Get a grip, Maisie. You got lucky with him in the mines once, but he’s out of your league. The sooner you accept that, the better.
“Morning,” he said, breaking into her anguished thoughts and reaching over to hand her one of the mugs. “I thought you might want something to drink.” He smiled at her with a lazy smile that made her heart skip a beat.
Maisie took the mug from him, willing her hands not to shake as she did. She looked down at the dark liquid inside and sniffed it, then looked up at Jarmuk in shock.
“Is this…”
“Coffee? Yup. Sure is. I hear it helps with hangovers, and I’m guessing you have one. Here, this will help, too.”
He set down his own mug on the small, round patio table and fished in the pocket of his sweatpants. He pulled out a small white bottle of pills and held it out to her. Maisie took the bottle and put it in her lap. She was much too preoccupied with her drink to worry about pain meds right now.
“No, seriously. How did you get your hands on coffee? It’s so freaking rare and expensive outside of Galaxy Two. Are you sure you want to waste it on me?”
Jarmuk laughed. “It’s a luxury, yes. But it’s not that expensive. It’s not like I’m taking out a loan to indulge in a mug full of the stuff. Besides, giving you a mug isn’t wasting it. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather share my stash with.”
Maisie inhaled another deep breath of the coffee. “Well, thank you. This is a serious treat. I haven’t had coffee since the last time I was on Earth, and that was years and years ago.”
Jarmuk beamed. “You’re welcome. Besides, I have to wake you up for another day of stepping out to see your adoring public.”
Maisie glared at him as he started laughing so hard that he had to set his coffee mug down. “You don’t take anything seriously, do you?”
He shrugged. “Why should I? Life itself isn’t so serious.”
Maisie chewed her lower lip, then shrugged and lifted the coffee mug to her lips. It was a dark brew, with a nutty undertone and complex layers of flavor that seemed to burst out over her tongue. She closed her eyes for a moment and savored the hot liquid. She had seen coffee for sale in only a few places outside of Galaxy Two, and it had always been so expensive that she’d passed on it. Back on Earth, the stuff was relatively cheap, but everywhere else it was a luxury. She wrapped her hands around the mug and let its warmth seep into her palms. This stuff was good.
“Speaking of not taking things too seriously,” Maisie said, interrupting the silence. “I hope I didn’t say or do anything too crazy while I was drunk last night. If I did, don’t take me seriously.”
For a moment, Jarmuk furrowed his brow and looked like he was going to say something. But then he just shrugged and shook his head, as if to say there was nothing exciting to report. For a few more minutes, they sat in silence. Then Jarmuk was back to chattering, giving her a hard time. “So, what’s on the agenda for today? Get greasy? Act like a banana?”
Maisie groaned. “You’re using that phrase all wrong. No one on Earth would say ‘act like a banana.’”
Jarmuk only laughed and shrugged. “Good thing we’re not on Earth, then.” He took a long drag of his coffee, then looked at her expectantly. She realized that he actually wanted an answer to his question.
“Oh. Um, actually it looks like I’m going to be doing a Zekkardite supply run with Nova and the crew. I was just about to send Nova a message when you came out with the coffee.”
Jarmuk’s face turned serious. “You’re leaving Zocrone?”
“Well, yes. Temporarily, to do a supply run. You know Daxar had the Starburst fixed up for Nova so she could do supply runs when she wanted to.”
“I did know that. I guess I just didn’t think about the fact that you’d be going on some of those runs.”
“I’ll probably be going on all of those runs. As will Evie and Anya. We’re a team. It takes the four of us to really handle a run effectively.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“About a week, I think.”
Jarmuk didn’t look pleased. “I see. Well, don’t get into too much trouble.”
Maisie took a sip of her coffee. “I can’t imagine I will. I survived smuggling runs. Delivering Zekkardite should be no problem.”
