Pirate: Space Gypsy Chronicles, #1 (9 page)

“Well there’s one reason.” Her lips pursed. “Your concept that women aren’t good for much else. I won’t be treated as a sex object.”

“Then stop being so bloody sexy.” As retorts went, it was more of a compliment. It totally threw her off. Excellent.

“I—You—” She glared. “Stop playing these games with me.”

“What game?”

“The constant flirting. It’s annoying.”

“For you perhaps…” A slow-forming smile tugged at his lips. “For me, it’s the most entertaining thing going right now.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?” She shook her head. “We’re alone on this ship, for God knows how long because you won’t say. Me. And you. Now, I find you hard enough to tolerate right now—”

“Only because you won’t ease my hardness.” He might have given that an extra hip thrust just for emphasis. It didn’t mean she had to throw a food packet at his head. She missed, of course, but still.

“Let’s say I did the, you know”—her cheeks turned pink—“with you.”

“Had wild, passionate, sweaty coitus that makes you scream?” he offered. It seemed the gentlemanly thing to do since she seemed in need of a word, or two.
What she really needs is two hand spans of cock.
But she appeared determined to fight the natural order.

“See, it’s comments like these that make me not want to sleep with you. There are times, lots and lots of times, that I just want to throttle you.”

“Go ahead.” This time, he shook his groin at her. He also sidestepped her rapid kick.

“Ooooooh!” She yelled her frustration. “Don’t you get it? I can’t sleep with a guy I want to throat punch. A guy I am tempted to shove in an airlock and eject into space.”

“Do you even know where the airlocks are?” He certainly hadn’t shown her.

“That’s not the point. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is the fact you can’t expect me to get intimate with someone I dislike.”

“You don’t dislike me.” He might irritate her to no end. Might frustrate her—sexually—on a daily, numerous-times-a-day basis. But she didn’t hate him.

“You are utterly impossible to talk to,” she yelled as she stomped out of the room.

“And you’ve got a great ass!” he hollered back.

That would look so much better naked and bent over. And she thought they had to be friends for that to be fun. Silly wench.

S
tupid jerk had done
it again. Made her want to smile, even though she wanted to hate him so much. The man truly had written the book when it came to being a chauvinistic pig. He was a jerk. Someone she should steer clear of, and she tried, truly she did, but each time she got to the point that she wanted to smother him in his sleep, he did something to surprise, something so utterly
male
and
hot.
In this case, complimenting her ass, an ass she’d worried was a little too wide. An ass that always seemed a little too snug in the pants she bought. An ass he thought was sexy.

It made a girl want to march back in there, grab him by the shirt, and shove him up against a wall to steal a kiss.

Like seriously want to.

She didn’t, though, but mostly because Annabelle, in a tone much too sulky for a computer, announced, “The rings of Saturn are eminent. Do you still wish to collect a sample of the debris, Captain?”

We’re close to Saturn?
A real planet!

Emma knew the ship hadn’t spoken to her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. As Rafe strode out of the kitchen and recreation area, she tagged after him, biting her tongue instead of interrupting his instructions to his ship.

“Yes, I still want a sample of the debris and get us as close as you can to the surface of the moon we found.”

“Which moon, Captain?”

“Dumb question, Annabelle. There’s only one that’s interesting enough to warrant a second look. The one with the atmosphere. I want to gather some more readings. I had time, while on Earth, to analyze the ones we recorded as we came through the system. A few things stood out, so I’d like to grab a second set.”

“Does this mean I’m going to get to see Saturn?” Emma exclaimed, forgetting her ire in the face of her excitement.

While Rafe didn’t look back as he took the stairs at the end of the hall, he did reply. “You can see it from the safety of the ship. Saturn is not a safe place to visit. It’s comprised mostly of gas, with winds that would strip your bones in less than a second.”

“Then why are you getting a sample from it?”

He answered, even as he disappeared from sight, having stepped onto the bridge. “I am taking a sample from the rings and getting a more comprehensive set of readings from a moon your astronomers called Titan.”

