Chapter One
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The Big Bang Truck Stop – Basement-level gift shop
Axel Grey raced into the basement-level gift shop on a mission to get a bottle of water before he had to meet with Director Patmore.
He’d rather suck down a few shots of good old-fashioned Arkansas moonshine than a bottle of water for a meet and greet with Patmore, but it was likely better to be hydrated than drunk in this particular instance, especially first thing in the morning.
The Royal Caldera Forte cruise liner had just arrived in Alienn for its monthly port of call. While his chief of security brother was typically Patmore’s point of contact, Cam had taken the day off. Again. As communications chief, Axel was next in line as the alternate contact. On top of that, Diesel, their eldest brother and the truck stop’s Fearless Leader, was gone today, too.
Axel wasn’t certain how he’d gotten tricked into covering for Cam two months in a row—especially given what had happened last month with the same luxury airship—but he planned to ask for a big favor in return. He’d have to think of something premium.
Cam was to meet with Patmore within the first couple of hours of docking. The director was a big pain in the patootie, according to his aunt Dixie, and she would know. She and her best friend had hidden out on board during the cruise liner’s last trip in an effort to help Cam. His brother had only learned of their clandestine assistance after the fact.
It had been a miracle Aunt Dixie and Miss Penny hadn’t been found out during the ten days they spent touring the galaxy in luxury, dodging Patmore’s ever-watchful regard.
His communicator vibrated at his hip. He looked down. Director Patmore, confirming their meeting. Again. Axel snorted and ignored the reminder. It was the third check-in about this stupid meeting and Patmore had hit the top edge of Axel’s capacity for aggravation.
A representative from the way station always met with the director when the ship docked. It was the first thing they did, for pity’s sake. He didn’t need to be reminded of it minute by minute fifty times in the hour before it happened. Apparently, Director Patmore disagreed. Axel continued to the basement-level convenience store instead of going all the way up to the main store in Big Bang Truck Stop area.
He stepped through the entrance just as an attractive woman attempted to exit the exact same space.
She almost smacked right into him, but skidded to a halt barely in time. “Sorry,” she said with a quick smile. Her eyes were light green. Unusual. Easy to look at. He liked the color and her lovely smile.
“No worries,” Axel said, moving to his right to let her go by.
The green-eyed beauty moved in the same direction and they faced each other again. “Sorry,” she said once more and flashed another quick grin.
She quickly moved to the opposite side, just as he did the same thing. Her eyes lit up with amusement and a lyrical laugh escaped her lips, like she was embarrassed or nervous. Whatever the reason for the pleasant sound, Axel thought she was adorable.
Facing each other once more, Axel said, “You know what this means, right?”
Her sea-green gaze seemed locked on his in wonder. “No. What does it mean?”
“It means we have to dance.”
“What?”
Before she could say no, he grabbed her hand—her skin was so soft—took a step back and lifted their fastened hands in the air. He spun her in a circle. She twirled in a perfect pirouette as if they’d practiced this move for hours. When she faced him again, the power of her beauty made him ask, “So, do you want to dance some more?”
The surprise in her expression at the fast dance spin morphed into a beautiful smile. “Yes. I would love to dance some more.” She settled one hand tentatively on his shoulder as he placed his free palm at her waist. Their other hands were still connected from the original twirl.
“Awesome.” Axel stepped forward and took her loosely in his arms. He quirked his brow as “Hold Me Now” by the Thompson Twins played clearly through the hidden speakers. It was a perfectly excellent eighties song to dance to. He wanted to hold her now…and also hold her later. And find out everything there was to know about her.
The closer position and the feel of having a woman in his arms after such a long spell without made Axel feel a little off-balance. They slow danced for a few minutes as the song continued. She fit perfectly in his arms. The fragrance he inhaled as she leaned closer was his new favorite scent. She had a quick smile, a joyful laugh and an easy manner. She was perfect. And beautiful. And he was already smitten.
The song ended and another started. Axel twirled her around again and she giggled. So adorable. This time, however, he spun her back into his arms. They stared at each other for a count of three. The beat of the next song was faster, but he pretended it was slower and held her close. She melted into him and the dance continued.