She wanted Jarmuk to say he would miss her, but he remained silent. He sipped the rest of his coffee in silence, and Maisie did the same with hers. It was good coffee. Really good. It definitely hadn’t come cheap, and it made her feel special that Jarmuk had shared it with her. Still, he was sending such mixed signals. They hadn’t talked about their future, and now she was about to leave and he didn’t seem to have much to say about that.
When he had drained the last of his coffee from his mug, he stood and stretched, acting completely nonchalant. “Well, don’t act like too much of a banana while you’re gone. You represent Zocrone now, after all.”
Then he turned and headed back into his house, picking up her empty mug on his way in. Maisie stared at her e-assistant for a few minutes, wondering if he was going to come back, and trying to reign in the confusion she was feeling. Finally, when he still hadn’t appeared again, she drafted a quick e-memo to Nova. If she didn’t answer soon, Nova would be calling her.
I’m in. I’ll meet you at the Starburst in about an hour.
Then Maisie slipped out without bothering to say goodbye to Jarmuk. He wasn’t acting like he wanted to talk to her, and he was turning everything into a big joke about bananas. That seemed to be his way, though: joking about everything no matter how serious it should be. Maybe the time they had spent together in the mines had just been another big joke to him.
Maisie wasn’t exactly in the mood for joking, but she was in the mood for getting away from Zocrone for a bit. This supply run would be a good chance to clear her head, and maybe to get this ridiculous notion of a future with Jarmuk out of her mind.
Chapter Eleven
“All crew prepare for landing,” Evie’s voice came over the comm system as they approached Mognerth. Maisie was already sitting in her chair on the bridge, watching the display screen that showed the watery planet ahead of them. During smuggling runs, she frequently waited in her quarters or in the cargo hold while the Starburst landed, but today she wanted to be up front, seeing what was going on.
The trip to Mognerth had taken about three days, and it had been surprisingly relaxing. Unlike all the crew’s previous smuggling runs, this run was completely legal. There had been no worries about being intercepted by the Seven Galaxies Feds, and Maisie had found herself taking frequent naps, catching up on reading, and spending a lot of time talking and laughing with her crewmates in the ship’s tiny kitchen area. She’d done her best to keep her mind off of Jarmuk, although it hadn’t been easy. Every damn little thing seemed to remind her of him. The worst was the fact that she couldn’t look at a coffee mug now without thinking of him and the coffee they had shared. There was no coffee aboard the Starburst, but there were plenty of coffee mugs that the crew used for tea. Maisie had stopped drinking tea after day one. The mugs reminded her too much of Jarmuk, and those reminders were surprisingly painful.
She felt a measure of relief now as they descended through Mognerth’s upper atmosphere and down to the planet below. Today would be busy, with Zekkardite to unload and ship maintenance to take care of. Then tomorrow the crew was going to take a day to explore the planet before heading back to Zocrone, and Maisie was excited about that. She’d never been to Mognerth before, but she’d heard plenty of talk about how gorgeous it was. The planet’s abundant water supply and warm temperatures meant that the whole place was basically a tropical rainforest, with beautiful plants and exotic animals. Maisie imagined it would be kind of like Zocrone, only on a much larger scale. Outside of Zocrone’s city dome, the planet was a wasteland. But here in Mognerth, there were no climate controlled domes. The whole planet was just naturally amazing.
The Starburst came in for a landing at one of the majo
r shipping hubs on the outskirts of Crantine, Mognerth’s capital. Maisie looked in awe at the display screen. She had never seen a place so green. Deep blue rivers crisscrossed across thick emerald patches of land. Now and then the roof of an occasional building could be seen peeking through the tree cover, but most of the buildings were too short for that, and were hidden by the tall, thick treetops.
When Maisie finally disembarked and took in her first breath of Mognerth air, she smiled. The warmth and heavy oxygen made her feel relaxed and happy. This was going to be a good day.
If only Jarmuk were here to explore with her.
She frowned at the thought and pushed it away. She didn’t want to pine away for him while she was here. In fact she didn’t want to pine away for him at all, no matter where she was. The sooner she could get him to stop constantly popping up in her head, the better.
