Page 4 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin
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Planet Tern…the not-too-distant future
My long tail whippedthe ground and splooshed into one of the many puddles that littered my hovery’s shop floor. Water dripped into scavenged buckets, and a narrow stream trickled into my nest. I hated sleeping above ground, but drowning in my nest would be infinitely worse.
“Blant.” I kicked a scrap of tin, which careened into the wall and remained stuck in the mud. “Not again.” I squeezed out the no-longer-fluffy tipof my tail.
How would I repair a fleet of hoverbikes when I couldn’t even keep the blanting rain out of my dwelling?
Without a hovery, there was no business and, more importantly, no profit. I glanced at the red light flashing on my wristport and cringed. The credits I had brought with me were long spent. Used to a life of luxury, I had no idea how to manage finances.
If the situation got any more dire, I might need to reconsider one of Raz’s many offers and move into my creepy neighbor’s guest room. Berating myself for the thought, I lifted my chin and banished the notion. Not in a million annums would I move in with an alpha, even if he was another species. Learning to swim sounded more fun. I shivered. What I needed was to establish myself as a quality hovic, and soon.
When I’d applied to be a hovic on Tern, I was informed that recolonization would be slow. I hadn’t cared. The promise of a fully equipped hovery and a personal dwelling in exchange for repairing the hovercrafts in Yurstille had been too enticing to question. Now, hindsight was all too clear. With no hovery or dwelling in sight, asking more questions earlier would have been more than appropriate.
My stomach still twisted every time I recalled my brother’s pleas. Bonic’s gaze had dropped away from mine with every mention of relocating to Tern. He hadn’t wanted me to leave Lorne, let alone move to the farthest outpost in the Reiner System. But in the end, he’d relented and supported my need for a fresh start.
If I was awarded the future contract for Tern’s enforcers, that would change everything. Their fleet of hoverbikes would require constant maintenance, and I knew from experience on my home planet that having the ear of law enforcers was a powerful weapon.
My neighbor’s green head poked through my doorless entry, all sharp-toothed grin. “Hey, hey, Mak.”
I squeezed out the damp tip of my muddy tail again and pressed my lips into a smile of sorts. “Raz, how is your first crop of graneth?”
Raz’s toothy grin grew wider, and I shuddered at the number of teeth on display. “Like liquid gold.” His sharp talons stuck out from under his slicker and dug into the pink soil doubling as my floor. “It’s growing faster than I dreamed pos-s-sible. I can hardly believe the first harvest’s next week, and there is a queue to purchase.”
Raz was contracted by Yurstille, Tern’s first settlement, to cultivate grain. He was one of the lucky ones. He often reminded me of his warm and dry dwelling, built before the archbuilder had fallen from a ladder to his unhappy demise. Boastful credit signs all but shone in my neighbor’s eyes, and I couldn’t stop mine from rolling. Our daily encounters had grown tiring.
I’d left behind the alpha males of my home planet for a reason. And while I’d never encountered Raz’s species—Lizzards—before, that personality type was more familiar than the back of my blue hand.
Before I’d agreed to start a new life on Tern, I’d promised to stay as far away from alpha assholes as possible. My scars made it abundantly clear that I wouldn’t survive more of theirlove. Thank the goddess Sola Raz didn’t have the alpha pheromones that had blindly led me astray in the past.
“Will this rain ever stop?” I grumbled.
“Let’s hope not.” Raz’s voice rattled and dragged out the ‘s.’ “The heat from the Fires That Cleanse burned through the protective seed coating, and graneth is popping up everywhere thanks-s-s to the rain.”
Three weeks earlier, Tern hadn’t been peppered with tiny blue graneth flowers. If I weren’t forced to constantly shake water from my blue fur, I might’ve appreciated the rolling hills dotted with star-shaped blooms springing from pink soil. With the first graneth harvested, starving to death could be removed from my list of worries while waiting for the newly arrived archbuilder to build my dwelling and hovery.
I peered through one of the many gaps in the tin sheets that formed my walls. The rolling hills were coming alive with plants, and I still found it impossible to believe that a thriving city had stood here less than one annum ago.
My fingers worked through a knot in my mane. “Can you believe there’s nothing left? No wonder people are afraid to recolonize here.”
Raz’s long jaw snapped resolutely. “It’s-s-s working out fine for me. If the medic team had arrived on time and saved the citizens of Tern, they wouldn’t have had to deploy the Fires That Cleanse.”
Led by my brother, Lorne had recently aided planet Hotner. Legions of refugee Lizzards—Raz likely one of them—sought new homes. Bonic had cautioned me about Lizzards, who were renowned for valuing profit above all else, but learning this secondhand was worlds different than hearing it straight from the source. A coldness that had nothing to do with the rain worked through me, and my tail stood as stiff as a flagpole.
“You’re joking, right? Hundreds of thousands of people died, and all organic matter on the planet was destroyed.” The electric green flames had burned everything in their path. The video footage had haunted my dreams so much that I deleted the download.
Raz flicked his wrist as if swatting at a pesky bug. “It’s all a natural c-c-cycle of life.”
My omega inclinations leaned toward being the voice of reason, but they walked a tightrope-thin line right now. I wanted to lay into him for his callous disregard for life, but this was my new neighbor. And although he didn’t have the pheromones, his behavior was all alpha. Treading carefully around alphas was the bane of every omega’s existence.
Who knew how many annums I might have to live next to this scaly asshat?
“I would like to be the first to offer you a breakfast of graneth cakes-s-s come new week,” Raz proclaimed, not quite a question. His taloned toes inched toward me, and his forked tongue scented the air.
I backed up right into a puddle.
What the blant is he scenting?
