DRAYK

XILTRI SECTOR WARRIORS: BOOK FOUR

AVA YORK

STARR HUNTRESS

CONTENTS

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

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Drayk

Epilogue: Drayk

Are you a STARR HUNTRESS?

Opening Move: The Alien Games

Rogue Mate

MAREN

Sunlight glinted off the humped backs of waves crawling toward the beach. I dug my painted toes into the white sand and sighed. The sun felt good, drying the ocean water from my skin.

“So, how was surfing, babe?”

I tugged my sunglasses down a notch and stared blankly at Blake Whitely. I’d met the guy in an Oral Interpretation of Alien Literature class, freshman year, and I’d had the misfortune of bumping into him in Cabo.

He’d thought it was a great idea to spread his beach blanket next to mine. I certainly hadn’t asked him to. He also hadn’t bothered to ask me how I felt about being stuck in his company, either.

I’d hoped the Mawkwil who’d taught me to surf would return soon, but it looked like he was in his element, catching the tastiest curls as they rolled toward the beach.

Anyway, back to Blake. The vacancy in his blue eyes and a slack jaw indicated he didn’t understand the purpose of my pointed stare.

“Babe?”

My voice held the flavor of a scratched record, oncoming train, and the pre-collision squeal of tires, all frozen as solid as a misbegotten school liquid nitrogen experiment.

“Huh? Oh, it, uh, it just kind of slipped out. Funny, huh?” He scratched behind his head and laughed. He could peel paint with that stupid, forced giggle. It grated on my nerves. My eyes rolled hard before I got them back under control.

“I need a drink.”

I got up and shuffled through the sand, leaving the bewildered Blake behind. I watched seagulls swoop and dive through the air, attacking a crying kid’s hot dog with precise grace. I cringed, feeling bad for the kid, but their mom ran in to the fray to defend him and I tried to forget memories of trying to feed random geese as a child.

I got into line at the small bar on the sand. Little more than a few boards nailed together around a butane grill and painted in shades of pastel, it was the perfect place to mingle with other college kids.

Some of them took gap years, like me while others lived here full time, working in the resorts and space ports.

The bartender turned out to be this Kimicusian I’d been on the volleyball team with, the one semester I played. She beamed a smile as I bellied up to the bar.

“Hey, Maren, right?”

“Maren, it is. Jani?”

“Jani, it is, Maren-it-is.” We laughed, more because we were happy to see each other than over her joke actually being that funny. “Did you get your biology degree yet?”

“Um, no, I actually switched majors to paleontology.”

“That sounds awesome.”

“Yeah, I thought so, too. But… it got kind of boring after a while, so I switched to computer programming.”

“There’s an industry that’s recession proof.”

“Yeah, but then I changed majors again—” I laughed. “Look, we’ll be at this all night and there’s a line. I should probably get my drink and we can catch up after you get off work.”

“I already know what you want. An amaretto sour, right?”

“No, I’m drinking white Russians these days.”

As she went to mix my drink, I felt someone jostle me from behind.

“Hey, what gives…”

My voice trailed off as I looked up in the sky and saw a Vaznik scout ship descending. The other gawkers had backed away from its intended landing zone, which was why I’d been jostled. The door opened up and one of the horned, gigantic Vaznik stepped out. He appeared sort of harried to me.

His gaze swiveled about, falling upon me. The crowd readily parted for him as he made his way over.

“Are you Maren Hayes?”

“Um, depends, do I owe you money?”

He just looked at me, deadpan and inscrutable.

“Um…that was a joke. I’m Maren Hayes.”

He thrust a sealed package out toward me.

“I’m to deliver this to you. Congratulations on being matched.”

He bowed, deep and respectful, turning on his heel and striding back to the ship with a decidedly military attitude.

“I wonder what this is?” I said.

“Oh, honey,” Jani said, clucking her tongue in sympathy, “you’ve been matched.”

“Impossible, I got my birthday cup a long time ago.”

I opened up the envelope and saw the official seal on it...

“Oh, shit.” My belly sank down into my feet. “I’ve been matched.”

“Well, it’s not the end of the world. I mean, a free trip to space? It could be fun.”

A sly grin stretched across Maren’s face.

“I certainly never heard of a Vaznik warrior being bad in bed, either.”

“Like a test drive…”

Maren and I laughed, then I gasped in sudden realization. I’d sought to take a gap year before settling on a major—and this time, I wouldn’t change my mind.

What better way to take a gap year than going to space?

I felt my anxiety slipping away, replaced by a sense of anticipation.

“I’m going on an adventure.” I thrust my hands in the air. “Woo hoo!”

“Hey, Miss Adventure,” Blake said snidely. “Want to get your drink and move out of the way?”

Jani’s eyes narrowed. She stepped out from behind the bar, towering over Blake. Kimicusians are known for being natural warriors. Blake knew she’d crush his head without breaking a sweat.

“You’d better speak to this woman with more respect. In fact, you better speak to all of your Earth women with more respect. They’re the ones putting their bodies and lives up on the sacrificial altar so you can remain safe from the Suhlik.”

Jani looked around the crowd as Blake gulped and practically melted.

“Three cheers for Miss Adventure, here!”

The crowd took up the cheer, and I felt a blush come to my cheeks.

“Aw, shucks, guys,” I said. “It’s only a year. And who knows, maybe I’ll even like the guy.”

I drank for free, thanks to Jani, so I got plastered that night. It was well after noon when I finally rose from my hotel room bed and stumbled into the bathroom. After a long, hot soak in the hot tub, and generous amounts of bottled water, I felt much refreshed.

I hummed a tune while packing up my things. I slipped on a pair of cutoff shorts and slipped a blousy white shirt over my bikini top. A pair of flip flops, big sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed hat completed my look.

The Vaznik teleporter was located a short distance from my hotel, and conveniently next to a bar. I ordered a margarita to go, and headed into the teleportation center.

“Hi,” I said, my hover-luggage traveling along smoothly behind me. I had seventeen pieces in all.

Thank goodness I’d traveled light.

“I’m supposed to show you this, I think?”

The Vaznik behind the counter looked older, with light blue skin and horns knobby and yellowed with age. His face lit up when he saw my papers.

“Welcome, little one. You’ll do your mate proud”

“Um, according to the treaty, I have to spend a year with him. I don’t…um, I mean, I’m not…well, anything could happen, I guess.”

“That’s the spirit!”

He ushered me over to the teleportation pad as the Pina Colada song came on over the lobby speakers.

“Oh, I love this song.” I danced onto the teleportation pad, my luggage following me. Zark!

DRAYK

I lifted the mug of frothy, ice cold ale to my lips. The golden fluid spilled down my throat, cooler than a melting glacier. Then the burn kicked in, and I gasped with satisfaction as I set it down on the table.

“You’ve outdone yourself, this time, Rikov. This is the best batch you’ve made yet.”

“I can’t take all the credit. Vrako stood around uselessly while I worked in the microbrewery.”

Laughter burbled up around the tavern table. Vrako scowled, unhappy at being the butt of the joke.

“Fuck you. I helped.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “I didn’t hear you guys complaining when I took down the Queen’s Brood smuggler who had us pinned in that tunnel.”

“That was a hell of a shot, Vrako.” I was in charge now, I had to remember to keep morale up. “Where was that again? On the derelict ship in that uncharted system?”

“No, it was at the dig site on Yimïk VI. Next to the Hep Tháblois Bouhek Research Center.”

“Oh, right.” I nodded. “Where this whole mess started.”

My face twisted into a grimace.

“All those dead researchers…it seems so excessive. The smugglers couldn’t have rounded them up and locked them in a storage room or something, instead?”

Rikov nodded.

“I agree wholeheartedly. That was gruesome. And we still don’t know exactly what happened.”

“The only people who know are the smugglers themselves. And Dr. Garcia.”

Vrako snorts.

“I’m telling you, she’s in cahoots with them. That, or she’s gone stark-raving mad. Have you tried to read the ramblings the translator circuits have managed to decipher from her journals?”

“Yes, talking about giant spaceships the size of a continent, and all of that.” I sighed. “But remember Garcia writes her journals in a code only she can truly understand.”

“Why the code, though?”

“Many scientists and scholars choose to write in code so others won’t steal their work or research.” I shrugged. “I’m just a soldier, so I don’t get it either, but it’s evidently a thing, especially with humans. Also, if she’s a prisoner of the smugglers, she might be trying to hide her findings from them. We don’t know for sure either way.”

“I do know I can’t wait to kick some of those smuggler’s asses again.” Rikov popped his knuckles and grinned. “You’re bringing me along this time, right guys?”

“We’re down a squad member, so you’re in,” I said, remembering Irev had been promoted, just like Kavok and Raxor before him.

“Yes. Now honor and glory will be mine.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. For all we know, the smugglers went somewhere hostile and are all dead.” I shrugged. “We have no idea what to expect.”

My comm unit buzzed. I growled, annoyed they’d called me on my off duty time.

Of course, as we Vaznik liked to say, there’s no such thing as being off duty.

“Drayk here. What’s the situation?”

“Admiral Ausym wants you to report to his office, immediately.”

The admiral? My blood ran cold.

“Acknowledged. I’m on my way now.”

I took a sprig of tharya and crushed it up in my fingers before rubbing it on my tongue.

“Do I look sober enough for a meeting with the admiral?”

“No,” Rikov said at the same time as Vrako said, “Yes.”

“Thanks, assholes.” I headed out of the tavern and raced to the teleportation pad. The admiral’s office was a stone’s throw from the bridge.

As the lift took me toward the upper decks, I wondered what the admiral might want. If it was something to do with the mission, it’d be a lot more likely that one of the captains would’ve spoken with me.

I paused outside of his office and tried my best to compose myself. Then I took a deep breath and strode in with my best, crispest military manner.

“Reporting as ordered, Admiral,” I said, clapping my fist to my chest and then holding it toward him in the standard fleet salute.

The admiral’s eyes glittered with amusement, set deep in his venerable face.

“Relax, Drayk, this isn’t a dressing down.” He gestured to one of the two seats opposite his floating desk. “Please, be seated.”

I was military, so I did what I was told. I settled into the seat and tried to maintain my stiff posture.

“What is this about, sir, if I may ask?”

“Good news, Drayk. You’ve been matched up with a human female.”

I frowned.

“There’s some mistake, sir. I never signed up for the program.”

“I know, I took the liberty of signing you up myself.”

I felt like something very hard hit me directly in my brain. My mind imagined a loud metallic clank accompanying the sensation and I knew, beyond doubt, my life was about to get…interesting.

“But…why?”

Why’d you do this to me?

Admiral Ausym stood up and came around to sit on the edge of the desk, showing an informal side I hadn’t known he had.

“Drayk, you’ve been most impressive. I’ve read all the mission reports, and every one of the sortie commanders have pointed out your exemplary performance. Plus, look at you. You’re a specimen, there’s no doubt. All-Fleet Wrestling Champion, two years running, am I right?”

“Three years, sir.”

“See? It’s a waste not to sign you up for the program?”

I swallowed. My mind imagined the slamming of a cell door. There’d be no going back now.

“If I may, sir, when is my match going to arrive?”

“Any minute now.” He grinned and put his hands on my shoulders. “Now, go get her!”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Leaping to my feet, I snapped off my crispest salute and marched out of there. My mind reeled with confusion.

How’d this happen? What even just happened? Does it make any sense to you, Mind? I guess if it did, it’d make sense to me, too…

I’d begun my day thinking I knew what to expect of it.

Now I’ve been thrown what the humans refer to as a Curvy Ball. I mean, all balls curve, it’s kind of what makes them balls, but the humans say it a lot when something unexpected happens. According to Professor Grxxxzlurp Ah, the Human Women’s Studies 201 course I took.

The admiral had signed me up for the DNA program, and I’d matched.

I matched…

My world was about to change in ways I never could have anticipated.

And part of me was scared out of my mind.

MAREN

The teleporter proved every bit as painless as I’d been told it’d be. One brief flash of light, a buzzing sound raising the hackles on the back of my neck, and then, voila. There I was, standing on an alien spaceship.

So many new sensations flooded me, I hardly took it all in. Not at once, at least. First of all, the air smelled different. Not bad, not foul or fetid or rotting, but different.

Reminds me of my Odor-Based Languages Awareness course. That classroom had been hidden away in the deepest bowels of the university’s campus in a rat-hole of a converted storage room in the sub basement…recycled and artificial.

Second, the teleportation chamber on the starship looked totally different from the center down on Cabo. Here, everything looked familiar, yet alien. I recognized things like control panels for the overhead lights, and a computer terminal, but they took on different forms my mind had taken a moment to adjust to.

Everything was also obviously designed for beings taller than the average human. The memory of staring at the cookies hidden on the highest shelf as a child haunted me for a moment, before I banished it from my mind with the wave of a hand.

As my eyes adjusted from the bright flash, bringing more of the room into focus. I saw a Vaznik warrior with purple skin and long, curling horns watching me with curiosity, and perhaps a bit of reverence.

Iffy…that could be fear or well-suppressed terror.

He wasn’t alone. Several other Vaznik clustered around the pad, all of them looking as if they wanted to speak to me, but couldn’t think of what to say or whether or not speaking or what they may say would be appropriate.

“Um, hey guys. Just a second.”

I checked myself over. My head didn’t appear to be on backwards, nor were my guts on the outside of my body. I felt normal and whole. Well, not normal. One can’t step onto the deck of an alien starship for the first time and feel normal.

“What’re you doing?” the purple-skinned one dared to ask.

“Making sure the teleporter didn’t put me back together weird.”

“Oh, yeah,” said a red-skinned Vaznik. His face split in a grin. “I heard about the guy who came out of a teleporter with his eyes facing backward, but you look fine to me.”

Purple Vaznik elbowed red Vaznik in the ribs.

“What? She does! Everything seems to be in the right place.”

“Shut your mouth, Zaen.”

“Oh, no, poor guy, what happened to him?”

The Vaznik warriors stopped bumping each other with their shoulders and turned giant smiles on me. Red spoke before Purple could figure out what to say.

“Who?”

“The guy with the eyes.”

Red Vaznik waved off my concerns.“Don’t worry about him. He’s put it all behind him now.”

Purple shook his head and turned to me, offering his hand. “Never mind Zaen. He thinks he’s amusing enough to be in a comedy holo-opera. I’m Rikov. Welcome to the Honor’s Blade.”

“Thanks, Rikov. My name’s Maren.” I looked around. “So, is there, like, a concierge? I need to stow my bags, and is there a gym on board?”

I patted my belly.

“Somebody’s been hitting the French-toast strudel a little bit hard this weekend, if you catch my drift.”

They all tilted their heads and looked confused, like a pack of dogs who didn’t know what to make of something new. Or a bunch of deer, with all those horns.

Do deer have horns or antlers? Well, I knew there’d be some cultural snafus here and there.

“Um, anyway…is one of you my mate?”

“Oh, no, not any of us.” Rikov said. “None of us are so honored. Your match should be here shortly.”

“I see.” I scrutinized them carefully.

I think deer have antlers. Cows, then. Cows have horns. Oh! Antelope have horns!

I detected a whiff of ale on their breath. They wore their uniform shirts open. I figured they probably weren’t on duty.

“So, I hear the Explorer-class starships have an entire shopping mall on board. Is that true?”

I put on my best wide-eyed-don’t-you-want-to-spoil-me expression and clasped my hands around my to-go margarita.

“Yes, it’s totally true.” Rikov bobbed his head up and down. “Actually, it’s more like several malls put together.”

“That sounds huge.”

Zaen laughed.

“This ship is huge. It’s practically a nation unto itself.”

“That’s so cool.” I cocked my eyebrow. “So, what’s the best place to have fun?”

“It depends on your idea of fun.” Rikov shrugged. “One of our shipmates, Kavok, wound up matched with a human woman who thought scrap yards were the epitome of fun.”

“I’m not quite that eclectic, but she sounds fun. I mean, I’d invite her to a party. Oooh, art parties are the best! Anyway, I’m looking for somewhere with music and dancing. And a little booze.”

“How about a lot of booze?” Zaen laughed. “You totally need to check out Bob and Gyphlphormanchu’s night club. I think you’d have a great time.”

“Maybe you like virtual reality sims?” A blue-skinned Vaznik stepped forward. “Jakar at your service. Best pilot in the fleet.”

“Oh, wow, really?”

“Yeah! I’d love to show you, sometime…”

“No, not really, he just says that.” A yellow Vaznik shouldered his way to the front of the group. “Greetings, I’m Vrako. I taught the guy you were matched with everything he knows.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Vrako…”

“Oh, now who’s a boastful braggart?” Jakar demanded.

“You are. Still,” Vrako replied.

“Hey, guys, make way,” Rikov shouted. “Here comes Drayk.”

The Vaznik parted like the Red Sea before Moses. I looked past them to see a green-skinned behemoth making his way across the teleportation pad room.

Good grief. I’ve been matched with Godzilla.

All the Vaznik were huge, near seven-foot-tall hulking specimens, but this guy took the cake. Hell, he took the entire bakery. He was hard to take in all at once, he was so huge.

The face beneath his curling horns proved devastatingly handsome. I found my pulse quickening. I salivated like I smelled sizzling bacon and knew I was gonna have to wait for it.

I don’t normally insta-drool over men, but this guy was an exception.

Like all of the Vaznik, his uniform shirt left his arms and part of his chest bare. Also like them, his body sported curling tattoos in what humans would think of as a tribal pattern. I found myself smiling as he stepped up before me.

He stood awkwardly before me, fidgeting a bit as if he didn’t know what to do or say. His awkwardness didn’t make me want to shun him. Far from it, it humanized him—if you’ll pardon the phrase in this case. I found he was a real person and not just a walking wall of muscle.

“Greetings and salutations,” he said, stiff as a board, offering a bow of his head. “I’m Drayk. Welcome to the Honor’s Blade, and if there’s anything you can do for me…that is, if there’s anything I can do to you…for you…don’t hesitate to ask.”

I stared at him for a moment, mouth agape, wondering if I’d ever heard anyone deliver a speech with such dedication to a monotone before. He looked mortified.

I laughed and held my hand out for a shake.

“Relax, Drayk. You’re too big to be this awkward. You’ll make people freak out. Anyone the size of a hovercar who’s this nervous terrifies the rest of us. Try breathing.”

He frowned, not knowing how to take my reply. He reached forward and took my hand, though, or tried to.

His fingertips brushed across my palm, and the most magical thing happened. His tattoos flared with a sudden, bright light, like a deep-sea creature’s bioluminescence on steroids. The room was brightly lit, so it must’ve been one hell of a display to blot out all other light.

Or maybe, it just looked that way to me. I felt something pass through his fingertips into my skin, race around through my nervous system, and then shoot back out. It left a little bit of itself behind, like a residual, fuzzy, static charge in my soul.

“Oh, wow.” Rikov’s eyes were wide and glassy. “I got to see it. I finally got to see it. In person. I got to be the person…”

“A tattoo flash,” Zaen said, in awe. “They’re fated!”

“Whoa.” I stared at my hand for a moment and then back at a stunned Drayk. “That was cool! Can you do it again?”

DRAYK

I stood in the teleportation bay, stunned, scarcely able to believe my eyes. I’d seen humans plenty of times before. This particular woman had something about her I found utterly mesmerizing.

Her blond hair hung in loose curls, framing a face bearing an impish smile. Her brown eyes gleamed like deep, limpid pools I might fall into and never climb back out of.

Even the way she spoke, the way she laughed, the slight tilt of her head when she thought something mischievous, drove me to distraction.

Then, I felt it when we first touched each other, skin to skin. The flash of light from my tattoos was only the visual aspect of what occurred. I’d felt as if some hidden, long dormant energy within me was finally awakened.

I felt as if I could take on the world. I could defeat the entire fleet’s best wrestling champions with one hand tied behind my back. And it was all because I’d met this delightful woman before me.

I should say something to her.

The silence had long since grown awkward. Nothing sprang to mind, so I wound up saying something truly banal.

“Uh, if you’ll join me…”

I gestured toward the exit. For a long, terribly anxious moment, she did nothing but stare at me. Then she grinned.

“All right, I guess I do need to check into my cabin and stow my stuff.”

She stepped away from the hover platform, and the luggage followed her. For about four steps. Then about three-quarters of the luggage sputtered and flopped to the deck.

“Oh, shoot,” Maren said with a sigh. “I knew I should’ve charged those last night, but how was I to know Vaznik warriors would swoop down from the sky to notify me I’d been matched.”

She…blinked at me…in a way that seemed to make my head spin.

What a terribly rude way to notify her…

“You don’t mind…do you, Drayk?”

She waved delicate fingers, nails painted, at her toppled luggage. It took me a moment to realize she wanted me to carry them. I remembered what the admiral hadn’t said, but I knew was the duty of every mate.

I must make her happy...

“Of course. I don’t mind.” I gathered up the luggage, which was naturally of varied shapes and sizes, with handles designed for tiny little human hands, making it difficult to manage. I tucked a few bags under each of my arms, then bent over and grasped the handles of two, large rolling suitcases.

“Um,” I said to Maren, out of hands, and staring at the last couple of bags left on the floor. “Do you mind?”

“No, not at all.” She bent over, picked up the remaining bags—and then deposited them on top of the bags I was already carrying. “There you go.”

“Right.” Truth be told, her luggage wasn’t all that heavy. It’s not like she was hauling engine blocks. But their awkward shapes and differing sizes made lugging them after her a chore, all the same.

“Shall we?” I said through gritted teeth.

“Yes, we shall.” She smiled and picked up the last, very sparkly, little-bitty bag and followed me out of the teleporter chamber.

Why do I feel like I just took a shot of Blandorian fire ale?

“Bye, guys,” she said at the last moment, waving at the other Vaznik.

“Bye,” they said in ragged unison, sighing as if they were all truly blessed or something.

We made it out into the corridor, and she ground to a halt.

“No way,” she said, staring out the window at the Nova as it drifted past against the backdrop of endless, twinkling stars. “Is that a battle cruiser? Look at all those guns.”

“Yes, that’s one of our sister ships on this voyage, the Nova. If you’ll follow me?”

My voice was a bit strained from holding up all that luggage, but I don’t think she noticed. She was too busy soaking it all in.

“Hey, check it out,” she said as we passed through one of the main thoroughfares. It was clogged with different species trying to get where they were going. Some of them used an automated treadmill to move because of the ship’s size.

“Check what out?”

“It’s a Tsandarian. I’ve never seen one of those in person before.”

“Yes, I understand that, but perhaps we can…”

I had to gasp for breath. It took all my effort just to lug her bags around, let alone carry on a conversation and play tour guide at the same time.

“Oh, no,” she said, stopping dead and totally disinterested in my reaction. “You think it’s rude of me to point and stare, don’t you? You’re right, it totally is. I’ll be more respectful from now on.”

“Yes, that’s nice—if we could get going, please?”

“Of course.”

Every time we got more than ten-feet down the corridor, she found something else of interest. While her bubbly enthusiasm was endearing on many levels, I found I concentrated on little else than not dropping my many burdens.

I kept up a mantra in my head.

Dropping the bags is tantamount to insubordination. I have to hold them. I have to. I have to… I can’t fail. I won’t fail.

At last, we rounded the last corner before her quarters. The corridors grew narrower as we reached the residential decks. Few people passed us as we struggled—or rather, I struggled—down the hallway.

Best of all, though, there was little to distract Maren. I thrust my chin at the door’s control panel, a discrete button set to the side.

“Get the door, would you please?” I said through clenched teeth.

“Sure thing.”

She pushed the button. Nothing happened. She pushed it a second time, and still nothing.

“Are you sure this is the right door?”

“Of course I’m sure—”

The door slid open and a pair of Vaznik peered out.

“Can I help you?” one of them asked.

“Yes, there seems to be some confusion. These quarters are reserved for Maren Hayes, here, as per Admiral Ausym’s orders.”

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” One of them showed me his computer pad. “The admiral amended those orders. He decided the human should have the nicest, biggest quarters possible and reassigned her.”

“Aw, the admiral sounds so sweet,” Maren said. “Where’re the new quarters?”

“Four decks up, same room number,” the Vaznik said with a cheerful smile, obviously proud of having been so helpful. “Oh, and the turbo lift is broken, so you’ll have to take the emergency stairs. It’s only four flights, though.”

“Four flights?” I said through clenched teeth. I tried to smile at Maren. “Piece of cake.”

Somehow, I made it to her room. With great relief, I set the luggage down, careful not to let any of it topple. I straightened up, rubbing my sore, cramping hands.

I hope the rest of this mission is less arduous than simply helping her get to her quarters has proven to be.

MAREN

I surveyed my new quarters. Bigger than the hotel room I booked at Cabo by good measure, I nodded my approval. Directly through the door, a quaint little lounge area offered plush seating bolted to the floor, a coffee table also bolted to the floor, and a small kitchenette.

Fancy artwork adorned the walls, as well as rich tapestries. I got the feeling this was some kind of VIP room, like a great place to house diplomats and stuff.

I saw a bed chamber through a door to my left, and a commode and shower through another door to my right. Very simple layout, along the outer edge of the ship. A huge viewing port looked out on the cold vastness of space. Stars twinkled merrily, different than those I’d known on Earth, yet somehow familiar.

“I love these quarters, I’m not going to lie.” I looked around with my hands on my hips in satisfaction. “Hey, would you give me a hand getting unpacked?”

“Of course,” he said. I’d thought it was the only thing he knew how to say.

“Great. Do you see a green case about yay big…” I held my hands a few feet apart “…with a purple stripe along the front?”

“Let me see.” His massive back muscles flexed as he bent over to carefully pick through the pile of my luggage. I took a moment to appreciate what a specimen he truly was. Nice tush, too.

“Is it this one?”

He straightened up and turned around, holding up the case in question in his huge hand.

“Yes, it is. Thank you.” I took the case and laid it on the coffee table, unzipping it carefully. “This has my shoes in it. Well, all the shoes I brought with me on the vacay interrupted by our matching, anyway. There’s entirely too much walking on this ship for flip flops.”

I kicked my flip flops into a clear corner. Drayk startled as the shoes flew past his shoulder. I found a pair of cute pink and white sneakers with light-up panels on the side and hidden mag-lock soles, so I won’t float away if something went wrong. Now I just needed socks.

“Hey, Drayk.”

He perked up when I said his name. I got the feeling he liked hearing me say it. I liked the way it felt in my mouth.

“Yes, Maren? What is it?”

I looked into his big, rich emerald-hued eyes. So much earnest helpfulness, and more than a little anxiety.

I wonder what he thinks he possibly has to fear from little old me.

“Can you find a suitcase with brown leather exterior, and a handle that has a sticker half ripped off of it?”

“Ah, let me check.” He dug about until he found it. “This one?”

“Yes, thank you, go ahead and put it over here. No wait, don’t open it!”

He paused midway through undoing the zipper. My socks fell out—along with my undies. Vacay panties, an eclectic mix of sporty boy shorts and things so flimsy they’d make an adult Holovid star blush.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Drayk tried to shove the garments back into the suitcase before he realized what they were. He reacted as if he’d put his hand into a nest of electric eels. He made a strangled, choking noise and yanked his arm back. My underwear went flying around the room.

I looked at him. An expression of utter dread and terror clung to his face. That would’ve been funny enough, with my underwear showering down all around us. Then, a red lace thong landed on one of his horns and dangled down the side of his face.

I burst into laughter, and shook my head.

“Oh my God…you just…oh, Drayk, you’re something else.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, aghast, his head on a swivel as he gazed around the carnage he’d caused. He was too afraid to touch my underwear again, but too anxious not to try and help somehow. He picked out the socks from my sexy panties, which was also hilarious to watch.

Especially with that bit of underwear dangling from his horns.

“That’s a good look for you, Drayk.”

“What? Bending over, picking up your…undergarments?”

I chuckled.

“No, the…Oh, for goodness sake, hold still a moment.”

