“She’ll do her best to weather the storm inside the rover.”
“That’d be suicide!”
There was a slight pause, and Jarmuk could almost imagine the military guys rolling their eyes at him before they answered. “Those were Chief Daxar’s orders, and she accepted the mission on her own free will.”
“There’s no way Dax realized how bad it was out here. He wouldn’t have sent her into this. You have to tell her to come back with us.”
Another pause, longer this time. “We’ll contact Chief Daxar and see what he says. Please stand by.”
Jarmuk scowled down at the console. No one could be expected to work in conditions like this. Daxar should have realized how quickly everything was going downhill and told Maisie to stay put inside the dome. Now she’d come all the way out here on the rescue rover for no reason.
The first group of miners cycled out into Zocrone’s atmosphere. Jarmuk could see them shuffling through the storm toward the rescue rovers, their arms all interlocked at the elbows so that they stuck together and had more leverage against the storm. The wind was steadily picking up, making walking difficult even for grown men. One dangerous gust could send the whole group of them scattering across the planet’s surface.
The second group of miners began to enter the damaged rover’s airlock, preparing for their exit out onto the planet’s surface. One of them called to Jarmuk, but he held up one finger, telling them to wait.
“Military Rover Z549, what’s the status of the repair mission?”
Jarmuk expected them to say the repair mission had been aborted, but in the next moment he saw the shadow of a lone female figure approaching through the dark, swirling cloud of red dust that the storm had stirred up. He cursed under his breath. It wasn’t possible that Dax was actually sending her out here, was it?
“Rover 2793, be advised that the repair mission will continue. Please release the safety lock on your rover’s engine cover.”
“You guys have got to be kidding me!” Jarmuk gave up trying to speak in any kind of formal, military tone. Time was running out, and he didn’t have patience for that bullshit right now. “Did Dax actually approve this? That girl is gonna get blown away.”
“Chief Daxar left it up to Maisie’s discretion whether she wanted to continue on with the repairs or not. She chose to continue.”
Jarmuk cursed Daxar under his breath. The Chief had probably assumed that the human, like any sane individual, would have taken one look at the storm and realized that attempting a repair right now would be impossible. But if Jarmuk had learned anything about humans in the last few weeks, it was that they frequently did not act like sane individuals. Which left him only one choice in this situation: not to act sane himself.
“Understood,” Jarmuk said in a weary voice as he reached to release the engine’s safety lock. “Please be advised, I will be staying with Maisie to assist her. The rest of my crew is about to exit the damaged rover and enter the rescue rovers.”
A gust of wind rocked the rover just then, and Jarmuk winced, looking up to see if Maisie was still standing out there. He half-expected her to have blown away, but she was still standing. She had reached the damaged rover and had hooked herself to its side with a large metal hook just in time. If the wind fazed her, she didn’t show it. Instead, she was methodically sliding off the engine’s safety cover to begin repairs.
Jarmuk glanced back at his men in the airlock, who were waiting impatiently for him to join them so that they could leave. With a rapid motion of his hand, he waved them off. They hesitated for only a moment, then started to close off the airlock. Jarmuk knew they didn’t understand why he wasn’t coming with them, and they didn’t like it. But they were also too terrified of the storm to sit around and argue with him that he needed to escape. Time was running out, and they were eager to get to the safety of the rescue rovers.
The military crew was not as quick to accept Jarmuk’s decision to stay.
“Jarmuk, you have to leave, now!” an exasperated voice said. “Our orders were to leave no man behind. And Chief Daxar specifically mentioned that you had better be brought back safely.”
“Look, I’m not leaving anyone alone here. Especially not a woman. Especially not a human woman. You can tell that to the Chief. Either you guys leave without me, or you wait with me for Maisie to finish the repairs.”
