Explode: Team Supernova (The Great Space Race)

by Teresa Noelle Roberts

  Stars, why was she pouring out her insecurities like this? “It’s not a big deal,” she assured him. It wasn’t true, but she was smart enough to know it should be. “Being Sarr’ma Settazz is stellar. I’m smart, I’m attractive, I’m a terrific racer, and my future job involves bending the laws of physics, which is about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on. Racing’s cosmic, and the place where astrophysics and engineering hook up is even better. But even when I’ve won races, the news reports end up talking about Rahal and his career as much as they do about me, as if they’d prefer I was my brother.”

  Tripp obviously wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Wouldn’t be sleeping with you if you were. Nothing against your brother, but I don’t bend that way.”

  “See, that’s another reason it’s good to be me. I get to play with you.” At least until we go back to our real lives in different galaxies. She was running a risk of turning morose, and there was no reason to be, at least not yet. She’d gotten her big secret out and Tripp wasn’t angry.

  Was, in fact, still by her side and deliciously naked.

  The race, and their time together, would end, but that was even more reason to enjoy the time they had. “Speaking of playing, I could use a mood boost after getting all serious. Where were we before we got sidetracked? I think you were here.” She took his hand and put on her breast. Then she straddled his lap, making sure his hand stayed where it was. “And if I wasn’t here, I probably should have been.”

  There was no more serious discussion that night.

  *

  Sarr’ma woke up slowly to find Tripp’s arms around her—and no marling emergency alarms going off. Memories of the night flooded through her. The rough, hard sexytime against the door. The soul-baring talk. And another round of sexytimes so sweet her heart ached remembering it.

  Or maybe it was her nipples, but that part of the had been sweet.

  “Wake up, gorgeous.” She freed one hand and shook him gently. Tripp opened one brown eye and managed a sleepy smile. “It’s another slow day between planets. Time for a leisurely breakfast, followed by a naked nap and then a few hours talking pure star-dust to each other. After that we can…”

  “Do you still want to win this race?” He looked more awake now and his eyes twinkled in that way that meant he was smiling.

  She pictured herself and Tripp at whatever over-the-top awards ceremony Octiron would dream up, beaming with pleasure, drinking stellar bubbly, and sucking up media attention. Maybe chasing down a few sweets. Granted, Tripp wouldn’t enjoy the media attention so much, but she would. She’d bask in it, purring, because she’d know she’d achieved a major goal and everyone at home—and in two galaxies—would acknowledge that Sarr’ma Settazz had done something incredible. Tripp could keep the prize money; the joy was winning it, not having it. The tech was her real goal, but glory was a close second. She was purring to herself now, just thinking about it. “You bet.”

  “Then we have fifteen minutes to put clothes on and grab breakfast. After that, we come back with the food and talk strategy. We still have to figure out how to get our hands on ‘an Aquari crystal directly from the source’ without getting killed by Yestrias. That should take a few more hours, if not a few more days. This one looks stupidly tough.”

  Sarr’ma suppressed a shudder. She tried to be open-minded about alien species, but the natives of the Yestrian Republic sounded repulsive. Giant, dark brown termite-like creatures with bulbous eyes, antennae, and attitude problems of a potentially career-ending kind when it came to humans in their territory. But this was the required challenge, to make up for the one where they’d had to escape a revolution, so she’d better get over it and help figure out a plan.

  “All right,” she said reluctantly, “but I’m the captain and I say we eat in the galley so we have a break from this room.”

  Tripp saluted. “Yes, Captain.”

  “And clothes are optional once we’re back.”

  “Not if we want to get anything done.”

  She slithered out of his grasp, then pounced on top of him. “I’m the captain.”

  “And you’re way too distracting. You’re distracting with clothes on, but it’s hopeless when you’re like this.”

  She looked down Tripp, naked and thickly muscled and hers, whether he knew it or not. Thought about all the things she’d like to do to, for, and with Tripp rather than making plans to avoid giant insects while stealing something you (or at least Octiron, with all its resources) could buy easily enough.

