Rogue Alien's Woman

by Kate Rudolph

  He had to shift in his seat to accommodate his suddenly tight pants. But this was a mission and he couldn’t afford to get distracted. He tamped down his desire and pushed it aside. They needed to deal with this thing between them before it exploded. He’d never before been so hung up on a woman, and he needed to find a way to get it out of his system, either by fucking her until they were both spent, satisfied, and over it, or finding someone else to scratch the itch. Though the idea of someone else left a sour taste in his mouth. He popped another sweet and let it melt on his tongue to try and forget about it. “Your instincts are important.” His voice came out harsh and cold, but it was either that or lay her out on the table and see what kind of carnal distraction they could cause.

  “We’ve only seen the one guard. There’s got to be more than that usually. I’m just concerned that maybe the rest of them are out... you know. Being where we don’t want them to be.” She picked a chorwag back up and rolled it around in her fingers, studying it as if it offered the secrets to the universe.

  Xandr had noticed that as well, but none of the crew had said anything about an increased security presence. Still, it didn’t hurt to check. He activated his comm again and spoke quietly. “What’s the status of security on your end?”

  “All clear,” Kiran responded. “We’re monitoring their stations and see only two guards with the shipment.”

  Two guards. That couldn’t be right. “Can you check again?” Andie asked before Xandr could.

  Kiran didn’t question it. It took a moment before he came back on the comm, but he affirmed that he only saw two guards.

  “That’s not right,” Andie said as Kiran signed off.

  Xandr agreed. “We’re missing something.”

  He pocketed a few of the candies and they threw the rest away before silently getting up and heading towards the busiest part of the market. According to his timer the job would start in less than an hour, and Xandr didn’t want this to go wrong. He trusted the contact who’d found the job for them, and the information should have been good. But plans changed and if their intel was out of date it could mean disaster.

  “I’ll wander west, you take the east,” Andie said. “Let’s meet back in a few minutes?” She didn’t wait for him to agree to the order before taking off to listen in. Xandr couldn’t help but smile after her. Anyone else on the crew, except for maybe Keana, wouldn’t have dared order him around. Andie did it like it was second nature.

  He watched her disappear into the crowd and had to fight the instinct to shadow her and make sure she remained safe. This was her first time on a mission, but she was an adult and she could certainly handle wandering unobtrusively around the marketplace.

  It only took Xandr a minute to figure out what was going on and when he did he knew the mission had just gone from easy to dangerous.

  “I don’t see why some Oscavian duke wants to inspect the mines. He doesn’t rule us.” One vendor spoke to a customer in a conspiratorial whisper that carried easily, as if she wanted to be overheard. “This is a free planet, none of that imperial meddling.”

  The customer scoffed. “You know where those mine owners get their funding, don’t you? Give it a generation at the most and we’ll have one of those damn princes building a castle here.”

  Xandr had to keep moving, but now that he was attuned to it, he heard whispers of the duke’s visit flitting all around the place. Those who spoke sounded surprised, so it couldn’t have been planned for long, but they weren’t awed enough for it to be a rare occurrence. A place like Quordon might see rich people who dealt in minerals, but Oscavian nobility was something else. Most noble houses would have delegated a trip to a place like this to a steward or clerk. Only a handful of houses might have bothered sending their duke.

  Xandr activated his comm again. “Someone tell me which families have invested in the mine.” It hadn’t been important when they were planning the job, but now Xandr saw that for the oversight it was. Raustof, the broker who’d found the job for them, had grudges against certain houses and he’d be happy to use Xandr and his crew to annoy a duke or two.

  Keana didn’t sound happy when she replied to his question. “It’s not in the file. We’ve got investors from three large Oscavian corporations, but nothing about their noble ties.”

  “Do you recognize the companies?” Keana knew Oscavian details almost as well as he did, and she’d know what to look for.

  “No.”

  Damn it.