Axel studied his unexpected dance partner as they moved together. She was fresh faced and seemingly a happy-go-lucky sort.
“What’s your name, darlin’?”
Her eyes went a bit wider. “Oh. Um…you can call me Lucy.”
“Great name. Okay, Lucy, first of all, it’s very nice to meet you and dance with you.”
She nodded.
“Second, my name is—”
“Mr. Grey!” interrupted a harsh voice behind him. Ugh. Patmore. “We have a meeting scheduled that should have started four and a half minutes ago. You are late!”
Lucy sent a quick, passionate look his way. He was mesmerized, but the trance broke when she dropped her hand from his shoulder and untangled their fingers. Pity. “Sorry to make you late,” she whispered, looking deeply into his eyes. “Sort of.” She darted a quick look at Patmore and he saw a bit of alarm in her eyes.
“You didn’t make me late, darlin’.” He winked at her. “I’d never let any foolish meeting stop me from dancing with a beautiful girl.” Her eyes narrowed as if she’d never heard the words “beautiful girl” before. Crazy.
He could feel Patmore starting to breathe even harder down his neck. Ugh.
“It was very nice to meet you, as well,” she said. “And also, good to dance with you.” Her cheeks flushed a vivid rose as she turned and scurried away, pausing after only a few steps to look over her shoulder. He caught her gaze, trying to wordlessly make it clear he wished they were still dancing. She blushed an even deeper hue before she turned and left the area. Stunning.
“Are you quite finished, Mr. Grey?”
“No. But it looks like you’re going to keep me from doing what I really want to do, so what’s up, Director Patmore? What’s this meeting about? Is it the exact same thing we always talk about when you arrive? Hey, you’re here, just like last month.” Axel didn’t hide his sarcasm, but it appeared to be lost on Patmore.
“Well, yes and no.”
His brows furrowed, and he wished for that shot of moonshine even more. “What is it? Yes or no.”
“We have…well, a situation.”
“We?” Axel had no doubt Director Patmore had any number of “situations” going on, but Axel didn’t want to be a part of the “we” in his drama. The man loved a good drama.
If he had to guess, Axel figured someone “important” had made a prohibited request, a dubious request or a flat-out illegal demand and the director didn’t know how to say no, so he was searching for an Alienn, Arkansas, Big Bang Truck Stop employee to take the blame for disallowing whatever the ask was.
It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.
Director Patmore began to explain his “situation” in tedious detail, but Axel’s mind wandered back to Lucy.
He’d never seen her around town. Alienn had thousands of residents, but he knew all the families. She would not have escaped his attention. That meant she must be from the recently docked cruise liner. Plus, she seemed to recognize Patmore when he interrupted them.
His new love interest had been dressed very casually. He guessed she worked for one of the wealthy families that spent time on luxury cruises endlessly exploring the galaxies as they dined and lived in, well, luxury.
Her manner had been shyly inquisitive instead of imperiously entitled like many of the ultra-rich passengers he’d met who frequented this particular cruise liner. Some passengers spent more time on the luxury cruise liner than in their high-end homes back on Alpha-Prime.
The only other monthly spaceship stops the Big Bang facility hosted were from the barge company that shipped recently convicted and recently released prisoners between Alpha-Prime and the gulags sprinkled throughout the galaxies.
Lucy couldn’t be off one of those flights. Besides, their regular runs were never scheduled anywhere close to the Royal Caldera luxury liner visits. And that was extremely on purpose.
Lucy, with her thick, dark blond hair marked with wildly vivid streaks of red and her lovely sea-green eyes, had fit nicely in his arms. Tentative at first, she had relaxed and followed his lead after their first couple of steps. She smelled nice. She had a jubilant giggle that made his soul flip over in joy.
Axel couldn’t wait to see her again. He hoped he could discover what family she worked for and perhaps send her a message later today. He could then find out when she had time off and if she’d be interested in more dancing or dinner or perhaps an actual date with both dinner and dancing. That would be perfect…
“Are you even listening to me?” Director Patmore asked.
Axel snapped out of his daydream. “Sort of.”
