Jarmuk laughed. “Yeah, but the rover would not have been moving at all if you hadn’t fixed the regenerator matrix or whatever the sludge that thing was called. Seriously, Maisie. You’re a hero. You insisted on staying out there and fixing that engine even though you knew there was a good chance it would cost you your life.”
“Well, you’re a hero too. You stayed with me even though you didn’t have to. You could have easily gotten on one of those rescue rovers and left me alone to figure out for myself what to do. If you had done that I’d be dead right now. There’s no way I would have made it back to these mines on my own.”
“I guess we make a pretty good team, huh?”
Maisie smiled up at Jarmuk. “I guess we do.”
The smile Jarmuk returned was full of heat, and Maisie felt herself starting to blush again. Was she imagining things, or was this big blue alien feeling the same sudden chemistry that she herself was feeling?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question, so she turned her attention to the broken console. “Let’s see if we can make good use of our time here, then.”
“Yes,” Jarmuk said, his voice deepening as he sat down beside her. “Let’s.”
Something told Maisie that being stranded in the mines for a few hours was going to be anything but boring.
Chapter Four
“Well, that about does it, I think,” Jarmuk said as he flipped the switch for the engine’s safety cover back to the “on” position. “Not much else we can do from here to fix up the rover, but at least we made a dent in the repairs that need to be done.”
“Mmmhmm.” Maisie was leaning over the console now, staring at the weather screen. The storm had slowed a bit as it passed over the mines, so even though it had been several hours, the last of it was only now clearing away. Jarmuk had tried contacting Zocrone several times, but there had been no response. He tried not to read too much into that. A storm of this size was bound to have caused some communication outages, so he shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, he would feel better once he was able to contact Zocrone once again and verify that the city dome was still intact.
If he did have to be stuck out in the mines, however, he couldn’t have picked a better person to be stranded with than Maisie. She had turned out to be a lot more fun than he’d thought. He’d always thought of her as a little bit unapproachable and aloof. She always acted kindly, but she kept her distance. He’d figured he couldn’t blame her, since she was so much smarter than anyone else. If he was as much of a genius as her, he wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with a bunch of “normal” people either.
But being with her for a few hours in the mines had made him realize that he’d pegged her all wrong. Oh, yes. She was definitely one of the smartest people he’d ever met. But she wasn’t unapproachable or cold. In fact, she almost seemed overly nervous that she was going to do something wrong and make a fool of herself in front of him. She’d apologized about a thousand times for taking so long to do the engine repairs she was doing, as though he could have somehow done them faster. Jarmuk tried to tell her that he would have taken at least three times as long to do the simple repairs, but she didn’t seem to hear him. She was distracted, although he wasn’t sure by what. The fact that she’d almost died, perhaps? That could be quite a disquieting feeling, realizing that you’d been only a few seconds away from the end.
It was the only reasonable explanation Jarmuk could find. He himself felt quite rattled after his adrenaline high died down. He still wasn’t sure how they’d actually made it to the mine. He’d been running completely blind at the end, and had had to make a blind guess as to where the airlock entrance was. Luckily, his guess had been correct, for both his sake and Maisie’s sake.
Everything he’d done had been mostly for her, though. His protective instincts had gone into overdrive, and even now, he still hadn’t been able to completely settle down. Maisie had set off some sort of primal feelings inside of him that he hadn’t even realized he was capable of. He’d tried to ignore those feelings by throwing himself into the work of repairing the rover as much as possible. But now that everything they could possibly do was done, and all that was left was to wait for the storm to pass and communications to be reestablished, the feelings Jarmuk had for Maisie were surging within him stronger than ever.
He wanted her. Needed her, even. He had never considered her as a potential mate before, but now that the thought had crossed his mind, he couldn’t stop thinking about her that way.
It was hard not to daydream about her when she was standing in front of him looking so amazing. She still wore her survival suit, minus the helmet, as did he. They’d both agreed that it was a good idea to be ready to don their helmets and pressurize their suits at a moment’s notice, just in case the storm did anything to the airlock and the air in here became contaminated. But that agreement meant that she was walking around in a suit that looked like a second skin on her. Every perfect curve beckoned to him, and if he had to be alone with her looking like that much longer, he was going to get himself in trouble by trying to kiss her.
Maybe that’s the kind of trouble I want to be in.
Right now, she was leaning over the console with her hair falling around her face like a curtain. She couldn’t see him staring at her, and he took full advantage of the moment. He let his eyes slide over her body, wondering what it would feel like to hold that body while she was naked. She had felt so good when he hugged her right after they made it into the airlock, and that had even been with her clothes on. What would her soft, human skin feel like with nothing between them?
Humans in general fascinated Jarmuk. They were one of the weaker species, physically speaking, in the Seven Galaxies. Yet despite their inferior bodies, their spirits were always so strong. It’s like no one ever bothered to tell them that some things should be impossible for them. They insisted on persisting despite all odds, and strangely enough, that seemed to work out for them more often than not. And out of all the humans Jarmuk had ever encountered, the four human women who had been on Maisie’s crew were the strongest. How those four had defied death during their spaceship’s awful crash, and how they had convinced Daxar to open up Zocrone to outside species of aliens, Jarmuk still couldn’t quite comprehend.
