by Laney Kaye
Xander had circled behind the female and used his stunner to sweep open the fabric door to her dwelling. “Identify!”
The woman whirled to face him. “What is your problem? Get the hell out of there.”
Xander scowled at her. “You’re harboring an unidentified life form in your dwelling. Order it to come out, or I’ll blast it out.”
“Oh my God, are you certifiable or something? I’ve heard of method acting, but I’m not a fan, okay?” She bent to the entrance of her dwelling and then dropped to her knees. I tensed, my stunner held at hip height. Yanno did the same alongside me, and Xander moved to one side, to be out of the immediate impact range of our weapons.
The woman made an odd squeaking noise between her teeth, sounding like a baby dria. For some reason, my universal translator couldn’t make anything of her words. I cocked an eyebrow at Yanno, but he shrugged his matching incomprehension.
The woman backed from the dwelling on hands and knees, her rump in the air.
My nostrils flared and my yakeet twitched. Now was not the moment to recognize the tempting allure of that barely-covered flesh. Man, I needed to get back planetside and find a sleaze-easy where I wouldn’t be recognized.
In her arms, she carried a struggling bundle of violently colored fur.
“Put the life form on the ground,” Xander barked. His voice was controlled, but I could sense his tension. With unidentified life forms, there was never any telling which direction the threat would come from; fangs, venom, claws, weapons. All were a risk.
The woman hiked an eyebrow at Xander, though she had to tip her head back to look up at him. “I will not. You’ll terrify him.”
The fur let out a bloodcurdling yowl and Xander flinched. “What the hells? Is it in pain?”
Trust his first thought to go there. Mine had been more along the lines that the howl was a battle cry.
The female tsked impatiently between her teeth. “Look, I get it. You’re some big movie star,” she squinted up at him. “Not that I recognize you, though. And you want to stay in character. Fine. I’ll pack up and get out of here. Just, where does your set extend to?”
Ignoring her, Xander lifted his chin at the life form. “What is it?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, enough already,” the woman snapped.
So, the life form was a Pete? I mind-linked to the ship’s Intelligence Assistant and searched. Nothing. Shit, entry into Earth’s orbit must have really fried our circuits. First, either the geo-locator was apparently off, or the location data regarding prevailing weather conditions was wrong, now our IA unit was on the blink, unable to complete a simple search.
Xander poked the fur with his stunner.
The woman twisted away from him, her eyes, the color of sand — our sand — suddenly snapping fury. “Leave Ol’ Gray Donkey alone!”
The word ‘donkey’ brought up a searching blip from the IA. “So, this life-form is a donkey?” I clarified as IA whisked through possible matches.
“If he’s a donkey, I’m a gazelle,” she retorted.
IA blipped frantically, throwing multitudinous pictures of furred gray and fawn four-legged animals on the screen. “Ah, you’re a shape-shifter,” I nodded, almost relieved that I finally understood. Although Earth shouldn’t have any shifters, so this was yet another monumental balls-up. We had a human female listed on our register, not a refugee from another planet. “And this donkey is also a shifter?”
The donkey wriggled from the female’s suddenly slack grasp. It hit the floor on all four feet, then arched it’s back at Xander, spitting and hissing.
“Oh my God, you guys are for-real nut jobs, right?” the shifter-woman gasped, the color fleeing her face in an odd fashion. “You’re not actors. But how can all three of you be nutsos? Did you mass escape from somewhere?”
“We’re not Knudsorians, we’re Crasasi.” I knew I should have had cava before we headed out. This conversation was splitting my head open like an overripe dura melon. I also should have launched straight into our pre-boarding speech the moment she stepped from her dwelling. Maybe that triggered the compliance implant. Because she sure as hell didn’t seem too compliant right now. “Xander, control the…donkey.” I nudged my chin at the beast, and then turned to the shifter-woman. “We mean you no harm. We come in peace, summoned by your implant number —” I jerked impatient fingers in Yanno’s direction as he stood, staring at the donkey.
