Zakota: Star Guardians, Book 5

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  Sage lowered his arms and stepped back. “That officially put thoughts of fifteen-minute sexual encounters out of my head.”

  “Talking about prostates?”

  “Talking about Hierax’s prostate, definitely.” Sage shuddered and bent to run a kerchief over his boots for the third time, no doubt to ensure they gleamed sufficiently. “As for what we’ll do after the event, my ship and I are at your disposal. I assume you’ll want to be dropped off in Flagstaff, was it? The town you were all kidnapped from.”

  “Yes, Juanita and Angela are dying to see if the dogs in the shelter all made it through that night, and I want to check on my cat.”

  “Should I consider it odd that you’re more concerned about animals than people? Family?”

  “People can feed and water themselves. Usually.”

  “Of course.” Sage straightened, tucked away the kerchief, and smiled at her. Damn, he was handsome. She’d never considered herself the type to be wowed by a man in uniform, but clearly, she hadn’t met the right man. Until now. “And then? Perhaps as the Gaian native, you should choose the activity.”

  “Katie has invited Juanita, Indi, Angela, and me down to her cabin in the woods outside of town.” Tala hadn’t mentioned the invitation earlier since she wasn’t sure if Sage would want to spend time with his men—he seemed to distance himself from them, for the most part. But Orion would be there, so maybe he would appreciate the chance to roast hot dogs in the fire pit Katie had spoken of. “They’re all planning to spend a night in town before heading off to visit their families, and introduce their new… boyfriends.”

  It seemed a strange word to use to describe the hulking, tattooed Star Guardians, but Sage didn’t raise an eyebrow, so an appropriate translation must have come through.

  “I think they asked me because they wanted some music.” Tala pantomimed playing the violin. “Indi and I are thinking of starting a band based on Wanderer music.”

  “Really?”

  “No, it was a joke. I don’t think my people are ready for that.”

  His mouth twisted wryly. “I doubt mine are, either.”

  His logostec beeped again, and he said, “I better go.”

  Tala and the other women hadn’t been invited to go to the political meeting, but that was fine with her. Not only was her one set of clothing shabbier than most people’s painting rags by this point, but she had zero interest in meeting the president or any other leaders or dignitaries. The bullshit meter for the entire proceeding would be off the charts, she was sure.

  Sage leaned in for a parting kiss, distracting her from further thoughts of excrement.

  “Was that a yes?” Tala asked as he headed for the door. “You’re agreeing to come to Katie’s cabin to roast hot dogs?”

  His brow furrowed, and he tilted his head. “My translation chip gave me the oddest combination of words for that term you used.”

  “Hot dogs? They aren’t actual dogs. Not that you have dogs, as far as I’ve heard.”

  “Perforated, formed, and tubular meat is what I got.”

  “Ah. That’s not inaccurate, I suppose. I’ll make sure there are burgers too. That ought to suit your carnivorous palate.” Maybe she would swing by the Whole Foods in town to pick up some more exotic fare. It seemed a shame to foist burgers and hot dogs on visitors from another planet. Shouldn’t they try to put their best foot forward?

  “There’s truly only one thing my palate would like to enjoy tonight.” Sage gave her a leer that he was too wholesome to fully pull off, then saluted and walked out.

  Tala’s thoughts turned to hammocks under the stars again.

  • • • • •

  “You’re sitting on my gear shifter,” Katie said as her dusty old truck bumped down the dirt road into town.

  “And you prefer Zakota do that?” Juanita grinned at her as she stuck her feet up on the dash.

  Katie arched an eyebrow at her. She liked Juanita, and Angela too, but they both seemed more like college kids than real adults. If Juanita had changed as a result of their epic and sometimes scary journey, it wasn’t apparent to Katie.

  “I think she prefers sitting on his gear shifter,” Angela said from the other side of the cab.

  The three of them were riding up front on the bench seat, making the space tight, though not as tight as it would have been if any of their broad-shouldered, muscular men had been up there. Treyjon, Orion, and Zakota lounged in the open truck bed, pointing and gesturing toward the trees, involved in some conversation of their own. Perhaps it also involved gear shifters.