I went to him and pried the waistband of the thong from his curled horn. When he realized what I’d just done he almost fainted with embarrassment.

“It’s all right.” I laughed it off, and he relaxed, but not by much.

I kept up a steady stream of questions while he helped me unpack. He answered them patiently, though often I threw him for a loop.

“Um, ah,” he said, blinking rapidly. “I don’t know exactly if the admiral would allow you to magnetically spacewalk all the way around the outer hull with magnetic boots, no matter how shiny. Though I’m sure it’d be a lot of fun.”

“Well, can you ask him for me the next time you see him?”

“Ask him?” he looked horrified. “I…I suppose I could…”

Drayk gulped, an edge of panic creeping into his eyes.

“You know what, don’t stress about it.” I sighed as I looked around at the chambers. They felt more like home now, with my quilting ring, sewing machine, easel and oil paints, taxidermy kit, and professional league electronic dart board.

Like I said, I’d traveled light. I just tended to dabble in a lot of interests.

“Hey, big guy,” I said with a grin. “You want to take a gal to get a bite to eat?”

“Take a gal?” He looked around the room in confusion. “Which of these artifacts is a gal, and how much is it supposed to be fed?”

I wiped a hand down my face and laughed with some degree of exasperation.

“Oh, Drayk, don’t ever change. A gal is a woman. I was talking about me.”

“Oh,” he said, realization dawning in his eyes. “Now I understand.”

“I heard the Hammerlock Bar has great food.”

He seemed surprised, taken aback in a pleasant way.

“Why, yes. Yes, it does.”

“Great, I’m starving. Let’s go!”

I grabbed his wrist and tugged him toward the door as my belly rumbled. I couldn’t wait to see what kind of new foods there’d be to try.

And Drayk, well…I looked forward to spending some more time with him, too.

DRAYK

I was most surprised to hear Maren already knew about the Hammerlock Bar. It was located at the furthest end of the recreational decks, near the coolant pipes, which sometimes developed condensation to the point of running water.

The power in that area must be strictly regulated, in order to maintain good temperature control. This meant that Z-Section was dark, drippy, and smelled less than fresh. Not the finest real estate available on the ship, it cost less to lease space there.

The end result was that Z-Section was the closest thing to a ‘rough’ part of the ship to exist on the Honor. Not that Z-Section was a lawless, anarchical zone.

The Hammerlock was located quite close to the wrestling ring, which was part of why the tavern had been named for a wrestling move in the first place. I pushed the door open and the regulars all turned toward me.

“Drayk!” they cried out in unison, frothy mugs raised.

“I take it, they know you here?” Maren asked with a grin.

“You could say that.”

I waved and plastered what I hoped was a good-enough smile on my face to prevent any offense and hustled Maren over to a table in the corner. I remembered something I learned in those classes we had to take on humans and pulled her chair out for her.

“Why, thank you,” she said, beaming a smile at me.

Her smile dazzles me every time.

“I can count the number of times guys have pulled my chair out for me on one finger, Drayk. One. You.”

She poked me in the arm. An electric thrill streaked through me at her touch. I wasn’t sure if I could tolerate being so close to her. I found myself taking in the bow-like perfection of her sensuous lips, the deep intelligence and playfulness gleaming inside her dark brown eyes.

The entire day had taken on a surreal quality. I barely remembered my arduous journey carrying her bags. All I knew was, Maren fascinated me in ways I’d never considered possible.

“So,” she said, scrolling through the menu screen embedded in the table. “What’s good here?”

“The Figure Four Egglock is an excellent choice.”

“I’m not sure I’m in the mood for breakfast food.”

“Then might I recommend the Sheeper Hold, a mutton, cheese, and vegetable wrap.”

“Nah, sheep is kind of too gamey for me.” Her brow furrows. “Wait, you have sheep on this ship?”

“No, but anything can be shipped on board, or teleported, if the merchants are willing to pay the premium fees.”

“Huh. So, does that mean you know a lot about Earth food?”

“We’ve been learning. Ever since the treaty. With so many humans matching with Vaznik warriors, demand for Earth products has skyrocketed. There are even petitions to make Earth-design boxer-briefs the official Vaznik Fleet underwear.”

“Cool. Look, no offense, but I’ve had lots of Earth food, being born there and never having left until now, so I’m interested in the authentic, Vaznik experience. Are there any Vaznik dishes I could try?”

“Why, certainly. The Powerbrahmin stew is excellent.”

“Powerbrahmin?”

“Something like your Earth cattle, only with razor sharp teeth and a poisonous stinger. Their meat is rich in nutrients and has a flavor which…I’m not sure it matches any of the Earth dishes I’ve had so far.”

“That sounds great, I’m getting that. Which one of the pictures on this menu means Power…”

I pointed to the Powerbrahmin stew button on the menu, so she wouldn’t have to try to finish the word. She punched in her order, and looked up at me. “So, tell me, what makes Drayk tick?”

“Drayk?” I blinked and pointed to my own chest with a thumb. “You mean, me?”

“Yes, you. You’re the only Drayk here.”

“Actually, there’s another over there in the corner.”

I waved at an orange-skinned Vaznik across the restaurant. He waved back.

“Drayk!”

I pointed back, like he and I had just shared a Drayk-specific, special moment and returned to my conversation with Maren.

“It’s not an uncommon name.”

“Okay. I stand corrected. So, what makes you tick?”

“Tick?” I looked at myself. “I have no mechanical device making a ticking sound. Do you hear one?”

“No, I don’t hear one,” she said between peals of laughter. She slapped the table in her mirth. “I mean, what makes you, you.”

“Well, my genetic code obviously programmed me for greater height than the average—”

I must’ve said the wrong thing, because she hung her head in her hands and groaned.

“No, no—that’s not what I mean. Why don’t you tell me about what you do on the ship?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean, what’s your job like?”

“Oh, my duties?” I perked up. “Of late, we’ve been on the most intriguing of missions. We’re searching for a missing scientist, Dr. Garcia.”

“Garcia? Is she a human?”

“Yes, she is, as a matter of fact.”

“So how did she go missing?”

I saw her lean forward, as if the answer truly interested her. I cleared my throat and went into the tale.

“It all started when we lost contact with the Hep Tháblois Bouhek Research Center on the third planet of the Yimïk system. Vaznik HQ dispatched the Honor’s Blade and her two escorts, the cruisers Nova and Sunder to investigate.”

“Why’d you lose contact with them?”

My face grew grim.

“Because all of the scientists, staff, and support were slain, with the exception of Dr. Garcia. Now, she’s either a hostage of hostile forces, or the mastermind behind them.”

“Holy shit.” She gasped, eyes as big as moons. “That’s insane. If she’s a mastermind, why’d she have her co-workers killed? Seems a tad extreme.”

“There’re many theories on that. One suggests she may have discovered something very valuable, and wanted to keep it all to herself. Others suggest the Queen’s Brood smuggler ring kept her alive because she has information they need to get the treasure for themselves.” I sighed. “Another theory suggests Dr. Garcia has lost her mind, and isn’t behaving rationally.”

“Which one do you think?”

I frowned, remembering the way Dr. Garcia had seemed huddled amidst a group of the black-armored smugglers.

“I think she’s a hostage. However, I’ll admit there’s plenty of evidence to suggest she’s the mastermind.”

“Well, one way or the other, victim or mastermind, I bet you’re going to find her.”

I smiled, feeling warmth spread through my chest.

“Thank you, I appreciate that.”

“Yeah,” she said, rubbing her hands together with eagerness, “and I appreciate that the food’s finally here.”

I laughed as the server set our plates on the table.

MAREN

I stared dubiously at the lump of grayish-red substance on my plate. Exotic spices and seasonings dotted the outside, in colors and textures I’d never encountered on Earth.

“Um,” I said, poking at it with my fork. “Do I cut this up, or…how do I eat this?”

“Similar to your Earth ice cream.”

I poked one of the lumps and it moved. I squealed, dropping my eating prong as the lump scrunched toward the top of the dome.

“What’s that?”

A small, red crustacean-looking creature broke through the membranous top of the dish. It looked at me with a dozen black eyes, and then scuttled off the top of the dome and onto the table.

“Oh, it’s a Slapnautz bug. And it’s still alive, you’re so lucky.”

He speared the thing through the back, and lifted it up toward me. The little legs wriggled in the air. My stomach immediately protested even the thought….

“Um, you know what, you can go ahead and help yourself.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, holding it a bit closer. “They’re a delicacy, especially live, but they often don’t survive the shipping or cooking process.”

A bit of yellow fluid dripped out of the seam in the little creature’s shell and splattered on the table in front of me.

“Ah, your luck continues to improve. It’s a male, filled with sperm.”

“Yeah, you can definitely, definitely eat that in my stead,” I said, leaning back.

He shrugged and stuck it in his mouth. Whether he licked his lips because it was extremely tasty, or to keep it from escaping from his jaws, I wasn’t certain.

I finally got up the courage to try a bite of my Powerbrahmin…stew. It looked more like a pudding to me. Nonetheless, I bravely shoved my fork into the morass and peeled off a section.

I brought it to my lips, and noticed Drayk watching me with eager anticipation.

Oh, well. Down the hatch. Can’t disappoint the giant, hunky green guy.

I shoved it in my mouth and let it touch my tongue, cringing in anticipation of something foul. Instead, the flavors melted across my palate like an expertly cooked rare steak. My eyes widened as some of the spices soaked into my taste buds. Hot, like Earth chiles, but with unexpected notes I couldn’t really describe.

“It’s good,” I said, a bit surprised, considering how unappetizing it had looked. Then again, I based my comparison on human food. To an alien, the big morass of quivering meat was probably delectable to the eye.

“Yes, I told you it’d be.” He dug into his own dish, which looked like an Earth hamburger. Only, instead of a beef patty, some slimy, tentacled thing lay on the bun, some of its tendrils snaking down over the edges.

He slurped a tentacle down his gullet like spaghetti, and grinned. I laughed, because he looked so goofy at that moment. How can someone with the body of a Greek god, and the face of an Adonis, look so goofy? I couldn’t figure it out, but I liked it.

As it turned out, Vaznik-sized portions were a bit too much for my belly. Drayk gallantly offered to eat the remainder of my dish for me and I let him have it.

“This whole affair with the missing scientist, Dr. Garcia, it’s, well, it’s…”

I snapped my fingers as I tried to come up with the right words.

“Scary?” he suggested.

“No,” I said with mild annoyance. “Interesting.”

“Ah.” I saw the wheels turning inside his head as he adjusted to this new information. I sort of got the impression he’d expected me to be some dormouse.

“At any rate,” he said, interrupting my reverie, “we have to follow the teleportation coordinates to their source to find out more. Once there, I’ll lead an away team to hopefully get to the bottom of it all.”

“Great,” I said, eagerly rubbing my hands together. “So, do I get one of the fancy suits, or what?”

“I’m sorry?” He tilted his horned head to the side.

“You know, the ones you guys have the pattern for? I chatted with a woman named Amelia and she says they have this nifty mining laser that can cut through almost anything.”

He leaned back in his seat like he was trying to get a different angle on me.

“I…you wish to be part of the away team? I know the admiral prefers for the couples to stay together, but even for his wife’s visions, I wouldn’t risk your safety.”

“Uh, yeah, why wouldn’t I? This is the adventure of a lifetime, of course I want to be a part of it.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“Oh, dangerous, heavens.” I gave him a look until he blanched to my satisfaction. “Whatever shall I do? You know I was a Volcanology major for one semester? Yup, I dangled a hundred feet down in the caldera of an active volcano to take samples. If that rope had broken, or any of the safety equipment had given out…”

I ran my hand across my throat and made the cutting sound.

“You hear what I’m saying, big guy? Danger doesn’t bother me. I tried surfing for the first time this week. I could’ve drowned or been eaten by a shark.”

I paused for a second, then threw my arms in the air.

“Or, I could’ve just as easily tripped and fell on a beer bottle and cut my femoral artery and bled out. Life is risk, Drayk, and I want to drink more of that bittersweet nectar, not less.”

He seemed taken aback.

“Very well, then. It seems as if your many interests and vocations have given you a unique skill set which could prove crucial on the mission. I’ll see to it you get one of the human-sized exo-suits.”

“That’s awesome. Thank you.”

My smile proved infectious. He looked so much more handsome when he smiled.

“In pink. With a big, stylized daisy flower over the chest plate.”

“I’ll…see what I can do, Maren.”

“Also, I’m fond of sparkly and glowy touches. Ancient humans called it bling.”

A guffaw bubbled up from Drayk’s massive rib cage.

“That’s what we call the waste material sucked out of a starship engine.”

I had the feeling he was the kind of guy who held a lot back. It may have had to do with his massive body and great strength. He seemed very careful not to break anything, like he walked through a world made of glass and cardboard.

Time to change the subject.

“Fascinating. When are we going after these smugglers, anyway?”

“As soon as the last of the science team researching Vekku return to the ship.”

“Vekku?” I tilted my head to the side. “Is that the planet I saw out the porthole earlier?”

“It’s not a planet, but a moon with an atmosphere. And yes, Vekku is its designation.”

“I want to see it,” I said, squirming in my seat.

“Ah.” He pursed his lips and seemed quite uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You see, most of the science team have already returned, with only a few stragglers remaining. No doubt we’ll be entering faster-than-light speed soon.”

“Oh, well,” I said, feeling a bit disappointed but determined to make the most of it. “Maybe there’ll be something even more interesting than a moon where we’re going.”

I finished the last of my Vaznik ale and set the empty glass down carefully.

“Well,” I said, “if we can’t go to Vekku, then let’s do something else fun.”

I frowned.

“Wait, do we have time to do anything fun? How long is it going to take for us to get to these mysterious coordinates Dr. Garcia teleported to?”

“Seven days is what our astronavigation team projects.” His brows climbed high on his face, until they vanished beneath the shelf of his horns. “We have plenty of time to find something fun to do.”

“Great.” I grinned huge. “Then I have plenty of time to read all of Dr. Garcia’s journals.”

DRAYK

“Would you like to see the Intergalactic Games Center?”

Maren glanced up at me as she put her purse over her shoulder.

“Yeah, sure. Games are fun. You know, the second half of my sophomore year, I joined a professional gaming league.”

“You did?” I laughed. “I wanted to get into that, but my duties take up too much of my time.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t recommend it. Really hard to make money unless you get a sponsor, and that’s not going to happen unless you’re really, really good.”

I tore my eyes from her mostly naked chest—she still wore what I’d consider beachwear—and put my gaze back on her face where my eyes belonged.

“You lacked the skill to continue to pursue that dream?”

“Ah, well, I probably could’ve gotten skilled enough, but then I really wanted to act in the theater troupe, and rehearsals were on the same night as the gaming league…”

Maren laughed, with a bitter edge to it. It seemed as if she directed the edge at herself, however, rather than at any outside source.

“What is it?” I prompted when she lapsed into silence afterward.

“It’s just—I probably sound like such a dilettante.” She looked at me with those big, beautiful brown eyes and I felt my knees grow weak. I almost ran into another Vaznik because I was caught in their embrace. “You know what? I’m tired of talking about me. Let’s talk about you.”

“What about me? I think I’m pretty typical for one of my species.”

“I kind of doubt that, no offense. What do you like to do?”

“Well,” I said, trying not to sound braggadocious, though I felt quite proud “I am the All-Fleet Wrestling Champion, three years running.”

“Wow, really?” She whistled, and then poked my arm. “Geez, I believe it. I mean, you have concrete pillars for arms.”

I wasn’t sure what concrete was, but pillars often hold up heavy objects, so I figured it was a compliment.

“Thank you. I try to stay in shape.”

I gestured at the junction in the hallway ahead…and I may have flexed my arm muscles far more than was necessary for such a simple gesture.

“We should head left at this junction.”

“Right. I mean, left.” She shook her glorious golden mane and laughed. I loved the way the light played over the ringed curls. “This ship is so confusing. How do people not get lost all the time?”

“When you serve here, or live here, as many of the merchants and civilian staff do, it becomes second nature. Also, there are tablet-portable maps available.”

We went around the corner and walked toward the lift at the end of the hallway. Outside, the last ship from Vekku came in on an approach vector. I figured we’d leave on our journey soon. I sent my well wishes to the Rie down on the surface. I hoped they’d have a more peaceful time of things now.

“What’s so funny?”

“Hmm? Oh.” I shook off the memory. “I laughed because it sometimes seems as if the Honor, the Sunder, and the Nova are all the same ship.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because we mainly move between ships via teleportation pad, there’s no sensation of leaving one ship and entering another. You can tell by the architecture, of course. The cruisers are built for combat, not exploration, and there’s fewer frills. Still, it’s like living in a miniature city split between three vessels.”

“I guess it’d be an odd feeling.” I shook my head. “I’m one to talk. I just stepped off a beach in Cabo and wound up on a starship…you know, I’m not exactly sure where I am. Where are we, I mean?”

“We’re on the frontier, in largely uncharted space.”

“Oh, wow, we’re boldly going there, huh?”

She grinned for a long time, as if expecting me to do something. Then her smile faded.

“I guess you guys don’t get into vintage shows like that. Your lives are even cooler.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Never mind.”

We stepped onto the lift, which proved quite crowded. Maren and I were forced to huddle quite close together. I felt the heat coming off her bare legs and torso, and began to sweat. I was awash in her scent, her presence, everything about her.

I felt as if I were on some sort of drug. Ever since I’d touched her, I saw the translucent golden threads beginning to close in on the periphery of my vision. They weren’t so strong yet, but I appreciated they were getting more substantial.

Suddenly, I wanted things to work out between Maren and me for more reasons than duty and honor. It dawned on me just how much I really liked being with her. She was…sunny. Everything interested her, every story, every bit of tech. The only thing I’d seen her blanch at were the living elements of her dinner entrée.

Which I supposed would give a lot of sapient species some pause, come to think of it.

The lift let us off on the recreation deck. I led her to the gaming center, with its spectacular holographic display out front.

“I’m Sergeant Bleuhard, and I want you to join me in resisting the scourge of the Suhlik—”

The hologram thrust its finger through her chest. “That’s a good one,” I said. “It’s a simulation of the siege of Giwa VII in the Emu system. I hear the blood and guts are so real, you’ll actually feel nauseated by the smell.”

“Hmm.” She arched her brows at me. “Maybe…or maybe we could do that one.”

I followed her pointing finger and saw the game she spoke of.

“The Great Space Race? Why, certainly. I haven’t played the latest expansion yet, but it looks like fun.”

“Then let’s go!”

She dashed across the floor toward the racing game. I laughed, shaking my head as I followed a bit more slowly.

I smiled so hard, my face hurt, which I’ve always considered to be a good problem to have.

MAREN

I yanked back on the control stick, my lips peeling back from my teeth in a grin. The racing StarCraft I piloted, pulled its nose straight up into a steep climb.

I careened through a light cloud of space dust, leaving a shimmering trail, and around the outer edge of a floating signal buoy. It lit up with blue, my color, indicating I’d taken the lead from Drayk.

“Well done,” he cried. I looked down at the viewscreen on my HUD where his face grinned at me from a small video feed.

“You’re just trying to distract me with idle flattery so I’ll lose.”

“Maybe the distraction part is real, but the flattery is anything but idle.”

I saw the next satellite buoy up ahead, a gleaming silver relic against a field of glittering stars. This buoy had a bulb on top of it. If I passed it first, I’d get a weapons activation code.

Drayk knew it, too. He kicked in his afterburner.

“Oh, you prick,” I said, laughing. I’d already used two of my three afterburners trying to keep my hard-won lead. It’d be his first.

I had no choice. I used the last afterburner to hit the weapons first.

“Please let it be homing missiles,” I said under my breath over and over. “Please let it be homing missiles.”

“You know I hear you, right?” His laughter bubbled over the comms. “And actually, the spread cannon is more powerful.”

“Yes, but you have to aim the spread cannon. Whereas the homing missiles can be fired without me having to lose my lead.”

My voice went up an octave as I passed the satellite and received homing missiles as a power up.

I hit the fire button so hard my fingertip stung. Missile after missile poured out of my ship. The missiles fell back from my ship, then turned and streaked after Drayk.

“Oh, no,” he said, taking evasive maneuvers. He dodged every single one of my missiles in an incredible display of skill, but my lead just grew and grew.

Finally, I came around the tail of a comet and saw the finish line satellite blinking in the distance. I opened up the throttle all the way, pushing the ship to its limits. Drayk came into view from the comet’s tail, his thruster array cherry red as he hit the afterburners.

I knew it’d be tight. I puckered up on the last hundred yards or so, because his nose was even with the center of my chassis. So close, in fact, I saw his grinning face.

Then he hit his third afterburner. I knew he’d make it across ahead of me. It took a moment to sputter to life, and then he rocketed past me—

After we’d already crossed the finish line.

“Ha, I got you,” he said.

“Think again, bub. Read it and weep.”

Spectacular out space pyrotechnics exploded on the starry field before us. Spelling out my name in lights and naming me the victor.

“I don’t believe it. Let me see the instant replay…”

Sure enough, the nose of my craft passed over the finish line a split second before his.

“Well, all spoils to the victor,” he said with a laugh. “You’re an outstanding pilot.”

“Yeah, in a sim. In a real dogfight, I’d be scared shitless.”

The sim ended, and then we were just sitting in plain, utilitarian console seats. We stepped out of the ride, laughing and talking excitedly about the highlights.

“Would you like a video of your triumph, miss?” The alien asking me looked like a walking lamppost. I shook my head.

“No, thanks. Maybe next time.”

I wasn’t sure how the money situation worked yet. After my birthday had come up and gone away without a match, I hadn’t bothered to think about it any longer. I knew I was supposed to receive some kind of stipend for expenses, but I was too busy having fun to ask about it

Finally I broached the subject, and found I had nothing to worry about.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into a pocket on his belt and extracted a credstick. “This is yours. You can use it for all expenses, but you can only use it on the ship.”

“Wow, really?” I gaped. “That’s awesome. I guess I should be responsible and get some groceries for my quarters.”

Soon, Drayk walked me back to my quarters, carrying the heaviest of my shopping bags. I felt quite fatigued after my many excursions, but also, possessed of an almost giddy energy, like being around Drayk charged me up.

He helped me carry the groceries into my quarters and put them away. Then, I walked him to the door, stifling a yawn.

“Thanks for a great day, Drayk.” I smiled at him. “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

Then, I took a chance and leaned forward, planting a kiss on his cheek. Drayk’s eyes went wide, his mouth going slack as I closed the door.

“Good night.”

He was speechless as the door slid shut.

I collapsed onto my bed, sighing as I snuggled up to my pillow.

What a day.

DRAYK

I stood there in the corridor outside of Maren’s quarters for some time, my jaw slack and heart racing.

What just happened? She just leaned forward and kissed me. Just like that.

I might’ve stood there for much longer, perhaps an eternity, if not for other pedestrians approaching down the hall. I had to move out of their way in the narrow, residential corridor, snapping me somewhat out of my fugue.

I reached up and touched my fingertips to the exact spot she’d kissed me on. It still felt warm. When I pulled my fingers away, they smelled like Maren.

I found myself wondering what in the hell had happened. My whole life had been turned upside down. When you’re a soldier, you get used to the routine. Now I questioned everything, even fundamental principles of the universe. Up was down, and down felt like up.

I wasn’t a Vaznik accustomed to being thrown so off track. I’d always prided myself on staying out of the drama which sometimes embroiled my fellow warriors. I liked my routine.

I awoke before my duty shift, hit the gymnasium for my workout, performed my duties, hit the other gym for wrestling training, then showered and met the boys for drinks. Repeat ad infinitum.

Since Maren had arrived in my life, wearing a bikini, my routine had been thrown completely off. For the next seven days, my primary mission, my only duty, was making Maren so happy, she was both willing and eager to dedicate herself to a life with me.

I mean, if Irev can do it, surely I can? Not to mention Kavok and Raxor. None of them are what I’d describe as smooth talkers, and they’ve done all right.

For me, it was no longer simply a matter of duty. I wanted to make Maren happy just because it was what I wanted to do. It was an odd compulsion, one I’d never felt before.

Of course, I also wanted to make her happy for one simple reason. I wanted her to like me. My tattoos had flashed, and ever since then, making Maren happy was all I thought about. Making her mine, somehow.

I REPLAYED our date over and over again in my mind—because that’s how I thought of the experience. A date. The best parts stood out in stark relief.

Even when she’d gotten a bit queasy seeing me eat that bug, it’d all worked out for the best in the end.

I wandered around looking for my quarters for more than twenty minutes before I realized I’d wandered around the completely wrong deck. I really had gotten all twisted up over Maren. I think I was kind of in a state of shock.

Yet, despite all the massive disruptions to my life, despite the fact that I’d never thought of matching with a human before today, I thought I might just be okay with the way things had worked out.

Too overwhelmed to contemplate sleep, I stopped by the observation deck. At that late hour, I had it to myself. I walked across the empty floor and stood with my arms on the rails looking out into space.

The stars formed a kind of streaked tunnel around us, a side effect of faster-than-light travel. In reality, they were billions of light years away, mere sprites flashing past too quick for the Vaznik or human eyes to register.

Had I thought of finding a match someday?

Of course I have. It’s part of our culture, ever since we signed the treaty with Earth.

I just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. I wondered if I was truly prepared for my mission or not. Maybe I’d defeat any opponent on the wrestling mat. Maybe I’d be an efficient and respected commander of an away team.

Romancing a human woman? I’m ill prepared for that task.

Most of our training on dealing with human women had focused on the… reproductive aspects of it…not that I hadn’t been keenly interested in how to please a woman.

It felt like carnal, forbidden knowledge. The fact that Mahdfel HQ wanted us to learn it just made the entire experience that much more surreal.

Still, things couldn’t have gone that badly. I’d passed an important first milestone.

Maren kissed me.

On the cheek, but still, she’d kissed me.

I dug out my compad, turning my back on the lightspeed tunnel, spectacular though it was. I had to know. I researched on the Intergalactic Network about human courtship rituals, with an emphasis on kissing.

I gaped in astonishment at how many articles there were. And not just written by Vazniks, either. It seemed the humans were equally as interested, and frequently as perplexed, by their behavior as anyone else.

Strange as it might sound, that made me feel better about the whole thing.

If human men had to look this stuff up, too, maybe I’m not such an idiot.

I found a lot of information and most of it conflicted.

For one thing, a kiss on the cheek could’ve been a sign she was interested in me romantically. Or, it might mean I was being put into something called the ‘friend zone,’ but I only found references to this in articles written by human men.

I expanded my search, and found there were many things a human might do to signal interest in a man. I felt a surging thrill as I realized Maren had done many of those things.

Memories of Maren flashed through my mind. Maren, playing with her hair. Those hypnotic eyes gazing at me from under her lashes. Maren, smiling when she thought I didn’t notice.

I eventually retired to my quarters, falling onto my cot and drifting toward slumber’s sweet embrace. As I slipped the surly bonds of consciousness, a last thought drifted through my mind.

I have no idea what Maren will bring to my life tomorrow.

I realized I looked forward to finding out.

MAREN

I awoke the next morning to an unfamiliar ceiling. I’d traveled so much in my lifetime, it took me a moment to remember where I was. The ceiling above me wasn’ta ceiling from Borneo, or Moscow, or Tokyo…

Right. Because I’m on an alien spaceship.

The previous day flooded back into my mind. A smile bloomed on my face as I remembered how sweet and awkward the towering Drayk had been.

Do I like the guy? Maybe, it turns out that I do.

Of course, liking someone and mating with them were two different things, even on Earth. I wasn’t about to just jump his bones. Okay, I was kind of thinking about jumping his bones, but not seriously. More like a daydream or a fantasy.

Riiight…

I got up and ate some alien fruit I’d bought at the market. It tasted vaguely like a cross between a pear and a peach, the white flesh juicier than either. It dripped down my chin and got all over my shirt and I didn’t care at all.

