A New Reason To Fight: An Intergalactic Romance

by T. J. Brandow

“Breela, it sounds like you and I are going on a date tonight,” he told her with a wink.

  “Grador won’t like the sound of that, sir,” she chuckled.

  “Your mate need not be concerned, as our endeavor is about as far from romantic as it could get,” he added as he pulled himself to his feet. “Not that these Earthlings will know that.”

  “Well, their predominant function in the universe these days is to provide entertainment for folks who want to breed,” Breela smirked. “They’re too wrapped up in that core concept to realize that not every pair of people who enter a gambling den are there with that in mind.”

  “Some of these Earth women are pretty damned hot, though,” Doban pointed out. “It’s a good thing you’re not here looking to breed with such stiff competition on hand.”

  Breela raised a brow at him. “Please. I’d crush these Earthmen like worms under my feet. And if the only other men around at the moment are of the Sinkat variety, I think I’ll pass. I’m perfectly content to wait until I manage to get back home.”

  “Well, if you hope to do that, Breela, you’d best bring your A-game tonight,” Meko said. “And remember to stay frosty, especially if any more uninvited aliens show up.”

  “We’re in the free zone, Meko,” she reminded him. “Sinkats have got just as much right to show up at the party as we do. Try to remember that.”

  “Don’t get your cretara in a bunch,” he soothed. “I’m not planning on pushing the rivalry into all-out war. If the Andarians and the Sinkat begin hostilities, it won’t be because of me.”

  “Let’s hope not,” she said. “I know how volatile your temper can be..”

  *****

  “That harvester’s been threatening to break down for two years, boss,” Gary reminded Michael as the man continued to cry in his beer. “You know it as well as I do. So instead of complaining about it, use that money you saved up to fix it, and we’ll still be in good shape before it’s time to begin the work.”

  “But I haven’t got enough money to get the dang thing repaired, you idiot,” Michael King practically snarled at his farm hand irritably. “Unless you can think of some way to turn five thousand galactic credits into fifty thousand, we’re going to end up bringing in all that wheat and oats by hand.”

  “There’s only one way that I can think of, sir, but I don’t think you are going to like it.”

  “At this point, liking it has little to do with whether or not I’d give it a try,” he replied. “And whatever we’re planning to do, we need to do it soon. Now that Diana has graduated from that silly botanical college of hers she’ll be arriving home any day now, and I don’t want her to find out about all this trouble. You know how managing she can be.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gary chuckled. “She’d practically force her money down your throat, you poor thing.”

  “Dammit, Gary, it’s the principle of the thing,” said Michael. “No man should have to ask his daughter to help him save his business. It would—well, unman him, don’t you think?”

  “I think you’re an old fool,” Gary replied. “But if you just have to do things your own way, and you really need the money that fast, I heard that Jonathan Reikart is planning to throw what he terms ‘a poor man’s party’ tonight. Only five thousand to prove your way in. And he’s also promised to keep the betting amounts low at certain tables as well. Believe me, boss, if I had five thousand credits on hand I’d be willing to give it a go.”

  “Are you crazy?” Michael scoffed. “I’ve spent two years saving out that extra cash. I don’t want to piss it off at some gaming hole.”

  “Well, then I suppose you’ll have to beg Diana to help you after all,” Gary commented dryly.

  Michael considered that notion for all of about five seconds before he got up, reached into the back of one of the kitchen cabinets, and pulled out a credit stick that was hidden there. “With that last boost I just put in, and the interest accrued, there’s actually just over ten thousand in this thing. If you want me to go in for this crazy idea, then you’re coming with me.”

  Gary grinned at this notion appreciatively.

  “And remember, we’re not going there to get drunk and womanize,” Michael added, bursting the man’s bubble. “We’re going there to win.”

  A few hours later, Michael and Gary were thrilled with how well they were doing and more than a little tipsy as they brought their betting cards away from poker and started looking for another game to play.

  “My card had twenty thousand in it, boss,” Gary pointed out. “I really think we’d be better off to move the bulk of it back to the stick before I join another round.”

  “Sure, Gary,” Michael agreed. “In fact, maybe you should just take those credits home and call it a night. If the money isn’t even here, there’s no way I can use it for anything.”

  “You sure I should leave you alone?”

  “I have ten thousand dollars that I could easily turn into more,” Michael scoffed. “Maybe even enough to get another harvester to go with the other one. You don’t need to worry about me. Just get those funds out of here, okay?

  “Well, all right,” he said reluctantly. “Just don’t get so drunk you let some woman bring you home and steal it or something. You know how you can be.”

  “I said don’t worry,” Michael replied.

  “Okay, boss,” he agreed. “You have a good time.”

  “Indeed,” Michael agreed.

  TWO

  The cab ride home from the airport should have been no surprise, and yet Diana King was still annoyed as she watched the driver throw her four bags into the trunk and then open the back door for her to step inside. She might have known that nobody would be there to greet her at the transport center. It was likely that her father was either drunk, or he had simply forgotten the day she was meant to arrive.

  In either case, it all amounted to the same thing. She had been ignored yet again.