A long pause followed. Jarmuk knew that the rescue rovers would leave as soon as the last of his mining crew had made their way through the airlock. They would curse him for his stubbornness, but there’s no way they would risk the lives of nearly twenty men, plus their own crew, while waiting on repairs to finish up. Jarmuk didn’t feel badly. He knew Daxar wouldn’t blame them. Daxar had been close friends with Jarmuk since they were toddlers, and Daxar knew Jarmuk’s stubbornness well.
“Fine,” came a voice from the military rover. “We’ll leave you with her. But you do understand that no more rescue rovers are coming, right? If your mining rover isn’t fixed in time, you’ll be forced to weather the storm here. And your little rover isn’t going to offer much protection against a storm of this size.”
Exactly. So why is everyone okay with leaving Maisie out here alone? But aloud, Jarmuk only said, “I understand. Now get my guys out of here.”
The last of the miners had just cycled through the rescue rovers’ airlocks, and the rescue rovers turned. They began bouncing slowly away across the bumpy surface of Zocrone, and within a minute they were no longer visible. Jarmuk turned his attention to Maisie, who was diligently working away at the engine. Jarmuk had no comm link to her, so he couldn’t even ask her how it was going. Maybe that was better. Maybe he didn’t want to know. If he and the girl did end up stuck out here during the worst of the storm, there was a good chance they wouldn’t survive. A quick glance at the weather radar on the rover’s front console told him that they were running out of time. Pretty soon it would be too late to ever hope to escape to the city dome before the whirling path of the super-tornado caught up with them.
But Jarmuk refused to let himself panic. He had been in hopeless situations before, and had managed to come through them. Why should today be any different? As long as he still had a chance, he would hold on to hope. Besides, he couldn’t feel too sorry for himself. After all, if the rover wasn’t fixed and the Zekkardite was left out here for the storm to toss around, the city dome itself would likely be damaged. People inside the dome would be in danger too.
To try to take his mind off of the impending doom, Jarmuk concentrated on watching Maisie work as best he could. It wasn’t easy to see her. The sky was growing darker, and the dust was growing thicker. Jarmuk winced as he thought of all that dust pelting against the open engine compartment. He knew the rovers’ engines were all built to be extremely dust resistant. They had to be on a planet like Zocrone, where a simple drive across the terrain was enough to stir up huge clouds of dust. Still, there was a difference between “dust-resistant” and “built to withstand a super-tornado-level dust storm.”
The dust must have been driving Maisie crazy, but she continued to work steadily. By the light beam from her helmet, Jarmuk could see her hands flying back and forth across the different components of the engine. Watching her work made him feel better. He’d meant it earlier when he told Daxar that if anyone could fix this rover quickly, it was her. He’d seen her working on spaceships, and he was always impressed with her uncanny ability to immediately know what was wrong and how to fix it. In fact, many times she realized that something was wrong before a spaceship even began showing obvious signs of problems. She was a genius, although she constantly denied that she was anything special.
You are something special. And now would be a great time for you to prove it. Jarmuk tapped his fingers nervously over and over as he watched the super-tornado get closer and closer on the radar screen. Rover engines were even easier than spaceship engines to deal with. Surely, it wouldn’t be too much longer?
As if to mock
his hopefulness, everything in the rover suddenly went black. The console screen went black, and the overhead lighting failed.
“That can’t be good,” Jarmuk announced to the empty rover cabin. A moment later, the emergency lighting came on. Jarmuk pulled his helmet on and hooked in to the oxygen tank on his survival suit. If the systems on the ship were failing, he might suddenly lose pressure and oxygen. But as soon as he’d started breathing through the oxygen system of his survival suit, the power came back on in the rover. The lights and computer console lit up again, and a split-second after that, the engine itself started up with a roar.
“I don’t believe it,” Jarmuk whispered, looking out at Maisie just in time to see her fist pump the air. Even though he had a lot of confidence in her abilities, he hadn’t been able to completely squash the doubts and fears he’d felt.
