Freefall_The Great Space Race

by Elsa Jade

  Families were the same across the universe, apparently. “One of your brothers is getting married?”

  “All,” he said grimly. “All my brothers are getting married.”

  She sat back in her chair. “All twelve? At once?”

  “Except me.”

  She studied his expression. The strong, angular lines of his cheekbones and jaw were tensed, the rich hue of his skin faintly blanched over the bones with his agitation. “Are you… Do you want to be married too?” Maybe the universe didn’t have marriage equality yet.

  His hesitation answered before he did. “Draklings don’t do well alone, but as an unlucky thirteenth, I have resigned myself not to mate.”

  She squirmed a little bit at the “mating” part. That wasn’t necessarily the same thing as marriage at all…

  Maybe it was just this silly honeymoon ship with its boudoir bed that kept making her think inappropriate thoughts about her teammate.

  Also, the fact that the word “mate” kept coming up.

  “Draklings love the legend of the Firestorm Queen. Thousands of years ago, she made her twelve royal lovers gather gems for her diadem before she would choose from the best of them, so the story is often retold at mating ceremonies with a lot of laughing.”

  Laughing, fireworks, and storytelling. Drakling weddings actually sounded…kind of fun. Although he probably wouldn’t appreciate hearing that. “Which one did she choose?”

  Luc snorted. “None of the lovers. She kept all of the gems for herself and mated the poor-born blacksmith who forged the base of her crown.”

  Amy clasped her hands together in delight. “Good for her.”

  “According to the story anyway. They lived a long and happy life but no one knows what happened to the crown. The legend says their mating was so forceful, the diadem exploded and scattered the gems across the universe, which became the stars we see today.”

  He half closed his eyes and recited:

  “The queen summoned her lover, wings of fire spread,

  And the blacksmith rose above her golden bed.

  The prism of stones who sought to possess her,

  Gone, sundering the stars at the first fierce caress.”

  Listening to his deep, resonant voice, a shiver she couldn’t quite squelch trembled along Amy’s limbs. What an orgasm that must’ve been, incendiary and everlasting…

  She cleared her throat. “So our quest is to find the gems?”

  “Not for real,” he pointed out. “Since it was just a legend. But the race challenges are always specially geared for the teams. The Octiron Corp pulls beings from all over spacetime—some willing, some…not so much—to be contestants in the Great Space Race. Since I’m a drakling, I guess the producers decided the mythical diadem would be an amusing hunt.”

  “I bet your brothers will think it’s great too.” She tried to imagine twelve guys, all even bigger than their “runt” youngest sibling.

  “Only if we win,” he cautioned.

  Channeling her inner infamous interstellar explorer, she said confidently, “We’ll win.”

  After a moment, he nodded then gestured at the map. “We start looking for the first gem here, on the planet Am-syx in the Yestrian Republic.” He showed the blinking avatar of the Blissed slipping along a parabolic arc from the Central Alliance Sector toward an adjacent sector. “The legend says the first gem in the queen’s diadem was uniquely beautiful.” His voice dropped back into that sexy lower register. “A stone from an ocean of fire, marking the tide of flowing desire, arising from the bed of the sea in facets of copper and red. That’s another line from the Epic of the Firestorm Queen.”

  “Lovely,” Amy murmured. She’d been terrible at math and not much better in literature.

  “And a very poetic description of a rare geologic formation in the Yestrian crystal mines.” He zoomed into the screen which showed what looked like a giant termite in heavy armor holding a shining blue stone. “The Yestria live in hives, fight off intruders, and extract some of the most valuable aquari crystals in the galaxy. I think the first gem is here.”

  She peered at the screen. “But it’s blue. Not copper and red.”

  “That’s what makes the queen’s gem unique. Only one in a million aquari crystals is red.” His fingers tapped impatiently over the screen. “Anyway, it won’t be real. It’s a metaphor for the race.”