  “What’s the problem?” She had to be clenching her jaw, he could hear it in the frustrated tone, but Keana knew he wouldn’t make a stupid power grab in the middle of a mission.

  “We’ve got a duke visiting the mine today. It’s why security here is so scarce.”

  “And we don’t know which duke?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “We’ve got trouble,” Andie said, coming up behind him. That she didn’t seem to know he’d been talking to Keana told him that the captain had engaged her private line. Some habits died hard, and Xandr was thankful she’d remembered.

  “What?” He clicked his tongue to put his comm back in standby mode and turned to Andie, who held a sheet of paper and had a worried expression on her face.

  “Some bigwig is coming to inspect the shipment before it gets loaded onto the transport ship and moved off planet. This looks like a duty roster to me, and I don’t like how many people are listed here.” She pointed to a column with dozens of guards listed. “That puts them right in the path of our people. They couldn’t have planned an interception better if they’d known we were coming. We didn’t get sold out, did we?”

  “No. Where did you get the roster?” Raustof could be an asshole, but he had no reason to screw Xandr and his crew over. Not unless someone was paying him even more to do it. Still, Xandr doubted that was the case. He’d been careful.

  “I snatched it from the guard station. There was no one there,” she answered succinctly. There wasn’t time to argue. “What do we do now?”

  Xandr held up a hand while he engaged a private line to Keana. “You’re heading right for trouble. The duke is inspecting the shipment somewhere along the route, and security is waiting for him.”

  “We need this payout, Xandr.” He knew the stubborn look he’d see on her face if they were standing beside one another, and he’d never wished he was the captain more than at this moment.

  “It’s not worth our lives,” he insisted, trying to pitch his voice low enough that Andie wouldn’t hear his half of the conversation. From the way she stiffened, he’d failed.

  “This would be the second job we call off this year for Raustof. He’s not going to come around anymore if we keep quitting on him. Do your part and we’ll do ours.” She cut off the comm before Xandr could argue.

  She was the captain now, he reminded himself. She got to make the call.

  “This is a terrible idea,” Xandr muttered to himself. He turned to Andie and tried not to look already defeated. “Let’s get started.”

  ANDIE FOLLOWED XANDR’S instructions as best as she could. They had to create a distraction big enough to call the guards away from the rest of their crew, but she feared what they’d planned beforehand wasn’t going to be big enough. A duke sounded like a big deal. Why would the guards care about a fire and a tiny riot?

  At first it all seemed to be going to plan. They’d found an abandoned building and used small chargers to light it up. It didn’t burn fast, but it smoked enough for Andie to start coughing quickly. She found a contact point that was used to get in touch with security and reported the fire before running as fast as she could and screaming her lungs out. That sure as hell got the attention of the marketgoers, but it must not have been too interesting. Only a few left their stations to see what was going on.

  And from the way everyone was milling about, Xandr hadn’t been able to start his riot.

  Still, a few minutes later two guards showed up where the fire had been set and engaged the fi
refighting robots to put it out. It didn’t take long and the market settled all around them.

  A commotion came from somewhere on the other side of the market and the guards went running towards whatever Xandr had cooked up, but neither of them seemed to be calling for backup.

  They needed something bigger, but without supplies, Andie doubted they could do much. What could they do to make the guards call for backup?

  She jogged past the guard station and saw it was unmanned again, the door left hanging open when the guards had run to fight the fire. She and Xandr were meant to rendezvous at the train depot and get out before anyone suspected them of causing trouble, but she took a detour and slipped inside. There was a comm station with a screen lit up, displaying where all the guards were stationed today. She’d already sneaked in here once to steal the duty roster, and spending any extra time felt like pressing her luck, but she couldn’t back down now.

  She saw a microphone and wanted to reach for it and put out a call for help, but she didn’t speak Oscavian, and the guards on the other end would know the words were being translated. She couldn’t risk it.

  But she wasn’t working alone.

  Andie engaged her comm. “I need you at the guard station now.”