  “This is not untrue,” Katie said, allowing herself to be drawn in, despite thoughts of immaturity.

  It felt good to be home, with the scents of pine, creosote, and sagebrush wafting through the window, a recent rain making them particularly pungent. The Falcon 8 had landed close to her cabin, which was fifteen minutes outside of town and bordered the national forest. The ship was unlikely to be molested by anything other than itinerant javelinas and coyotes. The cattle noshing on grass to one side of the meadow had gazed at the fire falcon with bland indifference as it landed and disgorged Star Guardians and formerly kidnapped women. The captain, after forbidding his crew to drive or fly into town on the various science fiction-y vehicles in the cargo hold, had granted shore leave to anyone who wanted it. Katie wasn’t sure how the rest of the crew would make the trip, but maybe they would jog their brawny butts through the forest for the ten miles into town.

  It had been about six hours since the big meeting between Sagitta’s people and Earth’s world leaders, and she was sure clips were being broadcast on all the news channels and social media outlets around the world, but everything had taken place over in London, so Katie didn’t expect people to be looking for aliens—or alien humans—in Flagstaff. Sagitta was the only Star Guardian that had been there for the cameras to possibly catch, and he and Tala were still aboard the ship, though surprisingly, Tala had said they would come to the shindig Katie was hosting this evening. Indi had promised she would drag Hierax out of engineering as soon as possible too. Apparently, it was hard for people who didn’t outrank Hierax to command him out of his cozy tool- and robot-filled nook.

  “How far are we from town?” Angela asked. “There’s a broken spring poking me in the butt.”

  “Don’t worry,” Katie said. “I’m not charging you extra for the bonus features like that.”

  “Are you charging us to start with?” Angela’s eyes widened as she seemed to worry about this.

  “Nah. I’m pretty sure Bessy would fail the Uber test.”

  “Bessy?” Juanita lifted her brows.

  “Bessy.” Katie patted the outside of the door of the faded blue truck, something that was easy to do since the driver-side window didn’t roll up.

  “I was imagining you as more of a Jeep girl.”

  “Like a Wrangler? Those are expensive, and it’s easy to find someone with one in town if you want to go off-roading.”

  “Aren’t we doing that now?” Juanita asked as they drove through a dip on its way to becoming a legitimate wash.

  “Ha ha.” Katie smirked as she imagined taking the city-born geek girl rock crawling along the Broken Arrow trail in Sedona. Maybe Brian at the office would let her borrow his Jeep. She could throw Zakota and Orion in the back, and if they flipped it, their brawny Star Guardians could heft it back upright.

  Katie turned them onto the pavement. Another mile, and they would hit the freeway, where she could show off Bessy’s amazing ability to get to sixty without sputtering and dying. She loved the old truck, though, and her cabin in the woods too. She was excited about what the future might hold, but she would definitely keep her home here on Earth. Maybe she could make some good money with AirBnB while she was gone. Wherever she ended up going. Zakota had mentioned both civilian and military options for people wanting to become pilots. She wasn’t quite sure yet how money and paying for tuition worked in the rest of the galaxy, but she would find a way.
She didn’t think she could go back to flying geologists around after having piloted spaceships into battle. All right, shuttles, but those shuttles hadn’t been half bad. Aside from the smell.

  “Oh, I know where we are now,” Angela said, as they rolled toward I-40. “I can’t wait to get to the shelter.”

  “I can’t wait to eat real food,” Juanita said.

  Angela frowned at her.

  “And, yes, I want to see the dogs and Ben. More the dogs than Ben. We’ve been gone so long, though, that they all probably got adopted.”

  “Just as long as they were all right. They got so scared by those slavers. Oh, and there’ll be new dogs in.” Angela gripped Juanita’s forearm.

  “Still excited about dogs, now that you’ve experienced svenkars?” Katie asked.

