“Yeah, you’re not going to like it, I already know. But I think it’s necessary for the morale of our city.”
Jarmuk’s frown deepened. “Dax, just spit it out. What did you do?”
“I set up an awards presentation for tomorrow night.”
There were a few beats of silence while Maisie and Jarmuk both tried to process this. Then, in unison, they both said, “You what?!”
Daxar held up his hands in a hopeless gesture of surrender. “I know, I know. I knew you guys weren’t going to like this. But seriously. People were so scared. I tried to keep the potential problem with the super-tornado and the Zekkardite quiet, but somehow word got out, and spread quickly. And everyone was terrified. So when they found out that Maisie went out to her almost certain death to fix the engine, and succeeded, it was like a fairy tale to them. And now that you’re all back they’ve heard about how you, Jarmuk, drove the rover through the super-tornado.”
“It wasn’t exactly through the super-tornado. More like right ahead of it.”
“Whatever. The point is, everyone is excited about this, in a way they haven’t been excited about something in a long time. I decided that the best way to capitalize on those feelings was to award you both an official Zocronian medal of bravery.”
Jarmuk frowned. “That’s a thing? I’ve never even heard of that medal before.”
Daxar grinned. “It’s a thing as of right now.”
Jarmuk punched him in the arm. Maisie winced, but Daxar only laughed, and Maisie shook her head. It was so weird to her how Daxar and his friends interacted. Maisie and Nova were close friends, but Nova was also her captain. She never would have dreamed of punching her superior, even in jest. But Daxar got punched by his crew all the time.
Must be a guy thing? Why are men so weird?
“So what do you say?” Daxar asked, bringing the conversation smoothly back to the bravery award. “Will you two come to the ceremony tomorrow?”
“Do we have a choice?” Maisie asked, her voice sounding a bit bitterer than she’d intended.
Daxar looked at her with kindness in his eyes. “Yes, you have a choice. I’m not going to force you to do this if it’s something you don’t want to do. But I strongly encourage you to come. Both of you, but especially you, Maisie. As you know, up until your crew arrived in Zocrone, I had strict rules prohibiting any outsiders. This means that suddenly having a bunch of humans around is a new thing for everyone in Zocrone. Most people love having you here, but there are still a handful who view your species with suspicion. It would do wonders if you appeared publicly, graciously accepting an award for bravery.”
Maisie frowned, still not convinced.
“Nova agrees with me,” Daxar said, which brought a guffaw of laughter from Jarmuk.
“Of course Nova agrees with you. She’s your girl.”
Daxar glared at Jarmuk. “Oh please. Like you know anything about what it’s like to have a girl. When’s the last time you had a girlfriend? When we were teenagers?”
Maisie coughed uncomfortably, but Jarmuk gave Daxar a winning smile.
“Wouldn’t you like to know? I don’t have to tell you everything.”
Maisie could feel her cheeks heating up with embarrassment. She had to stop this conversation, or she was going to end up with a bright red face. Jarmuk loved to joke, and he was liable to keep teasing Daxar until Daxar finally realized that there was truth behind the teasing about Jarmuk’s love life.
“I’ll do it,” Maisie said loudly, abruptly stopping the banter between Daxar and Jarmuk.
“You will?” they both asked at the same time, both looking surprised.
“Yes. I’ll do it. For morale. Just please keep it as simple as possible. I don’t want a big production.”
“Maisie, there’s no way this isn’t going to be a big production,” Jarmuk said. “No matter how small and quick Dax makes the ceremony, the entire city is going to show up.”
“It’s fine. I’ll deal with it as best I can, and hope that things die off after that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m exhausted. I’d really like to get home.”
Jarmuk’s face suddenly looked panicked, which struck Maisie as funny. The man loved to joke around and tease, but even he seemed at a loss for what to say right now. Daxar, however, knew exactly what to say.
“See, Jarmuk. Maisie’s doing it. You should, too. It’ll show everyone that—”
“Fine,” Jarmuk interrupted. “I’ll do it, on one condition.”
