No, it didn’t matter. Her name didn’t matter. All that mattered was she was an intruder. Yes, she had been a sight to look at, so soft and delicate on the floor of the rover. But acknowledging the simple fact that the woman looked amazing was no big deal. Any straight-oriented male in the Seven Galaxies could see that. On the other hand, acknowledging that something inside of him felt like it had just awakened…that he would not do. It was a fluke. No part of him desired a mate. Especially not a human mate. Especially not a human mate who was on his planet without permission. No, no, no. The very idea of it was absurd.
And yet, Daxar couldn’t help turning around for one more look. His heart betrayed him once again, leaping in his chest the moment his eyes landed on Nova’s face.
Damn it. He spun around again to stare out the front window, determined not to make the mistake of looking back again.
“Everything okay, Dax?” Jarmuk asked. His friend sounded genuinely concerned, but Daxar couldn’t even bring himself to look in Jarmuk’s direction.
“I’m fine. Just ready to get off this rover and back to my pod.”
“Understood, Chief. I’m about done with this day myself.”
Jarmuk entered the code on the rover’s interface that would send a signal to the Zocrone city dome airlock to open. The storm had grown so crazy now that Daxar had a hard time making out the dome as it slowly slid open. Thick clouds of reddish brown dust obscured his view. Occasionally, a flash of solar lightning would brighten the air around them. That light only made it harder to see, because it reflected off the dust cloud, blinding rather than illuminating. Even though the storm grew stronger and the lightning grew more frequent, Daxar knew better than to hope for rain. It hadn’t rained in Zocrone for at least twenty years. All their water had to be shipped in and stored in giant reserve tanks inside the city dome, which Daxar hated. It made them reliant on outsiders. The Zocronians had invented water storage, recycling, and preservation systems that meant their actual need for outside water remained low. They could survive a long time without a water shipment if emergency water preservation protocols were ordered. But still, Daxar wanted the Zocronians to be completely self-sufficient. He wanted things back the way they had been thousands of years ago, when the entire planet of Zocrone had been habitable. But no matter how much he wished for that, he knew that things were never going to magically change. Generations ago, a huge asteroid hit Zocrone and damaged its atmosphere beyond repair. Luckily, emergency rescue crews from other planets had saved the Zocronians who managed to survive. The survivors built the city dome, refusing to abandon their planet. Now, life on Zocrone would forever require the use of an atmospherically controlled dome.
The rover made its way into the airlock, and Daxar immediately felt himself starting to relax. The exterior airlock door closed behind them, and after a short minute of pressure equalization, the interior airlock door opened in front of them. The world inside the dome felt like it was galaxies away from the harsh climate outside. In here, no storm raged. The thick dome walls kept out all the wind, cosmic dust, and air toxins that constantly swirled just outside its boundaries. The interior of the dome felt like paradise. Thick, tropical vegetation grew everywhere. Slick, modern pods lined streets made of moonstone, and the people walking along the sidewalks were all Zocronian. Daxar was home.
“Afternoon, Jarmuk. We were a bit worried about you guys. That storm picked up fast.” The voice coming over the rover’s comm channel belonged to one of the airlock guards. The airlocks were constantly watched over by a large guard squadron, just in case. Today, Daxar was going to make use of those guards.
“Boys, this is Daxar,” he cut in before Jarmuk could say anything. “Be advised we have four humans on board, one in need of medical attention. I’d like you to send a military escort down to take them to the secure holding areas. I want them quarantined, and I want eyes on them at all times. Do I make myself clear?”
There was a short pause, and Daxar imagined the guards up in the tower pod looking at each other in confusion. Daxar had not allowed a single unscheduled visitor into the dome since he took over as Chief ten years ago, and no doubt they were wondering why the heck he was allowing four humans in now. Daxar himself wasn’t quite sure. It was a perfect combination of his best friends pressuring him to do so, the knowledge that the Seven Galaxies Feds would be angry if he’d let a ship full of Seven Galaxies citizens die on his planet, and…something else. But what? Fate?
The image of Nova’s face popped into his mind, and it took all his strength not to turn around and look at her.