“Why the interest in that moon? Isn’t it just…” she asked, the question trailing off as she stepped into the command center and the image on the screen drew her attention. The vast darkness with pinpricks of light had been replaced. She wouldn’t call it an improvement, though. The vessel coasted straight toward a wall of dirt, chunks of rock and dust forming a thick band. “Is it safe to fly so close to that stuff? Do I need to worry about one of those rocks putting a hole in the ship, sucking all of the air out, leaving us dried and frozen husks?”

“Nothing in space is safe, but in this instance, we should be fine. None of the debris you see is large enough to cause any significant impact damage.”

The king of non-reassurance, but since he didn’t seem worried, she would assume he knew what he was doing. Again, not very reassuring. “How do you get a sample? Are you going to space walk or something?”

“I wasn’t planning to. Are you volunteering?”

“Like hell.” She’d watched that movie
Gravity
and remembered the horror of drifting in space with no hope of rescue.

“Good answer.” He laughed. “Going out in that is suicide. The suits aren’t built for that kind of abuse. We’re going to use a mechanical arm to snare a sample. Watch.”

The camera view changed, and she was given a perspective from the side of the ship. Extending from it, a thick metal arm unfolded, the hinges giving it flexibility. She noted, on the end of the appendage, a pincer-like attachment much too big to grab at dust and small chunks of rocks, or she would have thought.

“How is that supposed to get samples?”

“You’ll see.”

The extended arm plunged into the dirt maelstrom. A break in it appeared as particles were suddenly sucked to the arm. They remained clinging, even as the arm retracted.

“How did you do that?” she asked. “Is it some futuristic force field? A super dirt magnet?”

“Nothing so complicated. It vacuumed the area. The suction pulls a sample from all around and keeps it clinging. When the arm pulls back into its storage area along the side of the ship, it will release the suction, and the particles will fall in the containment unit for collection and analysis.”

How mundane. A giant dust-busting vacuum. But he did mention containment? “So this sample. Is it well protected? It won’t like get sucked into the ventilation system and disperse spores that will turn us into murderous mutants, will it?”

“You know, for a girl who had a hard time believing the president was an alien, you have an awfully active imagination.”

A dirty imagination too, but she didn’t tend to share that part.

“Approaching the moon Titan, Captain.”

The announcement drew her attention. The screen showed an orb, an orb, which, in some respects, reminded her of Earth. “Are those oceans and clouds?” she asked, tracing the aqua green on the screen.

“Yes, but not of the variety you are used to. The bodies of liquid you see are comprised of methane for the most part.”

The ship stopped its forward momentum and seemed to hover. “Matching orbits with the moon. Sensors activated. Acquiring new data.”

“Actually, Annabelle, let’s land on it.”

“Land, Captain?” Annabelle beat Emma to the question.

“I think I could use a change of scenery and a chance to stretch my legs. And I know a certain crew member is curious.” Rafe winked and smiled at Emma, but it wasn’t the kind of smile that said he was doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He was up to something.

Eyes narrowed in suspicion, she asked, “Are you planning to ditch me there because I won’t sleep with you?”

“Of course not. I’m not a killer. I’m a pirate. I’d sell you before I wasted you.”

“Good to know I have some value, but still wondering why you want to walk on the moon.”

“Such a suspicious mind, and here I thought you’d be excited at your first chance to walk on alien soil. To even possibly gaze upon the remnants of a civilization.”

“Are you saying aliens used to live there?” Her eyes widened.

“Your star system is well suited to life. Mars, once upon a time, flourished with it. I suspect Titan also, once upon a time, played host to biological entities. But orbits change, asteroids impact, and whole ecosystems, and those living within them, can be wiped out in a moment.”

“You said we might find some of a civilization? What kind of pe…” She trailed off. Should she say people? That probably wasn’t quite right, and yet calling whatever lived there “things” seemed rude. She struggled for a word, a word that wasn’t alien, and failed. “What were they like?”

“No one can ever know for sure, not without finding a preserved corpse or images. But if my sensors and guess about the results are correct, then they left traces behind that time hasn’t completely obliterated. Traces you and I are going to look at. That is, if you want to
come
?”