He pulled himself together and glanced at the unit on his belt, a direct feed into IA’s mainframe. “8469, Cap. Name of Valentina Esposito. No, wait,” he held the wrist unit toward the female, flicked his fingers across the screen. “I’m not getting a read on that implant number.”
“Implant? What the heck are you on about?” The female glanced from me to Yanno and then to Xander, as though she couldn’t work out who was in charge.
“Your compliance implant,” I offered helpfully, shifting my stance so my legs were apart, my shoulders broader. Commanding. That should solve her confusion.
The woman sank into a rickety-looking contraption of fabric and metal next to a dark, burned pit that stank of charred animal. Great, the shifter was probably a cannibal. And she was an exceedingly unhappy-looking cannibal at the moment. She pushed her hair back from her face. “Look, can you take this whole thing from the top, please?”
I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, though in truth I was counting the minutes off in my head. We were fast approaching the close of our safe window. Any longer on the planet’s surface and we risked being noted by Creatures-Unauthorized Management, which would immediately send a sanitation drone to the area. “You made it known to Alien Selective Settlement that you wished to be relocated.”
“I did what, now?” She tucked the errant hair behind her ears, those odd blue eyes fixing on me.
I tried to hide my sigh. “You have, at some stage, made known to ASS your interest in visiting another planet.”
“I can assure you, I’ve not had any ASS dealings. Not my thing.” She slapped her hands onto thighs that I couldn’t pretend not to notice were deliciously ample, the creamy flesh slightly splayed by her position in the odd chair.
“You don’t deal with ASS. ASS keeps its eye on you.” Man, I was helpful today. Must be something in this oxygen-heavy air. Crasasi was a land of mountains, and our air was thin.
“That’s a wholly unpleasant mental picture.”
I shrugged. Clearly, the shifter didn’t do so well with the common-tongue translation. “Okay, ASS monitors you.”
“I think I’d be aware of an ASS looming over me.” She cocked a challenging eyebrow. Seemed she wasn’t convinced I was being as helpful as I could be.
“They’re always incognito.”
“An undercover ASS?” she said, her lips for some reason twitching. Hungry, maybe. I tightened my grip on the stunner, the stink of charred flesh an acrid reminder of her true nature.
At least now we were getting somewhere, though. I nodded. “You wouldn’t know they were ASS unless they declared themselves.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m capable of recognizing an ASS. Plenty of experience.”
I closed my eyes in frustration, trusting my lieutenants to keep watch for a second. Hells, this was taking too long, and we were going in circles. “Make up your mind. You said you’ve never dealt with ASS, now you say you have experience?”
“Dude, you’re not real quick on the uptake, are you?”
I swear Xander hid a snigger, his stunner still trained on the orange donkey who was ignoring him and appeared to be licking its reproductive organ. But Yanno tapped his wristcomm, his tone worried. “Tennn, I’m not getting any reading off her implant. And the geomaps don’t look right.” He turned toward the woman. “What’s your name?”
She paused a moment, apparently assessing the wisdom of giving the information. “Stella Carragher.”
I bit back my groan. This was going from bad to worse. But the geomaps had never placed us wrong before. “
Maybe something in her biometrics blocks the chip? It would’ve been set for human, not shifter. And I assume you change your name with your form?” I added directly to the woman.
The scrunched-up face she presented to me made it clear she’d deny that little trick, but I was wise to it.
“Try changing frequency, Yanno,” I said. The single sun hovered far too close to this planet, and as soon as it had appeared over the horizon the air had heated like the afterburn from an off-worlder. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, dampening the heavy fabric of my coat. The shadow of a massive bird spiraling above swept across our little group, and I flinched, bringing my stunner up to chest height. A broad-winged scree? Or did they not have the creatures on Earth? In any case, a scree would be on the hunt for sand vipers, not Crasasi. And possibly not shifters. So, this was another unknown life form, presenting unspecified dangers.
Every sensible fiber of my being yelled that we needed to pack this up and haul butt out of this hotbox.
“Look,” I tried to inject patience into my tone, but four letters didn’t give me much scope. “Someone you told of your desire to escape this planet was an ASS agent. They implanted you with an identity and compliance chip.”