  “I’m excited about everything with four legs,” Angela said.

  “And some things with two legs, too, I hope.” Katie glanced through the rear window.

  Treyjon and Orion were being good boys, simply sitting in the bed with theirs arms slung over the side. Zakota was standing in the back of the truck, legs spread and arms out, like he was surfing.

  “My two-legs is going to get me a ticket,” Katie added dryly as she accelerated onto the freeway.

  Zakota crouched low, apparently excited by the challenge of staying upright in the vehicle. Pilots were the same all over the galaxy, it seemed. Adrenaline junkies.

  Maybe it was a good thing that her truck couldn’t go all the way up to the seventy-mile-per-hour speed limit.

  “It might be hard to explain Star Guardians to the police,” Juanita said.

  “Especially when they don’t have any ID,” Katie said.

  “They have ID chips in their hands, I heard,” Angela said.

  “So if the police took them to the shelter, maybe they could be ID’d there, the same as dogs.”

  Zakota settled down when Katie drove them through town to get to the shelter. She pulled into the lot, and a woman screamed and ran toward the passenger side.

  “Either someone’s recognized you,” Katie told Angela, “or someone is jealous that you got my seat with the bonus features.”

  “That’s Dorothy,” Juanita said. “She’s like some of the dogs. She’ll greet you enthusiastically whether you’ve been gone for five minutes or five months.”

  “In this case, enthusiasm is probably warranted.” Katie watched with amusement as the two young women climbed out of the truck and were promptly smothered by an older lady who weighed as much as both of them combined. She flung meaty arms around them and promptly demanded to know where they had been. She squinted suspiciously at Katie. As if she were the kidnapper.

  The men hopped out of the back of the truck, with Orion and Treyjon going to stand beside their ladies, their smothered ladies.

  Zakota slid into the vacated seat and grinned over at Katie.

  “Finally, I have you alone,” he announced.

  “We’ve been parted for ages.”

  Zakota had bribed Asan to take some of his shifts, and he and Katie had spent most of the trip to Earth ensconced in his cabin, bonking like rabbits. They’d taken occasional breaks to discuss ships—he had twenty models of different types of spacecraft, and he’d been delighted when she had demanded to know the specs on them and how they flew. She’d also been interested in the kinds of aircraft that had developed on different planets. He’d swooned a couple of times, delighted that she found the subject appealing. Not that he would approve of her calling it swooning. He’d insisted he’d merely been overcome by manly feelings.

  “Ages,” he agreed, then looked down at his seat. “Something’s poking me in the butt.”

  “Yes, my seats have bonus features. Some people find it alarming. Others titillating.”

  “Titillating?”

  “When we get going fast, the seats vibrate.”

  “Huh.” He patted some of the splits next to his thigh. “For you, the Zi’i shuttlecraft might have been an upgrade.”

  “No way. It didn’t have seats.”

  “But it had that nice box I made for you.”

  Katie snorted and put the truck in gear. Juanita and Angela had freed themselves enough to wave at her. She’d agreed to pick them up after she shopped for barbecue supplies.

  The greeter—Dorothy—was giving Orion and Treyjon wary looks, but there seemed to be a hint of speculation in those looks, as well, perhaps because both men were wearing their gray tank tops with their uniform trousers, leaving a lot of arm muscle on display.

  “We’re off to acquire food next,” Katie told Zakota, rolling out of the parking lot.

  “Good. I need a break from steaks.”

  “I thought all Star Guardians liked their restricted diet.”

  “We just say that around the captain. So, when do I get to fly your airplane?”

  Katie blinked and looked over at him.

  “You flew all my stuff,” he said. “It seems fair.”

  “The plane I fly for work belongs to the government. It’s not mine.”

  “The spaceship I fly for work belongs to the government,” he replied blandly. “It’s not mine, either, but I still let you fly it.”

  “Technically, you let me fly spaceships that you guys stole from some alien government.”

  “We didn’t steal them. We conquered them in war and claimed them for our home worlds. That’s honorable.”