  Her thoughts must have shown on her face, or maybe Tripp’s were going in the same direction. His cock, which had been charmingly half-hard, began to lengthen and stiffen, pressing against her in a wonderful way.

  Right. That would lead to all kinds of good times, but not to figuring out their strategy. “Okay,” she admitted, rolling off him. “You’re right about the clothes. But I’m still the captain and we’re eating out there.”

  “I’m only agreeing,” he said, “because I’m too hungry to argue—and because, of course, you’re the captain.”

  They wandered into the galley hand in hand, Sarr’ma wearing one of Tripp’s soft gray shirts, long enough on her to be a dress—and found a swarm of camera-drones and a holo Zissel waiting for them.

  “I apologize,” Sparky said, materializing in the corner. “Zissel is persistent. Eventually my hardwired imperative to assist Octiron with making the show more interesting overrode the one to take care of my team. At least I was able to keep her away until morning.”

  Zissel smiled. “Sorry, Spartacus. But I’m not going to be at this job forever, and an investigative reporter has to be persistent. Cameras on!” She thrust the microphone under Sarr’ma’s nose. “It looks like you and Tripp are getting along better. Much better. Would you care to comment?”

  Sarr’ma had never been so tempted to bite someone’s hand. Luckily, Zissel was several light-years away.

  Interlude: Unedited Interview with Sarr’ma

  YOU WANT A comment? Here’s one: Tripp and I have been banging all night long and it was cosmic. Hot as the molten core of a star. Would you like to see where he bit me?

  (Sarr’ma starts to raise the oversized shirt)

  Right. I thought not. But yes, I’m crazy about this human. I think it might be serious, but maybe my head’s turned because he’s so stellar in bed. I’d be glad to go into all the juicy details for our viewers, of course. It started with us a fight after dinner, but it was the kind of fight that happens because you’re so hormoned up you’re stupid, so we ended up against the wall with my legs… Oh Zissel, I didn’t know you could blush. That’s adorable. Do you want to hear more? Because if not, I’m starving, and Tripp and I still have work to do this morning. Don’t raise your non-existent eyebrows at me, woman. By work I mean work. We still have a race to win. If I meant sexytimes, I’d say it.

  Interlude: Unedited Interview with Tripp

  I GUESS THERE’S no point in denying it, since for all I know there was an audio-feed going all night long. I don’t even want to deny it. Sarr’ma and I hooked up last night, it was amazing, and I’m nuts about her. Unlike her, I’m not even going to pretend to give you details. Except for this.

  (Tripp stretches the neck of his shirt down to show Sarr’ma’s bite.)

  This is what Sarr’ma does when she likes you. Yesterday you and the rest of the galaxy got to see what she does when she doesn’t like you. So I suggest not pissing her off. Or me. I’m good with a blaster, and I get testy when someone is standing between me and my breakfast asking questions about my sex life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THEY’D STUDIED INFORMATION about the Yestrian Republic until Tripp suspected his brain was bleeding. Yestria didn’t have permanent settlements or embassies in other systems. Only a few ventured to the trade hubs that were set up to accommodate the needs of wildly different species, and then they didn’t stay long. For one, they didn’t like being away from their close-knit, crowde
d hives. For another, the trade hubs only had small areas where they could function because the extreme heat and high carbon dioxide levels they needed were hard to maintain and deadly to most other species.

  As for waltzing into the Yestrian Republic to buy, beg, or steal a crystal, they’d need serious protective gear to survive, and the sort of atmo-suit that allowed you to do actual work was an expensive special-order item, not something you’d find at a random hypermarket and not something provided in the racers’ standard gear. Then there was the minor problem of being shot on sight if they were spotted on any of the Republic’s inhabited worlds. The termite-people had no problem with other race—unless they intruded on Yestrian planets. Then things got ugly.

