“My work is none of your business. What I do when I’m not on your planet doesn’t concern you. All I’m asking for right now is the tools and equipment for my flight mechanic to at least get the Starburst in flying condition, if possible. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough to get to the next major planet where we can do overhaul repairs. I’ll compensate you for any parts and labor, of course.”
“Not unless you tell me what you do for a living.” Daxar crossed his arms and smirked down at her, and Nova’s heart fell. He knew she was doing something shady. But how much would he care if she told him? Would she report him to the Feds? Demand a cut of the profits. Freak out that Nova had basestos powder on his planet and throw her out of the dome’s airlock? She couldn’t take those chances, so she played coy.
“I told you, it’s none of your business. Besides, you don’t seem all that fond of the authorities yourself. Why are you living out here in the middle of nowhere? Why do you have so many restrictions on who is allowed into your dome?”
He scowled at her. “Clearly, I don’t have enough restrictions. I should never have let you in.”
Nova shrugged and gave him a wide grin. “Well, here I am. I’d be happy to get out of your hair, trust me. But I need tools and parts and my crew. Like I said, I have money. I’ll pay for whatever we use. But the faster you cooperate with me, the sooner I’m gone.”
“Your crew is in quarantine, as were you.”
Nova blinked. “Quarantine? Were we sick or something?”
“We had to make sure you weren’t bringing anything communicable into the dome. We’ve had…issues in the past. But I’m not releasing you until Doc Kromin clears you. Then, I’ll let you fix your ship, if you tell me what you’re doing with it.”
Nova sighed. “Why do you care so much?”
Daxar leaned down until his chiseled blue face was only inches from her own face. At this distance, the color in his eyes seemed to be almost swirling. Nova blinked rapidly, as though she could blink away the sudden rush of emotions. How was it possible for this creature to be so obnoxious and so intoxicating all at the same time?
“Tell me, or I’ll kill you.”
Okay, feelings of intoxication definitely over. Feelings of “run for your life” taking over now.
But running was going to be impossible. Daxar reached out with lightning speed and grabbed her by the upper arm. She tried to wriggle away a few times, but he held firm. So she did what any rational captive would do to her captor who had a bad temper and was at least twice her size.
She spat in his face.
The shock of it startled him so much that he let go of her arm for a moment. Nova made a run for the door, adrenaline taking over. She had to find her crew, and then…steal a ship, she supposed? She’d have to let the cargo go. She couldn’t fly out of here on the Starburst in the condition it was in now. Whatever that condition was. She had no idea how bad the ship was, but if her crew had been in quarantine and not working on repairs, the thing definitely wasn’t going anywhere. She’d had high hopes that it would be fixable. It was a tough old ship, even if it had malfunctioned in perhaps the worst possible spot. But the only thing worse than losing her ship and cargo, and all the money that went with that cargo, was being turned over to the Seven Galaxies Feds or being killed by a random alien Chief.
Nova was a good person. She might have made some unconventional career choices, but deep down she was still a decent human being. She’d never even killed anyone, which was quite a feat for someone who’d been smuggling as long as she had. All she knew was she was not going to spend the rest of her life on a prison planet. And if this big blue Zocronian turned her over to the Feds, that’s exactly where they’d send her. They didn’t take kindly to smuggling, because smugglers obviously didn’t pay taxes on their earnings.
“Hey!” Daxar yelled, switching back to speaking Zocronian in his anger. Nova ignored him, and dove for the door to the hospital room. She managed to get it open, but before she could get all the way into the hallway, Daxar grabbed her elbow. His grip wasn’t enough to fully stop her, but it was enough to make her lose her balance as she jerked away from him. Her feet slipped out from under her on the smooth, hard floor, and her elbow hit that floor with a sickening crack a split second before her head did. And then, everything went black again.
Chapter Four
Daxar paced back and forth across the hospital room, glancing at the unconscious human every few seconds, as though looking at her might magically bring her back to consciousness. Finally he stopped and went to sit on one of the stiff guest chairs near the front of the room. He put his head in his hands, and tried to block out the horrible headache that was steadily growing behind his eyes.
Kromin is going to kill me.
Doc Kromin was one of Daxar’s best friends, and like Jarmuk and Toryx, one of the few people who weren’t afraid to get in his face and tell him when he was wrong. Now, Daxar wished he’d given in to Kromin’s earlier admonitions to wait another few hours before trying to talk to Nova. All Daxar had done was manage to knock her unconscious.
It’s her fault! She shouldn’t have tried to run away from me!
But no matter how many times Daxar told himself this, he still felt guilty. Nova might be feisty, but she was still just a fragile human, after all. What kind of monster was he, hurting her for no reason? It was pretty obvious at this point that Nova and her crew had not come here to harm Zocrone. While Nova had been unconscious for three days, her other three crew members had been locked up in a quarantine cell. They’d been forced to bathe, change clothes, and submit to examinations by Zocronian doctors and scientists to be sure they weren’t carrying any sort of lethal microorganisms that would cause harm to Zocrone. A thorough search had been done on the damaged cargo ship as well. Nothing even remotely suspicious had been found. Nothing other than the boxes of cargo that were sealed with biolocks that only Nova was capable of opening, according to her crew. Daxar could have found a way to smash them open if he’d really wanted to, but if there was something explosive inside, that might not have gone so well for him. No amount of questioning the crew would convince them to reveal the crates’ contents. They told him he’d have to ask Nova. Only now, Nova was once again unconscious.