I snacked on another piece of the fruit, then headed into the shower. After I’d cleaned myself, I discovered a special delivery to my computer tablet.

It looked as if my request to look at all of the journals left behind by Dr. Garcia had been granted. If anything, the attached electronic missive seemed almost grateful to have someone else look at them. I guessed, at that point, they were growing desperate to solve the mystery.

I got a cup of coffee—Terran beans grown on an alien world—and settled in with the pad. First, I read the attached mission reports. I gaped in astonishment at what the other teams had gone through.

Cave-ins, attacks by killer robots, not to mention nearly being eaten by indigenous lifeforms! That’s so cool…

It got even better. The previous teams had explored ancient, derelict alien ships floating in the abyss of space just to have pulse-pounding, running fights through vast, underground complexes.

Weaving through it all, a tantalizing mystery connected everything.

What is Dr. Garcia up to? Was she in control of her actions? Was she being coerced by the smugglers, or voices in her own head, to do terrible things?

I eagerly tore into the first journal found by the team on Yimïk III. This one had been the only one written in plain English, instead of the strange code Garcia employed.

Inside, I found precious few clues as to her criminality. Mostly, the journals seemed like a place for Dr. Garcia to vent about how much some of her co-workers frustrated her. At least, how much the ones she considered less intelligent than herself frustrated her.

Of course, that seemed to be all of them. She had some rather colorful insults for some of them.

I swear, if you took a growth ray, pointed it at Dr. Velnar’s brain, and turned it to max, it would only grow to be the size of a pea.

Obviously, she didn’t care much for her co-workers. I wasn’t so sure if that pointed to her being a criminal or a murderer, however, so I kept going.

The next journal file I opened wound up being a scan of an actual, physical book, an old-fashioned, leather-bound book, from the look of things. The illustrations within appeared to be hand drawn, and were quite good.

The coded phrases had me lost, though.

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.

I made some notations on my pad. Grabe was a nonsense word made up by an ancient Earth author named Lewis Carrol for his poem, Jabberwocky.

This might be significant. Thank goodness I was an English Lit major for a semester.

Other than that, I got the impression Turk must be the leader of the smugglers. Yet, I couldn’t tell if Dr. Garcia was simply disdainful of Turk, like she was with her co-workers, or if she feared him as her captor.

“Today, I interfaced with…does that say ‘Alien Cognition Device? The ACD…”

I sat up and leaned far closer to the tablet than my mother would’ve ever tolerated in my childhood and reread the passage.

Interfacing with that thing increased her ability to understand the ancient alien symbols, huh?

“Seems to have had some side effects, too. Her entries become increasingly erratic.”

I picked up the tablet and paced, muttering to myself while I thought.

“Then, here, she refers to something that might mean the end of the world or…the beginning?”

I read on, trying to imagine what Dr. Garcia must’ve experienced at the moment, to write the passages in these journals.

“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 fewer than half of the symbols correspond to…”

Fascinating. Cryptic, but fascinating stuff.

I got to the part with a giant, flying object the size of a continent. My mind was totally blown. I was so totally hooked on Dr. Garcia’s story.

It looked like my boasts to Drayk weren’t so idle, after all. My eclectic mix of skills and knowledge-sets made me ideally suited for this complicated task.

Or so I hope.

Encouraged, I went back to studying when I heard the door chime. Like a giddy schoolgirl with a crush, I forgot all about the computer pad. I tossed it on the table and ran to the door.

When the door had already slid open, I remembered I wore only a thin nightshirt.

DRAYK

I looked forward to spending more time with Maren, so much so I struggled to fall asleep, my thoughts filled with her every glance.

More eager than I’d felt for anything, I fought the urge to run at top speed the whole way to her quarters.

Don’t run. Don’t run. Breathe. Stay calm.

My legs felt as if they’d springs in them, aiding my strides and giving them a joyful bounce.

I came up to her door and wondered why my palms were so sweaty. I wiped them dry, and then checked myself over. I picked a tiny piece of lint off of my uniform sleeve, then checked my reflection in the metallic case of my communicator to make sure there wasn’t any breakfast stuck in my teeth.

Finally, satisfied with my appearance, I extended my finger and pressed the door chime.

A couple of seconds later—what, was she right next to the door?—it slid open. I smiled with anticipation of seeing her face.

The door slowly slid upward, revealing her bare feet…and equally bare, shapely legs. My gaze widened. My pulse quickened. She wore only a filmy tunic of some sort, which scarcely reached her thighs. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at the darkened shadows of Maren’s areolas through the fabric’s sheer mesh.

“Maren,” I said, forcing my eyes to her face as she covered her chest with her arms. “I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

“Um, it’s not a bad time, just—give me a second to get dressed, okay?”

She rushed into her bedroom, tugging the bottom hem of her shirt downward. I entered the quarters, noting she’d gone over Dr. Garcia’s journals as well as the mission reports we’d generated along the way.

“I see you’ve gone over the journals.”

“Yeah,” she called from the other room. “I mean, I haven’t really had any epiphanies, if that’s what you’re getting at, but I’ve made a few notes.”

“It's a perplexing mystery.”

“Yeah.” She came back into the living area, now wearing a sleeveless dress clinging to her body almost as much as the sheer tunic had. At least it covered her more completely. I kept my gaze carefully on her face as she spoke, though the memory of her curvaceous contours tortured my mind.

“I’m mad at myself for not being able to crack it. I’d hoped maybe there was something, you know?”

I smiled at her, nodding. Then I remembered what we were supposed to be discussing before my memory distracted me and pointed at the closest journal.

“You shouldn’t feel miffed in any way, shape, or form. The best scientific minds in the galaxy have already taken a crack at those journals, and they aren’t any closer to finding out the truth than we are.”

“That does sort of makes me feel better.” Maren sat down on the sofa and patted the spot next to her. “Sit down. Let me show you what I’ve found so far.”

She showed me the screen of her computer tablet. I cocked an eyebrow at the mention of an Earth poem.

“Jabberwocky?”

“It’s a fantastical work, and quite short.” She pursed her lips. “If we can figure out what the poet meant by grabe, maybe it’ll help.”

We connected to the galactic infoweb and started researching. Fortunately for us, the Earthlings had already studied the poem extensively.

“Okay,” she said, looking at the tablet and furrowing her brow. “It says here that Lewis Carrol wrote the first stanza twenty-five years before he wrote the rest of the poem. Nobody knows if that’s significant to the meaning, though.”

“Apparently, he used nonsense words on purpose.” I shook my head and sighed. “If the words are nonsense, then how are we to determine their meaning?”

“Hmm.” Maren pursed her lips in thought, then nodded to herself.

“It’s not what the word meant to the original poet we should be worried about. It’s what grabe means to Dr. Garcia that we need to determine.”

I chuckled softly.

“Forgive me, I’m not mocking you. I just think that might be a daunting task. It seems to me that Dr. Garcia is something of an inscrutable enigma even to those who worked closely with her.”

“Yeah.” Maren’s face scrunched up in dismay. “I wish I could check out the research facility in person. Maybe there were some journals left behind by her co-workers that might shed some light onto her state of mind?”

“I doubt it.” I shook my head slowly. “I was on the team that conducted the initial investigation. There was very little of value left behind by the smugglers, and it looked as if there may have been a deliberate attempt to obfuscate what research they’d gleaned from the dig site.”

“Well, it was just a thought anyway.” She shrugged. I was amazed at how she dealt with setbacks so well. Instead of getting frustrated, she just moved on to the next idea. “Hey, I heard one of the traders on the commerce deck speaks like a dozen languages, with no need for a translator.”

“Ah, yes, Choam Nomski, a Xeno-Sociologist. He’s a Toyolion. They have six lobes in their brain. And I think he speaks closer to a hundred languages.”

“And you guys haven’t gone to see him yet?” I asked, aghast.

“Oh, well, that was Zaen’s task.” I grimaced as I remembered reading the report. “Unfortunately, Zaen thought it’d be a good idea to insult a sculpture Choam’s daughter created by hand. Now Chaom is angry at us and refuses to help.”

“Can’t the admiral command him to help, or something?”

“No, he’s a civilian contractor. The admiral can threaten to kick him off the ship, but that’s a big hassle, not to mention a ton of red tape. Besides, the admiral doesn’t want to play hardball when it was one of our own that made him angry in the first place.”

“Well, maybe I can sweet talk him into helping.” She grinned. “Want to take me to see him?”

I smiled and gestured toward the door.

“I’d be delighted.”

MAREN

Drayk and I headed to the commerce deck to speak with Choam about the alien dialect. I noticed him staring at me out of the corner of his eye. He seemed fascinated with my legs, which was why I’d chosen to wear the skirt in the first place.

It was a bit embarrassing to have opened the door in my flimsy nightwear, but at least, he hadn’t seemed displeased with what he’d seen.

The commerce deck was crowded. It took us some time to move through the milling throng and reach the merchant’s shop. Choam’s place of business turned out to be a rounded cylinder of a structure, sort of like a grain silo in miniature form.

A holographic display proclaimed the shop’s name in many different languages, including English. Choam’s Fine Imports.

Drayk led the way inside. The interior featured soft lighting, lending an almost intimate atmosphere. The first thing I noticed was a hat rack. At least, I thought it kind of looked like a hat rack. It was definitely a rack of some kind, made from the antlers of some exotic, alien beast.

There were tiny music boxes featuring dancing starships in a holographic display, dolls made to look like a wide plethora of alien species, and other knick knacks. Try as I might, I couldn’t see anything useful at all, which was probably the point.

Lucky me to have found the alien equivalent of a Pier One.

“Hey, Maren,” Drayk said, picking up a metal drinking mug. “Check this out.”

He tilted the mug and a guzzling sound emanated from a speaker hidden on it. He pretended to drink, and then tilted it upright. A loud belch came from the mug.

“It’s a joke mug. Like you give your friend a drink and then the cup makes a bunch of embarrassing noises. Then you can say ‘oh, you’re so disgusting and nasty with your odious personal habits.’”

“I get the principle,” I said, laughing. “Do you see the proprietor anywhere—”

“What are you doing here?”

The doors to the back area flung open and a bulbous shape flew out to the sales floor. The alien was all head. Its cranium was at least twice the size of Drayk’s head, horns included. His stubby arms and legs seemed to be of little use for locomotion.

Fortunately, he seemed to be able to support himself by some kind of unseen force. Antigravity belt? Unconscious graviton manipulation? Some kind of telekinesis? I was dying to know how he did it.

The head looked a lot like a turtle with a big crest on its head. His eyes narrowed, which I guess proved that some signs of anger crossed over to at least a few alien species.

“I told you Vaznik to stay the hell out of here,” he groused. “And yet, here you are, breathing my air.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, interjecting myself. “Please ignore him, he’s with me.”

“And who’re you?” He crossed his stubby arms over his chest. It took me a moment to realize he’d spoken English, instead of his native tongue being translated by the chip in my head.

“Oh, where are my manners? I’m Maren Hayes, and I just arrived the other day from Earth.”

“From Earth, huh?” He seemed a bit less angry. “Well, I guess I don’t have any grudge against Earthlings. How can I be of assistance? Perhaps you’d like a light-up hat? I hear humans love light-up hats.”

“Um, sure,” I said. “Invoice my account—but I’d really hoped to talk to you about this.”

I took the tablet out of my purse and showed it to him. His eyes narrowed with concentration as he looked at the screen. After a moment, he took the tablet into his little hands.

“Amazing. What language did you say this was?”

“I didn’t say, because I don’t know. It’s a new language and the translator circuits are having a bitch of a time with it.”

“Hmm. Fascinating.” He pointed at the screen. “None of these symbols are familiar, and I don’t notice any formal sentence or grammatical structure. I think these symbols don’t correspond to syllabic vocalizations, but rather concepts and ideas as a whole.”

“You’re really good,” I said. “I’ve dabbled enough to know when I’m dealing with an expert. So…what do you think it means?”

“I’m afraid I have no idea,” he said. “I would, however, love to keep working on it in my spare time.”

“That’s great. That’d help me so much—”

“But I’m not going to.” He put the pad down on the sales counter and crossed his arms over his chest. It was really hard not to laugh, because he was, quite frankly, adorable

“Why not?” Drayk asked.

“Because, it’d help out the Vaznik, and I’m not too fond of Vaznik right now.”

I looked over at Drayk, and then back at Choam.

“Um, isn’t there any way I can get you to change your mind? What if I bought two hats?”

“It’s not about credits. It’s the principle of the thing. That red-skinned Vaznik made my daughter cry when he said her model of the Honor’s Blade looked like a crippled herbivore.”

I gasped and slapped Drayk on the arm. I doubted I could’ve damaged the walking slab of meat to whom I’d been matched and Choam warmed up to me quickly.

“There must be something I can do for you,” I said. “Some favor I can do.”

“Well…” His lips thinned out, then he glared again. “Never mind.”

“No, Choam. Don’t turn away. I really want to know.” I placed a hand on his tiny arm. “Really, tell me. Please.”

“Dr. Bildeploop has an epic As the Galaxy Churns viewing party every week. I’ve never been invited to this party…”

I gasped again. My hand flew to my chest. Obviously scandalized, I turned to Drayk, my eyes so wide, I was certain he’d offer a solution.

“What if we secured you an invitation?” Drayk asked, hopeful and awkward. “I’m a close, personal friend of Dr. Bill.”

Perfect. Thank you, Drayk.

“Perhaps…but there’s still the matter of my daughter’s dishonor.”

“What if we let you punch Zaen?” I asked.

“What?” Drayk gasped, aghast. He took my upper arm and gently leaned us both to the side. “You can’t promise him that.”

I whispered in his ear.

“Look at that guy’s tiny hands. What’s a punch going to do? Tickle Zaen’s chin? It’ll make Choam feel better and no harm done, right?”

Drayk choked down a sudden urge to laugh with no grace whatsoever and nodded with a long sigh.

“Very well.”

I turned back to Chaom and raised an eyebrow. A smooth grin spread across my face and I closed my trap.

“What do you say, Choam?”.

“I don’t know…”

I shrugged and played my best move.

“Your niece…”

“My daughter.”

“Your daughter, pardon me, can punch Zaen, too.”

“If I get to punch him, sweet Lululinia gets to punch him, and I get to attend the party…well, I’m intrigued by this language.”

“Thank you so much,” I said, bowing my head respectfully. “Would Lululinia like to come to the party, too?”

“She’s not a fan. I understand it’s a stage to hate anything anyone else likes. Understandable, I need a break, Maren.”

“Just make sure you hold up your end of the bargain, Choam, and Drayk and I promise you an evening without your daughter.”

“How long do you think it’ll take you, Choam?”

“Two days. Maybe three.”

“Really?” I said, hopefully. But he held up his tiny hand in restraint.

“Slow down, miss. I’m not saying I’ll have a complete translation by then. I’m just saying that, by that time, I’ll have puzzled out as much as I’ll ever be able to. I already have some suspicions…”

“Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated.”

I bowed again, and we left the shop. Drayk shook his head in disbelief.

“I don’t know how you did it. Choam is the grouchiest man on the entire ship, and that includes Captain Soanzo.”

“Stick with me, Drayk.” I shot him a wink. “I’ll teach you how to be a people person yet.”

“People person?”

“Starting with an explanation of the concept, obviously,” I said with a laugh.

DRAYK

Over the course of the next three days, something incredible happened. Maren charmed everyone on board, from the civilian staff to the Vaznik warriors.

Her energy and enthusiasm proved infectious. I should’ve known what to expect, when she had charmed Chaom so easily. That man was a famous curmudgeon, difficult to deal with even before I’d made him so very angry.

We ran all over all three of the ships, teleporting between them when we needed to, so she could conduct her investigation. Everyone liked her, even Dr. Bill…especially Dr. Bill. He wasn’t used to having such an enthusiastic audience.

I found I loved spending time with Maren, no matter what we did. She drove me crazy. I loved the way her long blond hair swayed and the way those rich brown eyes sparkled when she laughed. I wanted so badly to run my fingers through her golden tresses, just to see what they felt like.

I bet they feel like spun silk.

The more time I spent with Maren, the easier I found it to relax around her. As I spent more and more time in her presence, the nimbus of golden threads thickened. It was always there, just out of the corner of my eye, when we were together.

It seemed as if, were we to hold still, those threads would bind us inexorably together. Of course, I’d quickly learned my match was a woman who rarely, if ever, sat still.

I caught up with her on the sixth day after her arrival, having just gotten out of a meeting with the command staff. I raised her on comms, and she told me to come to the main science labs.

When I arrived, I found Maren seated on one of the metal tables, her legs dangling over the edge. She chatted animatedly with Sylvia, one of the human scientists working in the lab. It looked as if they were getting along famously, which came as no surprise to me.

“Hello there.” I smiled, coming over to her.

“Hey, you,” she said, her eyes shining bright. She put her hand on my arm for the briefest of moments. I felt as if I lived and died a thousand times in that slight touch.

Maren gestured at Sylvia.

“Have you met Sylvia, here?”

“Yes. We were at a watch party together a while back.” I nodded politely at her.

“I think we met a couple times at the gaming center, too,” Sylvia said.

Maren turned to her.

“Have you ever been on one of the away missions?”

“Me? I wish.” Sylvia laughed. “There hasn’t been much call for a xeno-sociologist on the missions as of yet.”

“That’s too bad, because you’ve got a hell of a unique perspective, girl.” Maren nodded firmly. “Oh, wait until you hear about what she told me about our translation issues.”

Maren gasped as if something had just dawned on her, or she’d recalled something important.

“Oh my god, the watch party! I totally forgot. There’s a big watch party for the latest episode of As the Galaxy Churns tomorrow. I was wondering if you’d come with me, Drayk? There’s going to be a lot of people I don’t know there.”

I found that hard to believe. It seemed like she knew half the people on the ship already.

“Oh, yes, I’m familiar with that show,” I said casually. The truth of the matter? I was a gigantic fan of the soap opera holo serial. I even followed the different threads on the intergalactic infoweb about it. I knew what every actor’s favorite brand of beer was, for one thing.

Embarrassed to admit to my fascination with the show out loud, I tried to act like I was going, mainly as a favor to Maren.

“I’d be happy to go to this watch party with you, Maren.”

She beamed a smile at me. My heart skipped a beat. I’d be willing to go anywhere, so long as it was with Maren.

“Oh, thank you so much for being a good sport about this.” She took my hand for a moment and squeezed. “I know it’s not really a ‘guy show,’ but I promise you’ll have a good time.”

She twirled her hair around her finger and turned her face slightly away. I felt encouraged.

“I always have a good time with you, Maren.”

It just slipped out. I hadn’t said it in a calculation to impress her. It must’ve been the right thing to say, though. Both Earth women fell silent, and Maren’s eyes glazed over for a moment.

“Aww,” Sylvia said with a sweet smile. “You guys are just too cute for words.”

“I…yes,” I said, scratching behind the base of my horns. I felt extra awkward at that moment, as if I’d been caught with my pants down.

Funny, considering how much time I’ve spent over the last three days fantasizing different scenarios where I tell Sylvia about my growing feelings for her.

And now I’d actually expressed some of those feelings, I felt like a fool, having let those words escape my lips. I guessed my mind couldn't decide what it wanted.

“Oh, are you hungry?” she asked hopefully, letting me off the hook at last.

“Yes. I am.” I was, but I’d have said so just to escape the moment of sheer anxiety.

“Good. I’ve got sooo much to tell you about what Choam and Sylvia told me about the alien language.”

Maren and I left the lab together. Sylvia waved us away, a knowing look tugging at the corners of her mouth.

MAREN

I still felt a little bit melty after hearing Drayk declare he always had a good time with me. The guy seemed to have a great heart, just as big as his other muscles.

Sylvia had certainly been impressed. That made me feel a little bit better. All of the Vaznik were boisterously supportive of me hooking up with Drayk on a permanent basis.

However, they had honor and duty to consider. Getting an unvarnished opinion about him from another human felt good.

“You know,” I said as we walked down the wide corridors. “Some of your shipmates were telling me all about you.”

“It’s all lies,” he said with a laugh. “Especially anything that comes out of Zaen’s mouth.”

I laughed and patted his arm gently. It felt like patting a slab of granite.

God, what a beast.

“It’s all right. Nobody had a bad thing to say about you, believe it or not.” My face scrunched up a bit. “Well, okay, that’s not quite true. Dr. Bill said you tend to think with your muscles, rather than your brain, but he’s kind of…kind of…”

“A jerk?” he said.

I burst into laughter.

“Difficult.” I almost doubled over with laughter. “I was going to say he’s difficult. But now that you mention it…”

We got to the restaurant section of the commerce deck, and found that everyone else had the same idea we had. The minimum wait time for a table was nearly an hour at every place we checked.

“Hey,” I said. “Would you mind if we just got something portable, and went and sat…oh, I don’t know. Do you have a park somewhere on this ship?”

“A park?” He blinked for a moment. “Oh, wait, you mean a green space meant for recreation?”

“Yeah, close enough.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have a park, per se. However, we do have an Ag deck which is quite pleasant. We could eat our lunches there.”

“That sounds awesome.”

We got some…you know, I don’t quite know what it was. It tasted like a blooming onion, but it looked like a deep-fried octopus with about a hundred tentacles. The tentacles were breaded and fried to golden, crisp perfection. I ate half my own portion before we even got to the Ag deck.

The first thing I saw when the bay doors swung open was a big, metal T-Rex doing battle with a shiny triceratops. My mouth gaped open for a moment, until I realized they weren’t really moving much.

Sculptures, balanced on long poles, but with mechanical apparatus inside. I liked their punked out, clockwork look.

“Those are awesome,” I said emphatically.

“Yes, they were made by a friend of mine, Raxor, and his mate, Amelia.”

“Oh, I met Amelia the other day. She’s cool as hell. I think she’ll be at the watch party, too.”

“Um, did you ask Dr. Bill if Choam could attend his watch party?” he asked, anxiously.

“No,” I said, “but why would he mind?”

“Because Dr. Bill is, as you so eloquently understated before, difficult. He probably wouldn’t mind, but if you just show up with Chaom in tow, it might go badly for all of us.”

“I doubt it. Dr. Bill likes me.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me, and I quote…” I adopted a smooth, mechanical precision to my speech, mimicking the mighty mollusk’s synthesized voice, “I find you so much less annoying than most members of your species…or any species, for that matter.”

His eyes went wide.

“That might as well be a declaration of love, coming from that guy.” He laughed. “So what is it you heard from Choam and Sylvia about the good Doctor Garcia’s journals?”

“Okay, so you remember how Garcia kept using words from that old Earth poem?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Choam couldn’t crack the alien writing, but he did manage to crack Garcia’s code.”

“That’s amazing!” He stood up quickly. “We should tell the admiral at once.”

“Sit back down, big guy, you didn’t let me finish. We still don’t know a whole hell of a lot—but we know more than we did.”

“Like what?” he asked, sitting back down beside me again.

“Like this—she’s definitely a hostage.”

“She is?”

“Yes, she has no love for Turk or the other smugglers. The thing that kept confusing the others was her attitude. You see, as a scientist, she’s naturally curious. She wants to unravel the secrets the smugglers are after. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t hate them or want to get away from them.”

“Why’d they kidnap her, and not one of the other scientists?”

“Because, Dr. Garcia is the closest intergalactic expert on alien artifacts. The smugglers have something, some kind of alien device, but it’s not clear from the notes what that device is. It’s clear they think the doctor can help them figure it out.”

My voice got low, and I leaned toward him.

“Here’s the thing, though. Judging from the context clues Sylvia pointed out, Dr. Garcia knows, or at least suspects, what the artifact the smugglers are after does.”

“Really?” He leaned toward me, his scent intoxicating. I found I had to resist the urge to press my lips against his smooth cheek again.

“Yes. She’s being extra vague in her notes, probably because of the usual reasons scientists are secretive. But the things she’s not vague about don’t make any sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“She jumps around from one subject to another almost at random. Like, one minute she’ll talk about a person who either died a long time ago or maybe never existed. Or hasn’t existed yet.” I shook my head and grimaced. “It’s as if she’s losing her mind, bit by bit. But who knows? Maybe that’s an act to fool Turk and the smugglers.”

We finished our dinner, and Drayk walked me to my quarters. I invited him in, and we sat on the sofa talking and reading and sharing our insights.

I noticed him stifling a yawn. I knew he’d been on duty since before we met up, and the hour had grown very late. Or very early, depending on your point of view.

“Hey, I’m probably going to keep reading all night,” I said. “I’m too excited to sleep, but if you want to go get some rest, you won’t offend me.”

“Of course, Maren.” He smiled sleepily at me. “Your life is your own. I’m just happy to be in it.”

Oh, be still, my heart.

My heart refused to listen.

DRAYK

Once again, I’d just blurted out what I felt in the moment. Somehow it appeared to be just the right thing to say.

Maren’s entire attitude and posture changed. Her eyes became half lidded and the brown, reflecting pools of her pupils glazed. Her tongue darted out and she licked her lips for just a moment. She leaned against the sofa more firmly, turning her crossed legs toward me.

“Oh,” she said softly, a lilt in her voice I couldn’t quite identify. “Really?”

I swallowed hard. Perhaps I should’ve thought of the repercussions, before I let that one fly out of my mouth.

“Ah…I spoke without thinking, but…yes. Really.”

She stood up smoothly, her expression inscrutable. I stood up, too, in reflex.

“Maren?” I asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

Without a word, she cleared the pads off the coffee table and then stepped onto its surface. The legs were attached to the floor, making it a perfectly stable perch. She turned toward me, and I realized we were now the same height. It felt strange to see her at my eye level.

Strange, and wonderful. Now standing close to her, nose to nose, eye to eye, I couldn’t deny I found her perfect in every conceivable way. I considered her golden mane, curled in ringlets framing her lovely face.

I marveled at the way her perfect nose seemed to accentuate her perfect lips. I ached to feel Maren’s lips against my own.

She tossed her hair, and parted her lips, looking at me with intense purpose. I struggled to glean what she thought through her mysterious, enigmatic gaze, but I was still so inexperienced with humans, I just couldn’t tell.

“Drayk…” she said in a husky voice just above a whisper. Then, she reached out. It was so unexpected, I almost recoiled. Her hands rested on my shoulders, and she got on her tiptoes and leaned forward.

Her lips brushed my earlobe, ever so slightly. The golden hair I was so mesmerized with slid against my horns, heightening my arousal.

“Drayk…” Her voice was as soft as the sweetest berry in my ear. “Why do you tremble so?”

She moved her lips away from my ear. Our eyes met for a moment, and then she leaned forward again. I felt a jolt of excitement.

This is it. It’s happening. Right now. This is the moment!

Her lips drew near to mine. The golden threads clustered about us, wrapping around us, entwining Maren and I together.

Our lips met, and a thrill like no other I’d ever known shot through me. She tasted as wonderful as I had imagined. I found my body responding of its own accord—and not just in the obvious way. My hands touched her, ever so gently. One hand slid to the small of her back, where it curved the most. The other went to the back of her head, touching that glorious mane at last.

Like a spell, her kiss took my breath. Maren’s kiss stole my thoughts and left me with only the beating passion of my heart. I felt as if it wanted to tear itself out of my chest just to be nearer to hers.

My tongue moved on instinct, going inside her mouth. My tongue slid against hers, and my pulse kicked into overdrive. I felt a surge of energy, no longer tired in the slightest.

I felt my cock twitch between us. That seemed to be a signal to her. She pulled away from me, though with reluctance.

“Well,” she said softly. “That was worth the wait, wasn’t it?”

I grinned, nodded, and leaned in, to kiss her again.

“Whoa,” she said, putting her index finger on my bottom lip, stopping me in my tracks. “Later, big boy.”

She turned about and leaped adroitly off the table. Maren danced her way to the door and opened it.

“Good night, Drayk,” she said, biting her lower lip.

