Page 6 of Found Treasure Bride

I wrinkled my brow. “You already have a ship? You didn’t come on a transport?”

“I have one, yes, but the station owner is refusing to give me credit chip back and says I can’t take my ship away until he has the payment for the ship repairs and dock damage in full. And he wants cash! Plus, he said my ship wouldn’t get the necessary repairs until after the dock does, and he’s been paid.”

Yeah, that sounded like Rando, all right.

“Hold on; you’re the one who crashed into the station earlier today?”

“Yeah, after some looters tried to take out me and my ship and caused a lot of damage.”

Looters? Okay, maybe she did have some money on tap. It sounded like she had something incredibly valuable for them to chase her across space. I finished my drink and glanced at my buddy. He gave me a blink of assent.

“Sure, we’ll come along and check things out.”

She stood up. “Okay. Just don’t follow me directly. I don’t trust anyone here, including the station master,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t even let me report the incident to the authorities myself, said he’d do it for me. I think he’s got something going on that means he doesn’t want the Enforcers here.”

Yeah, she was a smart cookie, all right, and oh my god, the smell was coming from her. I wanted to devour her. I watched as she walked off, her firm butt swaying tantalizingly as she left.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Grorsch. He gave a short bark of amusement as he took in the state of me as I stood up. “Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. I need to go deal with this, and then we go see what’s up.”

He sniggered again. “Hraghrrr nargl.”

Besides your cocks.

“Fucking comedian,” I muttered. “Maybe we could see if he’ll let you work off our debt by doing stand-up.”

I hurried away before he could reply, needing to beat off. It was only once I got there and glanced down at my arm that is registered. My arm was itching, and where a full-blooded Paethian would have his mating marks, ghostly lines were beginning to appear. Fuck! My mother had been not only been right, but my potential client was quite probably my goddamned mate, and someone had tried to kill her.

5

Nancy

When Prilraziin kept my credit chit and informed me he’d notify the authorities for me, something hadn’t sat right. It wasn’t that I thought he would cheat me on the cost of the repairs or even simply leave my ship unrepaired or anything like that. No, it was the realization that not only was he was going to make me wait since he wanted cash, but there would be no report to the authorities.

He operated a casino complex on the space station he owned and operated right on the edge of No Man’s Land, an area of space between us and the the neighboring government collective of planets. I tried tor member which one t was along this part of space, but couldn’t recall. There were so many, large and small, and their civilizations did not intersect with my course of study. That had been deliberate, as the buffering zone was full of Freebooters, some of whom would literally eat you for breakfast.

No thanks, I preferred to avoid anything like that, but he had clientele that came through the zone or from within it. Not to mention, he could be running a hinky operation with his tables. Yeah, he was definitely either skirting the law somehow, or his patrons were, and he did not want the Enforcers here at all.

That meant that I was going to be stuck here, too far out to communicate directly with the Institute or its partners or with the Enforcers without using his deep-space communication array. Meanwhile, my site was getting plundered! I was also worried if any of their associates worked with shady denizens of the buffer zone, who might end up checking places just like this for me. What if a tracker was hidden somewhere on my ship? One of them could have planted it while I was inside the city before they came in themselves. Shit, shit, shit!

A nebulous idea formed began to take shape, and it was with that in mind that I found myself going to the entertainment lounge. I needed to get off this station, with my information and the artifact, and inform my employers and the Enforcers alike about what happened. I just needed someone else to take me. Someone who would understand the importance of it all and would accept payment from my bosses upon arrival. This project was done co-operatively with three other universities and two museums, all of whom provided funding. A quick look in my databanks told me which of these was the closest. If I managed to get there, they could let my bosses know and I would be able to speak to the Enforcers in safety.

When I asked the bartender if there were any pilots who took jobs for hire here, and he pointed at the duo sitting in a dark corner, my steps faltered. Between the dinger crooning along to a catchy Zenebian jazz song being played by her live backing band, the tall, purple furry alien stuffed into clothes that bunched oddly over his pelt, and the pink, pointy-eared guy in the white shirt and black leather vest, I suddenly felt a sense of deja vu.

It was only once I was on my way back to my ship, waiting for them to join me after a brief interval in case anyone was watching, that it hit me.

Oh, my god! Those old vids my brother used to make us all watch with him. What was it…oh yes, Star Wars.

I giggled, no doubt looking not right in the head by anyone who noticed. That film had a princess, a farm boy, and a smuggler and his furry alien co-pilot saving the galaxy from some evil sorcerer or something with a giant space army. I was a bit fuzzy on the precise details, but I did remember one thing: the smuggler and his co-pilot had been hired in a bar at a spaceport while the band played jazz. I had become a cliche.

I giggled harder, reaching my ship and going inside.

Does that make me the princess? She kicked ass!

I just hoped they took the job from me and we didn’t have s much trouble as they did. I just wanted to fly out of here, get them paid, have the Enforcers get those guys the hell away from my site, and retrieve whatever they’d stolen while I waited for further grant funding to go back with a proper team to do the site justice.

The pink guy was at least part Paethian. I was sure of it. They were a very honorable species; surely that would work in my favor. I was, after all, a person in distress. The furry guy, I wasn’t sure what his species was. I’d never come across it before, and for the first time, I was sorry that I so far I’d spent most of my time recording sites and retrieving artifacts that allowed someone else to use additional grant money to assemble a team and do a proper job of uncovering the secrets a site held.

Working solo as I have meant I hadn’t done all the mingling and meet and greets and worked alongside a great many aliens. This find was meant to change all that. This was to have been my site and crowning achievement that would unlock book deals, talk show appearances, and job offers to teach somewhere more prestigious, and not just as a junior lecturer either.