Alpha Star: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides #1 (Intergalactic Dating Agency): Intergalactic Dating Agency (13 page)

Damn it, she didn’t want to be dazzled—not by the lights and not by him. She wasn’t a glamorous person, hadn’t ever been a distracted stargazer. She always kept her head down working—well, except for when she’d gotten bricked. Except for that one lapse in judgment, she’d never been interested in flashy or risky, and Sin was definitely the star of his very own universe. No way would she let herself be sucked into his orbit.

Even if it would be the experience of a lifetime.

She forced her gaze off him to study the rest of the bridge. The people—beings?—at the other stations seemed mostly normal looking. Maybe their tentacles were hidden out of sight below the railing that ringed the room.

“Captain.” The deep voice from before came from a large, black-haired man at a station centered below Sin’s chair. “The intruder appears to be moving close enough for a visual.”

“Put it on the main display when it’s in range.” Sin pivoted to face a large section of wall and one of the holographic images flickered against the blank background. “Ivan, get ready to redirect energy from the shroud to defensive shields.”

The black-haired man—Ivan—manipulated his display even as he said, “Captain, I remind you that closed-world codes require discretion.”

Sin grunted. “Hard to be discreet if we go up in a ball of plasma fire.”

“I don’t see anything,” Zoe hissed at Del. Maybe it was just her bad eyes but it looked like nothing more than a forest still life. “Do you see anything?”

“No. Just—” She squeaked when a thick shark shape suddenly appeared over the treetops, like a huge parade balloon. Except made of an ominously dark metal. The holograph made it seem real. Too real.

Too much like an incoming bomber…

“Defensive shields,” Sin barked. “Auxiliary power to the plasma cannon, but hold for my signal.”

“What—” Del blinked.

Zoe grabbed her arm, holding tight. Because this felt far too familiar. Her heartbeat slowed at the same time her muscles kicked into gear.

Zoe was already pulling Del down when Sin turned to them and said, “Brace yourselves.”

The last time this had happened, she’d been surrounded by dusty brick and crooked concrete blocks. This time, futuristic tech was all around. And she didn’t feel a damn bit safer.

A howling whine rang through the curving walls. What kind of energy could penetrate such thick metal? She didn’t want to know. She huddled against the railing with Del.

The ship rocked, hard. If they’d still been standing, they’d have been flat on the deck for sure. She might’ve knocked a hole in the other side of her skull.
Not
the kind of matching she wanted.

“The pulse will last another four seconds before recharge,” Sin shouted over the discordant whine that sounded like radio static mixed with a dentist’s drill. “At three seconds, drop the defensive shield and send a cannon pulse on a one-second delay to their aft. We can take the heat but we need to get in a shot before they remodulate their defense.”

Another crew member queried, “Aft, sir?”

“At the very back,” Sin said.

From where she crouched with Del, Zoe watched Ivan raise his dark head. “Captain, before our raised shields blinded us, I captured a signal from the attacking ship. It’s registered to a merc company but flying under a Jaxian code.”

Sin’s jaw flexed. “I know who it is, Ivan. Ready that pulse.”

Del was chanting down the count like she was part of the damn crew. Zoe pinned her to the rail just as she hit “one”. This time, the ship didn’t just rock, it bucked like the Sunset Saloon’s mechanical bull going from “greenhorn” to “get the fuck outta here.”

Zoe covered both their heads, and her shoulder slammed into the rail. The deck under her knees dropped away with a sickening lurch, and they skidded across the rough surface.

To stop in the grip of large, pale hands. Ivan stared down at them through pitch-black eyes.

“Oh my…” Del breathed.

“Initiating pulse, Captain,” the huge man said. One finger flicked through the air.

The deafening squeal in the walls fell deathly silent, and the holographic displays bloomed back to life. Thinking of the way her septic system shunted material as efficiently as possible, Zoe realized the futuristic ship must do the same with energy, alternately powering defensive, offensive, and informational systems as needed.

So these aliens might be advanced, but they weren’t all-powerful, at least not all the time.

Little consolation when another alien was trying to blow them up!