Yes, he said that in his dirtiest dog voice, but that didn’t change the offer.
I’m gonna walk on a moon.

H
aving walked
the surface of moons, and dozens of planets, Rafe should have been nonchalant. Should have been.

Yet, there was something about the excitement bubbling in Emma that proved contagious—and not in an I-need-a-giant-fucking-needle-of-medicine contagious. He’d seen women get excited over jewelry. His own sisters used to bounce off the walls—literally because they turned off the gravitational field—when he visited them before his exile with presents. Their excitement never affected him like Emma’s did.

It was utterly emasculating. So he scratched. Long. Hard. And vigorously.

“You know they have powders for that on Earth,” Emma remarked with a pointed glance at his groin.

“Just adjusting it for comfort, wench. Males of a certain size have that problem.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed the issue you have getting your head through the door.”

Touché. The barb might have scored a point, but he knew how to remain ahead. “I should probably mention you might want to make sure there are no rips in the suit you choose to wear. The slightest hole and you will be forever frozen.”

She chewed her lower lip, her trepidation clear. “I thought you said these suits were safe.”

“They are.” A wicked smile curved his lips. “Most of the time.” He didn’t let her know that he was meticulous about checking the suits after each foray. There were plenty of ways to die. Carelessness and stupidity weren’t high on his list.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” she stated as she snapped closures and ran her hands over the fluent, yet very resilient fabric.

“You think you know the secret workings of my mind, do you?” Then she was alone because even he couldn’t have explained his thoughts or actions. Rafe couldn’t deny the fact that he enjoyed antagonizing her. In that, she did have a point. He took special pleasure in driving her nuts. It was the why that plagued him.

“You’re trying to talk me out of walking on that moon because you’re afraid I’m going to catch on that you were lying to me about aliens once living there. But see, the thing is, I don’t care if there was life or not. I’m going to walk on a moon.” Spoken with utmost pleasure. Utmost happiness.

How long since he’d enjoyed a simple pleasure like that?

Man up. You get plenty of pleasure. Drinking. Whoring.
Except he’d not done much of either lately. While he might get drunk out of his mind planetside, he drew the line on board. And as for whoring… That also had lost its appeal long before his visit to Earth. It hit him a while back, as he woke beside yet another nameless face, that he longed for what his parents had. The closeness and connection with shared inside jokes, hugs, and laughter.

But that would require settling down. With one woman.

Ugh. No.

And even if he did—he cast an eye at Emma, who craned to peek over her shoulder, checking on her suit—he wouldn’t choose a woman like her. He’d find someone docile, a good old-fashioned Rhomanii girl. Someone who didn’t argue with him. Or make fun of him. Or…

Someone bo-r-r-r-ing.

Exactly. No wonder he kept putting off marriage.

The last closure on his suit fastened, he stood and approached her. “Let me give you a hand with your helmet.”

He plucked it from her unwieldy gloved fingers and fitted it over her head. It dropped into the sealed ring with a click. The gauge on her forearm showed it pressurizing properly. The heat monitor showed the suit functioning properly, and the oxygen supply reading showed proper levels and recycling.

Tap
.
Tap
.
Tap
. He knocked on her helmet. “All set to go.”

Frowning, she raised her hands to her head. “Don’t do that again.”

“Stop me.” He winked at her before placing his own helmet on and performing the same checks. Last of all, he strapped a pistol to his hip and made sure he put a knife in the sheath on his thigh. He caught her watching him.

“What do you need those for? I thought you said the aliens in this place died out.”

“They did, but only an idiot ever goes anywhere unarmed.” Even on board his ship, he kept weapons stashed in every room. It always paid to be safe. Although he’d hidden some of his more obvious guns and knives just in case he pushed Emma too far.

“If that’s the case, shouldn’t I have a weapon too?”

“Do you know how to shoot a gun or use a knife in a fight?”

“No.” Said almost in a sulk.

“Then we’re both probably safer leaving you without one.”

“You suck.”

“I would if someone wasn’t so uptight.”

Unwieldy gloves didn’t prevent her from expressing herself.