I went to the door, reluctant to walk through the portal, yet knowing I must. I turned to see her at the last moment as the door slid closed.

Maren wore the most deliciously devious smile I’d ever seen. I grinned in response, lowering my head as the door dropped down so I could continue to look at her.

The door closed flush with the floor at last, and I sighed. I turned and walked away in a kind of daze.

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew the war was already over. I’d lost. I was lost in her beautiful mystery. I knew then I’d do anything for her, even if I couldn't quite put the thoughts together in my conscious mind.

I made my way back to my quarters, sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed, for some time. My mind was still back in her quarters, my mental lips still locked with hers.

I laughed suddenly.

“Oh, Maren,” I said out loud, feeling good to get such thoughts out into the open. “Do you have any idea of the effect you have on me? Everything you do hits harder than Pretty Boy Takov.”

I should point out, Takov could fucking hit like nobody’s business. I fought him a few times in bare-knuckle boxing matches, and every time he hit me, I felt like someone had dropped a building on top of me.

He’s the only guy I never wanted to face again, and I felt more helpless before a mere slip of a human.

I was tangled in the web spun by my lovely Earth woman. And I had no intention of ever trying to escape.

Why would I want to?

MAREN

I closed the door behind Drayk and sighed happily.

“Oh, big guy,” I sighed. “Part of me wanted to tell you to stay. Part of me wanted to tell you to stay all night.”

I laughed at myself and touched my lips. Wow. Best freaking kiss in the history of ever. I did a little dance as I walked back into the living room.

I did a little jaunty leap up onto the coffee table and danced some more.

Yes, yes, yes. Definitely the best kiss ever.

He’d been so sweet, and I got to feel the strength of his hands on me, strong, but sweet.

Pretty much the perfect man, if I do say so myself.

Drayk wasn’t like any other man I’d ever met.

I mean, sure, he isn’t human, but he’s still male. Most Earth guys who’re built like Drayk…okay, so there aren’t any human men built like Drayk. Maybe some Greek gods.

My point was, in my experience, men who looked that incredible usually had horrible personalities. They knew they were hot. Since they’re usually successful, too, they never seemed to feel the need to try.

Memories of Drayk, being a giant, adorable…guy about everything frolicked through my memory. A small smile tugged the corners of my mouth.

Drayk tried so very hard.

I remembered the most precious of those memories, the moments when he let his real face slip out. In those moments, I felt nothing but perfection.

His heart had seemed as pure as the driven snow, in spite of having enough muscles to snap me in half without really trying. I sighed and rocked side-to-side. My frantic dance faded to the gentle swaying of a slow song while the memories of Drayk flitted through my head.

I eventually settled down, hopped off the coffee table, and went back to my reading. Thanks to the help of Sylvie and Choam, I knew I had a better chance than ever of making a breakthrough.

I sat down and read through the tablets. I kept right on reading, even when my eyes watered and hurt from the strain. I turned the screen to dark mode and kept chugging right along.

Finally, I realized I’d read the same line about four times in a row without really comprehending it. I turned off the tablet, yawned, and shuffled off to bed. I fell asleep thinking more about my kiss with Drayk than alien languages and Dr. Garcia’s plight.

I slept in rather late. I awakened several times, but on every occasion, I felt as if I should just stay in bed a little longer. A little longer got to be a lot longer, and I had a lazy start to my day.

By the time I got up, showered, and dressed, the rest of the ship had already started their day. I picked up my tablet, intending to read it while I ate breakfast.

Only to find out breakfast had been hours ago. When I got to the commissary, they were serving lunch. I settled in with something that smelled wonderful and tasted even better. I really appreciated alien food.

I read the journal while I ate. People came by and greeted me. I always took the time to look up, smile, and make eye contact with them. Sometimes, I engaged in small talk with them.

A lot of people wanted to know if I’d be at Dr. Bill’s As the Galaxy Churns watch party, and I assured them I would, in fact, be in attendance.

I was the portrait of politeness, but the moment they turned away, my eyes were back on the tablet. I read with such voracity I didn’t even notice when Drayk walked up beside me.

“Maren.”

I startled at the sound of his voice. I smiled as I looked up at him. His eyes were lovely beneath his horns.

“Hey there, big guy.” I scooted over and patted the seat beside me. “Have a seat.”

“Thank you.”

He settled in with his mess tray and sat down beside me. Drayk seemed to be unsure of what to say to me next. I guessed, after our steamy kiss the night before, he wasn’t sure where we stood.

That made two of us. I definitely wanted to try more of that kissing stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I just wasn’t sure where whatever we had was headed.

I do like him, and we get along great.

That didn’t guarantee us our own storybook happily ever after. I recalled hearing a lot of stories from my many different jobs and classes. Stories about people who thought they were made for each other, only to have their relationship go down in flames.

“I missed you.”

I glanced up at him and smiled.

“I missed you, too. Are you excited about the watch party tonight?”

“Yes, very much so.”

I cocked my head to the side. I thought he’d done me a favor by agreeing to come along with me, but he seemed genuinely eager to attend.

“That’s awesome.” I went back to studying the tablet as he chowed down. I spooned the occasional dollop into my mouth, but mostly, I focused on my task at hand.

I read a line, then read it again, then cross-referenced it with some of the sketches Dr. Garcia had drawn. I gasped, reaching out to Drayk. I tugged on Drayk’s uniform shirt, hissing my words in excitement.

“Drayk,” I said, without looking up. “Drayk!”

“What is it, Maren?” He leaned over my shoulder and peered at the screen. “What’s got you so excited?”

“Take a look.” I tapped the screen, enlarging one of the alien symbols. “You see this symbol right here?”

“The one that looks like a rotund man with wavy lines around it?”

“Yes, that one.”

“What about it?”

I looked at him, brimming with excitement.

“I think I know what it means.”

DRAYK

“I think this symbol means some kind of enlightenment.”

Her manicured nail tapped the screen with vehemence.

“I mean, it could mean ‘enlightenment’. Sylvie says it could also be some kind of ‘powering up’, maybe.”

“Like getting super powers?” I asked.

“Yes, I guess. Like getting super powers.” She grinned. “Isn’t that amazing?”

I chewed it over for a bit. Then I nodded.

“It’d make sense the Queen’s Brood Smugglers’ Guild would be interested in something offering great knowledge or power.”

“Well, they’re apparently more than willing to kill for it,” she said with a grimace. “I wonder if that means they know something we don’t?”

“I think they know a lot we don’t. I also think they don’t know just how screwed they’ll be when they face Vaznik warriors in a straight fight.”

“Well, judging from the mission logs I read, you guys have pretty much kicked their asses every time you faced them.”

“Yes, but we failed in our objective each time. Three separate times we’ve been very close to rescuing Dr. Garcia. Yet, every single time, she’s slipped away from us.”

I could say with confidence we were trying to rescue her now. It didn't seem like much of a distinction, but it changed everything about our mission parameters. Now recovering Dr. Garcia—unharmed—had become a much bigger priority.

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself. I read up on this smugglers guild, too, and they’re a sneaky lot. They’ve given professional law enforcement in every single system in the galaxy, a headache for decades.”

“Ah, but we’re Vaznik warriors. We have no words in our language for failure.”

She turned to me with a cocked eyebrow.

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

“Well, it sounded cool.”

She squeezed my arm and an electric shock spread up my body from where her skin touched mine. The memory of our kiss last night flashed through my mind like wildfire. I felt my desire for her mount…which was perhaps a poor choice of words, under the circumstances.

We talked, laughed, and shared insights during our lunch together. I was so intoxicated by every little thing she did, though, I missed about half of what she said.

Still, I wouldn’t have traded those moments for all the treasure in the galaxy. I wouldn’t have traded the time I’d spent with Maren for anything, in fact.

I’d already forgotten what my life was like, before Maren entered it. In fact, I’d wondered how I even got through the day before she came on board.

I was living in a new era. Gone were the days of BM—before Maren. Now, I lived firmly in an AM world. After Maren. And I had a feeling there was no going back.

Remember to never say this out loud. BM would require too much explanation.

Not that I wanted to go back. On the contrary, I never, ever wanted to go back to a world without Maren.

I’ll never leave you, Maren. You’d have to send me away, but I can’t even bear to imagine how that’d feel.

We finished up our lunch, and most of the mess hall had cleared out by then. The mess hall staff put stools up on tables so they could mop the floors before the inevitable dinner rush came in.

“I’m sorry,” Maren said as one of the staff closed in on their table.

“You’re all right,” he said with a smile, but she was already getting up.

“Come on, Drayk, we’re being rude. These poor guys need to clean up.”

We left the mess hall together. Suddenly she turned to me, eyes wide with anxiety.

“Oh, shit…Drayk, I need your help with something for the party.”

I smiled ear to ear.

“I’ll do anything you wish, Maren.”

And I mean every last word.

“I’m so glad to hear it.” She hissed through clenched teeth. “I’m afraid this isn’t going to be pleasant. You have to take Zaen to Choam’s shop and let the little guy and his daughter punch him.”

“Oh,” I said, smiling. “I’m sure I can get Zaen to do this.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose. I can ask him, if you want to.”

“No, that’s quite all right. After all, I’m his commanding officer.”

We shared a laugh, and parted ways. She grasped my hand at the last moment. Our hands lingered together, fingers sliding along until the last moment.

“See you, Drayk,” she said, flashing her mischievous smile.

“See you soon,” I said, then finally, reluctantly, turned away from her. I turned back a moment later and appreciated the view as she walked around the corner.

I headed to Zaen’s quarters and rang the door chime. He appeared a moment later, holding a tablet in his hand.

“Drayk, what do you want?”

“I have an important mission for you, Zaen.”

His gaze narrowed.

“I don’t like the way you said that. I’m going to pass.”

“No, you’re not. You need to make amends for your past misdeeds.”

“Oh, man come on, I said I was sorry for rearranging all of Amelia’s tools.”

I slapped a hand over my eyes and sighed.

“Raxor already held you down for her to beat on. That’s handled. I’m talking about when you insulted Noam’s daughter’s sculpture when we’d tried to get his help with the translation.”

“Oh, that.” He shrugged. “How was I supposed to know that was his kid? All Toyolians look the same to me.”

“You could’ve tried just being nice by default.”

“Who’re you talking to?” he laughed. “All right, what does he want, another apology? I’ve given him several, both oral and written, at Admiral Ausym’s behest.”

“Um, not exactly.”

I explained things to him, and he laughed.

“Oh, he wants to hit me? That little dollop of potato mash wants to hit me? Ha! Sure, he can hit me if he wants.”

“And his daughter.”

“Fine, the daughter, too.”

I felt relief flood my body.

“Thank you for being understanding. I was afraid I’d have to order you to do this.”

“Think nothing of it.”

I sure was surprised when Choam balled up that little fist and knocked Zaen clean out the door to his shop. But not nearly as much as Zaen was when Choam’s daughter used a galactic spiral powerbomb to put him through a table.

MAREN

I got my potluck ready for the party. I’d chosen a favorite from my childhood, macaroni and cheese with crispy bacon, topped with Italian-seasoned bread crumbs.

Now that I had the cooking part all done, I had to turn my mind to other matters.

What am I going to wear?

I had a lot of clothes with me, fortunately. I laid several outfits upon my bed and considered the merits of each.

First up, we had the sparkly, blue rave dress. Scandalously short, the plunging neckline showed off a lot of cleavage, and the dress came with light-up butterfly wings.

Not feeling the fairy look, I shook my head.

I turned to the next choice, which I considered the ‘safest’ of the three. A classic little black dress, the skirt flared out into a ruffled hem, making it just a tad more casual than standard night-club fare.

The black dress felt more elegant, yet I still worried it might be too fancy for an informal watch party.

Last, I turned my eyes on what I called my ‘girl next door, enhanced’ look. A designer-print T-shirt in black with a pair of sparkly red lips with a tongue thrust out. My father had a lot of old music albums with the symbol on it.

I combined it with a pair of classic denim jeans from Earth. Everyone’s butt looks good in jeans, and I liked to think I was no exception. Not wanting to go totally casual, I donned a pair of strappy heels and put on some dangly earrings.

My hair proved to be a challenge. I really wished I’d looked into a hairdresser or stylist on the commerce deck. I was dead certain they’d at least one. I wound up just going over my locks with a pick and trusting the natural curls to do their thing.

I gathered up my dish of mac and cheese and made my way to Dr. Bill’s cabin. According to rumor, he had a bigger cabin than even the admiral.

I didn’t know if the rumors were true or not. I did know his quarters were larger than the science lab, and featured the biggest holo display I’d ever seen near the furthest wall from me. Around two dozen people milled about, mingling around the snack table or seated in the various spots around the room.

“Ah, welcome.” Dr. Bill’s mechanical legs propelled him over to me. The reddish mollusk inside of the glass globe ‘head’ on his robotic shoulders was the real Dr. Bill. “I’m so glad you could make it, Maris.”

“It’s Maren, and thanks for inviting me.”

“My apologies, Mary.”

“Maren—”

He’d already turned away from me, speaking with a walking lump of muscle named Dr. Treigho.

“Let me TELL you something, Dr. Bill,” he rasped. “You’d better get her name right, or I’ll see just how much pressure it takes per square inch to crush your little globe with my bare hands.”

“Oh, please, you’ve threatened to do that for years.”

“If you insult her again…well, I hope you’re prepared for a fatal encounter, because I’m a Pantera’s box you don’t want to open.”

“Ugh, it’s Pandora, you hyperbolic clown.”

The doors opened behind me, and in floated Choam.

“Hello there. Glad you could make it.”

“Um, what’s he doing here?” Dr. Bill said, but Treigho reached out and flipped off his voice box before he could be rude.

“Yes, I’m looking forward to it…oh, is that chocolate lava cake?”

He floated over to the buffet table. A moment later, I smiled, my heart skipping a beat as Drayk strode into the room. He was followed by Zaen, who seemed to be nursing a black eye.

“Hey,” I said, smiling wide and fidgeting a bit. “How are you, big guy?”

“A lot better, now that I’m with you.”

“Hey,” shouted Helena, holding hands with Kavok, “the show's about to start!”

Moving like a well-oiled machine, the party guests started rearranging the furniture, lowering the lights, and preparing for the show. Dr. Bill insisted he be the one who operated the holo viewer. I noticed he had turned his voice back on at some point.

To my surprise, Drayk really got into the party. I mean, really got into it.

“Can you believe it?” he gaped. “This whole time we thought Florsha had an evil twin, and as it turns out, she has evil triplets!”

“You really seem to be into this show…”

He looked away sheepishly, and I chuckled.

It had the air of the best Super Bowl parties on Earth. I had a blast, especially hanging out with the other humans. Helena, Amelia, Petra, Sylvia, and I formed our own little group. We spent as much time talking to each other as we did watching the show.

As the night wore on, I saw the next phase of my adventure.

Drayk.

I decided to move climbing Drayk like a tree to the top of the Why Wait for a Bucket List list.

He doesn’t stand a chance.

All of the humans at the party gave me knowing looks and smiles. I had perfect confidence they knew exactly what I thought during those moments.

Almost as soon as the show ended, they went to work, surreptitiously shutting the party down. They were subtle enough to keep it from being obvious, but I knew what they were doing.

I felt gratitude toward them for their help. Ever since that kiss, I’d entertained more and more…physical…thoughts about Drayk.

“Hey,” I said as more and more of the party guests filtered outside. “It looks like the party is wrapping up. You want to walk me to my quarters?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, a glint of hope in his eyes.

If I had my way, we’d both get what we wanted tonight.

DRAYK

I’m not sure when I first figured out something had changed between Maren and I. Surely it happened before the mid-episode recap, hosted by famous celebrity couple, Sandra Zee and Gurphalax the Destroyer.

I know it happened after Dr. Treigho brought out his seven-curd bean dip, because of the expression on Maren’s face when she saw the concoction placed with such reverence on the table.

I think I first became aware when Amelia pumped Earth music through the intercom. The humans, and many of the others at the watch party, joined in the fun.

Dancing with Maren looked like fun. Before I moved from the conversation forced on me by Dr. Bill pertaining to his Fruitarian Foragers, however, I became ensnared in the web of Maren’s gaze.

Her umber eyes positively smoldered with a glassy, almost dreamy look. Maren’s lips had never seemed so full and lustrous to me as they did in that moment. She danced to the beat, moving her body sinuously as a serpent. I found myself mesmerized by her swaying hips as much as her gaze.

She turned about in the midst of her dance, pulling up her blond hair and baring the nape of her neck for a moment. I found my heart thudding in my chest so rapidly, I feared others might hear the beat.

Primal urges, the likes of which I’d never before known, stirred within me. I stared hard at Maren. My mouth went dry as the song reached its end. She laughed with Helena and Petra, then excused herself and sauntered over to me.

I know it only took a few moments for her to walk to me, but it seemed as if she crammed an eternity of sensuality into every stride.

“Hey, did you like my dancing?” she asked, looking up at me and touching my forearm lightly with her fingertips.

I couldn’t speak, I was too numb with the fresh desires to crush my lips on top of her own and feel her body pressed against mine. I nodded, something akin to a squeak coming out of my mouth.

“Right answer.” She tittered and snaked her arm in with mine. “Come on, the recap is about to start.”

She kept her body pressed against mine as we joined the others in front of the huge holo display. The show came back on and she wriggled up a little closer to me.

“Oh,” she said, her gaze going to a creamy concoction Rikov sipped out of a glass. “What’s that?”

“An Atomic Meltdown. I believe the Earth people describe its flavor as being akin to marshmallow ice cream, as well as its texture.”

“There’s no part of that I don’t like. Will you go and get me one?”

She smiled up at me. Her soft breasts rubbed on my arm. I’d have climbed the tallest mountain in the galaxy for a handful of snow just to please her at that moment.

“Right away.”

I found my legs trembling as I made my way to the buffet table. I couldn’t believe how different things felt with Maren now. I felt…like prey. Like she’d locked her sights on me, and there was no escaping.

As if I want to escape.

I got her the Atomic Meltdown, and a Vaznik ale for myself, and brought them back to our spot.

“Oh, thank you,” she said. She skipped up to me and smiled, twisting her torso slightly from side to side. She clasped her hands behind her back and leaned in. Her luscious red lips pursed as they squeezed the end of the straw thrust from the white, sticky morass. Her cheeks rippled as she sucked a dollop of cream into her mouth.

“Mmm.” Her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned back. “That’s so good. It’s better than sex.”

I felt my heart leap in my chest like a caged bird.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” She giggled. “No it’s not. I mean, can you think of any food that’s really better than sex?”

“I, ah…I don’t believe Vaznik have made such a sexual, gastronomic hierarchy.”

She laughed, taking the drink from my hand. Her soft hair brushed against my skin as she slid her arm in mine.

“Sexual-gastronomic hierarchy. You’re so funny, Drayk.”

The show came back on, and I was almost grateful for something to take her focus off me, even for a moment. The next scene showed a human trying to seduce a Tsander by displaying her body in…

I’m uncertain I can describe that as a garment…more like a translucent film with elaborate floral patterns doing more to invite others to look at her body than to conceal it.

“Oh, that’s a nice bra and panty set.” She snuggled up a bit closer to me, her cheek brushing my shoulder. “It’s sexy.”

She looked up at me frankly.

“Do you think it’s sexy, Drayk?”

I felt as if I might explode. I nodded.

“Yes, very.”

“Oh, then you’ll be so happy I had so much luggage with me.” She went back to looking at the screen. “So happy.”

I heard one of my fellows—probably Vrako—saying I was ‘eating out of her hand.’ It was a human phrase I wasn’t familiar with, and I assumed it was metaphorical, as I wasn’t literally eating food from her hand.

I suppose I hung on her every word as she hung off my arm. It felt as if she’d told me it was okay to touch her, to feel her body against my own.

The implications of this drove me wild.

I hope I remember my Pleasing Human Women 201 class…. Judging from the look in her eye, I’m going to need it.

When I walked Maren to her quarters, she stood in the open doorway and turned back to face me.

She thrust her finger out at me and hooked it back twice, then grabbed my belt and tugged me inside with her.

I knew I was held in her thrall. I knew she had me wrapped around her finger.

MAREN

Swept up in my wake, Drayk offered no resistance as I pulled him into my quarters. I put my hand on his cheek, running my fingers up to his horns. I remembered hearing they were erogenous. A light touch of my fingers, akin to a feather, didn’t do much. I pressed a bit more firmly, like petting a cat and he gasped.

His hands shot up to my shoulders. I felt the immense power in his hands, juxtaposed with the gentle tenderness in his green eyes. The big verdant alien pulled me into his kiss.

I melted into him as our lips smacked together in an exultant exploration. My heart raced as his hand slipped behind my head, fingers weaving through my hair to cradle me all the closer.

I felt his tongue slip inside my mouth. I eagerly lashed my own against it. We came up for air, our gazes meeting. His hand slid down to my lower back and stopped. I could sense how bad he wanted to keep going.

Not nearly as bad as I want him to, though.

“It’s okay.” I grabbed his wrist and moved his hand down to caress my bottom. “You can touch me. You can grab me…I’m not made of glass.”

His fingers flexed, kneading my soft flesh.

“Does it feel nice?” I purred.

“So nice.” He covered my lips with his again, squeezing my plump cheeks. I slid my hands along the chiseled planes of his chest, down over the hard knots of muscle on his abdomen. His lips trailed kisses down my cheek to my neck.

My mouth flew open as his tongue slid across my sensitive skin. His hands tugged at my garments, slowly lessening the barriers between us. Drayk knelt, pulling my panties over my thighs, knees, and finally to my ankles. I stepped out of the garment, standing naked before him for the first time.

Well, I guess I did wear that see-through nightshirt the other day, but that doesn’t count.

His eyes drank in the sight of me. I felt my cheeks blush, but from sheer joy at his expression. I felt it pouring out of his eyes I was enthralling, but he opened his mouth and said it anyway.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in all the galaxy.”

He remained on his knees, moving forward to kiss my belly. I moaned softly as he kissed his way across its soft surface. Gradually, he eased me back until I sat on the sofa.

I stroked my fingers across his horns. He kissed his way below my navel. My heart raced like the wind.

His breath felt hot against my skin. I shivered as his mouth moved past my mound and continued on to my inner thighs. I let out a soft moan as he tenderly kissed my inner thigh. My sigh turned into a gasp as he moved his lips up between my legs. I cried out as he kissed my velvet folds with care.

“I love the way you taste,” he whispered in a throaty growl. A delightful sparkle of pleasure emanated from his fingertips as he stroked my soaking lips. He stretched them open, revealing my inner pinkness to his gaze.

Slowly, he moved his face in closer. His tongue extended from his mouth, a deeper violet than the rest of him. I felt it slide through the trench between my labia and nestle in deep. My hands grasped his horns, sparklers sizzling behind my eyes as he enthusiastically ate my pussy.

“You taste so good, Maren,” he mumbled into the soft folds of my flesh. I shuddered as he traced slow circles around my clitoral mound with his tongue. He whisked the broad edge of his green muscle across my clitoris for a moment and I lurched my hips up at him. I wanted him so badly, it drove me wild.

His lips latched around my swollen clit and sucked hard. My mouth flew open as I sucked in a ragged gasp of air. I let it out as a piercing scream, echoing off the bulkheads.

I reared up until his horns pressed into my breasts, flopping onto my back. Fireworks exploded in my eyes and a golden sheen hummed through my entire nervous system. I floated on a cloud of pure delight.

Drayk gently pulled me into his naked lap. He kissed me, and I savored the feel of his mouth on my own. I felt his cock twitch hard beneath me.

I squirmed about in his lap until I straddled his thighs. I reared up, my hands on his shoulders, as he gripped his throbbing green member and positioned it beneath me.

I lowered myself slowly, carefully. The electric moment when his crown slipped between my wide open, dripping wet lips seared itself into my mind for all eternity. He was inside of me at last.

I moaned deep and guttural as he filled me inch by inch, stretching my inner walls with his rod. I settled down onto his lap fully. He kissed my neck, his hand sweeping my hair out of the way. I rocked my hips. He moved his body in concert with mine.

It felt amazing to have him inside of me. Drayk’s hot mouth kissed my neck, suckled my nipples, and continuously kept busy while I gyrated on top of him like a Las Vegas exotic dancer. I’d never felt so free during sex before. It was as if Drayk made me comfortable enough I felt comfortable giving myself over to the moment.

His hands supported my lower back as I leaned away from him. The different angle made him hit my G-spot just right. My mouth flew open in a shattering scream of climax. He pulled me against him, rolling me onto my back. He got on his knees between my thighs and thrust into me.

My hands clutched at his chiseled pecs, as a moan slowly built into a shout and escaped my lips. I thrashed around beneath his body like a landed fish, electric pulses of ecstasy thundering through me.

At last, he collapsed on top of me, and we held each other tight as our sweat mingled and cooled.

It was a night I never wanted to end.

DRAYK

The night I spent with Maren changed everything—and nothing. I’d already had strong feelings for her. After sharing so much with Maren, I felt as if the two of us had crossed an unseen threshold. Though I couldn’t see it, I felt the crossed line falling further and further behind.

Maren held my arm as we walked to breakfast. I found I loved the press of her body against mine. Many of my fellow Vaznik noticed the change, too. I got a lot of smiles and nods of approval.

It’s as if they were thinking, ‘there goes a true patriot trying to save our race.’

Little did they know, in my heart of hearts, my feelings for Maren had nothing to do with making more Mahdfel, or lotteries, or the Suhlik.

I knew our journey together had just begun, but there was no longer any question of where were headed.

I just hoped I’d follow in the footsteps of Kavok, Irev, and Raxor. They’d all found a way to make things work with their human mates. I hoped to be no exception.

We got our food and sat. Maren, smiling, fed me a dollop of a human confection known as ‘chocolate pudding’ from a spoon.

Why’d no one tell me being mated was so much fun?

“Drayk, report to the bridge immediately.”

“Did you feel that?” Vrako turned about in his seat to stare right at me. “We just dropped out of FTL.”

“Then we’ve arrived at the coordinates.” I gazed excitedly at Maren. “It’s nearly time.”

“Hey, did you hear that?” Vrako slapped Jakar on the shoulder. “It’s time for the fleet’s best pilot to go into action.”

Jakar beamed a smile, until Vrako spoke again,

“So, why don’t you go and see if you can find him, Jakar?”

I didn’t stick around to hear Jakar’s response, because Maren and I hustled to the bridge. When the doors to the bridge slid open, I saw Captain Soanzo at the command center, and Admiral Ausym sitting in a very comfortable-looking chair, overlooking the entire bridge.

“Ah, Drayk,” Admiral Ausym said. “Perfect timing. We’re almost in visual range of the coordinates.”

“Is it a planet?” I asked, seeing a looming green and red blob growing ever closer in the main viewscreen.

“It looks like a gas giant.” Maren squinted her eyes. “Judging from the size, I’d say…trying to enter the atmosphere would be tantamount to suicide.”

“Perhaps the coordinates actually belong to one of its moons?” I turned to Rikov, who manned the sensor console at the time.

“I’m checking right now.” His fingers danced over the touchscreen console. “Okay, there’s six…no, seven moons. And the coordinates don’t lead to any of them—wait! There’s an object orbiting the largest moon. Judging from these sensor readings, it’s manmade and inhabited by a quarter-million living beings.”

“Manmade? It must be a ship, then,” Maren offered.

“Let me see…” Rikov’s brow furrowed in confusion. “This can’t be right. I’m picking up dozens…no, hundreds of drive signatures.”

“Space station then?” I turned to Captain Soanzo, my brows arched.

“Only one way to find out.” Soanzo turned to the helmsman. “Take us in, one-tenth sub-light speed. I don’t want them to think we have hostile intentions.”

Slowly, a brownish blob on the screen grew larger, resolving into a roughly spheroid shape of many different colors.