She is not my fate.
Daxar clenched his fists tightly and turned to Jarmuk. “I need some air. You wanted to save these humans, they’re your problem. Deal with it.”
Then, before Jarmuk could respond, Daxar slid open the exit hatch and walked away from the rover as fast as he could. But no matter how far he walked, he couldn’t keep the mental image of Nova from popping up into his mind. One thing was clear: he had to get those humans off of Zocrone as soon as possible.
Chapter Three
Nova blinked her eyes open, squinting at the bright lights shining just a few feet above her face. The sharp smell of antiseptic hit her nose, and she wrinkled her face up in disgust.
I’m in sick bay. But why?
She wiggled her hands and feet, trying to see if any of them were broken. She was sore as hell, but nothing felt overly painful. She drew in a deep breath, then coughed as her lungs filled with a burning sensation. Breathing deeply sent sharp pains up and down her whole body, and it triggered a memory: crawling across the floor of the bridge, the klaxons blaring in the background, a dusty, swirling storm outside.
Everything came rushing back in an instant. The Starburst had crashed onto the surface of Zocrone. Her oxygen tank had been punctured, and she’d been sure she was going to suffocate to death. But she hadn’t.
Nova could have laughed with relief. She was alive!
But where was she? This wasn’t the Starburst’s sick bay. She sat up on her elbow and looked around. She was lying on a hospital bed in the middle of a row of hospital beds. In fact, this didn’t look like any spaceship’s sick bay. She was in an actual hospital on an actual planet.
“Zocrone?” she whispered into the empty room. It had to be. Her ship had not been spaceworthy after that crash, and her crew would not have consented to her being moved to another planet without her permission. Especially not if that would mean leaving behind all the cargo on the Starburst.
Nova groaned and fell backward against the bed at the thought of the cargo. It must have survived the crash. It had been packaged to withstand the worst possible impacts, and there had been no explosions as far as she knew. If an explosion was going to happen, it would have most likely happened as soon as the ship impacted with the ground. Nova and all of her crew would have been very, very dead.
But just because the cargo was intact didn’t mean her ass was saved. She was supposed to delivering it to the Planet of Ith in Galaxy Three as soon as possible, and as of right now she was pretty sure she didn’t have a spaceship to fly. What was she supposed to do? Ask the Zocronians?
Hey guys, thanks for saving my life. By the way, I had a bunch of illegal cargo on my ship that I really need to deliver to a client on Ith, or he’ll have my head. Mind if I borrow a ship?
Nova’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden sound of angry voices filling the halls. They must have been speaking Zocronian, because the language definitely wasn’t English or Universal. But Nova had just installed an expensive translator chip in her inner ear last year, and the words automatically translated into Universal for her. The chip had been a long-overdue gift to herself, and it had already come in handy on several occasions. Success as a smuggler depended a lot on always knowing what was going on around you, and being able to understand hundreds of languages definitely helped with that.
“Daxar, this is a horrible idea. I really must protest!”
�
�Protest all you want, Kromin. Three days is long enough for her to recover. If she’s awake, I want to speak with her.”
“You’re not helping anyone by going in there and yelling at her the minute she’s conscious again. She needs time to get her bearings again. If you stress her out I’m going to have to sedate her again, and then you’ll be back to waiting.”
“I forbid you to sedate her! Really, Kromin! Whose side are you on? Ours or the humans?”
Nova sat up and pulled the thin sheet up over the thin hospital gown she was wearing. Suddenly she felt horribly naked and exposed under the clinical lights of the bright, sterile room. This does not sound good.
“I am on the side of health and safety for all Seven Galaxies citizens. I took an oath when I got my medical license. Don’t try to make this about whether I’m loyal to Zocrone. You sludging know I am. But that poor girl has done nothing to harm you, and her damaged ship hanging out in the barren wasteland isn’t harming anyone either. You’re just worked up because of—”
“Don’t say it!” the other voice roared, and Nova cringed. She’d never heard anyone sound so angry in her life. “Don’t you dare mention that. It has nothing to do with this. I’m just trying to keep our city safe. Now let me through. That’s a direct order from your Chief.”