Approaching the locked door, he punched in a sequence on the rigid keypad. A buzzer sounded, along with a click. He cranked the handle for the door, spinning it until it could open. He stepped into the airlock. Turning around, he noted Emma hovering just outside.

“Are you coming or not?”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she took a deep breath. Then another. He could practically see nervousness pouring off her.

“Relax. This will be easy. Nothing to worry about.”

“Says you. You’ve done this before.”

Feeling uncharacteristically sympathetic, he reassured her instead of mocking. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Promise.”

Taking another deep breath, she stepped into the airlock. The door to his ship shut. The locks engaged as it sealed. A press of a button and he pressurized the room to match the outdoors, all the while watching Emma for signs of extreme agitation. Not everyone could handle the suit.

For some, the thought of having their life depend on the proper functioning of fabric, metal, and machinery was too much to bear. In those cases, panic could not only prove dangerous to the person suffering the anxiety but also affect anyone with them. Much like drowning, people grasped at those afloat, and a severely out-of-control person could cause damage to a suit or themselves.

So far, although Emma appeared nervous, it was of the normal variety that anyone felt their first time out.

When a bell sounded, letting him know pressurization was complete, he moved to the outer exit door, once again entering a sequence of buttons that unlocked the portal. In short order, he’d opened it to the surface of Titan.

As moons went, it wasn’t the most impressive, but on the bonus side, it didn’t kill him. Always a point in his book.

The temperature was cold, cold enough to freeze a body solid in a matter of seconds if exposed. A shame about the whole Popsicle thing because the moon was one of few in this galaxy managing to maintain an atmosphere with hydrogen and other gases that provided the cornerstone for biological life.

There was also moisture on the planet, methane lakes and seas, not viable for him per se, but certainly appealing to other species. While the oxygen content was low, the planet wasn’t bereft of gases like most other lunar asteroids.

He took a few steps onto the stony surface, the ground dry and cracked. The silt and sand formed drifts against rocky protrusions to create small dunes.

“This is fucking cool.” The reverence in Emma’s voice, tinny because it came through an embedded speaker, made him whirl, and he noted she’d left the relative safety of the airlock. “I’m on another world. Holy shit. Holy shit.” Her excitement shone through.

“You know what’s even cooler? Actually walking on it,” he teased, as she remained on the gangplank.

“I’m getting there. Don’t rush me.” She grumbled, but he saw and heard the smile in the words.

She gingerly took a step onto the surface. A second. The third one, more confident than the rest, made her bounce a little. A squeak in his helmet made him wince.

“Watch with the yelling, wench. I can’t adjust the volume.”

“Sorry.” Meekly said, but her face couldn’t hide her excitement. “I wasn’t expecting to float.”

“It’s that lower gravity I warned you about. And, before you ask, no, you can’t float away or jump so high you don’t come back down. But you will notice a difference when you walk. Don’t fight it. Use it to your advantage.”

Nodding, she took another step, a hesitant one. Then another, and soon, she was taking long strides across the flat plane, her giggles loud but pleasant.

She skipped around and returned to the craft, pausing before it, her head tilted back. “It looks bigger than I expected,” she remarked.

“Feels bigger too. Especially if you pet it right.”

“I think your ego has had enough petting. And you know I was talking about your ship. With the exception of the cargo hold, all the rooms are tight, and the halls are so narrow. I never realized how huge your ship was and how cool looking.” She reached out and rubbed a gloved hand over the surface shell of his craft. The faint light didn’t reflect at all off the dark blue/gray surface. “What is this? It doesn’t look like any kind of metal.”

“That would be because it’s not metal. It’s shit.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me correctly. The exterior is coated in Krolz shit. When mixed with the secretions from a plant on their home planet, the stuff hardens into an almost impenetrable shell.”

She snatched her hand back and shot him a dirty look. “You mean we’re riding around in a poop machine? That’s disgusting.”

“You are going to have to adjust your human sensibilities. Your species are but babies when it comes to utilizing resources, even those considered waste products.”