What he also couldn’t comprehend was how he was supposed to stay holed up in this mine with Maisie for several more hours and not kiss her. She hadn’t given him any indication that she was interested in him. She’d been friendly, sure, but as far as he could tell she wasn’t flirting with him. Then again, what did he know about how humans flirted?
Just then, she looked up. He didn’t bother trying to look away and act like he hadn’t been watching her. He would have preferred not to be so obvious, but at the same time he wasn’t the type to hide who he really was or what he was really doing.
It didn’t matter much, anyway. If she noticed or cared about his staring, she didn’t let on to that at all. Instead, she pointed down to the weather radar with a smile on her face.
“Looks like we’ll be in the clear soon.”
“I hope so,” Jarmuk said, even though he wasn’t sure those words were true. Did he really hope so? Or did he want to see what more time alone with Maisie would bring? He figured it didn’t make much difference what he wanted. The time he had was the time he had. The storm wasn’t going to clear out any faster or slower because of what he wanted, so he might as well enjoy being alone with Maisie while he could. Maybe if he gave her a tour of the mines and had the chance to walk around with her, he’d have a good excuse to brush up against her arm now and then and see how she reacted.
“Have you ever been in the mines before?” he asked.
As he expected, she shook her head no.
“Well then I think I should show you around, especially since there isn’t much else to do around here. Interested?”
She nodded, and he motioned her toward the back airlock. The airlock was wide open at the moment since they w
ere inside the pressurized mines, so they didn’t even have to wait for things to pressurize. They stepped out of the ship and toward the tunnels that led to the elevator pod that the Zocronians used to travel deeper into the mines and then back up again. Jarmuk paused at a shelf stacked with lighted helmets right before the elevator pod, and grabbed one for himself. Then he handed one of the helmets to Maisie, switching her headlamp on just before she took it from his hands.
“These helmets are sort of old fashioned. They don’t have any sort of atmospheric controls, unless you count lighting up the atmosphere in front of you as an atmospheric control. But they’re great for keeping your skull from cracking open if something falls on them.”
“Always a bonus,” Maisie quipped. “What are they made out of?”
“Zekkardite.”
Her eyes widened. “No way. You guys can make helmets out of that stuff?”
Jarmuk smiled as he motioned her into the elevator pod and pushed the button on the controls that would take them down to the deepest part of the mines. “Yup. We can make a lot of things out of Zekkardite. How much do you know about the stuff?”
“Not much. All I really know is that it’s expensive.”
“Really sludging expensive,” Jarmuk agreed as the elevator pod began zooming deeper into the mines. “It’s one of the most pliable metals in the Seven Galaxies, if you know how to work with it. But it’s also incredibly strong. You can bend it if you’re talented at Zekkardite molding, but it’s nearly impossible to break. That makes it useful for quite a few things. And as far as anyone knows, it’s only found on Zocrone.”
“So you guys have the market cornered.”
“Pretty much. It’s why our people have been able to survive, despite the fact that most of our planet is a wasteland. It’s also why we’ve had several other species attempt to attack our city dome and destroy us. Taking control of the mines would be quite valuable.”
The elevator pod slowed to a halt as it reached the bottom of the mines, and Jarmuk entered a code on the screen before the door opened.
“Welcome, Jarmuk Kader,” chirped a cheerful, computerized voice. The computer spoke Zocronian instead of Universal, but Maisie didn’t seem bothered by this. Jarmuk figured by now she must know enough words in Zocronian to understand the simple greeting.
She did, however, seem confused by the fact that Jarmuk had to enter a code. She frowned at him as he helped her step off the elevator pod and into the open mine shaft. “There sure are a lot of codes required to get in here.”
Jarmuk shrugged. “Of course. Security is incredibly high, and we use the most state of the art security systems available. If we didn’t, people would skip attacking the city dome and just attack here directly. But they know that as soon as they tried to break in here, alarms would sound all over Zocrone. Our entire military would be down here in a heartbeat if anyone tried to break in.”
Maisie ran her hands against the wall. “Makes sense. This is kind of crazy. There’s so much wealth down here, just from a bunch of rocks.”
“Yup. That wealth isn’t easy to get out, though. Here, I’ll show you the process we use to get the Zekkardite out.”
Jarmuk led Maisie over to the giant machine that the mining crews used to mine the Zekkardite. He pointed at its large, claw-like arms.
“Those claws are made out of triple reinforced Zekkardite, so it’s super strong and capable of breaking off other Zekkardite. You still have to make sure you hit the Zekkardite you want to mine from the correct angle, though. It takes a bit of skill, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite fun. These are the controls for the claw machine.”
Jarmuk pointed to the large controller at the base of the giant machine. Maisie leaned over to get a look at it, and her arm brushed against Jarmuk’s. He’d been hoping for a moment like that, and yet he was totally unprepared for it when it happened. The moment their bodies touched, he felt like sparks of electricity were shooting through his body. He quickly pulled away, out of pure instinct, just like he would have pulled away if he’d accidentally put part of his body into a red hot flame.