  “I’m a little busy at the moment.” Xandr sounded like he was running, or possibly fighting.

  “I need someone who speaks Oscavian. Come on!” she tapped her fingers against the desk and looked around for anything that would be useful, but it just looked like a small office that didn’t see much trouble. The two guards left to mind the market probably felt overwhelmed already.

  “Figure it out,” Xandr grit out before the comm went silent.

  She wanted to scream, but that wouldn’t get this done, and it wasn’t like Xandr wasn’t the only one who spoke Oscavian on the whole planet. She stuck her head out the door and saw a concerned woman looking towards where the building she’d set on fire was still smoldering. Andie wanted to run straight towards her, but made herself slip out of the guard building and circle the block before running up to the unsuspecting woman and stumbling into her.

  “Please,” she gasped, not completely faking it. “I need your help.”

  The Oscavian woman looked confused, but Andie attempted to look as miserable as she could, trying to garner any sympathy. “The guard told me to report. Asked to call for backup. But─I─”

  And the woman’s face turned from suspicion to a helpful smile. “Oh, thank goodness. Here, I’ll show you where the comm is.”

  Step one complete. Andie followed the woman into the guard building and watched her pick up the comm. As she handed it to Andie, Andie shook her head. “I’m new here. Maybe you should be the one to make the call. He said to tell them that the duke had diverted to tour the market and they need as many guards as they can spare to secure it immediately.”

  “Really? The duke is coming here?” The Oscavian’s eyes widened, but she relayed the message. When the confirmation came through from the guard on the other end, Andie wanted to hug the woman, but she restrained herself to a simple thank you.

  “I’ll go tell the guards. You stay here and wait in case they need more instruction. The guard said he would be here on the hour.”

  The Oscavian looked ready to jump out of her skin with excitement. “I’ve never seen a duke before.”

  Andie almost felt bad for lying, but she was just doing her job. And if the only thing she hurt was this woman’s feelings, she’d call it a good day.

  As she ran for the depot, she engaged her comm. “A large contingent of guards are heading for the market,” she told Xandr. “I’ll be at the rendezvous point.”

  And when she got to the train he was already there, his lip split from what must have been a nasty punch. But his face lit up when he saw her and his blue eyes practically glowed. Andie couldn’t help herself this time. She flung herself at Xandr and wrapped her arms around him. “I might be going crazy, but that was kind of fun.”

  His smile back was enough to make her think of all the wicked things she wanted to do with him the second they were alone. Feeling the heat of his body pressed up against hers made her hunger for things she’d been craving for weeks now and it wouldn’t take much to push them over that ledge.

  Oh what the hell, she’d just saved the damn mission, she was entitled to one little kiss.

  She leaned in close and could feel Xandr’s warm breath as the distance between them shrank to nothing. She could practically feel his lips against hers, but the moment had to be savored, and she wasn’t about to rush it.

  But the crackle of a voice in their ears had them freezing in place like they were naughty school children who’d been caught by their teacher.

  “Get your asses to the rendezvous point, our exit is going to be hot.” Sayevi sounded just as excited as Andie had a moment before, but her voice was like cold water over the two of them. They stepped apart, and when they boarded the train to leave town they kept a seat between one another and didn’t look at each other.

  Andie wanted to groan in defeat. What the hell was her problem? She had to find a way to get over this thing before it made her explode.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A WAVE OF ELATION CARRIED the crew through the next few days, and for the first time Andie really felt like one of them. Taryn toasted her on the night after the heist, congratulating her for her quick thinking, and even Captain Alleyva seemed to thaw. It was only one job, but given the way people were treating her, Andie was almost certain she’d be included the next time, and when Captain Alleyva called her into her office and gave her a credit slip for her portion of the mission, Andie wanted to whoop for joy.