Daxar chewed his lower lip. Should he get Kromin? What if Nova had really hurt herself? He’d checked all her vitals himself, and it seemed she really had just blacked out. He had some basic first aid training from his time as a military trainee, so he wasn’t completely clueless about this sort of thing. But what if he’d missed something?
“Sludge it all,” he muttered, then hopped to his feet and started pacing again. He cared far too much about this human, this outsider. He didn’t know why, but the sight of her made his chest twist up in funny ways it never had before. He could no longer deny that he was attracted to her. She fascinated him in a strange way. Despite being a member of one of the weakest, most fragile races in the Seven Galaxies, she was strong. Her mind and heart were resilient. Perhaps it was true, after all, what they said about humans. That what they might lack in physical strength, they made up for with their strong hearts.
This is the kind of thinking that is going to get me in trouble. After accidentally knocking Nova out, Daxar had decided one thing for sure: he had to get her off his planet, and far, far away from him. The longer she was here, the harder it was going to be to resist the ridiculous desire for her that was trying to take over his body. No matter how attractive or spirited she might be, she was still an outsider. And all outsiders ever were was trouble. They disrupted the Zocronian way of life. They were a weakness in the otherwise strong civilization that Daxar’s ancestors had built. Outsiders must go.
And so, when Nova woke up, he would agree to give her the tools and parts she needed to fix her ship. His only requirement would be that she get off the planet as soon as possible and never come back. That, and he wanted to know what was in those damn cargo crates. The curios
ity was killing him. He had no doubt that it was something illegal. But he didn’t care about that. He dealt with the Seven Galaxies Feds because it was easier to just deal with them than to try to evade their ridiculous rules all the time. As long as he didn’t hurt anyone, paid his taxes, and minded his own business out here on his remote planet, they left him alone. He certainly wasn’t interested in getting involved with tattling on a smuggler. That sounded like a heck of a lot of paperwork and headaches to him. He’d just been giving Nova a hard time about her work because…well, because he could. Daxar was used to being in charge, and used to giving people a hard time. Especially outsiders.
But this outsider was a fire that he was dangerously close to burning himself on. He needed to be more careful.
“Oh, god. You again. It would have been nice if you’d sent the doctor in to see me.”
The sound of her awake and talking filled him with such relief that he hardly even noticed the snarky tone of her voice. Resisting the urge to let out a happy whoop, Daxar schooled his face into a neutral expression and turned toward Nova.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my business with you was not finished yet.”
She groaned. At least she wasn’t running away again. Yet. She sat up in the hospital bed and looked like she might make a break for it.
“Listen, Nova. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you the tools and equipment to repair your ship if you do two things for me. First, you have to promise me that you’ll get the ship repaired and get off this planet as quickly as possible, never to return. And second, you tell me what your real work is, and what’s inside those cargo crates. I promise you I won’t tell the Feds. I’m just curious and want to know what the sludge you’ve got sitting out there on my planet.”
Another groan. “So you searched the ship, huh?”
“Of course. I wasn’t going to leave it out there unchecked. What if there was a nuke on it intended to blow up all of Zocrone?”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s no nuke.”
“I know. Because I checked. Now are you going to cooperate with me or not?”
She glared at him. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“I gave you my word. Zocronians always keep their word.”
“How do I know that’s true?”
Daxar was losing patience again. He stood, and pointed one of his large blue fingers at her. “Look, you can trust me, and I’ll help you get off this planet. Or you can not trust me and I’ll make your life miserable. I can throw you in our prison forever, or I can turn you over to the Feds. Either way, who is going to come help you? Something tells me you don’t have a lot of friends, other than your three crew members who are also in my custody right now.”
From the way her face fell, he knew it was true. She didn’t have anyone to call. It was her and her crew against the world. Somehow, that made him respect her a little bit more. She might be human, but she was tough.
She stuck her chin out stubbornly, her eyes flashing with anger. But when she spoke, she was agreeing to his terms. “Fine. I’ll tell you. But if you go back on your word, I’ll find a way to make you pay for it. Trust me on that. I may not look like much, but I’m very resourceful. And I can make someone’s life miserable if I really want to.”
Somehow, Daxar didn’t doubt it. “I understand. Now talk.”
“I’ve been working as a smuggler for the last five years. Before that I had a lot of odd jobs, but nothing was ever enough to pay the bills. When my dad died, I got a small inheritance. It was enough to buy a ship, so I bought the Starburst. In the beginning, the ship wasn’t much. But I started taking on small smuggling jobs and making money, and slowly I revamped her until she was quite a sturdy, state-of-the-art hunk of metal.”