  She was starting to get a little confused about what was real. The race was real. Except it was a “reality” show, which meant it wasn’t really real. The prizes were real, but the legend behind the prize wasn’t. Or it was a real legend, but not real life. Aliens were real. Luc was real. Her hopeless attraction to him was real, but since nothing could come of it, it might as well be fake. Good thing she was used to feeling utterly lost all the time or she might be getting a tad angry by now.

  She scanned the data scrolling underneath the images. “It says here the hives don’t play nicely with others.”

  “I’m sure it’s all played for drama and laughs,” he said with a small frown. “Octiron wouldn’t have the teams doing anything genuinely dangerous or illegal.”

  “What about your blaster?”

  His frown deepened. “For show. Everything’s for the show.”

  She touched the empty sheath at her wrist. When they’d confronted the smuggler, Luc hadn’t held the blaster as if it was for show. But maybe she was just being confused again about what was real and what wasn’t. “I guess we’ll see how well the token of passage works.”

  “It won’t be easy,” he cautioned. “After all, the race is only interesting to the viewers if the challenges are real.” He winced. “Well, not really real, of course.”

  She was sort of relieved she wasn’t the only one getting confused. Definitely made her feel less alone out here.

  Luc tweaked at the screen for another moment before pushing back in his seat. “Our course is locked in. Shall we add some of your preferred foodstuffs to the galley?” Before she could answer, her stomach gurgled with enthusiasm, and he chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  They squeezed together down the short corridor to the small galley kitchen, where he showed her the controls for the food bank.

  “It has all the basics in chemical nutrients, I’ve found. But it keeps trying to mix everything into an aphrodisiac.” He rolled his eyes. “When the Octiron producers upgraded the ship, they must’ve forgotten to change that part of the honeymoon programming. So if you try anything too exotic, it’ll serve up to something you probably won’t recognize.”

  “I could never get anything that tasted like real Sichuan after my family moved from home,” she said. “I’m used to making do with knockoff imitations.”

  He fiddled with the controller. “Then I’m a perfect teammate for you.”

  She bumped his arm sharply with her elbow. “You’re not an imitation. You’re a real live drakling.” The lingering boldness of the waning brandy gave her rebuke more snap that she intended, so she added, “Unless I’m dreaming this whole thing.”

  He nudged her shoulder back. “You’re not dreaming, and there’s the coffee to wake you up.” He pointed out the selection to her. “It’s simple chemistry, really. I’m not sure why so many beings have become enamored with it.” He grimaced. “Or why it affects draklings so strangely.”

  “I need more than caffeine though.” She cast her eye down the list; nothing that she recognized. Not even chow mein or pizza. “I think all of this is going to affect me strangely.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he reached past her to point at a few selections. “These are some drakling favorites. If you choose the less spicy option, you might enjoy them too.”

  “Oh, I like spicy.” She cued the options he’d noted into a favorites list under her name, as he’d shown her.

  He pulled back a little. “Are the translators working correctly? When I say spicy, I mean very hot on the tongue.”

  She put one hand on her hip, striking a pose
with her leg-warmered leg thrust through the slitted skirt. “I hereby issue a Great Space Race side challenge: who likes spicy food more.”

  Pulling himself upright, he stared down his nose at her, one eye narrowed. “Ah, innocent closed-worlder? You would question a drakling on matters of burning?”

  She almost gulped out an apology, but then she caught the glint of humor in that mock glare. “I dare you to burn me.”

  The words came out of her mouth a little more sultry than she’d intended, as if the last of the brandy was evaporating on her tongue in curls of smoke. They were just teasing each other—like good teammates—but she was teasing herself if she thought there’d be more.

  How many adventures did one fake explorer need anyway?

  “I accept your challenge.” Luc loomed closer, and she gazed up, almost as hypnotized by the quirk of his sensual lips as by his sonorous voice. “You set the menu and I’ll be right back.”

  He strode out of the galley, his shoulders nearly brushing the doorway on either side. She took a breath as a cooler draught of air whispered in to fill the void he’d left.