“What did I just say?”
Axel had no earthly clue. “Okay, you got me. I haven’t been listening. Tell me again and if I could get the digest version this time, that’d be great.”
“Have you or have you not seen the latest Interstellar Weather Report?” The director’s exasperated tone had little impact on Axel. He did not want to discuss the weather with Patmore. He certainly wished he hadn’t given up dance time to discuss it, not even the interstellar weather report.
“I have not.”
“Well, read it and get back to me. The passengers might need to return to the airship tonight for an early morning departure instead of two days from tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving early?” Guess that meant no date with the green-eyed mystery girl this trip.
“Possibly. But possibly not.” Patmore gave him a narrow-lidded stare. “Go read the IWR and then we can discuss it rationally.”
“Got it. Read the Interstellar Weather Report.” Such an interesting chore. Not. If he was going to read something he’d rather re-read the latest Dirk Crusher action adventure novel.
Dirk knew exactly how to live, love and work. Dirk would never let Patmore railroad him into doing anything boring. Dirk would never stop dancing with a beautiful girl to discuss the interstellar weather or any other stupid subject. Dirk would probably pop his fist directly into the center of Patmore’s weak chin before letting the director drone on about a mysterious Interstellar Weather Report instead of simply telling him what the problem was. But that was Director Drama’s style and it in no way resembled Dirk Crusher’s awesome panache.
Patmore made a disgruntled noise, turned on his heel and strode away. Axel purchased his bottle of water and headed back to his office. Accessing his live stream feed from Alpha-Prime, Axel pulled up and read the very short report and was reminded yet again that Patmore was in fact a full-throated drama queen.
There was a very small item—less than a full paragraph—about the mix of water vapor and gases spewing into space from a particularly active volcano on an uninhabited volcanic planet halfway through the scheduled journey of the Royal Caldera Forte.
That was it. That was the gist of the entire report.
Frequently material shot into the atmosphere from the mountains on the barren, volcanic planet mentioned in the report. Last month, the exact same route had been altered by two days to allow for the unusually excessive outpouring. Today’s report showed the volcanic cloud was much smaller than the month before and appeared to be settling back to normal levels.
Ooh, alert the media! Nothing out of the ordinary is happening today on the volcanic planet.
Axel went back to his regular paperwork, ignoring Director Patmore’s penchant for making mountains out of molehills.
He’d given up dancing with Lucy for nothing. He was not going to discuss this stupid matter with Director Patmore, not even if the man barged into his office.
Axel worked for half an hour on more urgent truck stop matters, when an unexpected sound pealed. He glanced at the feed from Alpha-Prime—that he had neglected to turn off—which was sounding the rather strident alert.
He read the new bulletin. The volcanic cloud had just turned into a lava-spewing super blast, sending plumes of steaming rock and debris into the atmosphere and beyond. Space potatoes.
It looked like Patmore was right. The luxury liner would have to detour around it even further than last month. That would eat up the time available for their next port of call here on the Earth colony. Super space potatoes.
The change in schedule was going to cause all sorts of problems. Not only would Director Patmore be giddy with delight to finally be right about this unexpected long shot dilemma, it would also thwart Axel’s plans to find the girl he’d danced with, Lucy.
Her grinning face slid easily into his mind. She’d stay there right in the forefront until he saw her again. But that was not going to be until the ship returned in ten days. The cruise liner would have to leave immediately to accommodate the once in a hundred years blast on the volcanic planet’s surface.
Axel likely wouldn’t see her before the airship had to leave, but perhaps he could get word to her upon the airship’s return. He’d talk to Patmore about staying an extra day on the return trip. The ship was going straight back to Alpha-Prime after the final stop on Earth. Surely the Royal Caldera Forte would spare a day or so before returning to their home planet.
He could spend the whole day with her and show her the joys and fun that living on Earth could mean.
A smile shaped Axel’s lips in anticipation of seeing Lucy again. Maybe he could convince her to quit her job working for rich people and find a job on a colony planet where it was so much more fun and the folks were way nicer.
He vowed to do exactly that the next time he saw his lovely, giggly, sweet dance partner.