by Aria Bell
But I still had a job to do. It took all of my self-control to regain my focus, but I transmitted my standard broadcast greeting to the station. I informed them that Sergeant Nena Brax of the Galactic Police was requesting to dock.
“You are denied landing credentials,” a male voice said over my trans-com. No vid com transmission, audio only. That was different than usual. I immediately began to wonder why.
I felt a snarl twist my lips. “Denied? You really don’t want to do that, buddy.”
“You have no jurisdiction in the outer rim—”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I have a valid warrant to enforce. There are no boundaries on a tier one galactic warrant.”
There was a long pause on the other side of the com. The space flight controller was probably kicking my request up to his supervisor, who was probably boosting it up to his supervisor. This kind of thing happened to me all the time. The key was not to let it get under my skin. Besides, I was landing, one way or another. After having my orgasm denied me, this girl was in no mood to put up with anyone’s crap. I had a blaster and an attitude and ten cargo-hauls’ worth of sexual frustration to take out on anyone, human or alien, who got in my way.
“Who is the warrant for?” the voice on the com finally asked.
“I’d rather not say over an open channel.”
“Either state the name on the warrant or head back to the core,” the faceless voice said smugly.
I bet he didn’t look like that delicious Colbix alien I’d just been fucking. I imagined him more like a Qrezup lizard: sporting a huge head, a teeny tiny body, and great big googly eyes.
“Fine. But if you tip off my target, it will be your ass,” I growled into the com. “Ryrke Zo’dan.” I sent the information on the warrant, picture, vitals, everything, but the channel was unsecured, so any computer monitoring the stream would immediately know I was after Ryrke Zo’dan for murder.
“You are cleared for hangar alpha,” the male voice finally replied after another long pause.
“Thank you very much,” I said, half under my breath, and moved the flight stick to steer my ship toward the correct hangar bay.
But as my ship closed in, another star fighter shot out of the hangar at high speed. I recognized the type instantly. It was a Jardan one-man fighter ship. Highly maneuverable, armored, and armed to the teeth. Instinct told me it was Ryrke. My onboard systems confirmed it a moment later from the markings and transponder code on the ship. I cursed. Ryrke must have intercepted the transmission. Either that, or he’d paid someone to tip him off if the galactic law came sniffing around.
He wasn’t getting away from me though. If he wanted a high-speed interstellar chase, my star cruiser could hang with his anytime, anywhere.
His ship raced toward the planet Soepra, probably looking to lose me in the turbulent upper atmosphere’s magnetic storms. My sensors were already having a difficult time piercing through the interference to get a reading on the surface. If he could scramble my ship’s sensors, he could escape long enough to make a jump to hyperspace with a good chance I’d lose him.
Too bad for him I had all upgraded systems on my cruiser and it wasn’t going to be easy for him. I laughed and patted one of the side panels. “I love you, buddy!” Then I hit full thrusters.
Yes, all my galactic police cruiser ships have been male. Powerful. Sometimes temperamental. Armed to the teeth. It made sense to me.
I raced after Ryrke’s ship. He did a few evasive maneuvers, trying to lose me, but I was too good a pilot for that. Galactic police training was some of the best. I was good and didn’t indulge in any false humility about it either. My heart was pounding hard again, not from lust this time but from excitement.
Our ships rocketed into the upper atmosphere of Soepra. My shields dispersed the magnetic fields and my cutting-edge sensors saw right through the electronic distortion without losing track of his ship as he’d probably hoped.
Suddenly, he sent his ship into a sharp dive, barreling directly for the planet surface.
“Not so fast, Mr. Ryrke Zo’dan,” I mumbled under my breath. I put my ship into an identical dive, keeping right on his tail. My ship’s heat shields could handle the speed and temperature. I powered up my weapons systems. His onboard computers must have been blaring warnings to him when all my weapons switched to live fire mode.
I hit transmit on our ship-to-ship communications. “Ryrke Zo’dan, this is the galactic police. You are under arrest. Put your ship in high orbit and prepare to be towed to the nearest— Whoa!”