“If that’s a space station, it’s a complete hodge podge of different parts of ships.” Maren’s eyes narrowed. I noticed her mind calculate. “I doubt this place was built by any of the major galactic governments.”

“Not out here in unexplored space. That leaves only one possibility.” My voice held an edge to it. “It’s what the humans would call an ebony shopping plaza.”

“Black market, hon,” Maren said, patting my arm. “I can’t wait to see what it looks like inside. Oh, this is going to be the greatest adventure I’ve ever had.”

I, too, found myself most curious to see the interior of such an unusual-looking station, even if it might prove dangerous.

“Captain.” Rikov spun around in his chair to face Captain Soanzo. “Most of the ships docked with that station are illegally distorting their transponder signal. Those who have transponders at all, that is.”

“Surely, it’s the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in the known galaxy,” Soanzo murmured. Maren coughed and nearly choked. She waved away my concern, eyes tearing up. “We simply must be cautious here.”

He turned to the helmsman.

“Approach no further. And warble our own fleet’s transponder signals.”

“When in Rome,” Maren said, for some reason.

I’ll have to ask her what she meant by that. Later.

“Sir, anyone who looks out their porthole will see we’re clearly a Vaznik exploratory fleet,” Rikov pointed out.

“I’m well aware of that. My order stands.” Soanzo gestured to the space station. “No doubt, at least some of those ships, if not the station itself, detected our arrival in this system. With our own transponder signals distorted, they’ll assume we’ve arrived on a clandestine mission and aren’t looking to cause a scene or trouble.”

“That’s brilliant, sir,” I said.

“In fact, take us to the fifth planet from the system’s star. The rocky one.” Soanzo’s eyes narrowed. “Make them think that’s where our business is. They may not fall for it completely, but it gives us a better chance.”

Soanzo turned to me.

“Drayk, your team will requisition one of the non-Vaznik shuttles docked in our bay for this mission. I’m not entirely convinced that space station would skip the opportunity to fire on Vaznik vessels, were we to get too close.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is it. You’re on, Drayk.” He gave me a firm nod. “Go. Gather your away team.”

Rikov pouted. I knew he was upset at having missed some of the other away missions.

“Captain, can I borrow Rikov?”

“Yes, you may. T’lon, take the sensor post. Rikov’s all yours, Drayk.”

“Excellent.” I turned to Maren. “Are you ready for this?”

She grinned brilliantly, like a holo-vid star.

“I was born ready for this.”

MAREN

I parted ways with Drayk long enough to stop by my quarters for a quick wardrobe change. I didn’t want to stand out in any way, so I chose drab, gray garments whose blousiness would create ambiguity about my species and sex. This included a gray hood to hide my hair.

When I walked into the shuttle bay, where the crew prepared to disembark, my eyes widened in shock. Drayk and his team wore their full armored exo-suits, and carried enough heavy weaponry to take on an entire planet.

“Oh, yeah,” Rikov said, polishing a gun whose barrel had an opening bigger than my face. “I wish some punk would try to pick my pocket, so I can blow his head clean off with this beautiful beast.”

Zaen scowled at him.

“Pick your pocket? Through your exo-suit?”

“Well, or… okay, what if I witness a pickpocket? I can blow his head clean off with this beautiful beast.”

Drayk put his hands on his hips and shook his head.

“Rikov, you’re making me question the decision to add you to this away team. We’re going undercover. So, we need to be subtle.”

Thank goodness someone’s developed common sense.

Drayk yanked the gigantic gun out of Rikov’s hand. Rikov’s face twisted into a frown of protest.

“We want to be understated here, so don’t use the Menacer MK VII combat rifle with explosive rounds…use the Zebarra Industries automatic belt-fed shotgun instead!”

I gaped in horror as Drayk slapped an only slightly less gigantic gun into Rikov’s hands.

“See? Way more subtle,” Drayk said.

“Stop, stop, stop…” I came up in the middle of the Vaznik warriors, my features drooping. “No, no, guys. This isn’t…you can’t…this isn’t going to work.”

Drayk stiffened up a bit as if I’d offended him somehow.

“I don’t know what to say. This is standard away mission gear. And what’re you wearing? That won’t fit under your exo-suit.”

“I’m not going to wear an—"

“Yeah.” Jakar sounded like a petulant child arguing with a mother who declared no cookies before dinner. “If we wanted to go heavy, we’d take along twelve hand grenades each, instead of only seven.”

“Guys, you can’t go into a black market looking like an army.”

I saw the light dawn in Drayk’s eyes. He lowered his weapon—with great reluctance, I might add—and sighed.

“She’s right, men. Everybody out of the exo-suits, and don’t take anything heavier than a pistol.”

“What?” Rikov sputtered. “I finally get to go on an away mission and all I get is a lousy pistol?”

“Hey, Drayk.” Vrako cut in. “Can I take some hand grenades? I mean, look.”

He gestured at his bulging pockets.

“You can’t even tell I’ve got four grenades stuffed in each pocket.”

One of the grenades fell out and clanked heavily to the floor.

“Were you listening when I said nothing heavier than a pistol, Rikov?” Drayk snapped.

“I have a question,” Tanax said, raising his red-skinned hand in the air.

“What is it?”

“Can I take a knife, too?”

“Ah, certainly.” Drayk scratched behind his head. “I said nothing heavier than a pistol, and a knife is certainly less—”

“Hey, if he gets to take a knife, I should get to take my vibro sword.” Jakar waved a three-foot long piece of metal in the air, emitting a high-pitched whine.

“No swords,” Drayk growled.

“But it’s a bladed weapon, just like a knife.”

“A knife is subtle.”

Jakar pouted.

“This is subtle.”

Drayk swiped a hand down his face while I tried not to laugh.

“There’s nothing subtle about that!” Drayk pointed his finger at the sword.

“What about a simple shock staff?” Rikov waved a metal bar in a series of whizzing spins. “It’s subtle.”

“It’s seven-feet long!” Drayk sputtered.

“Oh, well, I uh…” Jakar stared at his pole. His eyes lit up with an idea. “I know, I could lean on it, like I’m an old man with a walking stick. See? I can totally sell this, boss man.”

“Put the staff away,” Drayk said through clenched teeth. “I’m going to make this real clear. You can only bring along a pistol, that’s it—”

“And a knife,” Tanax interjected.

Drayk made a pained expression carrying over into his tone.

“—and a knife. That’s it. Pistol and knife.”

He looked each of his men in the eyes as he spoke.

“No grenades. No swords. And no shock staves.”

“Um, could I take two pistols?”

“No.” Drayk’s face had darkened to a rich purple. “No, no, no. One pistol, one knife.”

“What about a compass?” Jakar asked.

“It’s a space station! There’s no magnetic North, so a compass would be useless. You heard Maren. She says we have to go in undercover. Maren is smart, right? We all agree on that.”

Nods went around the group, making my heart melt, to be honest. I think I even wiped away a tear. It’s not often you get appreciated by men for anything but the obvious reasons.

Don’t get noble. That tear was left over from resisting the urge to laugh at these guys. Good thing they don’t know that.

“So, we should listen to her. Don’t take anything a scoundrel-type wouldn’t have on them. That means no military-only grade gear.”

“Sir, could I take some rope?”

“Rope?” Drayk rounded on Jakar. “Why do you want to bring rope?”

“You know, in case we need to climb up a cliff or something.”

“It. Is. A. Space. Station.” Drayk said with exaggerated emphasis, arms drawing out wide, the tips of his fingers meeting as if he picked at invisible fluff. “There. Won’t. Be. Any. Cliffs.”

“Um, well, a scoundrel might have rope. You know, to tie up his captives, or what have you. Right guys?”

The assembled Vaznik warriors all nodded and agreed.

“That’s all I’m say—”

“Put the fucking rope back! The next person who asks me a stupid question about equipment is getting kicked off this away team.”

That finally did it. The men fell silent. Drayk stared at them for a moment longer as if daring them to test his patience. I breathed very carefully to prevent the belly laugh threatening to escape my soul.

Drayk must’ve decided he’d glared at the team members sufficiently and nodded. Then turned on me.

“Maren, do you have any idea as to how we’re supposed to disguise a squad of Vaznik warriors?”

I grinned.

“As a matter of fact, I do. I was just talking to Helena the other day about her excursions in the apparel section of the Honor’s Blade. Follow me, boys.”

DRAYK

We followed Maren to the mess hall, all but empty at that hour. I wondered what she had in mind, but I had complete faith in her.

Shortly after we arrived, I spotted several of my mated Vaznik brethren, and they weren’t alone. Kavok, Helen, Raxor, Amelia, Irev, and Petra all approached us with purpose in their stride.

“I’m glad you called in some help,” Helena said, wrinkling her nose. “You should’ve seen how Kavok tried to dress for our second date.”

Maren laughed.

“Something tells me I don’t actually want to have seen it.”

“It’s scarred into my cerebral cortex.” Helena grimaced. “Scarred. I’ll just give you a hint as to the horror—powdered wigs and pimp shoes.”

“Oh, no.” Maren and the women laughed. I turned to Kavok, hoping he might have some explanation as to what we were doing here.

“What’s going on?”

“Look, take my advice,” Kavok said, throwing his arm over my shoulder. “Just do what the women tell you and trust them completely when it comes to dressing yourself. All right?”

“Yeah,” Jakar said, bobbing his head. “Like you guys listen to and trust me completely when I’m behind the control stick of a ship.”

Zaen snorted.

“Jakar, I barely trust you to turn food into shit.”

I heard the mechanical swik swik of Dr. Bill’s suit before I saw him. He strode over to us, the mollusk in his ‘head’ swimming in rapid circles.

“I simply can’t wait to see this space station,” Dr. Bill said in his mechanical voice.

“You can’t go on a stealth mission.” Maren scowled, shaking her head.

“But why not?” The mollusk stopped swimming and crossed its tentacles over its…body, for lack of a better term for the enviro-suit contraption Dr. Bill lived in. “Why may I not accompany the away team?”

“Um, gee, let me think.” Maren’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Maybe because you have a planet named after you? And some species of antelope? And an insectoid—”

“Oh, surely, the rubes and plebes on this rotting hulk of metal aren’t the scientific-minded types. Though, I suppose I am famous. It’s hard being so important.”

“Hey, don’t be so arrogant, Dr. B,” Amelia said, straightening her tool belt and thrusting her thumbs into the leather. “I’m telling you, putting that station together took major-league brilliance, engineering, and ingenuity.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come along, Dr. Bill.”

“Bah.” He waved us off. “Fine then. See if I invite you to my next watch party.”

A hint of exotic spice hit my nostrils. I turned away from the debacle of Dr. Bill’s complaints and toward the galley door.

The most opulent being swept into the room. And I do mean he swept, because his long, voluminous robes touched the deck plating ever so slightly. The purple robes featured a black and white furred collar and split open below the neck to reveal the alien’s lace-up, red, Earth vest.

I was so busy looking at his robes, I hadn’t even seen his face. He was a Tsander, whose leafy, green cranial frills belied the mouth full of razor-sharp teeth beneath a wide-set nose. His eyes didn't seem like those of a predator, though. More like monarchy. You know, a Que—

“Greetings, one and all.” He swept into a deep bow. “I am Bok’Choi—”

Maren snorted with laughter and quickly covered up her mouth. Bok glared at her.

“Why must every human laugh when I introduce myself?”

Maren slapped a hand over her mouth, her face pure, mortified embarrassment. Bok’Choi sighed dramatically, swiping an arm across his face. He pinned Maren with a pointed look, then winked and chuckled.

“Just kidding. I think it’s hilarious my name makes humans laugh. I’ve been summoned by my good friend Helena to produce disguises both sophisticated and convincing for you men.”

He stroked his chin as he floated into the room. Behind him came a younger Tsander pushing a rack of clothing. And another. And another, until there were almost as many of them as there were of us.

“My team and I are here to ensure your mission is a resounding success,” Bok’Choi said, his chest swelling with pomp to match his baritone voice, “and to equally ensure you look good doing it.”

His face split into a grin.

“That second bit wasn’t part of their initial request, but you can’t ask a bird to not fly, nor a silver-scaled fish not to dance across the crystal-clear waters of a mountain stream.”

He threw his arm over his head and appeared faint.

“Are you all right?” Tanax asked, coming to the Tsander’s side.

“It’s just a thing he does,” Jakar sneered. “He’s not going to faint.”

I noticed something banging against Jakar’s leg.

“Jakar, curse you, is that a fucking rope hanging from your belt?”

“Oh, is it?” He looked down, his mouth an O of surprise. “Why, how’d that get there? I know, I must’ve forgotten to take it off when I was in the shuttle bay armory.”

I was about to berate Jakar when I noticed something else. Big-mouth Zaen wasn’t speaking. Normally, he’d have been the first one to jump in with a joke at Jakar’s expense. In fact, he seemed to be concentrating really hard on something. Or holding his breath, the way his cheeks puffed out…

I walked over to Zaen and held my hand out.

“Spit out that grenade, Zaen.”

His brows arched high on his head, disappearing beneath his horns. He gave an exaggerated shrug and shook his head.

“Damn it, Zaen, spit it out.”

Zaen opened his mouth and a grenade fell into my hand.

“All of them.”

That cagey bastard somehow fit four fucking grenades in his mouth. No wonder he can’t shut up. He has a big mouth—literally.

I glared at my gathered team as Bok’Choi’s men went to work.

“Is there anyone else who has any contraband they want to hand over now?”

Lots of head shakes. I sighed in resignation.

“Fine. Let’s let Bok’Choi and his team do their magic.”

“Hey, boss man,” Tanax said, holding his hand in the air. “I’ve got an idea. What if we all wore the same color, like the Queen’s Brood smugglers all wear black? You know, like a team uniform?”

Vrako rolled his eyes and groaned.

“Nah, that’s a terrible idea. If we’re going to wear uniforms, let’s all wear something different.”

Bok’Choi put his hands on his hips and shook his head.

“I have my work cut out for me, indeed.”

MAREN

Bok’Choi’s assistants moved about swiftly, with boundless energy. About the size of a twelve-year old human child, their faces looked oddly ageless.

“I didn’t know you’d hired so many assistants, Bok’Choi,” Kavok said.

“Oh, I didn’t hire them,” Bok’Choi replied. “I budded recently. These are my children—”

His gaze snapped around.

“Sullen Twerp! Don’t let that Hendrixian yak wool drag along the ground! A mere square yard of it costs as much as a shuttlecraft.”

“Gee, do you have to call your kids such mean names?” I asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” Bok’Choi said, with a frown. He suddenly snapped his gaze to his left. “Mucous Font, I hope you aren’t trying to put two primary colors on that Vaznik at the same time? Who are we, some boorish Va—”

He cleared his throat.

“That is, some boorish lout without fashion sense?”

“See, you called that son…um I think it was that one. You called one of your sons a sullen twerp, and the other one a mucous font. It just seems kind of harsh, that’s all.”

“But those are their names. Mucous Font and Sullen Twerp. It’s common for Tsander to name their budded offspring thus. When they get older, and pass the rite of ascension, they’ll be able to choose new names for themselves. It’s part of our culture and I’ll thank you not to judge.”

“Oh, I get it,” I said, nodding. “The translator circuits are doing this. Sorry.”

“Hey,” Drayk said, his arms in the air while one of the budded children measured his inseam. “What was your name when you were a budling?”

Bok’Choi looked abashed and cleared his throat.

“Why, I was known as…Annoying Imbecile.”

I stifled a laugh and turned away, heading over to where Drayk stood. I marveled at how huge his frame really was. The budling—whose name, I believe, was Blessedly Quiet—struggled to find a tape measure long enough to go around Drayk’s big, barrel chest.

“You’re such a brute.”

He laughed and tried to turn toward me—only to have the kid jab him with a needle.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“You no move til I’m done.”

“So much for Blessedly Quiet,” he mumbled. “Ow!”

“Sorry, finger slip.”

“Your finger didn’t slip,” Drayk grumbled.

I checked on the progress of the others. The Tsander had dressed Rikov fairly well. The sleeveless, yellow vest contrasted nicely with his skin, I had to admit, as did his dark brown waistcoat. It still all looked off somehow. Then it hit me what was missing.

“We can’t have a whole crew of smugglers come in with brand new clothes,” I said. “We need to scuff these garments up.”

“Scuff them up?” Bok’Choi stepped forward, aghast. “You’ll do no such thing! These are works of art.”

“Well, look at the place we’re going, Bok’Choi,” I said patiently. “It looks like a dirty, floating gas station made of fifty-year-old garbage. I doubt people walk around with brand new duds.”

“Excuse me,” Zaen said. “I have an idea. What if, you know, we have a backstory for our clean, new clothes?”

I looked at him for a long moment, trying to puzzle out what he meant.

“A backstory?”

“Sure, like, you know,” his gaze darted about until it fell upon Irev. “Come here for a minute, I need you to help me improvise.”

“Help you what?”

Zaen whispered in Irev’s ear for a moment, and Irev nodded.

“Okay, I see where you’re going.”

“Great.” Zaen turned toward myself and Bok’Choi. “Okay, so here’s the scenario. Irev and I, here, are walking down the space station’s swankiest, most upscale area, styling and profiling in our brand new, sparkling-clean clothes, when we run into a guard…”

His face scrunched up into a frown.

“Wait, I need a third person for this improv.”

“Would you quit wasting our time?” Drayk snapped.

“Bear with me, this’ll all be worth it, I swear. Hey, Kavok, do you mind?”

“I don’t mind.” Kavok shrugged. He joined the pair and Zaen whispered in his ear. Kavok nodded and grinned. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

He walked a few feet away—offstage, I guess—while the other two started walking in place.

“Boy, Zaen,” Irev said loudly, his face stretched in a plastered-on grin. “I sure am glad we survived that space ship battle.”

“Yes, Irev,” Zaen replied, also at top volume in a stilted tone. “And the fire that raged afterwards”

Zaen stopped for a moment, then cleared his throat.

“I said,” his volume ratcheted up even higher, “and the fire that raged afterwards.”

Kavok’s eyes went wide and he rushed into the scene.

“Hey,” he said in a gravelly voice, face scrunched up in a mean grimace. “I’ve been a guard here all my life. And my father was a guard here before me, and his father before him—”

“Quit ad libbing and say the line,” Zaen hissed. Kavok glared, and sighed.

“Oh, fine,” he said in his regular voice. “I mean, fine. I mean, there’s no way any smuggler worth his ship would walk around looking all clean and pretty like you two. You must be undercover police!”

Kavok raised his arms in the air, then looked toward the audience.

“I’m supposed to be aiming a rifle at them.”

“No, please, don’t shoot us, noble guardsman,” Zaen said, gesturing broadly. “My friend and I are but humble smugglers, just like yourself—”

“I thought I was a guardsman, not a smuggler.”

“You’re a smuggler-guardsman. Stay in character. Ahem. As I said, we are but humble smugglers, and I assure you there’s a reason our attire has yet to be besmirched. You see, we were recently in a space battle.”

Zaen elbowed Irev in the ribs.

“Oh, sorry. I mean, yes, that’s right, Zaen. The fire destroyed the living quarters on our ship, and burned all of our garments. So we had to buy new clothing, which is why we look like we might not be smugglers, but really Vaznik warriors pretending to be smugglers.”

“Enough,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Enough. Bok’Choi, I’m very sorry, but we’re going to have to dirty these outfits up.”

It took a lot of effort, but we got the guys reasonably well disguised as smugglers. They didn’t dress like soldiers any more, at least.

On the other hand, they still moved like soldiers, walking in formation and holding that ‘don’t fuck with me’ body posture.

“No, this isn’t going to work,” Helena said with a sigh. “You’re all too stiff. You still look like soldiers.”

“Maybe we should take on accents?” Tanax asked. “You know, like ‘top o’ the morning to you, guvnor, let’s throw another shrimp on the barbie.”

I stared at him for a long time, jaw dangling, trying to process the trauma of Tanax trying to mimic human dialects.

“I think, the less you guys talk, the better.”

Admiral Ausym’s voice crackled over the comms.

“Drayk, is your team ready yet?”

I laughed and patted him on the arm.

“As ready as they’ll ever be.”

DRAYK

Outfitted to Maren’s satisfaction at last, I led my squad back to the shuttle bay. Everyone tried out a different walk, so as not to look like soldiers. I realized we must not have done a very good job, because Maren almost collapsed with laughter before we made it halfway to the bay.

“Oh, my god. Enough, just walk like you normally do. We’ll pretend you’re my guards, or something. None of you qualify as smooth.”

I frowned at her. I’d thought my walk to be particularly well done. I strode with a slight limp in my walk, which one of Bok’Choi’s children had assured me made me ‘pimpin’, whatever that means.

I dipped my right shoulder forward every time I took a step, and wore a disaffected, snobbish smile on my face no soldier would ever be caught dead wearing, not even an officer.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t you tell us not to walk like soldiers?”

“I did, but you look like you’re a frat boy wandering down New Bourbon Street.”

My brow furrowed with confusion as she turned to jab her finger at Rikov.

“Rikov, you walk like you jumped out of a second story window onto a bicycle without a seat too much as a child, and you—”

Tanax was next in line.

“And you, Tanax. You might actually have it down. You’ve got the loose, relaxed, yet teeming with buried aggression look down. The rest of you, do what Tanax is doing.”

“Did you hear that? Do as I do.” Tanax strutted ahead of us, head held high and proud.

“Big talk, fungus mouth,” Zaen muttered under his breath.

When we arrived at the Honor’s shuttle bay, we found a Zephyr w40 Lux waiting for us. At one time, it’d been a luxury-class shuttle, one of the rare models with a faster-than-light drive.

The shuttle’s silver skin was no longer sleek but pocked with meteorite impacts and possibly weapons fire. The once-proud logo of a human on a rearing, winged quadruped of some kind had faded so badly, it looked like the man was trying to mate the creature rather than ride it.

At least the quadruped looks to be enjoying the situation, though. So there’s that.

I walked up to the ship with my lips peeled back in a disgusted grimace I was careful to hide from the men.

“What in the name of all that’s holy is this atrocity?” Zaen gestured at the shuttle. “Is this rusted relic going to even make it to the space station in one piece?”

“Now, now,” I said, trying not to groan in dismay when I saw the shuttle’s badly clogged, rear, left thruster array. That much of a deposit of corrosion would take a long time to clear out.

“I mean, it’s a, it’s a…” I rested my hand on one of the decorative metal side flanges. It fell off with a clang. “Total piece of fucking junk.”

I wanted to kick the shuttle, but I feared it’d turn to dust.

“No, no, this is perfect.” Maren walked up to the shuttle and nodded to herself. “This is great, in fact. No way will anyone suspect soldiers from the Vaznik fleet would ever travel in this shuttle.”

“Maren’s right,” I said, raising my voice. “The flight crew have deemed this shuttle space-worthy, so we’ll be just fine. Anybody who’s too much of a coward to ride in it can take a hike.”

My eyes narrowed to slits.

“Just find me a braver man than you to take your place, will you please, before you go to your quarters and brood on your inferiority.”

I smiled, though Maren rolled her eyes at my words.

I wonder why as far as I’m concerned, it’s the perfect motivation.

Only, the men just kind of looked at each other and then dejectedly moved toward the shuttle’s side entrance.

“Now that he’s in command, he’s turned into a jerk.”

“What did you say, Zaen?”

“I said we’re ready to roll, sir.”

“That’s what I thought you said.”

I climbed into the back, offering Maren a hand up. She and the others settled into the sideways-facing seats.

I moved up to the cockpit with Jakar and clapped him on the hand.

“Hey, to give you a heads up, the left thruster array is pretty clogged with corrosion. You’re going to have to compensate.”

“What?” Jakar sputtered. “That’s outrageous. Why isn’t this shuttle in better working order?”

“Oh, come on, Jakar,” Vrako called out from the rear. “Surely this isn’t too much of a challenge for the best pilot in the fleet?”

He grumbled and began his pre-flight check.

“This is ridiculous. Totally unacceptable.”

Still, the shuttle’s engines hummed to life. We felt a slight lurch as the shuttle lifted off the deck. I sat down beside Maren as the shuttle taxied for the shuttle bay doors.

The klaxon blared as the interlocked doors slid back. The layered atmospheric shielding kept overhyping in the bay from flying out into space.

Regulation required all equipment to be magnetically secured or locked away, just in case, but sometimes the initial suction was so strong, it didn't matter.

Fortunately, the fields rarely failed completely, and the shuttle bay doors could snap shut in emergency mode in a tenth of a second.

The shuttle passed through the shield and then we were floating in the abyss. We listed badly to the right, and I heard Jakar cursing again.

“Stubborn piece of shit.”

He engaged the thrusters and we headed for the floating station. As we grew closer, I could make out more details than I’d been able to see before. It looked as if people had been scavenging parts for the space station for some time.

I reached over and put my hand on top of Maren’s. She turned to me and smiled. I felt the golden threads binding us together more tightly as I basked in the glow of that smile.

“Are you nervous?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “I’m excited. My first away team mission.”

“Yeah, you and me both,” Rikov muttered.

“Rikov, that’s not even true and you know it.”

I turned to Maren again and squeezed her hand.

“I won’t allow anything bad to happen to you.”

Her eyes half closed and she tilted her head to the side.

“I know.” Her voice felt soft as velvet in my ear. “I know.”

MAREN

The docking pylon at the station turned out to be the tubular chassis of a passenger starship. I guess it made sense. Plenty big enough, the chassis featured atmospheric shielding.

We felt a settling of the shuttle against the pylon, and then the magnetic field clamped us into place.

“I’m surprised this shuttle survived the trip,” Jakar grumbled as he undid the webbing of his crash harness.

“Yeah, what was with all of that shaking?” Zaen demanded.

“Turbulence.”

“There’s no turbulence in space!”

“Quiet!” Drayk bellowed.

He can really bellow when he wants to.

I wasn’t the least bit afraid of him, yet I jumped when he raised his voice. “Everybody off, and remember, we’re all bad ass, dirty, rotten smugglers. Don’t act like a knitting circle quibbling with each other.”

“Hey, boss, are we supposed to do our walks?”

“No, Tanax, we gave up on the walks. You were the only one whose walk didn’t make Maren laugh.” I looked him up and down, realizing his ramrod-stiff anxiety would give us all away. “Just relax. Try to be casual.”

I shook my arms at him to encourage him to do the same.

“Shake it out, Tanax. In fact, everyone, shake it out. Rikov! Start shaking before I leave you with the shuttle…”

A pair of men in ragged, but functional, power armor met us at the airlock, interrupting our flailing arms. Both men appeared to be human, which kind of surprised me.

“Welcome to Paradise City,” the one in scratched green armor said.

“Yes,” said the other, whose blue armor bore some kind of oily blotches marring the otherwise pretty color. “Welcome. If we could just collect your docking fees?”

We’d expected this, of course. Drayk stepped forward and held out a credstick. The blue armored guy took the stick and jammed it into his gauntlet for a moment. A series of electronic beeps rang out before he handed it back to Drayk.

“Ten-thousand credit docking fee?” he sputtered.

“Yeah, we cut you a break, since you’re a first time visitor,” the blue-armored one said.

“Hey,” Tanax said, pointing at the wall. “What about that sign on the wall that reads ‘Paradise City Station Docking Fees: All ships 3,000 Credits’ over there?”

“Oh, that?” the guard glanced at it and grinned. “It’s an old sign and hasn’t been updated.”

“Tanax,” I whispered. “Let it go.”

Green Armor perked up at the sound of my voice.

“And who do we have here?” he asked, with a timbre in his voice I didn’t like. He tried to step toward me, but evidently Drayk didn’t like his tone, either.

“A weary traveler,” Drayk said, “who has paid their docking fees and wants to board the station now, like the rest of us.”

Drayk interposed himself smoothly between the guard and me. The blue-armored guy rolled his eyes and stepped to the side.

“Welcome to the station. The rules are real simple. No violence. If something doesn’t belong to you, don’t take it without paying for it first. All crime here has the same punishment—a ten-foot walk out a five-foot airlock.”