There was a pause, during which Nova held her breath as she tightly clutched the sheet. Then the first voice spoke again, quieter and resigned.
“Very well. But please try to be reasonable. The girl has been through quite an ordeal and I’m not even sure how much she remembers at this point.”
The only answer was an angry growling sound, and then the door was opening.
Nova’s first impression of the Zocronians was that they were giants. The two men who entered must have stood at least seven feet tall. One of them wore a white doctor’s lab coat, the standard uniform of doctors across the Seven Galaxies. The other man was dressed in a pair of what looked like black gym shorts, and a rather fitted white t-shirt that didn’t leave much to the imagination where his upper body’s muscles were concerned. His biceps bulged against the short sleeves, and his broad chest pushed against the fabric on the front of the shirt. Nova was pretty sure there was a set of washboard abs under there too, although the shirt left at least that much undetermined.
The men had blue skin, which surprised Nova. She hadn’t realized when she hurriedly read a description of Zocrone before her ship crashed that the inhabitants here had blue skin. She’d always been a sucker for blue-skinned aliens. Something about them always struck her as exotically sexy.
And while the man in front of her who had called himself “Chief” was definitely angry, there was also no denying that he was exotically sexy. Nova took in everything, from his ears with just the slightest elfish bent to them, to the prominent ridge of his brow, to the thick, powerful tail that swung behind him with obvious agitation.
“Daxar, the girl is scared out of her wits,” the doctor said gently.
“Enough!” the man named Daxar said. His fog gray eyes suddenly turned dark, almost onyx. Spikes appeared on his tail and jutting out from his fingernails. Nova let out a little yelp and pressed herself backward against the wall behind the bed, trying to put as much space between her and this angry Zocronian as she could.
“Daxar, really! You’re not going to get anywhere with her acting like this. Can’t you see you’re terrifying her?”
“Leave me, Kromin. I’ll handle this the way I want to. If she wants to be a weak human and crumple at one or two harsh words, than she should have chosen a different planet to crash her ship on.”
“With all due respect, Dax, I don’t think she purposely decided to crash here.”
“Leave me!”
“Yes, Chief.” The doctor let out another sigh and left the room. Nova wanted to call after him to please, please, please not leave her alone with this jerk. But Nova was no idiot. This “Chief” guy was definitely calling the shots around here, and the doctor had argued with him as much as he dared. Begging for someone to stay with her was only going to make her appear weak. And if there was one thing Nova had learned in her time as a smuggler, it was that appearing weak was the worst thing you could do around a guy like Mr. Chief here. So Nova sat up straight and forced herself to stop cowering against the wall. She ignored the pounding in her heart and hid her shaking hands under the sheet so he couldn’t see them. Then she stubbornly stuck her chin out and fixed him with an unwavering gaze.
“Can I help you?” she asked in nearly unaccented Universal. He raised an eyebrow slightly, probably surprised at her lack of an accent. It wasn’t often that a human managed to speak Universal so clearly, and he had probably been expecting Nova to have a heavy Earth accent like everyone else on her crew.
Where is my crew? I swear to Jupiter, if this guy hurt any of them, I’ll… She’d what? Beat him up? That didn’t seem likely, especially considering he was twice her size, and had a spiked tail and fingers to boot. Still, she wasn’t going to show him fear. If he was going to kill her, he was going to kill her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of groveling as she died.
Almost as if he sensed that she was thinking of his spikes, he lowered his hands and retracted the spikes back into his fingers. The spikes in his tail also retracted with a metallic whish. His eyes softened to that fog gray color again, much less threatening than the onyx black they had become. Nova breathed a little easier. How bad could this guy really be? The doctor hadn’t seemed all that afraid of him, and the doctor seemed like a nice guy. Maybe this was all just a misunderstanding that could be worked out.
“Don’t think I won’t whip my spikes back out in a split-second and slash you to pieces.”