Maisie might look like a normal human, but she had the potential to burn him.
She was too busy looking at the controls to notice the way he jerked away. She pointed to the levers and then looked back at him. “Want to show me how they work?”
“Sure.” Jarmuk grabbed the levers, grateful once again to have something to do that would take his mind off the crazy desires flooding through his body. Mining Zekkardite was easy. It was something he understood, and could do well. Unlike romance or passion. He had no clue how any of that stuff was supposed to work. All he knew was that if he couldn’t get his feelings for Maisie to settle down, he was going to have to start figuring those things out.
“You start out with a low level of power, to test the strength of the Zekkardite wall you’re trying to break. Like this.” Jarmuk slowly moved one claw forward and rammed it against the nearest wall of Zekkardite. A few chunks of Zekkardite tumbled downward, but nothing spectacular happened.
“After you’ve tested things out a bit, it’s time to show off your strength a bit more. So you move the claws faster. Like this.”
Jarmuk moved the claws against the wall, striking harder this time. More Zekkardite fell. “And of course, you have to make sure you come in at the right angle. That’s the key.”
He moved the claws again, coming in at a bit of a sharper angle. This time, quite a bit fell. He turned to face Maisie, intending to explain how the loosened Zekkardite was transferred from the ground to special lift pods that would allow it to be loaded onto the trailers that would take it back to the city dome. But the look on her face stopped him. Her eyes were burning as she stared intently at his face.
“Okay,” she said, her voice low. “I think I understand how you do things. You start slow, then move harder to show off your strength, always making sure you come in at the right angle.”
Something told Jarmuk she wasn’t talking about the Zekkardite anymore. He dropped his voice to a low tone as well. “That’s right.”
Their eyes were locked, and it took all the restraint Jarmuk had not to throw her on the machine’s hard metal floor and make love to her right there. But this wasn’t exactly the safest place for that sort of activity, and after the day they’d had, he figured he’d rather not risk both of their lives again. So even though it killed him to do it, he held back.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try to find a more appropriate place to test the waters, though. He shut down the mining machine and held out his hand to Maisie.
“Come on. I have something else I want to show you.”
She took his hand, and he felt electric heat coursing through his veins. Her soft, pale hand fit perfectly inside his rough blue one, and he felt a rush of pleasure when he looked down at their intertwined fingers. Neither of them said anything, but they both knew that something had just changed between them. At the elevator pod, Jarmuk pushed the button that would take them up to the supply floor.
When they stepped off the elevator, Maisie’s eyes widened. “Oh wow. It looks almost like a house in here.”
Jarmuk chuckled. “A little bit like a house, I guess. If you had twenty guys living in a giant one-room house.”
“What is this place?”
“We call it the supply room. It’s not unusual for miners to be stuck here for a day or more when one of Zocrone’s crazy storms sweep in, so we keep this area, just below the rover docking station, in case anyone needs to stay overnight.”
Jarmuk watched as Maisie took in the room. It was a large, rectangular space carved right into the mine. This portion was not pure Zekkardite like the deeper parts of the mine, so it hadn’t been that hard to cut out the room. It was also lit constantly by the best in battery operated lamps. The lights lasted a long time, and extras were kept down here just in case one needed to be replaced. Along one wall, several bunk beds were stationed. Each bunk went f
our beds high, and there were five bunks altogether, so the place could sleep up to twenty Zocronians at a time. On the opposite wall, open shelves held stores of water, nonperishable food, and even beer. Maisie noticed the beer right away.
“Are those beer kegs over there?”
Jarmuk grinned. “Yup. If you’re stranded, you don’t want to be stuck with just water, now, do you?”
Maisie laughed, the musical sound of it echoing in the large room. “I guess not.” She went to stand on the large, soft green rug in the middle of the room. “This place looks almost homey.”
“The rug helps. We did try to make it seem a little bit cozy. If you’re stuck here, you don’t want to feel like you’re stranded inside a cold, empty cave.”
Maisie turned to look at him, the heat returning to her eyes. “It definitely doesn’t feel cold or empty in here.”
Jarmuk felt his heart pounding in his chest as he watched her slowly lie down, stretching out as much as she could on the giant rug. Her tight survival suit let him see every curve as she arched her back and sighed happily.
“This rug is actually quite comfy,” she observed. “You could almost sleep another five men down here if you had to.”
“I must admit I’ve never tried it out.” Jarmuk tried to keep his voice steady, but he was thinking about anything other than sleeping right now. Maisie’s body was beckoning to him, stirring up that primal instinct once again. He wanted her, right here and now. His mind tried to tell him that he should resist the ridiculous urge. He probably just felt attracted to her because they’d been through a life and death ordeal together. That was normal, right? There’s nothing like cheating death to make you feel a little bit horny.
Maisie patted the space beside her. “Come on. Try it. See what you think.”
This isn’t about the rug. Jarmuk’s mind was screaming at him to take a step back. To decline her offer and go lie on one of the bunks instead. But something within him was stirring, overriding his rational mind. He could feel a stiffness growing between his legs, and a strange fire burning in his belly. He listened to the fire, and went to the rug.
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 21