  Alien. Apparently gay. Accountant. Her teammate.

  The silent reminders to herself didn’t cool the simmering in her blood. Bad idea, that brandy.

  With one ear cocked for his return, she fumbled through the rest of her meal planning—including the coffee—and selected several drakling dishes for their dinner. Or was it breakfast? Brunch? She had no idea what time it was. Did it even matter when she was so far from everything she knew?

  For a second, her knees wavered. She was so very, very far from home now. And the likelihood of returning—of anyone ever finding out what happened to her—was as murky as the rules of this Great Space Race.

  But if anyone could get her home, surely it would be a rule-following accountant who needed a win as badly as she did.

  When Luc returned, she had the meal spread on the small galley table. The setup was like a date night—bistro-sized seating, a low-wattage sconce emitting a soft glow. The twitter of anticipation in her belly.

  That was just hunger, she told herself.

  Although there was more than one kind of hunger…

  He had a package in his palm, and she took a hasty step back to gesture at the table. “Sorry, not much room left.”

  “This cruiser seems designed to throw its newly bonded passengers into constant contact.”

  “That is what a honeymoon is for.” To make room for him, she sank into one of the seats.

  He took a large goblet from the food processor—the last of the items she’d programmed—and set it between them before taking the seat across from her. Their knees bumped beneath the table.

  “Sorry again,” she said again.

  “You will be especially so when I win our spicy challenge with my secret ingredient.” He unwrapped the package and thumped it on the table next to the goblet.

  She peered at the etched glass container. Golden beads filled the interior almost to the top. “What is it?”

  “From my homeworld. It’s called kyapa-sho.”

  She tilted her head. “The translator isn’t giving me anything here.”

  “It’s an old drakling phrase that means ‘the ice that becomes fire in the heart’. It’s also a play on words that means delicious calamity.” He popped back the lid and held the container out to her. “Draklings eat it with almost every meal. Race contestants can’t bring anything to the galaxy with them, but I found a purveyor here in Paragon. My translator says you might call it a peppercorn.”

  She took a whiff of the contents. “Oh, it reminds me of la doubanjiang, but we have it as a sort of pepper paste for meat or rice and noodles. How do you serve it?”

  He took the container back from her and spilled some of the beads into his palm. He pinched the golden spheres between his fingers and sprinkled a tiny amount of the shimmering powder over the first dish. “Oddly enough, though kyapa-sho is powerfully spicy, it also has the unique chemical property of increasing the freezing point of pure water, which some say is why it tastes cold at first. We’ll start light.”

  She reached over and stuck her fingertip into the center of his hand with the rest of the beads. He lifted one eyebrow when she smooshed the peppercorns into dust. Then she stuck her finger in her mouth.

  His other eyebrow jacked higher. “I should’ve expected such bravado from a famous interstellar explorer.”

  The cooling sensation on her tongue might’ve emboldened her to actually lick his palm, but a slow fire ignited on her lips and was quickly spreading to her eyes. “Infamous.” She took a slow breath, and the air whistled through her empty sinuses, scorched clear.

  He grinned. “Tasty.”

  Did he mean she was tasty? Of course not. “Now I understand why dragons breathe fire.”

  His grin faltered. “Runts like me don’t always inherit the full range of drakling abilities.”

  She winced. “I was just joking. I didn’t know drakling really do breathe fire.”

  He looked down at his hand and upended the powder over the rest of the dishes, dusting his palm lightly. “No need to apologize. Of course you didn’t know.”

  Because she was a closed-worlder who wasn’t good for anything. She wanted to kick herself with her inch-high new boots for ruining their rapport. “Immigrant Chinese girls are supposed to excel at math and music, avoid white boys with yellow fever, and support our families. But when my father died, I left school, and my mom moved back to China since it was obvious I wasn’t going to be any help to her.” The memory of the single airplane ticket was a ghostly chill no peppercorn could counteract. “Plus, I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my job at the thrift store.” She looked down at their plates. “And…now I’m babbling. Sorry one last time.”