Daxar’s face lit up. “Of course. Anything. We can adjust the ceremony however you’d like.”
For a horrifying moment, Maisie thought Jarmuk was going to demand something extra glitzy, just to spite her for agreeing to the awards. He looked at her and smiled mischievously, and her heart pounded in her chest. But when he spoke, she was surprised by what he asked for.
“My only requirement is that Maisie come to the bar with me after the awards.”
Maisie’s jaw dropped. “Really? You’re going to blackmail me into going to the bar?”
Jarmuk’s signature goofy grin crossed his face. Normally, Maisie loved that grin. But right now she wished she could wipe it away. “It’s not blackmail,” he said with a shrug. “You can accept or not, and nothing bad will happen to you or anyone you care about either way. But you’ll have a heck of a lot of more fun if you let me take you out afterward.”
Daxar was frowning, clearly confused by the request. Maisie knew it was only a matter of time before Jarmuk told Daxar about her. After all, those two knew everything about each other. But again, she wasn’t prepared for the conversation at this exact moment. She truly was exhausted, and besides, she herself was confused over what her feelings for Jarmuk were, or where any of this was going. So she shrugged and decided to give in quickly once again.
“Fine, Jarmuk. You go to the awards ceremony and play nicely with everyone there, and then I’ll go to the bar with you afterward. It’s a deal. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do want to get home before anyone else comes looking for me here. I don’t have the energy to act like a gracious heroine tonight.”
With that, Maisie turned and began walking toward her apartment building. She moved quickly, half afraid that Jarmuk or Daxar were going to try to stop her. Thankfully, they both just let her go. As soon as she had turned the corner and was out of their sight, she broke into a run. She just wanted to get behind closed doors before anyone else saw her. At the entrance to the apartment building, she let the retinal security scanner pass over her eyes to verify her identity.
“Welcome back, Maisie Scotts,” the computerized voice said cheerily, opening the door to allow her into the lobby of the building.
At least the computer doesn’t treat me any differently now that I’m a “heroine.” Maisie scampered through the lobby, thankful that it was empty, and then took the elevator pod to the fifth floor. There, she let the retinal scanner on her own apartment door verify her identity. After that, she was finally home. Finally safe. She closed and locked the door behind her, then sank down to the floor and put her head in her hands.
How had her life changed so much in just one day? This morning, she’d been practically anonymous. Well, as anonymous as one could be when you were one of only four humans in a city of Zocronians. But still. No one had paid that much attention to her. She’d also been quite single, with no prospects for a boyfriend on the horizon at all. Now she’d slept with Jarmuk, one of the best known Zocronians in the city, and she had no idea whether it actually meant anything.
It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything. He’s an important Zocronian and I’m just a human whose only talent is fixing spaceships. And rovers. I guess I can fix rovers, too.
Maisie went to the small kitchen of her apartment to look for something to eat. Her stomach had been growling for a while now. She should have taken some food from the mine’s supply room when Jarmuk offered it, but she’d been far too preoccupied with thinking about how wonderful he was to
worry about eating. Now, the afterglow from their lovemaking session was fading, and reality was hitting her hard.
She rummaged in her cupboard for a food cube, happy to see that she had one in her favorite flavor: tropical sensation. At least that was the closest English translation to the flavor name that she could come up with. It wasn’t a perfect translation, but it was a pretty damn good food cube. Maisie took the cube and put it into her food transformer for one minute. The transformer was a box that looked somewhat similar to the microwaves that were so popular back on Earth, but it worked completely differently. Rather than just heating up food, the transformer rearranged particles of the food cube until the cubes looked more like a real meal than an oversized protein bar. As Maisie watched, her tropical sensations food cube turned into a plate full of coconut rice and chicken breast covered in a tropical spice blend. Or a chicken equivalent, at least. The Zocronians didn’t actually have chickens, but they had some smaller birds that tasted essentially the same.