Those doubts were thoroughly squashed now. The rover’s engine purred steadily, and the dozens of “emergency” and “failure” notifications that had been flashing at him from the console all began to disappear. Maisie had done it. She’d saved the rover, saved herself, saved Jarmuk…and saved the city dome. Of course, they still had to get this rover and its Zekkardite load out of the open air if they wanted to save the city dome. But they still had time to do that, if they acted quickly.
Jarmuk ran toward the airlock. Maisie would be wanting to get inside the airlock, and he worried that she was going to blow away as soon as she unhooked herself from the side of the ship. He cursed at the airlock’s pressurization system as it slowly changed the pressure in the chamber to match the outside temperature.
“Come on, come on, come on.” After what felt like an eternity, the process was complete and Jarmuk stepped out into the storm. Red dust blew so thickly that he could only see a few inches in front of his face. He gritted his teeth together and began walking along the side of the rover toward the front, looking for Maisie.
Her helmet’s light appeared just in front of him a few moments later. She was moving quickly, traveling along the side of the spaceship just as he was. She looked startled when she saw him, but then smiled in greeting. She pointed toward the back of the rover and he nodded. Yes, of course they were headed toward the airlock.
He linked his elbow with hers, giving them both added stability as they shuffled along. Jarmuk prayed that no big gusts of wind would blow by right now. All they had to brace themselves with was the side of the rover, and if the wind came from the wrong direction, that wouldn’t do them much good.
The minute that it took them to finish their walk felt like an eternity. Jarmuk felt a strange, protective feeling coming over him. He had to take care of Maisie, no matter what. She felt so small and fragile, with her delicate human elbow linked through his muscular Zocronian one. And yet, this human was anything but fragile. She had just braved a super-tornado storm to fix his rover, after all. Not many Zocronians would have done that, and yet Maisie had insisted on it. She had risked her life for his people.
When they finally stepped into the airlock and it began pressurizing, Jarmuk felt another rush of relief. They hadn’t been blown away, and the engine was still running. They might actually pull this off. He glanced over at Maisie and gave her a thumbs up. She smiled at him, although that smile was only half visible through the layer of dust that covered her helmet’s visor. In fact, a thick layer of dust covered her almost completely, making her survival suit look like it was red instead of the black it actually was.
But it didn’t matter what color her suit was: the thing looked fantastic on her. Zocronian survival suits were made of a specialized stretchy material that expanded just enough to cover the body of whoever was using it. This allowed the suits to be made in one size that would conveniently fit anyone. It also meant that the suits were always form fitting, and Jarmuk was noticing for the first time just how fit Maisie’s form was. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her in anything other than her baggy flight mechanic coveralls, or other similarly loose clothes. He’d always thought she was beautiful, but seeing every curve of her body took things to a whole new level.
She wasn’t just beautiful. She was hot. Damn hot. Her curves were generous and perfect. Her breasts were perfectly round, and much larger than the breasts of a typical Zocronian. Where Zocronian women were boxy and stiff, Maisie was smooth and fluid. Her body beckoned to him, and for one crazy moment, Jarmuk almost reached out to touch her.
The beeping sound announcing that the airlock was done pressurizing brought him to his senses. Maisie probably wouldn’t appreciate being randomly fondled by a big blue alien, and besides, as attractive as she was, Jarmuk had more important things to do right now than making a move on a woman. Things like saving that woman’s life, and his own, by getting this rover out of the super-tornado’s direct path. Things like saving Zocrone’s city dome by getting the load of Zekkardite out of the super-tornado’s path.
Jarmuk tore his helmet off. “Nice work. Now let’s get out of here.”
Maisie took off her helmet as well. Her golden brown hair was currently matted with sweat, and her face was covered with grease and dirt. She must have been working in Ashariz’s garage when she got called for the rover repair job. She was a mess, but still beautiful.
How have I never noticed before just how beautiful she is? Jarmuk wasn’t blind. He’d noticed that each of the four women on the crew that had arrived in Zocrone a few weeks ago were good looking. But he’d always thought Maisie was the best looking of them, and now, he was realizing that she might just be the best looking woman he’d ever met, period.