“We’ll keep that in mind, thank you.” Drayk led us past them. The other Vaznik instinctively formed a protective circle around me. I was grateful for that.

It was essentially the outer space equivalent of a pirate’s cove. Even filled with pirates, I found I feared the denizens of Paradise City far less than I feared those whose job it was to protect Paradise City—or rather, protect the profits of whomever really owned the station.

For the most part, the black market looked like any other kind of market. If you discounted the heavy presence of weaponry. Everyone was armed, though no one carried military-grade equipment except the power-armored guardsmen.

“What do we do, Drayk?” Zaen put his hands on his hips and stared around the market. “I’ve never been to a black market before.”

“Me, neither.” Drayk frowned. “I suppose we should start asking around and see if anyone’s seen Dr. Garcia or the Queen’s Brood around.”

“Hold up.” I put my hand on his arm, staring around. Our arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed. You could take the soldiers out of their uniforms, but that didn’t make them smugglers.

“What’s wrong? I thought we were here to gather information.”

I arched my brows and turned to him.

“We are, but we need to be cautious about it. Our best bet is to act like real smugglers. And what do a gang of rough and tumble smuggles like us do when we first hit a place like this?”

“We go see a puppet show?” Tanax asked.

Drayk scowled at him.

“A tavern. She means a tavern, you imbecile.”

“That hurts, boss man,” Tanax scowled. “And I was only saying that because that guy over there is doing a puppet show.”

We turned our gazes to see a large, green-furred alien holding crossed puppetry sticks, using them to make a pair of garishly painted marionettes dance. He had quite a crowd and people were uploading credits into his account by the trove.

“No time for puppet shows,” Drayk said. “A tavern is a great place to gather information.”

“Wow, did you learn that at officer training, Drayk?” Tanax asked.

“No…” Drayk swallowed hard. “But it’s in all the holo movies.”

I laughed, and pointed across the avenue toward a drinking establishment.

“It’s actually not a bad idea at all. I was going to say tavern myself. Now, when you get into the tavern, you can’t just start asking questions. You have to engage in a little conversation, a little small talk, if you will. You know, mingle.”

I looked around. All of the Vaznik warriors, including Drayk, wore blank stares.

“Um, does everybody get that?”

Horned heads bobbed. I cringed on the inside.

“Really? Nobody’s got any questions? Nobody at all?” I turned to Tanax. “Not even you, Tanax?”

He shook his head.

I have a bad feeling…

“We all understand what it means to be subtle, and mingle, before we start asking pointed questions about the smugglers or the missing Doctor Garcia?”

More head nods. I had a feeling I should’ve pushed it, but I sighed and surrendered to the group consensus.

“Okay. Let’s go and do this.”

We entered the tavern, which looked to be fashioned out of half an old reactor drum. Indeed, the interior had a smell of sulfur, which tended to cling to those drums long after they’d been retired.

I wasn’t worried, because I learned in one of my biology classes that a little sulfur is good for the body. What worried me was the way the Vaznik mingled.

“Hello, fellow miscreant,” Jakar said, slapping a burly, gray-skinned alien who looked like a walking hippo with deer antlers, just as the alien was about to take a drink from his beer. The beverage spilled onto the hippo man’s shirt. He turned his antlered head toward Jakar and glared dangerously, but the Vaznik didn’t seem to notice. Jakar kept right on talking.

“I was thinking about the microcosmic world the other day, and—”

I slapped my hand over my face.

I didn’t mean literal small talk.

I glanced at the other Vaznik warriors. Jakar was far from the worst mingler among the crew.

“Hello there,” Vrako said to a table full of mean-looking aliens. “Nice weather we’re having. Any of you guys see some people in black armor and a human in a white lab coat?”

“No, no, no,” I said, wiping a hand down my face. I had to do something. I spotted a Kimicusian staffer bussing tables and approached her.

“Hey,” I said, handing her some cred chips. “I think you missed picking up a tip at the last table you cleaned.

“Is that so?” She turned on me. “Thanks, friend. And for what do I owe you for this kindness?”

See? Women get shit done.

“Just a little information. About the Queen’s Brood smuggler and a possible hostage they may have.”

Her eyes widened a little, and I knew she’d seen them. However, before she said anything, a table flew over our heads and smashed against the wall. Wood splinters flew through the air and rained down on the nearby tables.

I turned to see Drayk and the Vaznik about to square up against…well, against the entire bar, from the looks of things.

How was I supposed to keep this mission from completely blowing up in our faces now?

DRAYK

The behemoth Gronkian glared daggers at me from beneath his antlers. I popped my neck, loosening up for the inevitable brawl.

I had my warriors back me up, but he had the entire tavern. I could’ve killed Zaen at that point.

“Your friend has insulted me, and must pay the price.” I blinked at the onslaught of heavy spittle from the alien’s mouth.

I wiped my face and stared up at him, keeping my expression carefully neutral.

“I think you’re overreacting, friend. All he said was ‘nice shirt’.”

The Gronkian puffed out his chest and drew himself up to his full, nine-foot height.

“It was the way he said it, more than what he said.”

“Yeah,” shouted the Tsander with a scar over his left eye. “His tone was very condescending. Clearly, he meant it as an insult.”

“If you insist on taking it that way, you’ll have to take on all of us.”

“I’m quite willing to do just that.”

“Stop!”

Maren stepped between us, literally using her elbows to wedge her body through. I took a step back to let her through.

“There must be a better way to solve this than having a brawl that’ll destroy the entire tavern.”

Maren had a penchant for making friends, and a ton of charisma. The barkeep fell in love with her, I think, as did most of the staff, when she defended the establishment.

“What if he apologized?” Maren pointed at Zaen.

“What? No way.”

I turned to Zaen.

“Apologize to him, right now.”

Zaen sighed.

“Sorry,” he said petulantly.

“Zaen, make it a good apology.”

Zaen rolled his eyes, but he faced the Gronkian squarely.

“I’m sorry I insulted your shirt. The truth is, I use acerbic humor to keep people at a distance and hide my own pain.”

Maren turned to a slightly confused Grinkian.

“Does that satisfy you?”

“I suppose,” the Gronkian said with a scowl.

I relaxed slightly. Everyone around the tavern had a look of cautious optimism in their eyes that there would not be violence.

“Not so fast,” the Gronkian growled, and I groaned inwardly.

“What is it?” I asked with a sigh.

“You can’t hide from me. I recognize you, Drayk. The Vaznik All-Fleet Wrestling Champion for the last two years. I closely follow the wrestling world, even you wimpy Vaznik. I heard you’ve gone soft ever since you got assigned to that luxury liner, the Honor’s Blade.”

“Three years,” I said proudly. Maren stared at me with wide eyes, slowly tilting her head to the side.

“I mean,” I said, changing my voice to sound gruffer. “I know no such person.”

Maren slapped a hand over her face.

“Drayk of the Vaznik fleet, I’m Belo Ard. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

“I’m afraid not, friend. Now if you’ll excuse me? I have urgent business to which I must attend.”

“Ah yes, get back to your garbage scow of a ship. What was it called, the Honor’s Blade?”

I stopped but didn’t turn around.

“Friend.” My voice sounded cold. “I think perhaps you might want to rephrase that appraisal of the fine vessel to which I…that is, I’ve heard the Honor is a fine vessel with a fine crew and you shouldn’t insult them.”

“I’m sorry.”

I relaxed and walked away again. We got most of the way to the exit before Blo Ard spoke again.

“I mean, I’m sorry I called your ship a garbage scow. What I meant to say was, the Honor’s Blade should be hauled away as garbage.”

I turned around and approached him.

“What do you want with me, friend?”

I put emphasis on the final word to let him know I considered him anything but.

“I want to see which of us is the better wrestler.”

I closed my mouth, and looked at my fellows. They spontaneously erupted into laughter.

“All right, friend. When and where?”

“This tavern just happens to convert into a standard intergalactic wrestling ring.”

Blo Ard turned to the barkeeper.

“Hit it, Itchy.”

Itchy pulled a lever, and a twenty square foot section of the floor bifurcated. The two halves rose into the air. Of course, a ton of aliens were still on the floor, so they went spilling over in a heap.

The ring rose into the air, the good old squared circle with its electrified cables and explosive turnbuckle pads.

When I leaped over the ropes and into the ring, I felt instantly at home. I doffed my shirt and cap, standing only in my plain gray trousers.

“Drayk, are you sure this is a good idea? That guy is way bigger than you, no offense.”

“Please don’t be afraid for me, Maren.” I reached carefully through the ropes and took her hand. “I’ll be careful not to let myself come to any harm.”

I nodded toward the proprietor and the barmaid, who huddled protectively behind the bar.

“Have you made any progress with them yet?”

“I was, until you started a commotion.”

I sighed. Damn that Zaen and his big mouth. I should’ve left one of the grenades in there and pulled the pin.

“Perhaps you could try again? I think everyone’s attention will be elsewhere for a while.”

“All right, but be careful, okay?”

Blo Ard made a show of stepping over the ropes. This meant he was being shocked, on the balls, the entire half second it took him to enter the ring. I supposed his species might be resistant to electricity. Or maybe he had an insulated jockstrap.

“Are you regretting not running away?” he growled.

“No, I’m just waiting to hear what the local rules are.”

He turned and grabbed the Akle referee by its trunk.

“Here’s the rules, pipsqueak. Below the belt’s legal.”

He punched the poor referee in the joy department.

“Choking’s okay!”

He grabbed the referee by his throat and throttled him so hard the poor man rained fruiting bodies down onto the mat from the foliage on his head.

“And there’s even biting!”

Blo Ard sank his wide, flat teeth into the referee’s trunk, shook him like a rag doll, and then spat him out.

“Are there any other questions?”

“Just one,” I said. “When’s the bell?”

“Soon.” He turned his back and took a half step—then abruptly spun around with a sucker punch.

“Ding ding, loser!”

MAREN

I spun around when I heard the audience shout. The huge Gronkian swarmed Drayk, assailing him with punches and pushing my Vaznik mate inexorably back toward the electrified cables surrounding the ring.

My hands clasped my face, fingers splayed about my wide-eyed gaze. Then, smooth as silk, Drayk flowed like water between the bigger alien’s legs. He crawled through to the other side, grabbing the Gronkian’s tree-trunk-thick ankles. The alien slammed into the ground, face first. I grimaced at the sickening sound of Gronkian face smashing against the wrestling ring's teramanite floor.

In mere seconds, my terror turned to astonishment at how Drayk moved in that ring. He had the grace of a gazelle combined with the size of a grizzly bear. Drayk rolled over onto his opponent’s back. Drayk wrapped his thick arm around the Gronkian’s big head and squeezed.

Drayk splayed his legs and kept his foe pinned to the ground. He applied leverage every time the larger alien tried to rise. I saw what he was doing. Drayk forced Blo Ard to support Drayk’s body weight and expend energy trying to escape.

Blo Ard’s arms were quite long, however. His finger managed to jut into Drayk’s eyes. The crowd cheered the dirty tactic, throwing bits of trash into the air like strange intergalactic confetti.

Drayk let go of the headlock and stumbled away, hand held to his face. Blo Ard came at him and they fell into a grapple. Drayk used the larger alien’s momentum against him. He fell into a backward somersault, thrusting his foot into the Gronkian’s belly. Blo Ard sailed through the air and crashed into a groaning heap on the mat.

Quicker than a hiccup, Drayk sprang to his feet. As soon as Blo Ard struggled to his feet, Drayk snagged him with a takedown. He flipped the larger alien over his hip and they both landed on the mat, with Drayk on top.

Drayk bent Blo Ard’s arm at a grotesque angle. The Akle referee—somewhat recovered—came and asked the Gronkian if he wanted to quit.

Blo Ard’s free hand darted out. His fingers wrapped around one of the red, fruiting bodies hanging from the Akle’s head. The referee screamed. Blo Ard ripped the fruit off the vine and then squeezed it right into Drayk’s face.

The red fruit exploded into a shower of seeds and juice and pulp. Drayk howled as the juice burned his eyes. He released his foe and staggered back, this time blind in both eyes.

Everyone’s eyes were on Drayk. Everyone’s but mine, that is. I saw the Gronkian reach into his pocket and pull out a pair of spiked knuckles the size of a radiator grill. I was horrified to think what would happen to my dear, sweet Drayk if he got hit with those awful things.

“Referee!” I shouted, running to ringside. “Look! He has an illegal weapon.”

The Akle stared at Blo Ard and swallowed hard.

“Technically, the only rule is you have to pin your opponent or make them quit.”

Well, he’s no help.

I looked on with mounting frustration and fear as the Gronkian circled up on my blinded beau.

Then it hit me. There were no rules. No rules meant it should be fine if I reached over the barricade and grabbed that alien’s cane.

No rules meant nobody could do shit when I thrust the cane under the lowest electrified cable and hooked Blo Ard’s ankle. The move worked, tripping up the alien and making him fall into the electrified ropes.

He cried out as his hands closed around the cables. I saw his skeleton flash through his skin as he struggled to fight the current and peel himself away.

At last, he yanked himself free. He stared at me with abject hatred.

“After I kill your boyfriend, you’re going to pay for that.”

He leaned way over the ropes, careful not to touch them. His smirking face triggered something inside of me.

Oh, hell no…

With a roar I didn’t know I had in me, I turned around and pushed some poor schmuck out of his folding steel chair. I folded the chair up and swung it in a hard circle.

“Get away from my mate, you giant pile of intergalactic shit!”

The chair connected with Blo Ard’s face with a resounding clank. His eyes crossed as he recoiled backward, holding his head and looking dazed.

“Drayk!” Zaen bellowed as he threw a bottle of water into the ring. Even though he was blinded, Drayk’s Vaznik reflexes allowed him to snatch the bottle out of the air. He upended it onto his face, gasping as the cool water cleared the juice from his eyes.

Drayk shook his head, sending droplets of water flying. He turned toward the Gronkian with a look of rage on his green face. Water glistened on his chiseled physique like jewels, sparkling in the bright, overhead lights.

As the dazed Gronkian turned around, Drayk grabbed him.

My eyes widened in amazement as Drayk manhandled the much larger alien up onto his shoulders, then jumped into the air. They twisted about in a dizzying display before crashing down. Drayk landed on his feet. Blo Ard landed on his head. His antlers snapped off, but unbelievably, he tried to get up.

“Oh, no! What’s it take to stop this guy?” I felt nervous for Drayk. I was afraid the Gronkian had more dirty tricks up his sleeve. I really didn’t want Drayk to get hurt. I found it hard to imagine my life going forward without him.

Maybe that’s why I behaved so rashly and got involved physically.

“Don’t worry.” Zaen grinned. “Drayk’s just toying with him now. It’s all over but the crying.”

Drayk stood behind Blo Ard and lifted the hippo-esque alien onto his shoulders. Blo Ard stared up into the lights. Dazed, Blo Ard balanced, face-up over Drayk’s broad neck and shoulders. It almost looked like a ballet move, but Drayk held a far more brutal purpose in mind.

Drayk spun around in a circle, moving faster and faster until he became a blur. Then he released the Gronkian, sending him flying into the corner.

The Gronkian’s body hit all three explosive turnbuckles head on. The resulting triple detonation shattered glasses and knocked me off my feet.

Drayk moved over and put his foot on the charred Gronkian’s broad chest—which to my surprise, still rose and fell with respiration. Damn, these aliens are tough.

The Akle referee counted to ten, raising Drayk’s arm in victory. Someone threw a bottle into the ring, which Drayk fortunately caught.

“Oh, no,” I said, looking about in dismay as the crowd erupted into a violent frenzy. It looked like there were no sides any longer, everyone was just out to clobber the next nearest sapient being.

We had to get out of there, fast.

DRAYK

I leaped over the ropes and landed beside Maren. I scooped her off her feet and she yelped.

“Sorry about this, Maren.”

I carried her toward the exit, only to have our path blocked by two struggling aliens. My foot darted out and kicked a table into their tangled mass. Furniture and sapient beings alike tumbled to the floor in a heap.

I leaped over the heap of writhing bodies and guttural noises and dashed toward the exit, Maren’s legs flopping against my arms. A beer bottle flew toward us. I turned my back to it, hunching my shoulders over Maren to protect her. I felt the bottom of the bottle bounce off my back.

“Rally!” I bellowed over the din. My fellow Vaznik broke away from their individual brawls and converged on the exit.

Ours wasn’t a mad flight, but a controlled withdrawal. We fought as a team, protecting each other and slowly working our way to the refurbished drum of a bar’s exit.

Behind us, the proprietor shouted above the ruckus.

“All right, that’s it, I’m calling in the bouncers.”

He pulled a lever. A half-dozen snarling balls of fur and needle-like teeth tore viciously out of nests concealed in deep nooks in the walls. Anamaura, one of the nastiest, most malignantly, bitey creatures in the galaxy, flooded the tables, scattering patrons left and right.

Their one redeeming feature was their use in Ana Ball, a popular intergalactic sport. It took two, entire teams to wrangle just one Anamaura and the Hammerlock was stuffed full of the creatures.

Anamaura made for good crowd control, too, in overwhelming quantities. The brawls stopped real quick, once those nasty, furred monsters entered the fray.

Tavern patrons streamed out the exits like space lice fleeing a pest-control flamethrower, my team in the lead. We sprinted out the Hammerlock’s door and into the corridor. We slowed a few junctions down the corridor, where I felt certain we’d see no more Anamaura and took account of our situation.

“That was a close one,” I said. “All right, sound off. Let’s make sure everyone made it out in time.”

Vrako chuckled, and Zaen hid a grin behind his hand.

“I’m here, sir,” Tanax pipped in.

“Why’re you all looking at me like that?” I demanded.

“Just a theory,” Maren replied in a droll tone, “but it might have something to do with, I don’t know, the fact you haven’t put me down yet?”

Holding her in my arms felt so natural, I suppose I’d forgotten to put her down. Smiling, I set her down on her feet and cleared my throat.

“All right, fun’s fun, but let’s sound off.”

“Tanax here.”

“I know you’re here, you already—”

Vrako and Rikov said ‘here’ at the same time.

“Jakar, here.”

“Zaen present and accounted for. Also, very disappointed I didn’t even get a sip of my beer.”

“You’re disappointed?” I rounded on him and growled. “I’m disappointed you couldn’t go five minutes without getting into a fight.”

“It was a mistake, I admit. At least I didn’t blow our cover.”

“How was I supposed to know the Gronkian you insulted was a wrestling champion?” My eyes narrowed to slits. “Now, thanks to your big mouth, we may never find the information we need…”

My voice trailed off when I noticed Maren chatting with the Kimicusian barmaid from earlier. Maren smiled, and then hugged the woman.

“Okay,” she said, practically skipping over to me. “I got the information we needed.”

“You did?” My jaw dropped. “Maren, you’re astounding. How’d you do it?”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“I saw you guys were going to shit all over the plan to mingle, so I resorted to bribery. Combined with good manners and respect.”

My fellow Vaznik and I exchanged gazes, dropping our eyes to our feet.

“We’re sorry we ruined your plan,” I said.

“No, don’t be. Everything worked out well in the end.” She beamed a smile at me, then her face grew more somber. “Let’s get out of the street and I’ll tell you what the barmaid told me.”

We found another establishment some blocks away, this one not nearly as crowded or rowdy. Our crew ensconced themselves in a booth far in the back of the smoky room.

“Okay,” Maren said, holding court beside me. “So, the Queen’s Brood smugglers showed up here seven days ago, right on schedule with when they teleported to escape your team.”

“Are they still here?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Vrako muttered. “I’d be long gone, if I were them.”

“Don’t interrupt her,” I growled. “Maren, you were saying?”

“They’re still here, all right. They’ve taken over a burned-out eatery near the docking pylons.”

I felt my pulse quicken.

“What about Dr. Garcia? Did the barmaid know about her?”

Maren’s expression grew grim.

“A lot of folks saw a human woman matching her description, only…”

“Only what?

She sighed before continuing.

“Only, they say she didn’t look right. Like she looked sick, or something.”

My belly twisted in knots. Did that mean they were torturing the poor doctor?

“Possibly she was just drugged, so she wouldn’t cause them problems,” Vrako offered.

“Maybe.” I stroked my chin in thought as to what our next move would be.

“Are we going back to the ship and gearing up before we take these guys on, captain?”

I turned to Tanax and rested a hand on his shoulder. I could tell from his worried frown he felt some trepidation about facing them with only a pistol and a knife at his side.

“I don’t know if that’s an option, Tanax. Coming in a show of force would likely make our quarry flee again. But for the time being, we’re just doing recon on this hideout. Nothing more, nothing less.”

I raised my voice.

“All right, move out, men. Let’s find this burned-out restaurant. Zaen, you’re on point.”

The squad moved toward the docks. I turned to Maren and grasped her arm, holding her back a moment while the others continued on.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her gorgeous eyes threatening to draw me in.

“Maren, I…”

Why does my tongue suddenly feel like lead?

It’s as if the feelings inside me dragged down on my tongue like a weight. “Just in case things go badly, I wanted you to know…”

“You wanted me to know what?”

She tilted her head to the side, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I let the words bubble out of my throat and birth themselves upon the galaxy.

“I love you, Maren.”

MAREN

DID TIME JUST STOP?

All of the sudden, I didn’t notice the gleam of lights off metal, or the loud bustle of people in the black market. For a moment, I lost myself completely in his indigo gaze.

Drayk said he loved me. The weight of it hit me like an engine block in the chest. The time I’d spent with Drayk flashed before my eyes, as if I were a dying woman. I knew I had to say something, and I had no filters left.

His words had left all my defenses in tattered wisps between us.

“Drayk.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. “I love you, too.”

His eyes widened. A toothy smile spread over his face like an earthquake-born fissure. His giant maw opened and a lusty guffaw escaped. It was like the happiness of every kid on Christmas morning combined into one, gigantic, green, horned alien.

Then he swept me into his arms and held me. He stared at me as if I were a wonder. Drayk’s soft palm slid along the curve of my cheek. I kissed him then—you know, for good luck—just a little kiss, a peck on the lips.

Well, that’s how this started out.

The kiss deepened into something I wasn’t sure either of us could control. My heart pounded in my chest, my mind felt awash in psychedelic lights and ambrosia—

“Great going, boss.”

We pulled apart to see Tanax smiling not far away.

“You’ll have her dropping Mahdfel babies in no time.”

“Tanax, why aren’t with the others?”

“Oh, I noticed you’d lagged behind and I thought I’d check on you.”

“Thanks, Tanax,” Drayk growled.

“No problem.”

I hid a smile as we rejoined the others. Drayk and I exchanged knowing smiles. I couldn’t help it. I grabbed his hand and pulled him in close to me. I tugged down on his arm, stretched up on my tiptoes, and put my lips right up next to his ear.

“When we get back to my cabin, I’m jumping your bones and I expect more orgasms than last time.”

I kissed his cheek and pulled away.

“The sooner we find Dr. Garcia, the sooner we can make that happen.” He winked at me and I laughed. He was so goofy sometimes, but it worked for him. In fact, his inherent goofiness offset his gigantic size and chiseled features, making him more relatable.

The slap dash design of the station made for some labyrinthian corridors. One moment we’d be walking along what seemed a straight path toward the docks, and the next, we’d be faced with a dead end.

“Zaen, what’s going on?” Drayk motioned the pointman over. “That’s the third time you’ve led us into a dead end. Are you lost?”

“No, I’m not lost.” Zaen scoffed, looking around as if to say ‘can you believe this guy?’ “I mean, just because I don’t currently know where we are, or how to get back to where we were before, doesn’t mean I’m lost.”

“That’s…” Drayk sputtered, his face turning dark. “That’s the exact definition of being lost.”

“Well, if you want to get all technical about it, sure, I guess I’m a little bit lost.”

“Of course, you’re lost.”

We all froze. None of us had spoken. I swiveled my gaze about until I noticed the dead end wasn’t quite so dead as it seemed. Little faces with gleaming eyes peered out of small apertures and passages formed by the station’s unconventional design.

“Are those…children?” Zaen asked.

“I’m not some little kid.”

The girl, who’d initially squirmed out from underneath a power coupling, stood up. Her overalls had a layer of grime, matching the color of the smear on her left cheek. I couldn’t be sure of her species, but she had antennae, no body hair, and golden skin.

“You look like a little kid,” Zaen said.

She cocked her brow ridge, antennae moving toward him like pointing fingers.

“Oh yeah? Appearances can be deceiving. You don’t look like an idiot, but obviously you are.”

The gathered Vaznik laughed, and I couldn’t stop myself from joining in.

“Hey,” Rikov said. “Did you just get burned by a kid?”

I turned to the gold-skinned girl, who seemed to be in charge of the other children.

“You said ‘of course we got lost’ in a way implying you might be able to help.”

The antennae and the gaze swept my way. She scanned me up and down and then nodded to herself as if I’d do.

“Yeah, maybe. The U.I.N. maintains maps of this station, which we update weekly.”

I smiled.

“That’s great. Could we see one, please?”

“I don’t know, that depends on what you have to trade.”

Drayk reached for his belt.

“I have a credstick here. How much would you accept for one of your maps?”

The gold-skinned girl looked at the credstick dubiously.

“I don't know. Creds aren’t as good as cred chips, or better yet, something of genuine value.”

“Like what?” I asked.

She pointed her finger at Tanax.

“The red-skinned one there has a medikit. We’ll take that, along with whatever rations you have on you.”

“And then you’ll give us the map?”

“Hey, hold your horses, Jolly Green Giant,” the gold-skinned girl said with a sneer. “I’m just getting started.”

In the end, it cost us four of our canteens, several candy bars Rikov had stashed on his person, a grenade Zaen had somehow smuggled out, and—

“And that guy has to hit himself.”

She pointed at Zaen. We all looked at him.

“Oh, come on,” he said, “you don’t really expect me to…you do, don’t you?”

He heaved a heavy sigh.

“Okay, fine.”

He slapped himself on the cheek.

“Harder,” the little girl said.

“That was a weak hit,” Jakar pointed out.

“Shut up.” Zaen slapped himself with considerable force. While he shook it off, Drayk turned to the leader of the urchins.

“Are we good?”

“Yeah,” she said, handing over a hand-drawn map on crinkly, folded paper. “We’re good.”

Drayk unfolded the map and squinted at it.

“Ah, serendipity strikes,” he said, pointing at the map. “The Urchins have even marked the smuggler’s hideaway for us with a black crown. It seems they aren’t well liked here. Time we went and paid them a visit.”

DRAYK

I heard the crackle of intensity in Zaen’s voice through my comm unit.

“I’ve got eyes on the enemy, Drayk.”

“How many?”

“Just one. Looks like he’s on patrol. This is the third time he’s come around this section.”

“Can you see their hideout?”

“Yeah, they added some barricades out front, like they’re trying to fortify their position. There’re scorch marks from weapons fire all around, but I can’t tell how recent those are.”

“Judging by Paradise City overall, that’s par for the course. Keep your eyes on him, we’re moving up to join you.”

I hated to admit it, but the overpriced map I’d purchased from the UIN turned out to be rather useful.

Maybe not so overpriced after all.

The map not only featured the basic floor plan of the station, but also the ‘unofficial’ crevices and fissures forming alleyways between the main sections. Most of those had been marked with a code. Sio explained the code to me when she showed me the map. Green was a little narrow, but wide enough for even a full sized Vaznik like me to make it through.

Yellow was a bit of a squeeze, but sometimes a man my size might make it through. Red, forget about it unless you are a child, or a species with gelatinous anatomy.

The rest of us crowded behind Zaen and into his chosen hiding spot. We crouched under the low confines of a dusty ventilation shaft and peeked out at the avenue separating us from the smugglers’ hideout.

The smugglers barricaded themselves inside of a prefab structure. Long since burned out, the smugglers had made do with what they’d had to work with. Thick power cables snaked from a nearby wall panel, lying open into the lane.

