Maybe we should paint it first? I just feel like the bone plate should be the same color as the horns.”

“Do you want me to take it back off?”

“No, no…I think I like the industrial feel. Maybe turn it to the right just a bit…okay, that looks good.”

I used a power coupler to solder the fan shroud—excuse me, I mean bony protective plate—back into place.

“How does that look?”

“Perfect.”

We went to work buffing out the jagged edges, and adding a gleam of machine metal to protect it from the moisture it’d certainly encounter in the green deck.

Where it’d reside right next to the T-Rex.

“I think it’s a lovely triceratops,” I said.

“How would you know? You’ve never seen one.”

“Neither have you.”

“Touché.” She grinned ear to ear, throwing herself into my arms. She smashed her mouth on top of my own, and I kissed her tender and deep.

“Um, I’ll just—I’ll just finish this later.”

Plagus set down his tools and moved toward the door. He grabbed the collar of another Vaznik and dragged them out in his wake.

“I love you,” I sighed.

“I love you, too. Will you make love to me?”

I caressed her cheek with my palm.

“Always and forever.”

* * *

Next up? Irev, book three of the Xiltri Sector Warriors.

Click here to get it now!

The mystery of the Xiltri Sector deepens, but nothing could prepare Irev for the enigma that is his mate.

She's been ripped from her life.

Surely she wouldn't want to stay with an alien warrior, would she?

Despite the demands of his blood, he'll stay safely away. Respectful.

Until danger and desire overwhelm them, and all bets are off.

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XOXO,

AVA

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OPENING MOVE: THE ALIEN GAMES

This surly, arrogant giant blue gladiator says he needs me to survive. Say what?

I've been ripped away from Earth to play a lethal alien game.

If we win, we get our freedom.

But my sister won't make it out alive.

My alien partner is a savage wall of muscle. But with every dangerous obstacle in our path, I'm beginning to see a different side of him hidden behind the violence.

He's brave. Unexpectedly sweet. And soon its not just the effort of winning the game that has me hot and bothered...

Read this hot alien abduction romance and let the games begin!

Welcome to the Alien Games! Each book features a HEA for the couple, but please note -- there's an overarching storyline that carries through all five books!

Click here to get it now!

ROGUE MATE

Science fiction romance is the destination of the Rogue Star…. Hop on board!

Our rescuers are a group of pirates. Or smugglers. They're not exactly answering questions, either.

More importantly, they're giant, golden skinned aliens...

And their rogue of a captain seems very interested in the little human commander.

Me.

Rogue Mate is the first in the Rogue Star science fiction alien romance series. Click now to start the adventure!

KAZAN

A mate is the last thing on my mind.

Especially one as sassy as the human female they say is my match.

Even if her lush curves call for my touch, and her fiery spirit is equal to my own.

I will endure the thirty days demanded by the Protocol.

But with every look, every word, I can feel us bound closer together.

Will I be able to leave her, even for her own safety?

Kazan is the first book of the Jorkan Protocol Mates. Click now to spend the night with this perfect steamy, funny science fiction romance escape. There's no cheating, and a guaranteed HEA for each alien warrior and his mate!

Copyright © 2022 by Ava York

All rights reserved. These books or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the Author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.