The unloading of the Zekkardite went quickly. The Mognerthians ordered semi-regular shipments from Zocrone, and they had a good system down for getting the heavy material off of a cargo ship. After the Zekkardite was unloaded, Maisie turned her attention to maintenance and repairs. She needed to check that the Starburst had not suffered any damage during the flight over, and that it was ready for the flight back. She also tweaked several little things with the engine so that they were more to her liking. This was the first long voyage the Starburst had done since it was repaired after its crash landing on Zocrone. There were adjustments to be made, but overall Maisie was happy with the ship. The repairs had helped it to bounce back just as good as before.
By the time Maisie was done with her work, darkness was falling and she was exhausted. Rather than go out for dinner and wear herself out further, Maisie had a quick bite to eat in the ship’s kitchen and went to bed. There would be plenty of time for exploring the next day.
When Nova shook her awake in the morning, Maisie felt like she had barely closed her eyes. She groaned, completely out of it and confused about where she was, when Nova spoke in a sing-song voice.
“Wake up, Sunshine. Time to explore Mognerth. Want to come get breakfast with us?”
Maisie sat up straight, suddenly full of energy. “I forgot we were here. Hell yeah, I want to come with you guys.”
Maisie quickly got dressed in a pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt. It had been a long time since she’d worn her non-Zocronian clothes, and it felt strangely good. She felt like herself again, which gave her the nagging thought at the back of her mind that maybe she just wasn’t cut out for Zocrone. She liked the planet and the people, but it was such a small town, and she stood out so much there. Here, on a huge planet like Mognerth, in a huge capital city, she could get lost amidst the crowds. There were aliens of every size, shape, and color here. Maisie was just one more point on the kaleidoscope. Maybe it was time for her to move on with her life. As much as she would miss the Starburst crew, she knew she could find work somewhere like Mognerth. Or, better yet, she could get a ticket home to Earth on a passenger space cruiser. All through breakfast, and all through their tour of Mognerth’s Galaxy-famous water gardens, Maisie mulled over these thoughts in her had. By the time she and the crew sat down to lunch, she could think of nothing else.
Apparently, her agitation showed in her face, because no sooner had she sat down with a tropical Mognerth cocktail, that Nova pointed a finger in her face.
“You,” Nova said accusingly. “What is up with you?”
Maisie paused mid-sip, with her mouth on the straw of her cocktail. Nova had an eyebrow raised, while Anya and Evie both had their arms crossed. Maisie set her cocktail down.
“Um, what is this all about? It’s like you guys are about to do an intervention, but I have no idea what for.”
“What this is all about,” Evie piped in, “Is that you haven’t been yourself all day. You haven’t really been yourself since we left Zocrone, actually, but today you’ve been really out of it. It’s like you’re completely lost on your own little planet. You keep staring off into space and frowning a lot. And sometimes we have to ask you a question three or four times before you answer.”
Maisie frowned. She hadn’t realized she’d been that distracted. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Anya said. “So are you going to tell us what’s wrong, or have we been demoted from the position of your best friends?”
“Ugh,” Maisie said, then let out a long sigh. “You’re all still my best friends. Of course you are. I’m just distracted because…”
When she didn’t finish her sentence for a few moments, Nova prompted her. “Yes? Because?”
Maisie bit her bottom lip. She knew this was not going to go over well with her crew, but she might as well say it and get it over with. Delaying wasn’t going to make things any easier. Taking one last deep breath to steady herself, Maisie looked Nova in the eye. “I’m distracted because I’ve been thinking of moving back to Earth.”
Stunned silence fell across the table. Whatever Maisie’s three friends had been expecting, that bombshell clearly was not it.
Nova was the first to recover. “I’m sorry. What?”
Maisie shrugged, letting her shoulders rise and fall under the soft fabric of her comfortable, familiar t-shirt from Earth. “I’m just not sure I’m cut out for life on Zocrone. It’s such a small town, and all of your mistakes are on display for everyone. I like things better on a big planet where you can live more anonymously.”