A huge array of sparks and smoke and electronic noise shot out of the back of his ship, designed to interfere with my systems and tracking sensors. That wasn’t what surprised me. What surprised me was the extreme loop he put his ship into, pulling straight up and away. Any ace fighter pilot would have envied the maneuver.
But I wasn’t just any pilot either.
I put my ship into a hard loop, keeping on his tail as he tried all kinds of maneuvers to lose me. A tone sounded, telling me I had gunlock on his ship and could fire whenever I wanted to.
We were again streaking for the surface of Soepra. Our ships’ heat shields blazed at the intense speeds we reached in our descent. I didn’t want to open fire yet. If my ion cannons knocked out his onboard systems, his ship would burn up. He’d also burn up right along with it. And there went any chance of the Jardan warrior seeing galactic justice.
“Ryrke, you can’t escape me,” I said into the com. Then I sent him a blitz of information, identification, galactic badge number, all proving I was a legitimate officer and he couldn’t plead before a judge that he thought I was some kind of pirate looking to hijack his ship. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the universe if I have to.”
My trans-com went live as a deep, rumbling voice came over the speakers. “You are skilled, little human female. But I am better.”
“You can call me ‘Sergeant Brax’ when I arrest your ass,” I growled. I wasn’t really offended by the “little female” quip. Dealing with males of any species—human, alien, fish—was all the same. If I let any old male get under my skin with the stupid things they said, I’d waste all my time caring, and who had time for that business?
A deep rumble of laughter came over the com. I couldn’t help it. I kind of liked the sound of his laughter. I’d make sure he heard plenty of mine though, when I locked his ass up for trial.
“I admire your spirit, tiny human. You could be Jardan. But you’re not, and whatever you’ve read about me in your reports is wrong.”
Yeah, you won’t be laughing when I punch you with my tiny human fist, I said to myself, already relishing the thought of it. Soon he was going to learn not to insult an officer of the galactic law, especially while leading her on a high-speed chase. A chase that was quickly becoming annoying because she hadn’t managed to catch him yet…
Our ships had passed through the turbulent upper atmosphere of Soepra and reached the surface. A harsh-looking wilderness sprawled around us in every direction, full of jagged rock formations that reached as high as some space towers I’d seen. Strange plant life grew everywhere, resembling coral or colonies of tinuvi bacteria, but I didn’t have time for sightseeing. I was lining up my shot on Ryrke’s ship that would disable his engines with one well-aimed blast.
He wasn’t making it easy, though. He was juking and rolling and looping around. He sent his ship through canyons and around rock formations, desperate to lose me.
But he couldn’t.
“One last chance, Ryrke,” I transmitted to him. “Or next you’ll be coming with me trussed up in my cargo hold. And on this ship, the cargo hold is about as big as a garbage bin. That’s if you survive the crash. So land your ship and come quietly.”
He didn’t reply, only sent his ship into another series of maneuvers that took all my skill to match. That’s it. I was done with this. It had gone on too long already. I’d given him plenty of chances to surrender peacefully. Now a girl had to ta
ke matters into her own hands.
My targeting locks all were green. I opened fire with my ion beams, not my blaster cannons, because I didn’t intend to kill him, no matter how irritated I was that he refused to surrender. Or that he’d called me “little human woman.”
He tried to dodge at the last instant, but I had anticipated. My shots hit his shields, disabling them, and the next blast took out his engines.
“Ha-yeah!” I yelled in triumph.
Then his disabled ship came flying straight back at mine.
“Oh crap!” I yelled in dismay as I juked hard to the left.
But not in time. His disabled ship slammed into mine. My shields held, but the force sent my ship careening into the side of a rock formation. My ship’s wing hit hard. A shower of rocks and dust flew in all directions. I muttered curses, the wind nearly knocked out of me by the jarring impact. The controls were fighting me, the ship was in a wild spin, and the last thing I saw before everything went dark was a landscape of rocks around a lake of green-blue water.
The water was the exact same color as the ocean in my VR fantasy. That was the last thought I had—and not one I would ever admit aloud—before everything went dark.
Buy Mated to the Jardan Warrior here
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Table of Contents
Look for these titles from Aria Bell
~ Dedication ~
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EPILOGUE
~ About the Author ~
~ Also by Aria Bell ~
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