“Dude, if someone implanted me, I’d remember it. I’m not that kind of girl.” Her eyes sparkled, tiny white teeth flashing as her lips parted, as though she invited me to join in her sudden good humor. But I couldn’t see what was funny about the situation. Usually, our pickups had a ten-second “What, you’re aliens?” moment, then they were happy to climb aboard. After all, we were in the business of answering their dreams.
“You wouldn’t know. That’s kind of the point. The agents appear human; they masquerade as hairdressers, dentists, doctors. Anyone who can insert the probe without arousing your suspicion.”
Stella — if that was the name she wanted to use, I’d roll with it, as long as we could get the hells out of here before we were detected — shook her head, her cheeks puffing out as she blew a long breath. For a moment I couldn’t pull my gaze from the pout of her lips, the bulging cheeks. Last time I’d seen an expression like that had been in a halopic on the wall of a sleaze-easy, a purchase mate with her lips wrapped around a guy’s yakeet. Xander, Yanno and I’d decided it was a computer simulation.
Because women didn’t actually do that.
Not even to Royals.
Only in our fantasies.
I grunted, shifting my wide-legged stance to create a little more room in my tight leggings.
Stella shoved to her feet, though she seemed to struggle finding her way out of the odd chair. Xander reflexively put out a hand to assist her, but I shook my head. Until Yanno had tracked her implant, we weren’t sure what we were dealing with.
She crossed her arms over what looked to be rather magnificent breasts. “Look, this is ridiculous. If I had an ASS probe or implant or whatever, I’d know about it.”
“Feel behind your left ear,” I directed. “There’s a lump, yes?”
Frowning at me, she complied. “Yes.” Then her right hand moved to behind the corresponding ear. “But there’s one on this side, too.” She flashed me a grin. “So that was a double penetration, then?”
I only knew the basics of Earth beings’ biology — and I still wasn’t entirely sure what this creature was. I’d had the barest of briefings regarding the ASS implants, and had been assured that all subjects we were given the collection coordinates for would be eager to board my ship.
I grunted in annoyance, scanning our surroundings in case of an incoming CUM drone. “Look, let’s just move on from the ASS evaluation.”
“If you insist, Mr. Pedantic.” She rolled her eyes, as though I’d missed something vital.
I chose to ignore her mutinous tone.
“Captain,” Yanno corrected her latest mistake.
She shot a sideways glance at him. “Uh-huh. Yup. Whatever.”
I had to hide my own grin as Yanno bristled. Although the guys and I might be pretty casual around one another, he expected everyone else to accord me my due.
I cut in before he could start lecturing. “Carragher female, do you desire to travel to another planet, another galaxy? Or do you want to stay here?”
Her eyes grew huge. More interestingly, her bosom expanded to astonishing proportions as she inhaled and spoke quickly. “If I say stay, you’re going to zap me with a thingy to make me lose my memory, aren’t you?”
I ground my teeth. Gods damn that GLiB PR stunt. “No. Such technology does not exist.” Unfortunate because, with Xander chortling quietly at my increasing frustration, I knew he’d recount this story in every sleaze-easy from Crasasi to Grenobt. I could do with zapping the four of us. And maybe the donkey, too, though he seemed stoically disinterested in the entire proceedings.
“But then I’d tell everyone I saw aliens,” the female crowed triumphantly. “So, the fact that you’d risk that proves you aren’t really aliens, right? I mean, not that I thought you were, anyway.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger. “You can tell anyone you want. They won’t believe you. In fact, I’ve heard that the human preference is to ridicule that which they don’t understand, rather than explore the possibilities.”
Her shoulders slumped. Which made her breasts swing beneath the loose garment she wore. “You could be right, there.”
Damn, I’d been off-world too long. I wanted to touch those breasts. Weigh them in my hand. “So, choose.”
She licked her lips and I tried not to focus on the exquisite pink triangle of the tip of her tongue. Was a shifter formed the same as many other female species? Did she have another, even more sensitive, fleshy pink triangle? I dragged my gaze away from the juncture of her thighs.