“Everything all right?” Maisie asked.
Jarmuk realized he was staring. He didn’t have time to stare right now, and besides, he didn’t want to make things awkward between Maisie and him.
“Everything’s great. Come on to the front of the rover with me. This is going to be a pretty bumpy ride, so you’ll want to strap into one of the seats for sure.”
Jarmuk whirled around and headed back to the front of the rover without another word, hoping that Maisie hadn’t noticed how awkward he was being. Once he was back in the familiar territory of the rover’s cockpit, he calmed down a bit. Maisie had done her job, and now he needed to do his job and get them out of here. He started scanning the screens on the console, his eyes flying across the system status messages. Maisie had done a good job with the engine. Whatever had been wrong with it, she had fixed quickly and completely.
Unfortunately, despite her speed, that fix still might not have come in time for them to make it to the city dome before the worst of the super-tornado reached them. Jarmuk frowned as he stared down at the weather radar screen. That thing was huge, and it was only picking up speed.
“Something wrong?” Maisie asked. He glanced over at her to find her carefully watching him. He could tell by the worry in her gorgeous sea green eyes that she had been reading him like a book. She knew they were in trouble.
“The super-tornado has picked up speed. There’s no way we’re going to be able to make it back into Zocrone before we’re caught up in it.”
Fear crossed her face, but she didn’t flinch. “Okay. So what are our options, then?”
Jarmuk rubbed his ridged forehead. Ordinarily, he would have been thrilled to be caught alone in a rover’s cabin with such a gorgeous woman. But right now, he wished he were anywhere but here. The next hour or so wasn’t going to be pretty.
“We can hunker down here, and hope that none of the Zekkardite is blown into the rover’s cabin, destroying our pressure seal.”
Maisie frowned. “That seems unlikely, since we’re worried about the Zekkardite piercing the city dome itself. It wouldn’t take much to ruin this rover. What’s Plan B?”
“Plan B is to try to make it back to the Zekkardite mines.”
“But aren’t we at the halfway point? If we can’t make it back to the city dome, how are we going to make it back to the mines?”
“We are at the halfway point, but the road from here to the min
es is quite a bit smoother than the road from here to the city dome. I can push the rover to go faster on the smoother road, which means we just might make it to the mines. If we can get back inside, even if it’s just barely into the main entrance, we’ll be safe. Those mines are inside of some really tough rock. And even if we don’t make it, at least the Zekkardite will be further away from the city dome. Less chance of it being blown into the dome and damaging it.”
“Sounds like our best option. Let’s do it. And let’s do it quickly.”
Jarmuk nodded, the adrenaline starting to pump through his body. He swished his long thick tail behind him, a nervous habit that somehow always helped calm him down. “You’ll want to buckle in,” he said to Maisie. She was already sitting down and pulling the safety harness closed around her, muttering as she tried to adjust it. It looked comically large at first, since it had last been adjusted for a Zocronian male. Humans, especially the females, were quite a bit smaller than any of the Zocronians.
Jarmuk had to force himself to sit down and buckle in. He felt way too hyped up to constrain himself, but he knew he’d be an idiot not to. Things were about to get crazy. He tapped his foot tensely as he began slowly turning the rover around one hundred and eighty degrees. This part he could not rush. If he turned the rover too fast, the Zekkardite trailer could potentially be knocked off balance, spilling some of its load. Then there would be no way to avoid having the Zekkardite blown up into the air by the super-tornado. Jarmuk kept one eye on the navigation screen and one eye on the weather screen as he drove. The super-tornado still looked like it was picking up speed. This was going to be close.
As soon as the rover was turned and Jarmuk was driving straight once again, he pushed the vehicle quickly to maximum acceleration. The whole rover groaned and whined in protest, and the engine’s temperature gauge continued to climb. Jarmuk ignored all the warning lights that started flashing, and kept pushing the rover. If they were going to make it, this was the only way.
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 19