Even though she wore a visor, he could see her eyes narrow. “Is this your way of saying you’re saving my, um, bathroom activities to sell or use?”

“It makes great fertilizer for the Jukkilna fields.”

“Let’s stop talking about poop.”

“You started it with your ardent stroking.”

“And I’m finishing it. Last one to that giant dune is a rotten egg.” With an exuberant laugh, she launched herself, taking long, bouncing strides.

Having had plenty of practice, it took him but a moment to catch up and pass her. “Follow me. There’s a spot not far from here that we should check out.”

“Is it alien ruins?”

“Maybe.” Or it could be a heavy ore deposit. Or a crash site for another vessel. Either way, it stuck out in the readings they’d taken and begged a closer peek.

While all the sensory data seemed to agree the moon was dead, he still kept a close watch. He wasn’t the only pirate interested in planets with possible ruins. The price a relic from a dead civilization could fetch was not something anyone wanted to pass up.

The surface lacked the color and vibrancy that came from plant life. Everything here was frozen. The sandy surface was gray, striated with bluish crystals, liquid forever frozen in this sub-degree world.

The hump of a dune ahead of them made him pick up speed. He lengthened his stride, building momentum so that he could spring up the hillside, only lightly landing on the giving sandy surface, leaving an impression before pushing off again.

“Show off.” The words were grumbled, and he smiled. Turning at the peak, he expected to find Emma struggling, but to his surprise, she was only a few leaps behind him.

A triumphant smile pulled her lips as she reached the top of the dune alongside Rafe.

“You made it.”

“I did. But am now wishing I’d brought a flag or something.”

At that, Rafe laughed. “Perhaps you can design something with the rocks down below.”

“Can you imagine if I made like an S.O.S. or a happy face?” She giggled. “I wonder what the scientists on Earth would think if they caught it with their telescopes and stuff.”

“I think they’d cream their pants.”

At that remark, her laughter bubbled loud and rich, triggering a chuckle from him. For some reason, he held out his gloved hand to her. “Shall we, wench? Our destination lies just below by that rocky outcropping.”

Forgoing his hand, she leaped ahead, sprinting down the hill, faster than she probably expected given her squeal of “Oh shit. How do I stop?”

He should probably catch her. The last thing he wanted was for her to crash and rip her suit.

Down the dune he sprinted, leaping and soaring in mighty bounds until he caught up to her wobbling and flailing body, her failed attempt to slow her descent. She uttered a short scream as he caught her around the waist and continued his rapid bounce with her.

Arriving at the bottom, he steadied her until she caught her footing. Through the visor of her helmet, he could see her eyes shining and her lips parted.

“That was fun.”

Indeed it was. The last time he’d run in a low-gravity situation, he’d been escaping some indigenes intent on butchering him for food. He much preferred doing it for fun—and exploration.

His gaze was caught by something over her shoulder, something not naturally formed. “Would you look at that?”

She whirled, and because of the audio speaker, he caught her gasp. “Is that part of a building?”

Stepping around her, he approached the rock, jutting from the ground like a jagged tooth. A jagged tooth comprised of shaped stone blocks mortared together to form a wall. The edges of it were smooth, sands and wind and rain having spent eons wearing it down. Still, there was no hiding the fact that someone, or something, had created it.

As he ran his arm over the surface, letting his suit monitors take in readings that were being fed back to the ship, he noted Emma wandering away from him.

“Look, there’s more,” she noted. She reached out to touch a column, partially collapsed atop another wall, the smooth stone gray with grime.

Glancing around, he realized what he’d mistaken for rock was the crumbled remains of a building, one that once probably stood tall given parts of it had managed to remain unburied by the sands.

“Look, there’s a doorway,” she exclaimed as she rounded the corner. Before he could advise she wait for him, he heard her exclaim, “There’s light in here. Oh my God. The walls, they’re glowing.”

“Don’t touch it. I’m coming.”

He rounded the corner and spotted the opening in the rock. Emma wasn’t hard to find, having halted just inside. Inside a room that indeed glowed. It was also much warmer within. How could this be? Sensors hadn’t detected any heat on their sweeps.