Page 19 of Alien Protector's Mate

“How long’s he been coming here?” he asked.

The vendor shrugged. “Can’t say for sure. First time I’ve noticed him. But human boys on their own… they don’t stick around. Either they fall in with Reav’s crowd, or they disappear. You understand my meaning?”

S’aad nodded grimly.

“If you see the kid again or others like him, contact me directly.” He transmitted his comm code from his bracer comp with a quick gesture. “Now, how much for a mixed selection of the pastries?”

7

Jade’s stomach wasn’t screaming at her anymore, half the stolen pastry still in her pocket. It was so large that it would easily do her for the rest of the day, which was good. The last thing she wanted to do was run into that alien again. He’d seemed nice, but she’d always prided herself on being able to read people, and Mr. tall, blond, and handsome had been half a second from calling security on her.

So she’d quit the market just to be sure and set out to explore. Which was how she’d found herself in a sprawling shopping complex, her eyes widening with each new thing she saw. The station’s mall stretched on forever, the ceilings so high they made her dizzy. Voices crashed over her like waves, but she couldn’t understand most of them. So they just became background noise. She could only understand some, which didn’t make sense. Why some and not others? Only when she saw a brooch on one alien’s collar glow when it spoke did she realize they were using translators. She needed to get a hold of one. But how? They all looked different. How was she to know what was a translator and what was just a brooch?

A group of aliens floated by, skin shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, and she had to stop herself from staring. She’d never seen anything so beautiful in all her life. Their voices tickled her ears, reminding her of the wind chimes Mrs. Morgan used to hang outside the kitchen window.

“Move,” a deep voice growled behind her.

Jade jumped and whirled around. A massive lizard man towered over her, four eyes blinking in what shereallyhoped was curiosity rather than hunger.

“I’m so s-sorry,” she stammered as she backed up. Her butt hit something solid, and she spun around again to face what looked like a walking chandelier.

It chimed, and then three crystals glowed in the middle of its chest. “No worries, little one. Stay calm.”

She nodded and hurried away. Finding a quiet corner by a giant purple plant in a blue pot, she leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths. She needed to pull herself together. If she freaked out at every new alien she saw, someone was bound to realize she didn’t belong here.

She looked out from her hiding place. She still couldn’t believe she was here, on a real space station, surrounded by real aliens.

Pushing off, she continued walking, peering into the shop windows and marveling at all the alien things. A crowd in an open area ahead caught her attention. Curious, she headed that way and joined the back of the crowd. Standing on tiptoe, she tried to see what was happening at the front.

In the center were two giant robots standing like statues. Each had a couch next to it. As she watched, a couple of alien men took a helmet each from the attendants and lay down on the couches. For a moment, nothing happened, but then suddenly, one of the robots came to life. It stood for a moment, looking down at its hands, and then broke into movement, doing whatlooked like some kind of breakdance combined with shadow boxing. Jade gasped. Was that alien controlling the robot?

“It’s a demonstration,” a voice said beside her. Jade turned to find an alien woman standing next to her, crow’s feet crinkling as she smiled. Her one-piece suit said she was some kind of pilot or flight crew. “They sell avatar uplinks for extreme sports. You get all the thrill without the risk.”

Jade shook her head. “But… why bother? Why not just do it for real?”

The woman chuckled. “Not everyone can, hon. Some planets are just way too nasty or filled with dangerous radiation. So they send in remote bots. I heard they even had one for the lava falls on the Nurekian Delta. I’d love to know what they reinforced those things with. The lava flow there melts even hull steel.”

The alien woman walked away, but Jade stayed to watch people trying the uplinks for the robots. The idea of having enough money to pay for something like that just for a hobby was mind-blowing to her.

She moved on, idly looking in windows as she worked her way up the levels. Some of them were dedicated to different things—clothes, entertainment tech, decor, and furniture. It looked like you could buy anything you needed here. It was a city in the stars, totally self-contained.

On the fifteenth floor, she spotted a sign above a door, and her heart leaped. Public toilets, and if she was reading the sign right, they had showers. She almost groaned, feeling every bit of grime on her skin. A real shower. It had been so long since she’d felt clean that she’d nearly forgotten what it was like.

Thankfully, the place was empty when she walked in. She spent a moment looking at the showers, but the stalls looked multispecies and normal enough. Quickly, she went from stall to stall, checking each of them, and grinned when she found three abandoned bottles.

Locking herself into one of the stalls, she cracked the lids on them one by one. The first released a pungent scent that made her recoil. It smelled like it would burn her skin off, just like the lava falls the alien woman had mentioned earlier.

“Nope, definitely not.” She capped that one quickly and set it in the corner of the stall.

The second was also odd, the smell like rotting meat, so she put that one with the first and turned her attention to the final bottle. It was the one that looked the most like human shower gel—clear plastic with pink gel inside. Lifting the top carefully with her thumb, she took a cautious sniff.

Floral. Sweet. She smiled in relief. Okay, so she wouldn’t have to go out there smelling like week-old meat after all.

Stripping her clothes quickly, she cranked the shower on, and once she was sure it was actually water and something like not lava, she stepped under it. It. Was. Heavenly. She groaned as she closed her eyes and let it soak into her muscles, washing away all the tension of the last few days. Her mind wandered as she lathered up with the borrowed soap, its floral scent filling the air. Maybe she could get a job here… cleaning or something. She knew how to do that, and if they had public washrooms, they definitely needed cleaners.

Reluctantly, she turned off the water and dried herself with paper towels from a dispenser on the wall. She sighed as she looked at her dirty clothes and then pulled them on. She was going to have to find a way to wash them as well.

Feeling more human than she had in days, she left the washrooms and headed up to the sixteenth floor. The shops here screamed money, all shiny surfaces and price tags with more zeros than she’d ever seen in one place.

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