  Sarr’ma’s ears looked droopy. Tripp hadn’t known that was physically possible. He was even more astonished with what she said—astonished and chilled to the bone. “I swear they don’t want us to pull this one off. All the others you could do with skill or trickery. Even the one on Altaria was doable compared to this. You needed to have diving experience and work well with your AI to get constant scans of the area, or do what we did, but it wasn’t impossible. The odds of being vaporized on this one are way too high, but I can’t see how we can finish the race, let alone win, without trying.”

  “Someone has to handle the crystals once the Yestria sell them. If we can find out which company deals in Aquaria crystals and also works with Octiron, I bet we’re supposed to make a deal with them. Or ‘rob’ them”—he made air-quotes. “Like the statue heist. Though I’m at the point where I’d break in even if I didn’t think it was a setup for the race.” It had to be hanging around Sarr’ma that made burglary sound like a perfectly reasonable idea. Or maybe it was sheer desperation. “That company is the source that gets the crystals to the rest of the galaxy. That must be the trick.”

  “I’ll get Sparky on it.”

  “You trust him?”

  “For this, yes. I’m mad about this morning, but an AI can’t help its programming. Besides, a boring job like sifting through corporate information is a job for an AI, not a cat-girl.” She sent the com to Sparky, then looked down at the holo-display that showed their research.

  “Wait a second!” she exclaimed. “The uninhabited planets in the system also have crystal deposits. Some of those planets are uninhabited because Yestria can’t breathe there—but we can.” She started to bounce in her seat. “Maybe that’s what Octiron wants us to do.” Her face fell. “Of course, I have no idea how we’d get to those crystals. It’s not like they’re lying around on the surface.”

  “Good thing you have a miner with you.” He tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it, not even with Sarr’ma sitting on the floor wearing nothing but his shirt and looking adorable. “It’s still risky, but I can’t imagine they patrol a lot around uninhabited planets. The crystals are in shallow deposits, at least according to what I could find on the Universenet—though who knows how accurate that is, since the Yestrian Republic isn’t all that forthcoming with information. If it’s true, though, we can pick them up on a geological scan, which Sparky can run. It’s still a bad idea, but it’s an option if Sparky doesn’t come up with a lead for us. That ’bot and I should be able to manage it.”

  Should being the important word here. But what choice did they have? They had a good shot of winning, or at least placing well enough for a large prize purse, if they could pull off this challenge, and then he could get his sister back.

  They had at least to finish the race to make sure Sarr’ma could go home. Not that he actually wanted her to go home, but he didn’t want her to be trapped, either.

  “We’ll have to pick up a few things,” he added slowly, “but nothing we shouldn’t be able to find at a good hypermarket. Shovels, picks… Low-grade explosives would be good if we can get them.” This will work. This will work. This has to work.

  “I’ll ask Sparky to check where we can get those explosives. At home you can buy them in a well-equipped hypermarket but that’s because we blow things up for fun. We don’t even have to take the time to go dirtside. Pick a planet on the route, order on the Universenet, and collect it with the transporter. Easy-peasy bloxfruit squeezy.”

  Not too long ago, he’d have been annoyed by her breezy confidence, convinced she wasn’t taking the situation seriously. But she had a right to that confidence—at least most of it—and she had a magical ability to see the good side in any situation.

  A live-saving ability, as far as he was concerned. He’d imagined he wanted a serious, quiet teammate, one who would leave him alone when they weren’t working out a challenge, but if he’d been paired with someone like that, he’d have been stuck with his own grim thoughts.

  He might have put a blaster to his head by now. There was only so much despair a man could take.

  “We have a plan and an alternative plan. They’re both vague but we have almost a week before we’re on the outskirts of Republic space even using the hyperdrive. Between the two of us, we’ll work it the details before then.” Sarr’ma rolled onto hands and knees and crawled over to the bed, a low, sensual slink. She knelt up, then leaned over the bed as if she planned to crawl on. “So…there’s not much we can do now. Even Sparky’s going to take a while to cross-check a bunch of corporate blither-blather. And sucking your cock sounds like a really great way to while away some time.”