Adhesive tape and metal buttresses made me a bit dubious about how well the power cable was truly insulated.

“How much you want to bet the station heads didn’t approve this little renovation?” Zaen asked in a whisper.

“It looks like they’re expecting trouble.” I narrowed my eyes as I considered the four-foot-wide opening into the building. I saw lights flickering within and heard occasional voices.

I tried to calculate what kind of equipment might make it through those doors, assuming it could be disassembled into pieces.

Not an auto cannon, like we dealt with near the Rie’s sacred mountain, surely. There’re plenty of other point-defense weapons they could’ve gotten in that four-foot-wide opening, though.

“We need to get eyes on the inside,” Maren said. “See what we’re dealing with. Why not deploy one of your drones?”

“It’s not a bad idea.”

I dug out one of the small, black-skinned drones. Discrete and virtually silent, the drone didn’t even have to enter their fortified bunker in order to function.

I waited until the sentry rounded the corner before deploying the device. Its miniscule buzz of internal power sounded like a scream, to my ears. My gaze darted over to Maren.

If something goes wrong, she could be hurt…or even…killed.

Fear, the likes of which I’d never known before gripped me.

I love Maren, and she loves me. I have something to lose now, making this fight the most important battle I’ve ever fought.

The drone headed out of the ventilation grill, staying low and clinging to shadows. The virtual intelligence in its silicone cortex planned a flight path to keep it within the most heavily shadowed areas.

The drone's sensor pulse engaged, blanketing the surrounding million miles in highly precise sensor pings. I stared at the data compiled on my screen.

“Looks like beyond that entrance, they’ve bored into the bowels of an old freighter from before the teleportation days. One of the big ones, with a super dense hull. The floor plan allows them to create a bottleneck here.”

I tapped the screen, zooming in on a corridor barely large enough for us to move two abreast.

“Breaching this point will be crucial to the whole mission. If we can’t get through this, we can’t reach Dr. Garcia.”

The drone pulsed again, collecting further data as it snuck through the shadows. Beyond the straw, lay the remnants of the most heavily fortified area of the old freighter, the bridge. I read dozens of life signs there, only one of them a human female.

It was the other things coming back that troubled me.

“I’m picking up energy signatures for heavy-duty equipment. Possibly artillery-class weaponry, or powered armor.”

“That’d explain why they need all those power conduits snaking into their base,” Maren whispered.

“There’s more than thirty of them,” Zaen said. “And only seven of us. Should we go back and get more men? Better equipment?”

His eyes went wide in the dark.

“I’m not trying to sound like a coward, I’m just saying, why try to bum rush that bottleneck with just some pistols and knives?”

“Oh, we’ve got more than pistols and knives,” Tanax said with a grin.

I glanced at him with a confused frown. Rikov smacked Tanax on the arm.

“I mean, Drayk’s not supposed to know that. I mean, I didn’t say that. I mean, I said that but just to sound cool and badass.”

My eyes narrowed to slits.

“All right, what’ve you brought?”

It turned out everyone on my squad had carried a component for what we call a ‘vehicle stopper’ rifle. It’s a one-shot weapon meant to drill a hole in a tank. Or a starship. Or a small planet…

“What made you think we’d need something like this?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Zaen said.

“Well, since you brought it, we might as well use it.” I took in everyone’s gazes, Maren’s included. She was so brave, so tough at that moment. If I hadn’t already loved her infinitely, I would’ve loved her even more.

“All right, me—I mean, squad.” I nodded to Maren. “We’re outnumbered and outgunned. We only get one shot with the vehicle stopper, and we need to make it count.”

I checked the drone data and showed them the screen.

“The smugglers have holed themselves up very well. So, we’re not going to try and charge in there, single file. We’re going to make them come to us.”

MAREN

I crouched behind the oblong buttress of an air recycling unit and peered between a thin crack in the casing to peer down the corridor.

The smuggler’s den was only partially visible from my vantage. I reached down to my side and patted the energy pistol resting there. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it, but it was nice to know it was there, nonetheless.

I just hoped the plan would work, without anyone getting hurt. Well, okay, without any of our people getting hurt. Obviously, hurting the smugglers was on the table as an option.

I heard Drayk’s reassuring baritone over the comms.

“Okay, our Trojan is moving in.” I held my breath. “Everyone hold your fire until they are clear, do you understand?”

Sio, the gold-skinned girl, marched boldly up to the fortified entrance of the smuggler’s den. The two men on guard seemed confused, even though I couldn’t see their faces.

They turned and looked at each other, and then back at the girl, standing with her hands on her hips looking quite defiant.

“I’m Sio of the Urchin Information Network. It’s come to my attention you’re squatting here on our turf without paying the necessary bribes.”

“Scram, kid,” one of the smugglers said. “Before you get hurt.”

“Before I get hurt?” she scoffed, pointing a thumb into her own chest. “I’m giving you one more chance to bring out your boss before I get rowdy.”

Those two are in trouble and they don’t even know it…

The smugglers looked at each other again.

“I hate to shoot a kid unless I just can’t help it,” said the one on the left side.

“Agreed,” said the one on the right. “Death is so much less funny when it happens to a child.”

He got on his communicator, and asked for someone named Turk. I was more attentive immediately. I’d come across that name in Dr. Garcia’s journals several times.

In a few moments, the interlocked doors drew back and a smuggler without a helmet wandered out. Half of his head had been shaved. A nasty, bubbling scar snaked across his face. I wasn’t sure of his species, though he looked basically human but for stark, white skin and pointed ears.

“So, the Urchin Information Network, huh?” he chuckled. “How cute. How about this—your network passes on information to me, and I’ll pass on our table scraps to you.”

“Unacceptable. I want ten-thousand cred chips—to start. We’ll negotiate your weekly rent from there.”

Turk looked like he’d be angry. I cringed. Turk burst into laughter.

Watch how you dig your own grave, Turk. Anyone who watches the news knows never to mess with Urchins…

“I like you, kid. You’ve got guts. I’ll give you a thousand and send you on your way. I think you better accept that offer, because it’s not going to get any better than that.”

“I think you can suck on a Legamo nut.”

“A what—”

When Turk had his mouth open, something zipped out of the shadows and smacked him dead inside it. He fell back choking. Thick, black powder erupted from his mouth and nostrils. He grabbed his throat with two hands and staggered back into the doorway as more of the missiles rained down.

The Urchins’ aim was true. They created a smokescreen while Sio escaped amid the chaos. The second she was clear, weapons fire erupted from the other side of the hallway.

Drayk led the charge, gunning down the guards. They breached the gate and disappeared inside. I didn’t see what happened to Turk.

The breach was my cue. I took out the sleek, birdlike camera drone from my pack and set it down on the deck plating.

It whirred to life, rising into the air on a micro antigrav drive. I used a computer pad to control the device and watch where it was going.

I found navigating through the doorway easier than expected, thanks to gyroscopic balancing and computer flight assistance. I passed through a layer of smoke kicked up by the urchins, my way lit by the flashes of energy weapons up ahead.

The smugglers were overwhelmed. There are few things more badass in the galaxy than Vaznik warriors. They converged on their foes not as individuals, but as a team.

“Rikov, cover the left corridor,” Drayk bellowed from up ahead. “Zaen, you’re with me.”

I saw the two of them, streaks of purple and red, flashing, across the corridor ahead, guns blazing. The drone sailed along after them, but I took it the opposite way at the next junction. My job was to locate Dr. Garcia.

The drone zipped around a corner, and I was faced with a whole bevy of the black-armored smugglers. I shrieked and yanked back on the controls. The drone flew up toward the ceiling. They didn’t spot me and continued on down the hall.

I came back down from the rafters, moving more cautiously now. I tried to stick to the heaviest, most shadowed places as I returned to my search for Dr. Garcia.

Then I spotted something strange. Bundles of thick power cables snaked into a room with a fortified door. One of the smugglers manned a heavy combat rifle from behind a makeshift turret. I carefully guided the drone around him, hoping the sounds of the nearby gunfight would mask the engine’s whine.

I guided the drone into the room beyond. There, I saw a form slumped against the wall.

Is she unconscious or asleep?

I shone the light on the heap, and it turned out to be just what I’d hoped to find. Dr. Garcia, looking rough but intact.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she threw an arm up, in front of her eyes. Garcia shouted something, but my translator couldn't make heads or tails of it. Except for one word.

Annulus. The destroyer—or the savior.

I heard a shout, and then a gunshot. The drone stopped obeying my commands. It spun out, smashing against a wall. The images on my screen flickering to darkness.

I had her location, though, which I quickly relayed to Drayk.

Let’s hope we’re not too late to save her this time.

DRAYK

I held my breath as a black-garbed Queen’s Brood smuggler hustled past my concealed position. I didn’t want to give myself away, and if I could’ve stilled my heartbeat, I would’ve.

As he passed, he half turned. Worried he’d detected me at the last moment, I struck. He pulled the muzzle of his plasma rifle up, but it was already too late for him. I smoothly buried my knife into the knee joint of his armor. The curved tip thrust up, under the armor plate, and severed his femoral artery.

He slumped. His arms trembled as he went into shock. Losing that much blood, that quickly, makes one lightheaded, often unconscious in a matter of seconds, and dead in under a minute.

I had no time to ponder my enemy’s mortality. I was a Vaznik warrior on the hunt.

And I’m not alone.

Zaen appeared out of nowhere, throwing his knife in a metallic blur. It whizzed past me, and sank into the throat of a smuggler at the end of the corridor. I hadn’t heard the enemy coming, but that’s why we fight as a team.

“Nice shot, Zaen. You’d be the best, if it weren’t for that mouth of yours.”

“Maybe I play the jester because that’s what’s expected of me?” Zaen touched his earpiece. “Looks like Rikov and the others mopped up the rest of the resistance. There’s only one spot in the compound we haven’t checked yet.”

“Let me check in with Maren. She was mapping out a path to Dr. Garcia for us with my drone.”

As I reached up to press the button on my jaw, I spotted a figure creeping through the hallways toward us. Zaen saw it, too. He spun around and raised the barrel of his pistol. I put my hand on top of his and forced it back toward the ground.

“I was just about to contact you.”

Maren jogged up to us, panting a little, her eyes wide.

“They destroyed the drone,” she gasped, “but not before I saw where they’re holding Dr. Garcia. They have some kind of heavy weapon on a turret up ahead.”

I glanced over at Zaen.

“Looks like a job for the big gun.”

“We’ll only get one shot.”

“Trust me, with a vehicle stopper, there’s only one shot required.”

“There won’t be any time to aim.”

I gave him a look.

“Zaen, have you ever seen one of these deployed in the field?”

“No.”

“Trust me, aiming isn’t an issue.”

We connected with the other Vaznik on the way. I used a mirror to peek around the corner at the turret.

“How far is the doctor past this point?” I asked Maren.

“About thirty feet, maybe.”

“All right. This weapon violates the rules of this away mission, but it’s perfect for this situation. It’s been designed to produce a highly localized concussive blast, enough to stop a vehicle without destroying it or killing the occupants. Hopefully.”

I hefted the weapon and smiled at Maren to reassure her. Then I steeled myself and flopped down onto my belly.

I rolled to my right, tumbling into the hallway until I stopped in an aiming position. I lined up, took a shot, and kept rolling. I barely caught a glimpse of the detonation. A great thump, followed by the sound of wrenching metal assaulted my ears.

I peered around the corner. The turret now resided ten feet in the air, embedded into a bulkhead.

“Where’d the smuggler who was manning that go?”

I pointed at a pair of quivering, severed legs flopping on the floor beneath the embedded turret.

“I imagine he’s inside the wall, pinned under that turret.”

“Dead?”

“If he’s lucky. Come on, we have to save Garcia from her captivity before it’s too late.”

I led the way through, keeping low and hugging the wall. I used every scrap of cover I could muster until I came to the room Maren had seen on her drone.

“Whoa, there,” Turk growled, holding a gun to Dr. Garcia. “No sudden moves.”

Turk had seen better days. His left eye had been burnt shut, and I couldn’t tell if he’d lost it or not. I knew it looked excruciatingly painful. Several of his smuggler allies bore injuries of their own. The desperation lay thick in the air, a heavy smell of panic and the edge of madness.

“It’s over, Turk,” I said as the rest of the team fanned out to cover the room. Things didn’t look good for us strategically. The smugglers had us outnumbered two to one, even with many of their numbers injured.

The only way to take Turk out, before he could possibly kill Dr. Garcia, would be a perfect headshot. I was a good shot with a pistol, but they’re back-up weapons for a reason.

“Dr. Garcia,” I called out. “Are you all right?”

Garcia’s eyes locked with my own gaze. Something in her eyes I couldn’t define reached out to me. My breath caught in my chest.

Something in my mind whispered of ancient symbols and profound fear. Sweat broke out across my forehead. Dr. Garcia tore her gaze from my eyes and I sucked in a deep breath.

“Don’t—don’t let them take it,” she rasped. I followed her gaze to a disc-shaped object, studded with colored lights. It was roughly the size of a platter and sat on a table. A number of wires and plugs snaked into it.

“The Annulus,” Maren whispered. Suddenly I was a lot more attentive. No wonder she didn’t want them to have it.

Dr. Garcia, despite her age and not being a soldier, may be one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.

My gaze darted around the room, looking at the situation for the first time with the certainty that Dr. Garcia had been a hostage the entire time.

Is she not even more valorous, for her infirmity and lack of training?

“Don’t worry, Doctor,” I called out to her across the distance between us, trying to reach her, even if only with my voice. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Not going to happen,” Turk snarled. “Not unless I get what I want.”

“And what’s that, Turk?” I glared. “An eyepatch?”

“Oh, you’re real funny, Vaznik.” He spat the name out like a curse, then spat on the floor. Doctor Garcia turned her face away from him, mouth twisted in disgust.

“People a lot more important than you and me want that artifact. More, they want to know what makes it tick. Most importantly, they’ve got every reason to pay whoever’s got the merch. And the Queen’s Brood always delivers the merchandise. The doctor stays with us.”

“Look, Turk, there’s no way out of this for you.”

“Yeah, put your weapons down and maybe we’ll talk about you getting out of here alive—”

Dr. Garcia’s eyes rolled back in her head. She stumbled. It looked as if she’d had a seizure or an episode of some sort. Startled by the motion, one of Turk’s men fired a single round.

The round hit Dr. Garcia in the back. The scientist, gray streaks streaming from her temples, collapsed mid stride. She fell to the floor. She let out a gurgling, choking sound and blood spread across her chest at an alarming rate.

My mind snapped into soldier mode. All I knew was the hostage was out of my line of fire.

“Return fire,” I bellowed. “Show no mercy.”

MAREN

Time seemed to stand still after the smuggler shot Dr. Garcia. She’d fallen in slow motion, eyes wide with shock, crumpling into a twitching heap on the floor.

I slapped a hand over my mouth. The sight of her ungainly fall stabbed deep into my heart. I reached out toward her with the hand not holding in my scream before I even thought.

The spreading, crimson stain soaking into the front of her lab coat screamed for urgent action. I stood, frozen in shock, until Drayk’s huge palm on my back pushed me behind a thick support beam.

Drayk laid his body against mine, using himself as a living shield. Something in my mind screamed for me to act, instead of just standing there.

Drayk dove for the floor as one of the smugglers opened up with a burst of weapons fire. This freed me to seek slightly better cover, a raised slab on the floor probably used to house a computer terminal.

I peered around the corner of my shelter as much as I dared. Energy blasts streaked across the chamber, creating eerie effects as they backlit the smoke and dust. I heard Drayk bellowing orders to his men, saw them respond. The smugglers had both firepower and numbers, but they fought like individuals.

The Vaznik were a team, and that made the fight fairer. Not completely fair, but more fair.

My heart caught in my throat when I saw Dr. Garcia. She moved, limbs twitching.

So, she still lives.

She twitched over to her belly, back arched painfully back and pulled herself across the floor, leaving a wide swath of crimson in her wake.

Is she trying to get to the exit? But…she’s crawling in the wrong direction…

Realization hit me like a one-ton chisel.

She’s trying to reach the Annulus.

I didn’t know why, but I felt as if I should help her, somehow. The need to assist her tugged at me, from deep within my soul.

At least, I want to give her a fighting chance to get out of the firefight before she bleeds out.

I looked around the battlefield, hoping to see something, anything, that might lead to our side getting the tactical advantage. I saw a flimsy table already riddled with smoking, seared holes, a mini fridge likewise rendered useless, and a stand-up Zoder beverage machine somehow completely intact.

The grinning face of Zoder Being flickered at me as the machine’s power fluctuated. Drinks dispensed through his mouth, at about eye-level for a human.

Drayk flattened himself on the floor behind my covered spot. His hands moved in an adept blur as he reloaded his pistol. He noticed I had my computer tablet out.

“What’re you doing?”

“Did I ever tell you about the time I worked as a Zoder vending attendant for about two weeks?” I sought out the different devices in the vicinity, then wirelessly linked to the Zoder machine.

“I believe you neglected to tell me that story.”

He popped up from behind cover and fired several times. I heard a smuggler cry out in pain as he ducked back behind cover.

“Well, here’s the interesting thing about Zoder machines. The machines kept breaking down on Zilgara VII, so much so the company lost millions trying to replace and fix them. Then they realized, Zilgara VII was a heavy-grav world. The machine’s internal workings had to be retooled to compensate for the heavier gravity.”

I grinned as I successfully gained access to the machine’s settings.

“So, since their engineers had to reconfigure the machines anyway, they figured, why not make them adaptable to any level of gravity? One size fits all.”

I set the Zoder machine to the highest possible gravity rating, activating its hover function.

The machine lumbered out from against the wall and turned toward one of the smugglers. I hit the ‘dispense’ key on my touchscreen, and a can of Zoder flew out at such a high velocity, it looked like a red and orange streak.

The can struck the smuggler in the faceplate, cracking the material. He lurched backward, head twisting at an awkward angle, and went down in a heap.

I laughed, directing the Zoder machine to line up another shot.

Dispense!

Another red and orange missile streaked through the air, this one taking a man in the groin. He crumpled, his rifle flipping from nerveless fingertips.

“Waste the machine!” Turk cried. I fired a can at him, but he managed to duck in the nick of time. The Zoder exploded against the wall behind him, showering Turk with its sticky, foamy, orange contents.

One of the smugglers turned his weapon on the Zoder machine. Energy blasts filled the air. The Zoder machine exploded in flashes of sparks. Bits of it rained down as soft drink shot from dozens of holes like life’s blood. I had enough juice left for one last ‘dispense.’

The can took the smuggler in the throat. He went down gasping and flopping like a fish.

“Now, while we have them flanked!”

Drayk’s voice rang out over the din of battle and the exploding of the dying Zoder machine. The Vaznik warriors moved as one, converging on the remaining smugglers, gunning them down behind their defensive positions.

Rikov cried out and went down, a smoking crater in his thigh. Turk shouted in triumph.

“That’s only the first of you horn heads to fall—”

He stopped talking then, probably because Drayk’s massive, green hand had closed around his throat. Drayk snapped his head forward and smashed Turk’s nose flat like crumpled aluminum foil.

Drayk dropped Turk to the floor. His gaze found me. I waved him off with a smile.

“I’m fine, babe. Check on your man.”

Drayk nodded at me and darted over to Rikov.

“Rikov, are you okay?”

“I think so. The round cauterized the wound. I’ll have an awesome scar.”

“Lucky bastard,” Vrako muttered.

“Hey,” I said. “Has anyone seen where Dr. Garcia went?”

We followed the smear of blood up to the table which had, up until a few moments ago, held the Annulus.

I found her behind a row of cabinets, her arms clutching the glowing device to her bleeding chest.

“Dr. Garcia, can you hear me?”

Dr. Garcia’s eyes fluttered open and focused on me. They glowed brighter than the sun, forcing me to look away.

What’s going on?

DRAYK

I came running when I heard Maren’s sharp gasp. I slid into a crouch behind a wall of equipment, panic seizing me the moment I saw the blood smeared on the floor. My love, I found unharmed, her eyes wide with horror.

I followed her gaze—and the blood smears—to Dr. Garcia. The doctor’s face held an ashen pallor, as if the blood had drained out of her entirely. Blue lines of veins beneath the paper-thin skin of her neck grew more distinct, then began to glow.

“Dr. Garcia?” I leaned forward, deeply concerned. Her chest moved, so I knew she still breathed, but something had made her blood glow.

Bioluminescence? I’m sure not a medical officer, but I know glowing blue isn’t normal for humans.

Intending to nudge her shoulder, I reached toward Dr. Garcia.

“Can you hear me—”

My finger reached her skin. I felt as if I’d touched a hive of angry, stinging insects. I flew backward, crashing hard against the floor. My horns banged into a cabinet. I howled as pain reverberated down my sensitive horns and into my skull.

“Drayk, are you all right?” Maren crawled over to me and helped me rise to a sitting position.

“I’m fine—my horns aren’t chipped or cracked, are they?”

“Your horns look fine.” She turned her head. “And so does Dr. Garcia, now. Look, the wound on her chest has healed over.”

I watched as a black fissure on her chest slowly zipped itself closed, concealing a bright, blue glow within.

“I don’t like this.” My eyes narrowed. “That…thing she’s holding could change her in ways we can’t fully understand.”

“Well, touching her is out of the question.” Maren’s brow furrowed with thought as she clung to my hand with an intense grip. “I think she’s covered in some kind of electrified energy field.”

Maren looked her over, drawing in a sharp gasp.

“Look, Drayk!”

My eyes darted to Dr. Garcia and widened. Silver wires snaked forth from the artifact and darted to Dr. Garcia’s hand, worming their way under her skin.

“I’ve seen enough,” I growled. “I’m putting a stop to this right now. Take cover, Maren.”

I drew my pistol and took careful aim on the Annulus. I knew there’d be fragments, and possibly even a ricochet, which might endanger Dr. Garcia.

I can’t, in good conscience, let the Annulus have its way with her. Saving her life is one thing, but invading her with circuity and turning the good doctor into an unwitting cyborg is quite another.

Maren ducked down behind a console. I held my breath and squeezed the trigger. The Vaznik standard-issue energy pistol fires a round of superheated plasma. It only burns for a second and a half, but that’s usually more than sufficient for it to reach its target.

The green bolt of energy from my pistol froze a few inches from the target. My eyes went wide. The bolt slowly dissipated into nothingness, as ineffective as my previous grappling attempt had been.

“Hey, boss man.” Rikov ran around the corner. Though the side of his face had swollen, Rikov looked otherwise unharmed. “We’ve taken out the last of the opposition. The area is secure…what in the world is wrong with her? Is that Dr. Garcia?”

Her head jerked to the side at an unnatural angle. My neck hurt in sympathy. Her glowing blue gaze took notice of us for the first time. Dr. Garcia levitated to her feet. She didn’t stand.

Despite disbelieving my own eyes, Dr. Garcia’s body floated, drifting up from the floor in disjointed jerks until she stood.

She sang an old tune softly in a monotone, head hanging to the side at a strange angle.

I watched her throat work as if she had never used it before. An arcane expression, devoid of any semblance of emotion, settled upon her face. Dr. Garcia’s mouth opened, her hoarse monotone singing again.

“You’re not going anywhere but a med bay, doctor,” Rikov said, reaching for her. Too late, I screamed a warning, trying to stop an action already taken.

“No, Rikov, don’t touch her!”

Rikov’s head turned my way far too late to stop his hand from clamping around Dr. Garcia’s shoulder. In a flash of harsh light and an ear-splitting crack, Rikov flew back, crashing into the far wall.

His limp body slid to the floor, its impact against the wall having left a Rikov-shaped dent. He crumpled to the floor and groaned.

At least he’s alive.

The tumult brought the rest of the team. They stood, staring between me and the doctor, unsure of what to do.

“Don’t try to interfere with her,” I said. “Just follow her for now.”

We all made way for Doctor Garcia. Her stiff stride soon evened out, as if the artifact controlling her had learned how to better manipulate its puppet of flesh and blood.

If she still has blood running through her veins.

We made for a strange procession—a half-dozen Vaznik warriors disguised as smugglers, one human swaddled like a desert nomad—and all of us, following a woman with glowing eyes and an arcane device attached to her hand.

Sio and the UIN stood by, perplexed as the doctor strode past.

“Be careful,” I called to her. “Keep your people back, she mustn’t be touched.”

Sio’s chest puffed out with importance. I’d spoken to her as one leader to another, and it had the desired effect.

“Keep your distance, urchins. Let the horny aliens handle this.”

Sio and some of the older children joined the procession, all of them wielding improvised weapons. I was shocked to see some of those were hot, and ready to fire.

Tough children.

Dr. Garcia came to a junction and turned right with unfolding grace. We followed at a safe distance, waiting for her to show some sign of her intentions.

We came to a section formed from an old cargo vessel, before the teleportation pads rendered freighters obsolete. Nothing but junk parts and scrap metal occupied the bay.

“What’s she doing here?” I wondered aloud.

“Um, you don’t think she’s going to open those bay doors and take a space walk, do you?” Maren’s voice trembled.

“Good point. The rest of you get back, and brace yourselves, just in case. And activate your magnetic boots.”

“We don’t all have magnetic boots,” Sio said.

“Then you should move back to the previous junction. It had emergency air-lock doors. Get behind those and close them. Hold the fort for us there. We’re going to need your help to get back in, after we take care of this, okay?”

“You’ve got it.” Sio saluted me and led the Urchins back to relative safety.

I turned to Dr. Garcia. She held her hands spread, arms wide, the Annulus attached to her left limb. The ancient artifact glowed in fierce, pulsing throbs. Objects in the room moved.

The fuselage from a decommissioned torpedo rolled out to the middle of the floor, dislodging debris with a loud clatter. Wires snaked through the air like living things, spooling themselves inside the burned-out chassis of a derelict air car.

“What’s she doing?” I asked again.

“I think she’s building herself a starship.” Maren pointed. “Look at that circuitry pattern and tell me it doesn’t look like an FTL drive…”

I looked where Maren pointed. My jaw dropped.

That’s exactly what that looks like…

The ship assembled itself before our very eyes, and Dr. Garcia climbed inside. I tried my comm unit, imploring the fleet to be on the lookout for a shuttle without a transponder. I got no signal.

I wonder if interference from Dr. Garcia and the Annulus could jam our signals.

“I think she’s going to open those bay doors.” I grabbed Maren’s arm. “Run!”

Maren and I sprinted to the air lock the Urchins had refused to close without us. I dove for them, pulling Maren out of the bay behind me just in time. The emergency air-lock closed a moment behind Maren’s boot sliding past.

We and the Urchins scrambled to the air-lock’s window and watched through the clear aperture in the hatch door while Doctor Garcia’s shuttle powered up its thrusters.

Just as I’d predicted, the cargo bay doors opened. Vacuum sucked the collection of junk out in maelstrom, taking the strange ship with it.

There was nothing Maren and I could do but watch Dr. Garcia, or whatever Dr. Garcia had become, vanish into the vastness of space.

MAREN

It tore me up to turn my back on the vented cargo bay. I felt as if we also turned our backs on Dr. Garcia and her plight.

First, a hostage of the Queen’s Brood smugglers, and now…possessed by— What? The Annulus? An alien artifact? A vestige of a lost civilization…or a long-dormant alien intelligence?

The entire exercise felt like a failure—or at the very least, a setback. Drayk looked at my face and saw my expression. Concern flashed over his brow, and he laid a big, strong hand on my arm.

“Are you in pain, Maren? You didn’t take a round, did you?”

“No, I didn’t get shot.” I looked at the stained knees of my swaddled garment. “I mean, that blood is Dr. Garcia’s.”

“Then why do you look so upset?”

“Because we failed, Drayk. This whole mission has been much ado about nothing. Dr. Garcia is still missing.”