  “What’s got a pretty little thing like you worked up into such a lather?” asked the driver as they turned out onto the main access route and he punched a few buttons, leaving the vehicle to drive itself as he leaned back in his chair.

  Diana rolled her eyes. She knew that she was pretty, of course, with her long brown hair and her curvy but petite frame; she heard it all the time. But that didn’t mean she wanted to hear it at the moment, while she was fuming mad and ready to tear into someone.

  “I wasn’t meant to find my way home on my own,” she supplied.

  “I thought as much,” he said with a nod. “But don’t worry. I’ll get you there all right.”

  “Thanks,” she replied.

  She really shouldn’t be taking her ire out on him. It wasn’t the driver’s fault that neither her father, nor any of his worthless and irreputable farm hands, could be bothered to welcome her home now that she’d finally graduated from college. Hell, she couldn’t even be sure they’d noticed she was gone, let alone that she was ready to come home again.

  And in just one more hour, she’d be back on the farm, a little bit wiser but no better off than before. Four years away at college learning hydroponics and other botanical growing techniques, and she completely doubted the information would do her any good at all. Not unless she got lucky and one of the growers decided to give her a job.

  Most of the botanical jobs these days were aboard outbound vessels, it seemed. So, unless she wanted to leave the planet of her birth and take up space traveling, her passion for plants had just reached a dead end.

  Then again, with all the love she got around home, maybe leaving it wasn’t that bad of an idea. There had to be a better place for her than this.

  The nicer homes along the roadsides gave way to dingy, older houses, and then those grew further and further apart, until there was nothing to either side but fields of wheat, oats, corn and various other vegetables which were nearly ready for harvest.

  Her father’s personal stake was just four of those fields, and by the look of them they were
not producing nearly as well as the rest. He’d obviously forgotten the fertilizer again. At the rate he was going, the old man was probably going to lose this place if he kept this up.

  The car pulled up outside the dilapidated old ranch house and the driver got out to retrieve her bags. He looked the place over with a dubious frown.

  “You sure you don’t want me to take you to a hotel?” he asked her gently.

  “No, sir, I don’t,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Unfortunately, this place is my home. I’m here to stay.”

  “My condolences, ma’am,” he replied as he set her four large bags by the front door.

  As she got out of the car, Diana spotted a strange vehicle parked near the side of the house. Four burly-looking men were flanking each of the corners, and as she stepped closer she noticed another pair of them standing to either side of the side entrance as well.

  The cab driver drove off before she could turn around and ask if the offer for a ride was still on the table, so she was stuck dealing with whatever nonsense Michael King had gotten himself into now.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said to the two door guards as she left her baggage where it was and opted to go around to speak to them. “Might I ask what’s going on around here?”

  “We are the High Guard for Commander Meko Roshad,” he explained in an accent she couldn’t recognize, the words delivered in a clipped, military tone. “Where he goes, we follow. Beyond that, I am not at liberty to explain.”

  She looked the men over more fully. They were both extremely tall and muscular, and both sported short, cropped hair of an almost white shade. “Oh, now I see. You guys are offworlders, aren’t you?”

  “We are Andarians, ma’am,” he replied.

  “Okay then,” she scoffed. “So what, you have a sudden penchant for not quite ripe, crappy looking wheat products?”

  “Not hardly, miss,” he said, trying but failing in an attempt to suppress a chuckle.

  “Dare I try to enter my own home?”

  “I see no reason to keep you out,” he shrugged. “I’m sure the Commander’s business shouldn’t take too long.”

  Dubiously, Diana stepped in through the door as the alien held it open for her. “Thanks—I think?”

  “No problem,” he replied, winking at her.

  Stepping through the door, Diana could hear a pair of male voices raised in discussion, and they were rapidly approaching the point of anger. Whatever her father had gotten himself into this time, it did not sound like it was going well. With a resolute frown on her face, she stepped through the kitchen and into the living room.

  The scene that met her eyes could almost be called comical under less stressful circumstances. Seated on the small sofa, the obviously overlarge Andarian commander was curled precariously on the edge with his long legs sprawled out in front of him at odd angles. He held a dainty little teacup between his thumb and one finger, and he was about to take another sip.

  Sitting in a chair across the room, Diana saw a female alien as well. The large, muscular woman seemed to be there just to look menacing, and she was doing a very good job of it. Like the commander and all the men she’d seen, the woman’s blonde hair was cropped short, probably in a regulation style.

  “It’s just not that easy, I’m afraid,” Michael King told Meko with a frown. “I haven’t got one thin dime to give you today.”

  Purple eyes flashing with irritation, the alien glared furiously at him. “Listen here, Earthman, I went to that gambling party to win, same as you, and while I may have accrued enough money for fuel without the money you promised me, I have never been one to let somebody get over on me,” the alien grumbled, his own accent barely noticeable. “Surely you must have something of value that you’d be willing to part with now.”

  “I already told you, Commander Meko, everything I own is tied up into the harvest,” her father insisted. “I have nothing on hand that would equal even half the value of fifty thousand galactic credits.”