After the food was transformed into a much more edible-looking dish, the transformer also warmed it perfectly to give Maisie a hot meal. Food cubes were a bit pricey, but Maisie loved them. They were like a high tech frozen dinner—much fancier and tastier than the frozen dinners back on Earth, which seemed to lag centuries behind other food options in terms of taste and quality.
Still, Maisie missed some things about Earth. There were foods there that other civilizations didn’t seem to have embraced, like French fries or pizza. And coffee did exist outside of earth, but it was expensive and relatively rare. No one else seemed to have embraced it the way humans had. Maisie hadn’t been a huge coffee drinker, but these days she found herself constantly craving the stuff.
And besides all the food, Maisie could be anonymous on Earth. She could walk down the street without anyone giving her a second thought, because she looked like everyone else. Here, she could never do that. Here, she looked out-of-place with her pale skin and shorter, smaller frame. Everyone knew who she was, especially now that she had saved the city.
I don’t want the spotlight. I just want to work hard, make a good living, and be left alone. But the spotlight had found her, it seemed. Tomorrow, she’d be forced to go to an awards ceremony and accept an award in front of thousands of cheering Zocronians. She wanted to be anonymous, but that wasn’t happening any time soon. And while she was glad Jarmuk was coming to the ceremony, too, so that she wouldn’t be alone in the spotlight, she wasn’t sure how to process her feelings for him. She was both excited and terrified to see him again. Her heart beat faster at the sight of him, but her head told her they were a bad match.
He was special, a model Zocronian. And she? She was just Maisie. Grease Maisie, who had grown up dirt poor and never really belonged in polite society. She didn’t want the glitz and glamour of the government spotlight. Maybe that’s why she had been such a good smuggler. On a smuggling ship, hiding out and staying anonymous was encouraged. It was necessary for survival.
Now, Maisie was being forced to smile and wave to an entire planet, and she didn’t like it one bit. And she wasn’t sure if having Jarmuk smile and wave with her was going to make things harder or easier.
She scowled as she started digging into her coconut rice. There was only one thing to do: get through the next day as best she could, and then do her best to hide out in Ashariz’s garage and wait for this whole “you saved Zocrone” thing to blow over. It had to blow over eventually, right? And so did this unrealistic desire for Jarmuk, right?
Maisie sighed as she spooned another giant bite of coconut rice into her mouth. Only time would tell.
Chapter Seven
Twenty-four hours later, Maisie fidgeted nervously inside Zocrone’s city headquarters building, waiting for Chief Daxar to finish his speech and call her and Jarmuk out to greet the crowd and receive the just-invented Zocronian medal of bravery. She’d made the mistake of peeking out through one of the front windows to see how big the crowd was. It looked just as big as the crowd that had gathered outside of the Starburst yesterday, perhaps even bigger. Every single Zocronian was here to cheer for Jarmuk and Maisie.
All Maisie wanted to do was run home and hide, but it was a little too late for that. She’d already agreed to this circus, and she’d bought an expensive dress for the occasion. Jarmuk was eyeing that dress now, and she blushed when she caught him staring at her.
“You look amazing,” he murmured, reaching out to squeeze her hand. She should have pulled away. There were already enough butterflies in her stomach without adding more from Jarmuk’s touch. But Maisie couldn’t pull away. She’d been craving his touch all day, and now that she had it, she just wanted more. So she looked up at him and met his gaze, forcing a small smile onto her face.
“Thanks. I wasn’t sure what was appropriate to wear to a ceremony like this.”
He laughed, then leaned in to reward her with a kiss. She shivered with pleasure as he leaned to whisper in her ear, his hot breath tickling her eardrum. “Considering it’s a made-up award anyway, you shouldn’t have worried so much. Besides, it doesn’t matter what you wear. You always look perfect.”
Maisie shivered again, unsure of how to respond. Jarmuk’s closeness was unnerving her, as was his serious tone. He always acted like such a goof that hearing him speak so seriously, especially about her, was a little confusing. She took a step back and tried to look like she was busy checking her reflection in the glass of one of the windows. Really, she just needed space to take a few deep breaths and calm down.