“I have to say, I was quite impressed with the ship. Most ships wouldn’t have even been repairable after a crash like the one you guys had.”
“So the ship can be fixed, then?”
The hopeful look in her eyes gave Daxar that funny feeling in his chest again. Seeing her looking happy made him strangely happy. But he pushed away the smile that wanted to play across his lips, and kept the stern look on his face. He could not let her see the way she affected him. “Yes, it’s fixable. It will take a fair bit of work, but it’s doable. The reinforcements you put on the hull took most of the impact and kept the thing from being a total wreck.”
Nova smiled, her whole face lighting up. That was perhaps the first genuine smile Daxar had seen from her, and he was struck by how the happy expression made her look even more beautiful. Her skin seemed to glow, and her minky brown eyes sparkled. “You don’t know how relieved I am to hear it. That ship is my baby.”
“Your baby that you’ve been using to smuggle contraband.”
Nova shrugged. She seemed to be less afraid of him the longer she talked. Daxar wasn’t sure whether that was a good or bad thing. Had he gone soft? Maybe he should be tougher on her. For sludge’s sake. You nearly made her crack her skull open on the floor. That’s tough enough, don’t you think?
Nova, oblivious to his internal battle, was speaking again. “I haven’t had a lot of opportunities fall into my lap, like some people have. I’ve had to make my own way in the world. After all, no one was offering me the chance to be Chief of a planet.”
I didn’t want this role. It was forced on me. But Daxar said nothing. He only looked at Nova with sharp eyes that told her she was treading on dangerous ground. She seemed to take the hint.
“Anyway, yes, I’ve been smuggling. I’m basically a courier service for people who would rather not have their shipments touched by the Feds, for whatever reason. Sometimes because it’s illegal contraband, and sometimes just because it’s extremely valuable goods that the owner doesn’t want to pay import/export taxes on.”
“And what’s in the crates right now? Illegal shit, or expensive shit?”
Nova grinned. “Both. It’s basestos powder.”
It took a moment for Daxar’s brain to register what she’d just said. But when it did, his blood ran cold. “Holy sludge. All of those crates are filled with basestos?”
Nova nodded, looking a bit sheepish.
Daxar jumped to his feet, suddenly filled with adrenaline and dread. “What kind of shady characters are you dealing with? How does someone even get their hands on that much basestos? That’s enough to blow up an entire city!”
“I don’t make a habit of asking my clients what they plan to do with their contraband. If I did I’d be out of a job very quickly.”
Daxar was growing angry. “That stuff is only a quarter mile from the city dome. It could explode and take out all of Zocrone!”
Nova shook her head. She was acting maddeningly calm for someone who knew that city-destroying quantities of basestos were lying on the planet’s surface within striking distance. If another storm came up and blew those things around the wrong way…Daxar shuddered.
“It’s all packaged quite securely, trust me. The crates are completely airtight. Nothing can get into them, and basestos won’t explode unless it comes into contact with a flammable substance.”
“Even extreme heat will set it off! You can’t tell me those crates keep heat out.”
“The crates are insulated to be temperature resistant and pressure stable. Besides, the surface of Zocrone is quite cold. It doesn’t look like you guys are in danger of a heat wave any time soon.”
Daxar scowled. “My point is that there are a lot of things that can set basestos off. A measly little crate can’t protect against all of them.”
“My ship crash landed and they didn’t explode. That should give you some peace of mind.”
“I don’t care. I want them far away from the city dome. I’m going to send a crew out right now to move the crates to the other side of the planet.” Nova looked like she was going to protest again, but Daxar held up a hand to stop her. “No. Don’t. This is non-negotiable. I don’t care how valuable or precious that cargo is to you, or how well insula
ted you think it is. It needs to move. I can’t believe you would put my city at risk like this.”
Daxar’s anger burned, and whatever attraction he’d felt to Nova just a few minutes ago had been consumed by that anger. That was just as well. He knew better than to let himself feel anything for an outsider. And he knew better than to trust an outsider. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid and let the crates just sit out there. If those things had exploded, everyone in this dome would have been killed. His most important job as Chief was to protect the Zocronians from harm, and he had nearly failed at that job.
Again. Wouldn’t be the first time you sludged up. Daxar pushed away the depressing thought, and turned toward the door. He needed to get a crew to go move those crates before something triggered them to blow up his whole tribe.
“What about my ship?” Nova asked.
Daxar turned to glare at her. “What about it?” He couldn’t believe she dared to speak to him or ask any questions when she’d just admitted to such horrible negligence. Who in their right mind let crates of basestos sit that close to a populated city?
“You promised me I could fix my ship.”
“You can fix your ship. I’ll send someone over to work with you on getting parts, and on getting you and your crew some temporary quarters while you’re here. But I want that thing repaired and you off the planet as fast as possible. And don’t you dare ever come back. Anyone who would bring boxes of basestos within explosion range of Zocrone’s city dome is not welcome here.”
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 4