“She can’t choose,” Yanno cautioned. “I don’t have a reading for her, the name doesn’t match the loading docs. And she hasn’t been tagged by ASS.”
“If she wants to go, she wants to go,” I shrugged. “I need my cargo roster filled.”
But it was more than that. This shifter woman intrigued and, on some slightly irritated level, amused me. I liked her energy. And I was fascinated to see what would happen if she made up her mind to come with us. Our regular cargo, still not quite realizing their dreams were coming true, tended to run the gamut from scared to sullen once they’d boarded. I’d never seen sparky.
And, of course, there were those breasts.
Xander shook his head, for once agreeing with Yanno. “She doesn’t have the requisite approvals from the ruling body, Tennn.”
“Oh, wait, what now? I need the okay from your government for you to abduct me?” Stella’s hands slammed her hips. Her breasts jostled at the impact, and Xander grunted. Following his gaze, I could see he’d also noted her nipples jutting against her shirt.
A surge of desire tightened my balls. Damned if I wished she wasn’t a shifter; she was rocking a body that would make any green-blooded Crasasi drool, and whatever form she took couldn’t be an improvement on this one.
“No. From your ruling body,” I fought back a grin as, clearly outraged, Stella stood with her legs spread, hands fisted on her hips. Her hair, a shade of white not seen among my people, but which I knew the humans referred to as ‘blonde’ stuck out from her head at crazy angles. Hidden by shaders, I let my gaze drift lower.
Apparently, she was unaware that one leg of the short garment she wore had creased into the fold of her groin, exposing more female flesh than I’d seen for some time.
I couldn’t hold back my grunt of interest; not only the hair on her head was that unusual color. Reluctantly, I dragged my gaze from the hem of her lower clothing as Stella replied.
“Well, I really doubt the Australian government is into allowing their tax-paying citizens to be abducted. Willingly or otherwise,” she said.
“Not your parochial government,” Yanno corrected. I wondered if his slightly patronizing tone would see her arc up again. I hoped so. If the leg of that odd
garb rode just a little higher… “Your Galactic Organization Overseers—”
“Wait, Australian?” I interrupted, a horrible realization creeping across my skin like scuttling seraroach. “What do you—?”
“Tennn, make a call, now,” Xander yelled. “We’re about to get sprayed by CUM.”
Chapter Three
Stella
Getting sprayed by cum was no big deal. I should know. Not all guys liked to abide by the law.
But who was doing the spraying? These three were too tightly wrapped in leather to get the requisite equipment out.
“Why the trench coats?” I asked. Not that they weren’t totally rocking the retro Keanu vibe, but black was not a desert color. With the sun well up now, they had to be hot.
They certainly looked hot; none of them were under six-foot, and the one they referred to as Ten — my mind stopped as I tried the long-drawn-out final consonant, the way the long-haired guy had used it; Tennn. Ridiculous how sexy that felt in my mouth, how the vibration of my tongue sent a thrill down to…well, to a part of me that had nothing to do with orating. Though oral was another matter.
Anyway, head and shoulders above the others, the one they called Tennn maybe had a right to the name.
“Ah,” Tennn glared at the guy to his left, whose shoulders tensed, though he kept his face turned toward the desert, as though unaware of Tennn’s perusal. “Slight miscalculation. We had a pickup scheduled in Austria. It’s inclement there at the moment,” he added helpfully, darting a glance at me and then away, as though he hoped I’d let that pass.
“Wait,” I chortled. “You’re supposed to be big bad aliens from outer space, possessing a gazillion years of tech, and you confuse Australia and Austria?”
“Australia?” The guy on Tennn’s left ran a hand across the shadowy stubble of his fade, which was carved with intricate patterns that extended onto his skin in dark tribal tattoos. “Ah, pillion shit. I know what happened…”
“They sound very similar,” Tennn said stiffly. His gaze narrowed, his jaw tense as though he held in anger. “It seems the data was misread and the incorrect coordinates entered.”