Her dress was a deep, bright yellow, interwoven with shimmering purple threads. This sort of colorful style was typical of the Zocronians, who seemed to take a great deal of inspiration from the tropical plants that surrounded them. The dress reached to just above her knees, showing off her calves, which Maisie rarely did. Her legs were long and lean enough to be considered pretty, but they were usually so covered in bruises from her work on the spaceships that she was embarrassed for anyone to see them. Today, though, she figured that a few bruises would only add to her credibility as a heroine—a credibility she felt was seriously suspect.
Jarmuk didn’t act like he shared any of her nerves. He had been completely at ease since the moment he showed up here at the city dome, looking more dressed up than Maisie had ever seen him. He wore black slacks and a white button down shirt, a plain but sophisticated outfit that was a bit strange for a Zocronian. Even the men here loved their colorful clothes. Well, all of the men except Daxar. Chief Daxar always wore plain black pants and white shirts. Perhaps Jarmuk hadn’t owned any dressy clothes and had borrowed some from his friend. Even if that was the case, the clothes looked amazing on Jarmuk. The shirt stretched just right over his broad chest, showing off his physical prowess without being so tight that it looked like it didn’t fit. And Maisie thought the deep blue of his Zocronian skin looked even better against the plain white of his shirt than against a more colorful getup. White allowed him to really show off the color of his skin, and Maisie thought that she’d never seen anyone look more handsome.
But before she could compliment him on his looks, she realized that Daxar had ended his speech and was calling for Zocrone’s two heroes, Jarmuk Kader and Maisie Scotts, to come out and greet the audience.
“Ready?” Jarmuk asked, a wide grin on his face.
Maisie groaned. “No. But let’s go and get this over with.”
Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door to the city headquarters building open and walked out to the top of the steps, where Daxar had set up an impromptu stage. In the city square below her, a sea of blue-skinned faces looked up with wide smiles. The sound of their cheering and clapping thundered against her ears. Was this really happening? She, Grease Maisie, was being honored like some sort of war hero. All for repairing one little rover engine.
Jarmuk pushed her forward, his hand on the small of her back. She was grateful for his touch. The crowd felt dizzying, and knowing that he was here with her made this all so
much easier. Besides, even in the midst of a stressful situation like this, his touch electrified her. How was it possible for anyone to feel so good?
When they reached the podium, Maisie stood beside Daxar, and Jarmuk stood on her other side. She snuck a glance at him, marveling at how tall and strong he looked. His tail swished behind him, its spikes on display and gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. He also had his finger spikes out, and the sight of him like this made Maisie’s heart skip a beat. He was putting on quite a show, waving and smiling at the crowd as though he’d been born a celebrity and knew exactly how to play the part.
Maisie wasn’t nearly as comfortable in front of the crowd, but she managed to smile and wave. Below her, on the front row, the rest of her human crew—Nova, Anya, and Evie—smiled encouragingly up at her. She had a feeling they were going to tease her endlessly about this: they knew she hated the spotlight. Still, she was glad they were there. At least she knew there were three people out there who knew the real her.
Daxar put a shiny, purple medal around her neck, and another one around Jarmuk’s neck, declaring them the first recipients of the prestigious Zocronian medal of bravery. Maisie wasn’t sure what kind of purple metal had been used to make the medals, but she had to admit it was beautiful. It was so typically Zocronian, too. They liked color with everything.
Daxar asked her to say a few words, which she had been expecting. But even though she knew the request was coming, and had been preparing for it, she still felt at a loss for words as she stepped up to the microphone. Unexpectedly, memories of her childhood came rushing back to her. She thought of all the times she’d tried to make something of herself, and had been made fun of mercilessly by the kids who were richer, smarter, and better than her. Somehow, this situation felt the same. She felt like as soon as she spoke, the Zocronians were all going to know that she was a fraud. They were going to see that, although she fixed a rover at a critical moment, she didn’t have much else to offer.
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 24