  She didn’t need his assistance to get on the bed but he pulled her up anyway. The idea of that hot, dangerous mouth around his dick was enough to make him crazy. But on top of that, he wanted her close to him, wanted both her velvet skin and her good-humored intelligence and optimism pressed against him.

  He’d been feeling pretty good about their odds before they examined this challenge. But even though they had ideas, he wasn’t convinced either of them would work. Mining wasn’t a solo job as a rule. And the other times Octiron had set up something specific for racers, something where they could pretend to be burglars without breaking any laws, they’d made it obvious up front that it was a risky but winnable game and let them know who’d they’d be “playing” against. (So one of the times the city where the clues had led them was in the middle of a revolution and their contact had fled the country. That wasn’t Octiron’s fault—at least he didn’t think it was.) No clues like that this time.

  But as soon as he held Sarr’ma, he felt more confident.

  When she began to kiss and nip her way down his body, he was certain he could take on the whole galaxy including Eno Kallrydis and win.

  And when she took his cock in her fist, pulled back the foreskin and swirled her soft but raspy tongue over his head, he realized he’d already won in the only sense of “win” that mattered right now.

  Chapter Twenty

  HIS BODY RELAXED as his cock got harder. He leaned back and let Sarr’ma take him deep into her mouth. Her sharp teeth grazed his flesh lightly, enough to remind him she was dangerous but he was safe with her.

  He hadn’t felt safe except with her since Zel was kidnapped. For some definitions of safe. He was pretty sure his heart was doomed.

  Mouth, tongue, teeth, hands—even her tail tip got into the act, caressing his nipples so both hands were free for his cock and balls. The cabin began to spin. He was sure it wasn’t a grav-sys issue.

  His com let out three distinctive musical notes.

  Zel’s signal, the one Eno assigned her, the one that indicated she was making her weekly supervised two-minute call.

  She’d already made her call this week. Possibilities flashed through his head at hyperspeed, and while a few were optimistic—could she have escaped?—most were bad.

  Gently, he pushed Sarr’ma away. “I have to take this.” In private, but he couldn’t manage to articulate the words. Instead, he climbed over her awkwardly and sprinted for the sanitation chamber.

  “Zel,” he whispered as soon as he slammed the door. “What’s wrong?” Besides the obvious.

  It took a second to switch on the holo proje
ction, but Zel was already talking. “Don’t go to the Yestrian Republic. Please, Tripp, do whatever you have to do, but don’t go there.”

  “How did you… No one’s supposed to know that’s our next challenge yet, except the show runners.” Once it came out of his mouth, he suspected it wasn’t the most logical first question—but it was still one to which he’d like to know the answer.

  Zel’s tear-stained face appeared in the air before him. She’d lost more weight, he noted numbly, and her dress—some fancy designer thing worth more than a house on Nieves—hung loose on her. “I overheard Eno bragging to someone. He’s bribed someone at Octiron to make sure you got the worse challenges. Getting caught in that revolution. The water one when the show knew you and your partner can’t swim.”

  Stars, that made too much sense. “But Sarr’ma and I beat them.” An awful thought occurred to him. “Hey, did he set it up so I got her as a partner?” She’s been keeping me alive so far, not trying to kill me, but I wouldn’t put it past her to double-cross him for a laugh.

  Even through her tears Zel managed a snort. “Stars no. When she turned out to be a legit racer, he said he’d make some side bets and profit on it. But as it went on, he acted weirder about the race, even for him. So I started listening more. It’s amazing what people will say in front of you when they think you’re only slightly smarter than a sex ’bot. He wants you to fail and preferably die. I think he thinks it’s funny.”

  A sex ’bot? One more reason to kill a few people. “I wish I could say this was a surprise. It’s not. But we’ll beat the last challenge—beat him.”