The display showed the other ship hovering above them, the shadowing bulk of it like the sole of a boot about to squash them. Then a coruscating beam shot toward the heel of that boot, which seemed like a pointless target. Why not shoot out the enemy’s bridge or weapons or power system or—

“Contact,” Ivan reported. “Hull damage is visible but not critical.”

“Oh, that larf-licker was always so critical of everything I did,” Sin muttered. “Second pulse at their cannon port. Keep it tight. Third pulse—”

“Captain, inbound drakling.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, save the third pulse.”

Whatever a drakling was, if it replaced a plasma cannon pulse—whatever
that
was—it had to be bad. Zoe peered over the rail to better see the holographic display against the blank wall. From within the confines of their ship, the second pulse impacting the hovering ship only sounded like a distant screech, hardly anything to get excited about. And she could only blink in consternation at the sight of a…well, it was a fucking dragon attacking the other spaceship.

She sank back to the deck beside Del. “So you couldn’t just pick up a nice cowboy at the saloon like the rest of us?”

Del leaned her head back against the rail and stared straight ahead, wide eyed. “See the universe, they said. Find love among the stars, they said.”

A rumbling voice interrupted. “The stars are lovely.”

Ivan held his hands out to them. Strange black markings curled over his pale skin like smoke. Zoe slid an uncertain glance at Del who was gawping at the big man.

Man? He had hard-edged masculine features, but he wasn’t human, not with those eerie silver eyes.

He pulled them both to their feet easily, as if
they
were light as smoke. “The captain asks that I see you to guest quarters. For safety.”

Zoe glanced past him. Sin stood in the center of the room, both his hands laced behind his neck as he stared at the display where the other spaceship was pivoting in mid-air, barraged by gouts of flame from the dragon creature. She touched her head but the vision didn’t change.

“Are you injured?” Ivan asked solicitously.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. Shock might explain some of this.

Certainly it explained why she and Delaney meekly followed an alien being through a spaceship to a row of smaller doorways. They had to make way several times for rushing crewmembers. Zoe swiveled her head to try to see all of them, but they were obviously on task after the attack and she was… Confused.

But when one of the doorways hissed open, she balked. “Are we prisoners?”

Ivan tilted his head. “Of?”

She gritted her teeth. “Your mercenary captain.”

He studied her, flickers of silver making those night-black eyes even more unnerving. “Are you worth a ransom?”

She frowned. “No.”

“Then no.” He gestured toward the doorway. “The captain only wants you secured while we deal with this situation.”

Secured? That did sound like they were prisoners. Or baggage.

“Who are you?” Del asked abruptly. “How do you speak English?”

Zoe glowered at her. Like that mattered now?

Ivan kept his hand outstretched and Del drifted along that path, forcing Zoe to follow. She wouldn’t leave her friend here. And realistically, she didn’t suppose there was anything she could do against the massive Ivan.

“I am the pilot and navigator of the
Sinner’s Prayer
, and Ivan is a close approximation of my name.” Inside the room, light bloomed around him at their movement, illuminating more silver shards in his eyes. “I speak English because our universal translators are tuned for this location while the captain collects his bride.” He tilted his face toward Del. “Which it seems should have been you.”

She blushed. “No, apparently not. We weren’t a match. He matched Zoe.”

“We aren’t matching or mating or anything with any of you,” Zoe snapped. “Not when you are obviously still fighting some battle after Sin told me he was leaving the merc work to inherit property from his grandmother. Or was that all a lie?”

Ivan shook his heavy head. “Not a lie. But…apparently a premature promise.”

“Imagine that, a guy promising something he can’t deliver. Guess that’s not so alien after all.” Zoe glared at him. “That being the case, we’d rather just get out of here while we can.”

He didn’t react to her sarcasm or her glowering. “Once we know you’ll be safe the captain will come for you.” He took a step back.

Del followed. “But—”

The door slid shut between them.

Del spun on her heel to face Zoe. “I’m surprised you didn’t try to bust past him.”

Zoe eyed her. “Did you actually look at him? I don’t think anybody is busting past that guy.”

Hectic color burned on her friend’s cheeks. “No I didn’t look at him. I’m too busy feeling terrible about this whole thing.”