“But Maisie,” Anya said, her eyes wide with shock. “What mistakes have you made? You’re a heroine. You saved the freaking city dome. Everyone loves you. Why would you feel like you need to leave?”
“Look, I know I’m the heroine of the moment. But that only puts even more pressure on me. Everyone is watching everything I do. They’re going to see my cracks. My flaws. They’re going to realize that I’m not a heroine at all. I’m just a fraud from a lowly background who has no business going around doing things like trying to save planets.”
Maisie had to stop talking. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes, and she didn’t want to cry. Not here, in the middle of a busy restaurant in Mognerth’s capital city. Her three friends were looking back at her with dumbfounded expressions. Evie reached over and grabbed Maisie’s hand.
“But Maisie. There’s no mere ‘try’ in all of this. You already tried to save a planet, and you succeeded. You did it! Everyone has cracks, and flaws, but trust me: no one is focused on your flaws. No one is worried about your background. Besides, what’s wrong with your background? So you came from a poor Earth family with no money. So what? You rose above your circumstances and made something of yourself. It doesn’t really matter where you’ve been. It matters what you’re doing today. And what you’re doing is kicking ass.”
“I fixed one rover. That’s not enough to prove myself.”
Nova crossed her arms. “Yes, one rover. You fixed one rover in the middle of a super-tornado. One rover that needed to be fixed to save the city dome. Is your mechanical ability really what this is all about? Because I just cannot see how you could beat yourself up over any little mistakes you might have made at work. Has Ashariz been on your case about something?”
Maisie put her head down in her hands. “No,” she said sounding muffled through her hands. She looked up at her friends again, and realized she was going to have to explain things a bit better. That wasn’t easy to do, though, when she herself wasn’t quite sure of what was going on in her heart or brain. She opened her mouth, and tried to force words to come out. “It’s just…it’s just…Jarmuk.”
She hadn’t been planning to say anything to anyone about Jarmuk. But as soon as his name left her lips, the traitorous tears she’d been holding back started to pour down. She buried her head in her hands again, embarrassed and unable to stop the flow of crying now that it had started. She was sure everyone in the restaurant must be looking at her, but she couldn’t get control. For what felt like an eternity, the tears kept coming down. Why was she so upset about Jarmuk? He was nothing to h
er, wasn’t he? A quick fling that she’d had right after they’d both faced down death. There was no need to get so worked up about something so frivolous.
But her tears betrayed her heart. She knew deep down in her heart that whatever was going on between Jarmuk and her was anything but frivolous. And now, her friends knew it too.
“Ah, well,” Nova finally said in a soft, non-judgmental tone. “That makes more sense.”
Maisie looked up, wiping at her eyes. “It does?”
“Yup. I have to say, you had me fooled. I really did think that all the talk about you and Jarmuk was just the gossip mill in Zocrone having a heyday. But it sounds like there is actually something going on between you two. Now that I look back on the last few days, I can see that a lot of your mopey behavior has been so typical of lovesickness.”
Maisie stared at Nova, too shocked to even cry any more tears. “I’ve been mopey?” She’d thought she’d been hiding her feelings well, but apparently not. Anya and Evie were also looking back at her, nodding their heads.
“It’s been pretty obvious that something was wrong,” Evie said. “We just didn’t know what it was, and we didn’t want to push you too hard to tell us. We figured you’d tell us when you were ready.”
Anya nodded. “But then today you’ve been so out of it that we were really worried. We decided it was time to confront you.”
Maisie sat completely still for a moment, too dumbfounded to speak. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a wet blanket on all of you.”
“Don’t apologize,” Nova said. “We’re your best friends. We’re here for you. If you’re ready to talk, we’ll help you any way that we can.”
Maisie gave them all a sheepish smile. “Okay. I should have known better than to hide things from you. The truth, though, is that I haven’t even been honest with myself about what’s going on. I’ve tried to squash down all these feelings, and I guess the squashing hasn’t been going so well. Everything keeps bubbling back up to the surface.”
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 28