Ok, maybe this guy was a little bit bad. Then, before she could get too worked up about the possibility of being slashed, Nova realized that he’d just spoken perfect English. His voice had not been filtered through her translator chip, yet she’d understood him. It was her turn to be surprised. Almost no one outside of Galaxies Two and Three spoke English. How did some Chief on a tiny backwater planet like Zocrone know it? But she quickly swallowed her surprise. She didn’t want to give this guy any reason to think he’d impressed her. He clearly had plans to play hardball with her, but two could play that game. She set her face in a stern expression.
“I’m not interested in your spikes,” she said, seamlessly switching to English without comment. “I’m only interested in repairing my ship and getting out of here with my crew. My crew is still around aren’t they? Or did you already slash them up to feed your big boy ego?”
For a split-second, she saw the corners of his mouth twitch up almost into a smile. But he recovered his scowl quickly.
“Is that how you normally address Chiefs of Planets?”
“How am I supposed to know you’re a Chief? You haven’t even introduced yourself.”
He narrowed his eyes at her as he flexed his fists open and shut. Nova half-expected his spikes to appear again, but to her relief he kept them retracted. “I am Daxar Kotula, Chief of Zocrone. And you, Nova Wolke, are on dangerous ground. Tread carefully.”
Nova raised an eyebrow. “So we have met. I don’t remember. I seem to have been unconscious for a little bit there.”
Daxar snorted with laughter. “A little bit, yeah. Try three days.”
“Three days?” Nova couldn’t hide her shock. “What happened to me?”
“You’ll have to ask Doc Kromin for specifics. I don’t pretend to understand all this medical stuff. All I know is that you had a hole in your oxygen tank, and you ended up completely running out of oxygen before our rover got to you. You took a few breaths of Zocronian air somewhere in there, which is a bad idea. Pro-tip: don’t ever do that again. Our atmosphere is full of toxins, and you’re a weak human. You nearly died, from what I hear. Your own medic had no idea what to do to help you. Luckily for you, Doc Kromin is quite experienced with detoxing aliens of all types from our atmosphere’s toxins. You’re his f
irst human detox, though, as far as I know. We don’t get too many of you around here. Speaking of which, I’d like to know why, exactly, you are around here.”
“Work. I was just flying through and had some trouble with my ship. This was the closest planet, so we decided to come in and request an emergency landing. Our radars didn’t register the storm system, though. I guess our scanners must have been malfunctioning too. By the time we realized what was going on, it was too late. Our ship was a goner. We were forced to crash land and send off requests for emergency aid. You guys must have heard our distress beacons, since I ended up in here and not dead on Zocrone’s surface.”
“Don’t thank me too much. We only rescued you since we happened to be nearby in a rover anyway. And even then, I only bothered to pick you all up at the insistence of my rover crew.”
“How generous of you.”
Daxar ignored the sarcastic jab. “You didn’t really answer my question. You said you were here for work, but what kind of work? This planet is in the middle of nowhere, as I’m sure you noticed when you were trying to find somewhere to land during your ship’s emergency. No one comes through here unless they’re specifically making a delivery or picking up a shipment from Zocrone. Or unless they’re trying to avoid the Seven Galaxies Feds. Wormholes are so much faster.”
Damn. Nova hadn’t expected to be questioned so thoroughly about her work. She’d been hoping to ask for tools and equipment to fix her ship, and then quietly leave again. She should have known that was too much to hope for. Something about the determination in Daxar’s eyes told her that he wasn’t planning to give up until he knew what she was up to.
Those eyes. So smoky hot. The thought surprised Nova, seeming to come up from nowhere. She cleared her throat, trying to clear her mind at the same time. If there was one thing she could definitely not do here, it was fall for any of the locals. Especially this asshole of a Chief. She had to take control of this situation, and fast. Before she could stop to think about what she was doing, she threw back the hospital sheet and hopped out of the bed. Her feet felt a bit wobbly when they first hit the floor, and all the blood seemed to rush from her head, leaving her seeing spots. But she recovered quickly, taking a deep breath and then marching across the floor, her bare feet making a slapping sound as they hit the smooth, cool surface beneath them. She kept going until she was standing right in front of Daxar. From up close, his blue tattooed skin looked even more swoon-worthy, but again she pushed the thoughts away. She wasn’t here to swoon.
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 3