“True, but at least she’s no longer a captive in the hands of Turk and his men.”

“No, she’s a captive of an ancient alien artifact we barely understand anything about, instead! Is that better?”

Drayk shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine at this point.”

“Then, I guess it’s better. Since the Annulus healed her.”

“Yeah, but for what purpose? Why’d it heal her? I’ve never seen anything like that happen before. Have you? What does the Annulus want with Doctor Garcia? Is Doctor Garcia even still in there?” he asked.

I shook my head and tossed my hands in the air.

“I don’t have answers for any of that, Drayk. That’s why I’m so frustrated. I know all of these journals and dreams and symbols and the blue glow all mean something, but I just can’t figure out what any of it is trying to say.”

Drayk smiled and squeezed my shoulder gently.

“You mustn’tmust not be too hard on yourself, Maren. We struck a major blow today. Turk and his men are no more, and the researchers at the facility on Yimïk III have been avenged. We know more than we did before, especially considering we can avail ourselves of the research Garcia collected for the smugglers.”

“You’re right.” I smiled, though it was a bit weak. “I guess we did make a difference.”

“Not only that, but we helped the Urchin network. The smugglers aren’t around to harass them any longer.”

We joined up with the rest of the squad. Zaen arched his brow ridges when we walked back to the corridor.

“Are we leaving this dump yet? I feel like I picked up a disease just breathing this fetid air.”

“Yes, we’re leaving this dump.” Drayk looked back the way we came, as if he, too, were unable to let go of the past. Then he turned his gaze to me, and his eyes softened. All of a sudden, he wasn’t looking to the future. I saw it plain as day in his eyes.

He was looking at the future. Specifically, a future with me in it.

I felt a rush of emotion at that thought.

On one hand, I do miss Earth. On the other hand, I’ve had the greatest adventure of all time, and who’d have thought there’d be a whirlwind romance to top it all off?

My eyes darted all over him, trying to take in every contour, every angle, the texture of his skin, everything.

There’re worse things than living on a spaceship with Drayk. Or living anywhere with Drayk. He likes me for who I am—loves me for it, even. How could I ever say no to that?

He must’ve picked up the change of mind in my smile, because his grin became that much wider.

Yeah, living without Drayk, without his love—would be the worst possible future. No question.

When we returned to our grunged-up shuttle, he held my hand for a long moment while the others clambered on board.

When we returned to the fleet some time later, Drayk, Zaen, and I were summoned to a debriefing with the command staff, including Admiral Ausym and the captains of all three ships.

“Me?” Zaen groaned. “Aw, man. What’d I even do? I swear, the galaxy is out to get me.”

“It’s all your smart-ass remarks, Zaen.” Drayk shot him a grin and a shrug. “It’s your own misdeeds catching up with you, manifesting bad luck.”

“Yeah, well…maybe I’ll keep my mouth shut this time.”

Drayk clapped Zaen on a meaty shoulder, far harder than was necessary.

“Oh, Zaen, it’s your turn to learn leadership skills, the way I did before you, and Irev did before me…”

Zaen knocked Drayk’s hand from his shoulder.

“You can stop there, man. You’ve made your point…”

“And Raxor, before him…”

I laughed at their antics as we proceeded to the bridge of the Honor’s Blade, despite the nerves in my gut.

I don’t know why I worried, though. When we came in, the admiral himself swept over to me, a big smile stretched across his pinkish face.

“Hello again, Maren. I’m so glad to see you returned safely from your first away mission.” His eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped an octave or two. “I trust my man, Drayk, has treated you well?”

“I just have to say, admiral, when it comes to Drayk…”

Why can’t I resist the chance?

I turned to him and glared.

“Where do you get off?”

“What?” Drayk’s slack jaw and the sheer panic in his voice were too much for me. I almost burst into laughter and couldn’t fight the grin being born on my face.

“Where do you get off being so awesome to me, every step of the way?” I laughed at last and patted his shoulder. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist messing with you a little.”

Admiral Ausym tilted his head back, laughing.

“Oh, isn’t she just wonderful? You’re so lucky, Drayk, to be matched with a woman like Maren. You’ve treated it like the honor and privilege it is, have you not?”

Drayk stiffened up to attention, puffing his chest out.

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Very good. Now, let’s get this debriefing underway.”

The command staff were among the most gracious of audiences. They seldom interrupted Drayk, Zaen, and I while we recounted our away mission.

When they’d interrupt, it was for clarification on a point, not to berate us for doing the wrong thing. As the debriefing wrapped up, Ausym consulted with the fleet’s captains.

“Your opinions?”

“I really think the new season of As the Galaxy Churns has jumped the Earth-born carnivorous piscine,” Captain Thadood said.

Ausym didn’t miss a beat, even as I stifled a laugh.

“Your opinions pertaining specifically to the situation with Dr. Garcia?”

“We’ve spent a lot of time and resources chasing after her, trying to solve this mystery.” Captain Datgouy’s eyes narrowed. “It’d seem a waste of time to pull out now.”

“Agreed.” Soanzo nodded firmly. “Plus, we have no idea what that Annulus thing is capable of. I, for one, would sleep a lot better at night knowing what it is, and even better, knowing where it is.”

“Then it’s settled.” Ausym turned to Drayk. “For outstanding service in the field, we’re promoting you to Junior Grade Officer. Congratulations, Drayk.”

“Thank you, sir. I’llI will strive to be worthy of the honor.”

“See that you do.” Ausym stared hard at Zaen. The red-skinned Vaznik blanched, and swallowed hard.

“Drayk tells me you’re his choice for new away team commander, Zaen. Do you think you’re capable of this assignment?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Zaen saluted stiffly. “Even though my specialty is security, I believe I have a lot to offer, sir.”

“Very good. Dismissed, the lot of you. The captains and I have a lot to discuss.”

Drayk and I walked off the bridge, and his hand slipped into mine. I felt a flutter in my heart and looked up at him through half-lidded eyes. The somber expression on his face cooled my hormones, though.

“Drayk? What’s wrong?”

“Maren, I have something I must say to you.”

We halted in the corridor. He still held my hand in his grip. I felt my heart thudding in my chest.

“I never thought I’d meet someone who I adore, look up to, and care about so much all in one package. You’re the most beautiful being in the galaxy to me. I wish to spend the rest of my life with you.”

My heart skipped a beat. My suddenly dry mouth didn’t seem capable of forming words.

“I have to know if you feel the same way.” His eyes beamed, earnest, a somber frown etching deep lines in his perfect face. “How do you feel?”

How did I feel?

I’d already decided earlier I wanted to see where this thing with Drayk led. Now the moment was upon me, I found it hard to speak, due to the gravity of the situation.

“Drayk…” I swallowed hard and licked my dry lips. “That’s what I want, too.”

A look of immense relief and joy spread over his face.

“Oh, Maren, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He kissed me there, and the beating of my heart mingled with the sonorous hum of engines, purring in my ear like a contented cat.

DRAYK

Maren and I stood there in the corridors of the Honor’s Blade, wrapped in each other’s arms. Our kiss deepened by the moment as we lost ourselves in the essence of the other.

I pulled her into me, savoring the feel of her soft body against mine. Her softness pressed against my firm ribcage felt primal and deep.

My mind surged with lightning. Maren and I were dedicated to each other. The golden threads returned to the edge of my vision, wrapping us together and connecting our hearts and souls for all time.

I’d have liked nothing better than to have whisked her away to her quarters, eager as I was to consummate our newfound commitment. Unfortunately, Zaen has a big mouth.

He did fit all those grenades inside that maw.

News of my promotion had spread like wildfire.

“There he is.” Rikov slowed to a jog, then a walk. “I’ve been sent to bring both of you to the observation lounge.”

“Instructed by whom?” I asked, a bit annoyed at having been interrupted. Maren chuckled and patted my chest before pulling away.

“Um, did I say ‘instructed’? I meant, um, hey, would you join me in the observation lounge for a completely casual stargazing, um, session?”

I sighed.

“They’re throwing me a surprise party in the observation lounge, aren’t they?”

Rikov’s shoulders slumped.

“Damn, and I insisted I go, instead of Tanax, because I thought for sure he’d blow it.”

“Nevermind. Lead on, and we’ll pretend to be surprised,” Maren said.

“You’d do that for me?” Rikov asked.

“Of course we would. Right, Drayk?”

She turned her gaze on me, and I couldn’t possibly resist. I could never tell her no.

“Of course.”

We followed him to the observation lounge. As if he hadn’t already blown the surprise, I heard Kavok bellow.

“Hey, I think I hear them coming. Places, everyone!”

I hid my face behind my hand and sighed as Maren laughed.

“They’re trying so hard,” she said, squeezing my hand.

“That’s the problem. They’re trying so very hard to only achieve this level of stunning ineptitude.”

Maren chuckled as we stepped into the observation lounge and up the last flight of stairs. Forty or so of our friends and peers leapt up and out from behind random furniture and shouted in celebration.

A big banner which read Congratulations Drayk hung from the rear, right over the star-viewing panels. I was glad to see a big buffet table, since I was pretty hungry after all that running around on Paradise City station.

“Well, isn’t this fine,” I said with a laugh. “What a surprise.”

Kavok came up to me and clasped my hand.

“Well done, Drayk. You deserve this.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

Irev soon joined us, accompanied by his mate, Petra.

“Congratulations, Drayk,” she said.

“Yes, congratulations, indeed,” Irev added.

“Thank you both.” I appreciated all of their accolades, of course, but to me, the biggest achievement of my life wasn’t a promotion. It was winning the heart of the magnificent Maren.

Raxor and Amelia joined us, shaking my hand and congratulating me, too. I noticed Maren, ever the social butterfly, had flitted off on her own. She held court with some of the scientists.

“And you say the Urchins charged you ten-thousand cred chips for the map of the station?” Dr. Bill sounded aghast. “That’s usury. That means…”

“Robbery, I know. We were happy to pay. I imagine it’s hard enough being an Urchin, let alone being one on a black-market station.”

Sylvia leaned in and whispered, as if passing a secret.

“I hear the Urchins have developed a real support network, lately.”

Dr. Treigho nodded and pointed into the air.

“Let me TELL you something,” Dr. Treigho bellowed. “If those black-market smugglers hurt one of those Urchins, they’re going to have a fatal encounter with Dr. Ba Weep Gra Na Weep Ninny Bon Treigho!”

Maren, to her credit, kept a straight face during his solemn recitation, though her eyes watered by the time Dr. Treigho made it to his last name. I felt Zaen tug on my arm and I followed him to the corner of the lounge.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I want to know how you do it. How do you make command look so easy?”

“Easy?” I laughed. “I don’t think I’d have been half the leader I am now without Maren. She’s shown me there are many more possibilities than I ever considered before and solutions to problems I thought unsolvable.”

“I hoped for more specific instructions,” Zaen said. “Like, is there a manual?”

“There’re many tomes and articles on leadership in the ship’s database, Zaen. But at the end of the day, you must chart your own path. No one can tell you how to lead. It’s a journey you must make yourself. Just remember the fundamental principle of the Vaznik fleet.”

“Leadership is a service position,” Zaen said.

“Right. The worst commanders focus exclusively on their own glory. The best commanders see to it that every one of the people under their command comes home, or dies with tremendous glory in the service of making a better place out of this galaxy.”

I clasped him on the arm.

“You have the ability to be a great leader, Zaen. Maybe even a great man.”

He smiled, and nodded.

“Then, I’ll simply have to go study all the information, won’t I? If you’ll excuse me, it looks like I have too much homework to get done to stay and party.”

“Heavy is the weight of responsibility, Zaen.”

I clasped him on the shoulder. With a sigh, Zaen trotted out into the corridor and I joined Maren at the buffet table. She loaded up her plate with a little bit of everything, stuffing finger foods into her mouth in between adding things to her tray.

“I’ve never been so hungry.”

“There’s no appetizer like danger, I’ve found.” I grinned and picked up my own tray. I ladled food in great amounts, creating a three-dimensional panoramic of gastronomic delights.

“Danger is a great appetizer, huh?”

I glanced at Maren. She wore a knowing smile plastered on her lovely face.

“Yes, it is.”

She got on her tiptoes and leaned in close. When she whispered, her breath was hot against my ear.

“Danger makes a pretty good aphrodisiac, too. Just FYI, for when we finally get out of here.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t so worried about food any longer. Then I remembered my studies.

I’ll need my energy. Don’t forget pre-hydration! Remember Commander Pezzan ranting about the toll a proper mating takes on the body.

I never finished my meal so quickly before.

MAREN

The party proved difficult to slip away from. I should’ve figured, given Drayk and I were the guests of honor.

Eventually, though, Helena, Petra, and Amelia saw to it we were able to make our getaway. Amelia stood up on a chair and proposed a really long toast, drawing attention away from our getaway.

We stifled our laughter and scampered off like a couple of high school kids getting away with something. I felt a giddy rush boil through my body and I tingled from head to toe. Drayk held my hand and we ran to my quarters.

Well, I’m running. Drayk is kind of shuffling, so I can keep up. He’s so considerate.

“Drayk, babe, you run faster. Pick me up and carry me already.”

Drayk grinned, swept me into his arms, and sprinted through the corridors faster than I ever could’ve. I squealed the entire ride in utter delight.

When we reached the door, Drayk placed me back on my feet. I leaned against it for a moment to catch my breath, and not just from the running and giggling. He put his hand on the wall beside my head and leaned his head down for a kiss.

Our lips met, tender and fresh, having been apart for so long. My heart raced faster and faster as the kiss deepened. I fumbled about with my hand until I hit the door control. As soon as it slid open, he spun me around and inside through the portal.

He pulled away from me. Breathless, I looked up, into his eyes. Tender yearning filled them.

“From the moment I saw you, I wanted to kiss you.”

My heart melted a little more. I was pretty sure at that point my heart had become nothing more than a puddle of goo. His hand felt nice as it cupped my cheek.

“I kind of had the same impression.” My voice sounded strange to my ears. “I’m glad we’re finally free to act on those impulses.”

“I never knew you’d transform my life so much, when I first laid my eyes on your magnificent face in the teleportation pad chamber so long ago.”

I laughed softly, touching his bottom lip with my index finger.

“You’re not feeling regretful, are you?”

“Of course not.” He spoke with such firmness in his tone, I didn’t doubt he meant every word he spoke, one hundred percent. “I regret nothing.”

“Me neither. I was looking for adventure when I stepped onto that teleportation pad…but you showed me something I never knew I wanted.”

“What’s that, Maren?”

“Someone to be with. Someone who wants to be with me, and not like Chad.”

“Who’s Chad?”

My face scrunched up with thought.

“You know, I don’t quite remember him any longer. Other than he was quite annoying.”

“Annoyed is the last thing I want you to feel right now.” He cupped my cheek in his palm and leaned forward for a kiss. An excited tingle passed through my body like electricity. He tasted so good, I almost couldn’t stand it.

His hand moved up, under my shirt, cupping my breast. I moaned into his mouth as he groped and squeezed me. His other hand moved to my bottom, cupping and lifting me into him. I felt the growing hardness between his legs. I wriggled against him, wanting to feel his magnificent cock inside of me once again.

I held my arms up, over my head. Drayk peeled my shirt up and over my head, pulling it off. He gazed at my naked breasts with open wonder and appreciation. He cupped and clenched my breasts before moving his mouth in to suckle on my left nipple.

I cried out, my hands stroking his horns. The delighted sounds escaping his mouth into my breast took on a more guttural resonance. A gasp forced its way out of my mouth as he slipped his fingers down, beneath the waistband of my leggings.

He lifted me into the air, cupping me under my bottom. I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him. Drayk stumbled back through the bedroom door and plopped down hard on the mattress.

I ground myself against him, my pussy growing hot and wet. His hard cock felt great, even through the frustrating layers of clothing separating it from its one true home.

I slid off his lap and quickly peeled off my leggings, whimpering with my need. Drayk provided helpful assistance, but he grew impatient with my panties and ripped them clean off.

“Sorry,” he growled as he dragged me back onto his lap. He kicked his trousers off of his feet as I settled in on top of him.

I reared up on my haunches, placing one knee on the bed and the opposite foot on the other side of Drayk’s muscled hips. I opened my folds as he gripped the shaft of his throbbing member.

I carefully lowered myself down on his length. My eyes fluttered closed as he stretched me, inch by inch. A long, low moan escaped my lips as I settled down on him fully.

I rocked my hips forward as he buried his face in my breasts. I gasped, my fingers stroking the back of his head and the delicate curl of his ridged horns. My lips spread kisses on the horns as we slowly, rhythmically rocked our bodies together.

I threw my head back and let out a sharp cry, as I plummeted over the precipice of climax. Golden threads wrapped about our bodies, warm and wonderful in their embrace. They seemed to pulse right through my skin, enhancing the pleasure of the orgasm as it rippled through my body.

I turned to jelly in his arms, thrashing about on top of him as pulse after pulse throbbed through my body. Drayk held me in his grasp, and I knew I didn’t have to fear falling…

Not while he holds me so tenderly, like the most precious being to him in the galaxy.

He rolled us over so I lay on my back and gently kissed me. He swept his hand in a loving caress from my mound up to my chest. It felt as if the sensations of my orgasm followed his fingertips. I arched my back and sighed softly as I finally came down, happy and complete.

Drayk curled his body up around mine and kissed me on the back of my neck. I snuggled up to him and sighed.

“I love you, Maren,” he breathed into my ear.

“I love you, too,” I sighed. “My big, green, alien mate.”

DRAYK

I’d never known such bliss as I did in that moment, cradling Maren’s soft body to mine. Her cheek rested on my bicep and the soft silk of her hair spread out in golden contours. I felt her gentle breaths as she laid against me in the dark.

I gently tucked a strand of hair out of her eyes so I could look upon her beauty. I’d never quite understood the change which came over Kavok, Irev, and Raxor…until that moment.

They remained the same warriors I’d known before, and yet different. It was as if they’d been granted a bit of divine wisdom, which they carried within themselves at all times.

Is that…temperance? Have we warriors all been tempered, like a blade in a fire?

Now I understood the font of wisdom had nothing to do with dignity. It had everything to do with this wonderful woman lying naked beside me. There was nothing wrong with my Vaznik perspective on the galaxy. My view had simply been limited by my narrow experience.

But no more.

Being with Maren had given me access to her experiences, as well. I felt as if the two of us together were far stronger than we would’ve ever been apart. I could’ve laid there and watched her sleep all night long.

I stroked the soft strands of her hair and she stirred. Her breathing changed from the shallow pitch of slumber to the deep familiarity of wakefulness.

“I think I drooled on your arm,” she said, her voice still thick with sleep.

“Don’t worry about it.” I kissed the back of her neck and held her a bit tighter. “Go back to sleep if you want.”

I kissed her again, and she laughed. Maren wriggled her wonderfully soft, round bottom against my cock. It responded without delay.

“You tell me to go back to sleep, and then you kiss my neck…which you know gets me going.”

I put my mouth on her soft shoulder where it met her neck and flicked my tongue on the most sensitive spot I’dI had found. Maren moaned. I pulled back until my lips barely tickled the wispy hairs along her neck, kissing her skin every few inches. She gasped, straining against me. The gyrations of her hips took on a new urgency.

The head of my now erect cock found its way between her dripping wet folds. I pushed my way in slowly, gliding deeper inside of her as she let out the most profound combination of a sigh and moan.

The sound ran down my spine in little shivers. I pulled away and gazed at her glowing face. The look of ecstasy upon her was nothing short of beautiful.

I rolled her over onto her stomach, set myself in her, and thrust.

“Oh, God, yes…” she moaned into the pillow. It felt amazing to have her tight, sweet tunnel gripping my cock as I entered her, over and over.

I drove my hips into the effort. My teeth clenched on a tight gasp as I struggled not to release into her.

I remembered a trick from our classes on human female sexuality. I reached out and took hold of her hands, leaning back. Her upper torso came off the mattress slightly, changing the angle my cock entered her. It worked for her immediately. She let out a long, wild moan and writhed beneath me.

“Oh, it feels so good,” she cried.

My body strained, glazed with sweat. My gasps and grunts mingled with her own as I drove my hips hard into every thrust. Her mouth opened in a sharp scream. She sucked in air and repeated it several times and I let myself go at last. I came inside of her, my eyes watering from the exquisite release.

I collapsed half atop her. We lay there, panting in unison as our sweat mingled and cooled. I rolled over, onto my side once I’d caught my wind and stroked her hair. She moved slowly, her eyes glassy and lips, red as blood. She crawled over, releasing little, dissatisfied grunts until she lay partially on top of me.

I chuckled, shaking her like a bad grav-variance regulator. She slapped me with an arm so relaxed and loose, it looked almost boneless with the way she moved it. I only chuckled harder.

“That’s a great thing to do for a gal who got her slobber all over you.”

I laughed and cupped her cheek with my hand.

“I didn’t really mind.”

“Oh, but I don’t think that’s where my saliva belongs.” She kissed my lips. When I rose to meet her, she pulled away, sliding down my body like a snake in reverse. She trailed kisses across my chest, then my belly.

Tingles streaked through my skin where Maren touched me. I sucked in a deep breath. Mesmerized, her movements captured my gaze and refused to let me go.

She arched her back, trailing her breasts along my body as she inched her way down, kissing and licking her way to my throbbing erection. She wrapped her hand around the thick shaft and licked the crown of my cock with careful deliberation. Maren enveloped it with her lips, taking the entire crown inside her mouth.

My eyes rolled back at the sight. I groaned as her tongue slid all over my sensitive skin. She popped my member out of her mouth, trailing her tongue all the way down my shaft.

She pumped her head up and down on my cock, caressing my balls with her free hand. I felt myself ready to blow and tried to pull her away.

She redoubled her efforts, fending off my hands.

She wants me to…

I stopped fighting her and she took me so deep, I let loose inside of her. My body and mind exploded with a deep growl. Only then did she pull off of me.

“You’re too good to me,” I said, between pants.

“Only because you deserve it.”

I pulled her up, wrapped her in my arms and kissed her neck. She arched her back and moaned softly. I worked my way down her chest, carefully licking and suckling on each nipple before moving on.

I pinned her beneath my bulk and pushed her thighs apart. I pursed my lips and kissed her swollen clit carefully before sucking on it. My fingers hooked into her sweet, dripping wet depths, manipulating her clitoris from both inside and out.

Her hands closed in a tight grip around my horns. Maren thrashed about beneath me as I sucked and licked her clit.

“Drayk,” she cried. “Oh god, Drayk!!”

Her pussy let loose with a deluge of juices right into my face. I sucked on her clit between lapping up her honey, feeling as if I’d been anointed by our love.

“I love you,” I mumbled into her soft belly as we lay together afterward.

“I love you, too,” she sighed.

We fell asleep, wrapped in a cocoon of golden threads.

EPILOGUE: DRAYK

“Maren, it looks identical to the holo-commercials and brochures.”

A huge chain of tropical islands made the planet, Fetulon III, ideal for resorts. Every major galactic brand had a presence on the planet, from The Intergalactic Blaaaahari Inn to Kerstobulax’s Hotel, Squid Farm and Resort.

Maren had insisted we book with the Kerstobulax resort for one major reason, and it wasn’t the squid farm.

“Feast your eyes, Drayk.” She pointed at the towering structure dominating the white sand beach. “The galaxy’s largest waterslide.”

“I have to admit, it’s impressive.”

Vaznik warriors work hard, fight hard, and play hard. Many of my brethren had extolled the virtues of careening down a translucent tube filled with water. Some of them had even been on this very slide.

The slide stood over twenty-stories tall. Comprised of scaffolding supporting the overall structure and an express elevator leading up to the top, appearing much like a building under construction. That is, but for the seventeen different transparent tubes extruding from the center mass. The biggest of which were the green tubes. One had to go to the very highest level for the green ones. The tubes snaked around each other in a spiral, swirling ever downward.

This allowed for two people to ‘race’ each other to the bottom. I felt little trepidation…until we got to the very top.

Staring down from the top of the structure into that cavernous dark maw, water gushing out at a high clip, I had second thoughts.

Maren noticed my hesitancy and patted me on the back.

“It’s all right. Perfectly safe. I wouldn’t ask you to do something that might get you hurt.”

“I know.” I squeezed her hand and, feeling bolstered by her, stepped onto the appropriate starting point.

“Are you ready?” she asked. I took a moment to appreciate Maren in her blue and white polka dot swimsuit.

“I’m ready.”

“All right then. On three?”

“Very well. Do you want to do the countdown or should I?”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes filled with mischief, “I’ll do the count. One…three!”

Maren grasped the handrails and launched herself feet-first into the tube. It took me a split second to realize the ruse and hurl myself into the abyss. I laughed in the face of the dark beginning of the tube, but only because her trick was so amusing.

I hit the translucent portion of the tube and things changed dramatically. The sun shone through the translucent green tube. I saw the wrinkled ocean crawling toward shore below and other tubes snaking all round me.

Maren’s tube veered toward my own. I saw her joyously grinning face as she sluiced along. She waved at me cheerfully.

I assumed a pose with my legs crossed and arms folded over my chest. I presented the smallest surface area possible and caught up with her.

She copied me, just when I was about to take the lead. My advantage dissipated and, when we splashed down in the ocean below, she was just a half-second ahead of me.

“Whoo!” she hooted, thrusting her arms in the air. “Victory is sweet.”

“You cheated.”

“I did most certainly not cheat.” She stuck her tongue out at me, managing to make the gesture look adorable. “I said we’d go on three. I never said I was going to count to three.”

“You’re a cheat.”

She splashed water on me and I laughed.

We spent the next hour or so trying out the different water slides. I liked the one we went down together on a large flotation device the best.

After a stop at a beachside bar for lunch and a few drinks, I took her to the spa. At first, I intended to just relax in a hot tub while she got the treatments, but Maren talked me into joining her for the full-service treatment.

I soon found myself laying on a table beside her while tentacle-armed masseurs worked us over with seaweed-infused massage oil. Their little suction cups really worked well to knead away the tension.

“This is the life,” I said, sighing. “I always scoffed at these spa deals.”

“Now you know how foolish you were.” She chuckled softly. After the massage, we entered a whirlpool tub with heated water that left us feeling both relaxed and fatigued.

Finally, we lounged by a swimming pool in comfortable chairs, waited on hand and foot by the resort’s staff.

“I was thinking, Maren.” I rolled over on my side, but before I continued, she spoke.

“About something really dirty, I hope.”

I laughed and shook my head.

“Well, I’m having dirty thoughts now. Before those, I was thinking about Dr. Garcia and the Annulus.”

“What about them?” Her brows climbed high on her forehead.

“I don’t think the smugglers quite knew what they had. I almost wonder if, maybe, the Annulus was trying to obfuscate itself on purpose.”

“Really? That’s a remarkable theory. What if there’s some intelligence behind it? I hope we find her soon, so we can get her the help she needs.”

“Yes. This mission isn’t really over…until she’s rescued.”

“Yes, but our mission right now is to have a good time.” She sat up on the edge of her lounge chair. Her robe fell open a bit showing a generous expanse of her breasts. “Just like you’re having a good time staring at the girls.”

She came to sit beside me and I took her in my arms and kissed her like the precious being she was.

“I love you, my impossible, irresistible Maren.”

Her laugh was low and throaty. “Irresistible, huh? I guess we’ll have to find if you really mean it.”

And I did.

SHE’S BEEN HERE the entire time.

My mate. My heartbeat. The missing piece of my soul.

Every fiber of my being demands I claim her, protect her, keep her safe.

But the mystery of the Xiltri Sector won’t let us go.

Can I complete the mission and defend my mate?

And when we’re faced with a shattering revelation, will we make the right choice?

DON’T MISS the conclusion of the Xiltri Sector Warriors!

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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!

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.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Contents

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Maren

Drayk

Epilogue: Drayk

Are you a STARR HUNTRESS?

Opening Move: The Alien Games

Rogue Mate

Copyright