Zoe rushed to her. “It’s not your fault… Well, that’s not quite true. It
is
your fault, sort of.” She petted Del’s braids. “But I kinda get why. You wanted to get away after Will’s death—that’s why you came to Sunset Falls. And that’s why I followed you after I got out of the hospital. And we just haven’t escaped far enough.” She let out a harsh breath. “But maybe we need to stop trying to run away, find out what we really want.”

Del rolled her eyes and sank down on a bench situated as a divider between the doorway and the rest of the room. “Are you giving me inspirational posters while we’re trapped on a spaceship?”

“Shoot for the moon and you’ll—blah, blah—something about seeing stars.” Zoe waved her hand dismissively.

Del snorted. “Always hated that quote. Shows a really breathtaking misunderstanding of interstellar distance.”

“Since when did you switch from astrology to astronomy?”

Del’s round face stilled, like the reflection of a moon in deep water. “Since I realized dreams don’t always come true.”

“Oh, sweetie.” Zoe collapsed to the bench beside her and they hugged.

Agitation jolted Zoe to her feet again and she prowled around the room. It looked like submarine crew quarters aspiring to mid-range motel. Absolutely functional with no personality. She peered through a narrow doorway to what appeared to be a bathroom.

“Are all aliens basically like us?” she mused. “You know, upright, two-legged, one-headed, pee in a basin…”

Del slung one arm over the back of the bench to watch her explore. “When I signed up with the Intergalactic Dating Agency, they said they usually match clients from ‘less sophisticated’ planets”—she made quote marks with her fingers—“with morphologically similar partners.”

“So thoughtful,” Zoe huffed under her breath. At the park yesterday morning, before he realized she had no idea what he was talking about, Sin had said their biological and mental markers were aligned. Well, she didn’t know about mental but she blushed thinking how well they’d aligned biologically…

She shook her head. “How did you even find out there was a dating agency for aliens in Sunset Falls?”

Del rested her head on her arm. “One of my private float trip clients had said she wasn’t from around here. We got to talking and I eventually realized she was
really
not from around here. She works at the IDA finding likely matches. When she told me about it…” Del waggled her head back and forth. “Crazy, right? But she said I was a good fit: willing to travel, unafraid to try new things.” She hesitated. “Maybe a little desperate.”

Zoe thought about it. That could be a description of her, the desperate part at least. Unafraid to try new things? That had been her, once upon a time. A twang of jealousy twisted in her gut. And that was so wrong, to be jealous of her sister-in-law who had gone through so much and had maybe found a chance at a bit of happiness.

Before Zoe had stolen it.

“We’ll figure this out,” she promised. “And I guess the first step is figuring out how to get out of here.”

She made another circuit of the room, but the main door didn’t open to any of her commands or gestures or curses or anything else she’d learned from television. She hissed with frustration and was shocked when the door finally opened.

She took a quick step forward but was brought up short when Sin blocked the opening.

Despite the anger stiffening his big frame, Zoe let the sway of her momentum carry her forward, reluctant to be locked in the room again. “What’s happening out there?”

“We drove off the other ship,” he said. “The imminent threat is avoided.”

“You said you knew who it was.”

He inclined his head. “It’s not important.”

“Getting blown up is not important?” She lifted one eyebrow.

He shrugged. “Not infrequent,” he amended. He studied them. “You are both unharmed?” He hesitated. “No panic?”

“Hadn’t gotten around to that yet,” Zoe said with an edge of snark. “We were too busy trying to chew the door open.”

“My first officer is tracking the other ship. When I can confirm that you can be safely returned home, I will do so.”

“Home,” Del murmured.

Sin flicked a glance at her then looked back to Zoe. “You had said you have vision difficulties. Since you are here, perhaps our scans can find something your medics missed or were unable to repair.”

She froze, even her heart stilling for a couple beats. “You…you can do that?”

His lips quirked. “We do traverse lightyears via wormhole.” His smile faded as he pulled off the thin glove and held up his hand. “If you need more proof.”

She caught her breath at the delicate machinery disguised within what appeared to be his skin. “Oh wow. That’s amazing.”

“We can do a lot with the humanoid body.”