  “You still haven’t let me touch the helm of the Falcon 8,” Katie said, turning into town, heading for Whole Foods instead of Walmart, as she’d planned.

  Tala had given her a list of items she wanted for the shindig, items that were to be purchased at the more expensive store. The good doctor had turned up her nose at the idea of hot dogs, refusing to foist tubular meat, or whatever she’d called it, on her dear captain. Oh, well. She’d promised to pay Katie back for the groceries. A surgeon ought to be good for it. Though Katie wasn’t sure that Star Guardian surgeons made the big money that Earth ones did. Zakota certainly hadn’t implied he was rolling in the dough.

  “That’s because the captain is always on the bridge,” Zakota said, “or in the ready room. You’d think a man with a new girlfriend would spend less time working. Though I suppose Dr. Tala does visit him often in the ready room. For private meetings. But even if I sneaked you in, if he found out, he wouldn’t be pleased. He’s willing to write you that letter of recommendation, but not willing to have you flying his ship until you’re certified.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not personal. He disapproves of all non-Star-Guardian personnel touching things on the bridge.”

  “I’ll let you fly my plane if you sneak me onto the bridge so I can fly your ship.” Katie waggled her eyebrows at him as she drove into the grocery store parking lot. “We can go out first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Assuming nobody had changed the keypad lock on the hangar since she’d been gone. She doubted it. She suspected 1999 had been the lock code since 1999.

  “Hm, that might be worth getting in trouble for,” Zakota said.

  “Excellent. But for now, we’re buying—what does that say?” Katie showed him Tala’s shopping list. “Crudités? Those are vegetables, aren’t they?”

  “That’s not in Dethocolean or Amalcari. I can’t read it.”

  “Hell, what kind of use are you going to be shopping?”

  “I can hold heavy things.” Zakota flexed his biceps for her, which was quite nice.

  “I don’t think crudités are heavy, but I suppose we should get a couple cases of beer.” Beer sounded awesome. Katie hoped they could find some that wasn’t too weird. She’d gone in here once for Indi and grabbed what she thought was beer out of the refrigerated section, and it had ended up being organic hard apple cider. Talk about disappointing.

  “Is that a beverage?”

  “Alcoholic, yes.”

  “Good.” The truck had stopped, so he tried to open the door. It had a bit of a hitch to it.
r />   “Like this.” Katie demonstrated the jerking up and out motion that it took.

  “I’m confused by conveyances with hatches that have to be opened manually.”

  “Yes, we all are.” Katie walked around the truck, opened the door from the outside, and held it open for him. “For the record, this is backwards. Here on Earth, men are supposed to hold doors open for women. We call it chivalry.”

  “That sounds like a lot of work. Why don’t you just look into automatic hatches?”

  “Give me a hundred thousand dollars, and I’ll buy a car with them.”

  “Is that a lot?”

  A couple of soccer-mom types walked past, giving Zakota a long look as they headed for the entrance. It might have been the teeth dangling on the thong around his neck, but Katie suspected it was the arms. As she’d noted earlier, they looked quite nice in his tank top, as did the rest of him. The material was fitted, so she could see the outline of his pecs and abs.

  She smirked at him, amused that she had a trophy boyfriend for the first time in her life.

  “What are you smiling about?” he asked, closing the truck door.

  “Just thinking about how much fun I’m going to have flying a fire falcon.” She patted his arm and nodded toward the entrance.

  “We have to find the right time to slip you onto the bridge.”

  “It sounds like all I have to do is send Tala in for a special meeting with the captain in his ready room.”

  “This is true.”

  “That ought to buy us, what, thirty minutes? An hour? I’m a quick learner.”

  “I’ve noticed those meetings usually last a couple of hours. You don’t have to be that quick.”

  “Does he have a cot set up in there or something?” Katie asked, taking them through the front doors and into the produce section. She wondered what Tala would think if she just grabbed a bag of baby carrots for the vegetable requirement on the shopping list.

  “Not that I know of, but the table is large. And sturdy.”