  “Fifty thousand credits!” Diana gasped, beginning to glare at her father as well. Both men quickly turned in time to see her fury bubble to the surface. “Father, what could you possibly have been thinking?”

  “This is your daughter?” Meko asked as he tried awkwardly to get to his feet. “I thought you said you were home alone.”

  “Yes, well he was, up until a few moments ago,” Diana supplied. “Nobody remembered to get me from the airport, but I managed to find my way here. Father, this is unforgivable. I’ve seen you get yourself into some real doozies, but this one has got to take the cake. With that poor excuse for a crop you couldn’t pay the man even if he did stick around long enough to get it harvested. I am so tired of rescuing you all the time, you have no idea.”

  THREE

  From the moment Meko first spotted the farmer’s daughter, he’d already begun to work out a solution in his mind. On his world, welching on a debt was considered an offense punishable by jail time or death. And while this did not appear to be the case out in the Milky Way, he couldn’t see any reason why they couldn’t settle the issue in a manner similar to what would be done on his own world.

  Fully on his feet and relieved to be off the couch, Meko moved toward the woman and extended his hand, only to realize the tiny teacup was still in it. Looking around, he decided to set it on the end table, and turned back to the girl again.

  “This is my daughter, Diana,” Michael supplied.

  When Meko moved to extend his hand again, Diana extended her own hand, and though he took ahold of it after the Earth custom, he failed to give it a shake. Instead he spun her around and fully inspected her petite frame with avid eyes.

  She was shorter than any woman he knew—but then again, Andarians were not a smallish people, so that was understandable. Her lush curves were firm and round, and far too inviting to be ignored.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she gasped when one of his hands found her ass and the other found one of her tits, and he squeezed each of them like he was testing for the ripeness of a melon. “Get your hands off of me!”

  She moved to slap his face. He easily caught her wrist in his hand and drew her into his arms, holding her there as an effective means to prevent her from trying again.

  “Oh! You big oaf, let me go!”

  “Your daughter is a more than acceptable plaything, Michael King,” Meko announced then.. “If anything, I feel I will owe you credits instead. Consider your debt to be paid in full.”

  “I can’t just give you my daughter to pay off a debt, Commander Meko,” he insisted. “That’s just not how things are done!”

  “They are now,” Breela told him as she stepped briskly across the room and punched the man in his temple, knocking him out cold. He fell to the floor like a sack of pyrots.

  Meko was finding it difficult to keep ahold of the girl, who kicked and clawed at him in an attempt to get away. Rolling his eyes, he tossed her up and over his shoulder. “Look, I don’t mind the fact that you’re so eager to play already, but now is not the time, kitar. First I need to get you out of here.”

  “Just where do you think you’re taking me?” Diana fumed.

  “To my ship, of course,” he told her, swatting her ass for good measure. “It’s already fueled and ready for departure. Dealing with your father was the last thing we were meant to do on this Universe-forsaken planet.”

  “I am not going anywhere with you!” Diana railed, and her feet flailed in the air in front of him as she tried to kick free. He could feel her arms pounding on his back as well, but the onslaught felt more like a massage than a mauling, and he chuckled dryly.

  “I think you will be,” he told her. “I believe you’ll be coming with me to Andara.”

  He brought the irate woman out the door with him and headed for the back of the little house. The men who were guarding the door began to follow, but then one of them broke off and quickly ran to the front of the house. He returned with a set of four bags. Me
ko acknowledged this without saying a word.

  They rounded the corner to the back of the house, where a small transport vessel waited. Meko was the first one to step inside, and he quickly set Diana into the chair beside his own, strapping her in for the ride.

  “I hate you, you big jerk!” she fumed as she tried desperately to figure out how to work the locking mechanism that kept her in place. Certain that she wasn’t going to figure out the trick anytime soon, Meko strapped himself in as well.

  “You may as well calm down, woman,” he told her, trying not to smirk. “The decision has already been made. And it would be unwise to remove your restraint during the take-off of this vessel. Don’t worry, we’ll be docking with the mother ship soon enough. You might as well tell your planet its good-byes, because I’m never planning on coming back to it again.”

  “You’ll never get away with this, you know,” Diana hissed. “There are laws against kidnapping people.”

  “Meko?” Breela called. “We’re ready to proceed to the take-off zone.”

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant,” he said with a nod.

  The ship took to the sky, flying just above the tops of the trees over the fields and a few smaller houses, headed for one of the many departure zones, where ships could enter and exit the Greater West Coast Dome through a sliding gateway.

  “Won’t they be searching the shuttle before they let it through?” Diana sneered victoriously. “I can’t wait to tell them what’s really going on.”

  Meko smirked and did not answer her. Breela brought the ship down in the docking bay and the inspector stepped inside. When Diana would have opened her mouth to speak, however, he leaned in and captured it with his own, kissing her quite thoroughly.

  “Newlyweds,” said Breela with an indulgent smile. “They can hardly wait to get back to the mother ship so they can go at it again. You understand.”

  “Yeah, certainly,” he agreed with a laugh as he headed out the door. “You’re cleared to go. Have a nice flight!”