  It wasn’t much money. Despite the trouble they’d run into, the job had been small time and a payout split between the crew wouldn’t go far, but it was more money than Andie had been paid in six years. Wages on Ixilta had been practically non-existent and whatever she’d managed to squirrel away back there was long gone, abandoned when she chose to run with Xandr.

  The crew grew even happier when the captain announced two days of leave at Honora Station, a place they’d be able to refuel and see to some maintenance and repairs on the ship. Andie could finally buy herself some clothes that fit. And if she wanted to she could climb on a ship heading back to Earth and wave a life of outlaw space travel behind.

  Not a chance.

  “I’m still not clear why you didn’t want to use the comm yourself,” Sayevi said. They sat in the cockpit and Andie was regaling her with the tale of her triumph.

  It had seemed obvious to her at the time, but some of the crew hadn’t understood Andie’s choice. Since it all worked out in the end, no one seemed to hold it against her, at least. “Some translators have a delay,” Andie explained. “They’d hear some English first before their translators picked up and took care of the message. I figured it might make them wonder if I was legit.”

  “Which you weren’t.” Sayevi grinned. She’d had plenty of fun piloting the ship to retrieve the haul, she’d assured Andie, but she loved hearing about the parts of the mission she couldn’t see from the cockpit.

  “Which I wasn’t.” Andie grinned back. It felt so damned nice to have some level of acceptance with this group. A week ago that had seemed impossible, but now she was starting to think that she’d be able to build a life here. “How long until we get to the space station?”

  Sayevi hummed and leaned forward to check one of her monitors. “It’ll be a few hours yet. I cannot wait. There are always plenty of sexy warriors there and it’s been too long since my last romp.”

  Andie wanted to commiserate, but her own sexual frustration had much more to do with a specific man. A man who’d immediately been wrapped back up in his duties as soon as they got back on the ship. And she was beginning to think he must have been avoiding her.

  “And the cap─Xandr could definitely use it too. He’s been so uptight these last weeks. I guess I understand, prison isn’t exactly the most c
alming place in the galaxy.” Sayevi rambled on as if her words didn’t strike right at the core of Andie’s fears.

  Was she just a passing fancy to the former captain? Were those kisses and embraces nothing but adrenaline fueled weakness? She hated how her emotions seesawed from one extreme to the other when it came to Xandr, but she hadn’t figured out how to get that shit under control. Maybe she was the one who needed to find a nameless someone on Honora Station. “Does he have someone at the port?” her traitorous mouth asked. Andie didn’t want to know if he had a wife in every port or whatever the old saying was.

  But Sayevi was oblivious to her struggle. She burst out laughing. “Have someone? Hah! Xandr is a one night kind of man, if you know what I mean. He doesn’t exactly get hooked on his partners.”

  Andie’s spirits plummeted. “Right.” She slumped back in her chair and didn’t ask any more questions. It seemed like everything she learned just brought her more pain. Whatever she’d imagined between her and Xandr was much less serious than she might have wanted. She’d been a convenient pair of lips and they’d both been exhilarated by their survival. Xandr had been avoiding her ever since, probably embarrassed by the way she wanted more than he could give.

  Then why had he come to her room that time? If he’d just wanted a hookup they could have arranged that, even with Captain Alleyva keeping such a tight leash on his duty time. The man did have to sleep, and an hour or two stolen in the middle of the night somewhere wouldn’t have been that difficult to set up. So had he avoided that because he didn’t want her that way? Or was there some other reason? Andie could drive herself crazy wondering.

  She left Sayevi with some vague excuse about getting cleaned up before they got to the station and fled the cockpit. She didn’t want to run into anyone on her way back to her room and almost groaned when she crossed Captain Alleyva’s path. The captain motioned for Andie to follow, and without a better choice Andie did. They ended up in the captain’s office, a room barely bigger than a closet stuffed to the gills with papers, boxes, and other detritus collected over the years. It was hard to believe that Xandr could fit into this space, but it had been an office for far longer than it had belonged to Captain Alleyva.