  He reached over the table—not hard, since it was so small—and took her clenched hand. “We are obviously terrible failures, both of us.”

  She tried to summon up a little sniffle of objection, but he was right.

  Still, he went on, “Which means, since the hard-luck cases are always the most exciting, we are destined to win the Great Space Race.”

  She peeked up at him. “You really think so?”

  “Really.” He released her hand and picked up a small cube of something that looked like a cross between tofu and a flaky pastry. It gleamed with the golden pepper. “Now quit trying to make me feel bad for you so I forget your dare. It’s time to burn you up.”

  As she stared into his bright jade eyes, Amy wondered, if she let him, what would arise from the ashes.

  Chapter 6

  As soon as he held out the kyapa-sho niblet, Luc remembered there were no serving utensils. He’d noticed the lack but it hadn’t been a priority—not like finding some kyapa-sho and comming Rickster for his missing teammate. Now he had both and a trajectory to their first stop.

  But no spoons.

  Instead, he held the niblet to her mouth, wondering what moon madness was driving him.

  But she only smiled a little hesitantly and leaned forward to accept the morsel. The brush of her upper lip against his knuckle, the faint scrape of her lower teeth against the pad of his finger, sent a searing blaze of awareness through him, hot enough to hurt.

  And he hadn’t even tasted the kyapa-sho yet.

  Shaken, he sat back. “What do you think?”

  She chewed thoughtfully, as if the glassy sheen over her dark eyes was nothing. “The touch of heat goes nicely with—what is that?—a sweetness.”

  He took one of the niblets for himself and popped it into his mouth.

  Was that hint of sweetness a lingering taste of her lips on his fingertip?

  He cleared his throat as the kyapa-sho burned. “It’s pixberry. Grows everywhere in the universe, practically. The texture isn’t quite right, but not bad for a food processor.”

  She reached for a crisp cane on another platter. “What’s this one?” She held it out to him.

  He should not
be crunching on innocent closed-worlders… He bit the end off, careful to avoid her skin. The heat of the kyapa-sho was mellowed somewhat by the dense dough. “Bone-bread.”

  If he’d have bet that menacing translation might dissuade her from trying it, he would’ve been mistaken. She licked the kyapa-sho off the cane and slid the rest into her mouth.

  Fixated, he watched her tongue dart out to swipe the gold flecks from her lips. The beastly depths of him roused uncomfortably.

  “Good,” she said.

  What was good? The spice or his stunted drakling spirit that seemed to be unfurling around her?

  He wasn’t sure the latter was good at all.

  While they ate, they talked. As if on autopilot, the orderly, desk-bound accountant he’d always been answered her curious questions about drakling cuisine, earlier seasons of the Great Space Race, and other Earthers in space.

  “A cousin of mine mated an Earther female,” he said. “He paired with her when the captain of the mercenary ship where he was stationed sought a bride through the Big Sky outpost of the Intergalactic Dating Agency.”

  Amy stiffened. “Big Sky… That’s where I lived, in Montana. I wonder… There’s a resort outside town that had a crazy reputation.” She shook her head. “Now I understand why everything anyone said about it always sounded like nonsense.”

  “On closed worlds, any off-worlder outposts have to keep a low profile. The outposts tend to be small and suppress local technologies like communications and surveillance.” He quirked a smile at her. “They have all the stars but they keep the closed worlds in the dark.”

  “My boss must’ve been involved somehow too, or at least known about it since he had the trans-dimensional transference. It’s a small universe, isn’t it, if your cousin might’ve married someone from Sunset Falls. How impossible is that?”

  “Mathematically…fairly unlikely. But sometimes I think the vastness of the universe means each of us is operating at the equivalent of the quantum level, with all the uncertainty, duality, and entanglement that implies.”

  “Riiiiight,” she drawled.

  He winced. “That was stuffy of me, wasn’t it? In case you were wondering why I’m the only one of my brothers not getting married.”