Page 8 of Found Treasure Bride

“I was there three days before the looters came. I managed to catch them on vid, it’s not that good a shot, but you can see them testing the dome’s perimeter to see if there is a weak spot they can exploit.”

I froze when the males came into view.

“Mraghth!” Grorsch said, giving me a sidelong look.

“Yeah, I see that,” I replied. They were the same species as Rando, who had just offered us stupid money to ferry some collectibles. I had a very bad feeling about this. I looked at my buddy. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Hranggggg,” he asserted.

“What is it?” she asked, looking bewildered.

“Well, sweetcakes, it’s like this,” I began.

She stood up straighter and glared at me. “My name is Nancy, Nancy Cuthbert. Professor Nancy Cuthbert. Most certainly not Sweetcakes.”

Oof. I’d scrwed up there. I had my hands up in apology. “Sorry, Professor. What my colleague and I are discussing is how I just suffered a sudden change of luck at the gambling tables. We’re talking incredibly bad luck, the sort that kind of defy all the odds, you know? Only for Rando to personally seek me out and offer to wipe off my sudden mountain of debt if we fly out a shipment of rare collectibles he has arriving from somewhere.”

Grorsch pointed a finger at the screen. “Hragt graunnng hahft.”

“Yeah, there’s that too. It does seem awfully coincidental that he asked that, and here some looters are pillaging a virgin archeological site, and oh, look, they happen to be the same species as him. Care to have a wager that they’re his men?”

Grorsch gave m a dirty look. I threw my hands up in the air. “It’s a figure of speech! I promised, didn’t I? No more gambling for me after this.”

The professor pulled the memory stick and took it back to the case, lifting out a well-wrapped item. She lifted some of the cloth, swaddling it away from it, revealing a porcelain figurine of some kind.

“I need to get this and the memory crystals to my employers and make a report to the Enforcers. The consortium of institutions and their patrons have the rights to that site and so will pay you handsomely for your services helping secure it and the knowledge to be found there.”

She looked at me pleadingly.

To my surprise, Grorsch answered for us both, placing one enormous paw on her shoulder reassuringly as he nodded in unmistakable assent.

“Hraunghhhh.”

To my even bigger surprise, I didn’t argue. Nope, my dicks were controlling my mouth, all right. “I think we all might be in danger if we stick around. Grab what you need, and let’s take it to our ship. We’ll leave right away.”

It would mean breaking the docking clamps and going into hyperspace before Rando could catch us, so we’d have to evade his tractor beams before we reached a safe enough distance from them and the station to open a fold. We might have had to do similar elsewhere, once or twice, and I was sure we could do it again.

7

Nancy

My hurried agreement to let the Frellian carry the stasis box and its precious cargo straight out the door while I grabbed my blaster and stuffed a few changes of clothes, as well as a few crucial documents, into my backpack had nothing at all to do with how sexy the more human-looking of the pair was.

I’d noticed how he looked at me, alright. And even if I hadn’t it, those twin pythons in his tight pants couldn’t be missed. No, I was being practical. Given the new information about the station master, their conjecture about a possible link to my looters seemed likely, and I wanted to haul ass out of here. It sure sounded like there was more than a slim possibility that after I’d made my escape, they returned planetside to load what they were stealing and would be arriving here shortly to pass it along for someone else to smuggle. I did not want to be here if that happened, as I was pretty confident I’d end up pretty dead sooner or later. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the station master didn’t engineer an accident before then.

“You ready?” he asked. “Or do you have more stuff you need to bring?”

I bristled. No doubt he thought ‘sweetcakes’ here had a lot of frippery in a closet somewhere, and I needed to pack a trunk for the journey.

I shouldered my backpack and chewed my lower lip, looking indecisive. “I suppose I could pack my ballgowns and makeup in case they decide t hold a ball in my honor,” I replied innocently.

He snorted. “No need to get snarky with me. I didn’t know if you had some more stuff in another box somewhere for your museum people.”

Oh. Well, that was embarrassing. He had been trying to be professional, and I’d made an ass out of myself.

“Unfortunately not. They showed up, so I had to get the hell out of there.”

“Okay, well, come on then. While Grorsch takes the box to the Raven, you and I can go walk around together looking cozy.”