Page 2 of Crash Landing
I sighed and took another sip of my coffee. Black. No sugar. Bitter as hell just like me.
I cringed at the taste.
But smart people drank black coffee and not the stuff with piles of whipped cream on top.
“I was learning,” I said under my breath.
Thomas reached across the table and slapped my shoulder. “Well, now you’re learning this. From a university and not from behind prison bars. Count yourself lucky they even let you in this place.”
I raised my brows. “Thanks to the attack that killed tons of people on that freighter and led to me and my friend getting taken to an alien planet where I was allergic to everything and was forced to spend time with the most obnoxious valerian ass-hat in the world.”
“Uh… yeah… thanks to that. Guess spending time on an alien planet where no other human has stepped foot can now be considered extensive experience on a resume.”
“Or in an entrance interview.”
It still kind of irked me that I didn’t get into MM because of my brains. I wondered if I would have ever been considered had I not ended up on Sylos with the valerians. Now, NexCom, which handled all intergalactic relations and travel, considered me an asset.
I slumped back in my seat with a sigh. That was a year ago. My best friend ended up falling head over heels for one of those inhuman (and admittedly beautiful) alien studs while I was sniveling, puking, and crying my way through the whole ordeal. So she got a relationship out of it and I got my ass sent back to Earth where everyone kept telling me I was just privileged, lucky, and undeserving.
And yeah, I guess I was lucky. I wasn’t in prison. I was across the globe from the landlords and dealers who all wanted a piece of me because I owed them money. And I was following my childhood dream of doing… plant stuff. I was lucky.
And also, I was stuck. When you see heaven and then you’re sent back to the world, you’ve already seen what could be. I saw what I could be.WhereI could be. But I was stuck on the ground again just wishing.
“Bad as you say it was, spending time with valerians and getting them to vouch for you is more of an advantage than anyone else has these days.”
I nodded because he was right. I was being an ungrateful jerk. But I couldn’t stop wanting to go back in time to do things better.
Maybe I wouldn’t be on that cargo ship then…
“So? Figure out your little science problem yet?” Thomas continued.
“Yup,” I said, pulling out my data pad. I slid it to the middle of the table and tapped the screen so a little 3D image of a flower with star-shaped petals was displayed between us. “I call it ‘pretty-little-shit,’ but valerians call it arlakh. The pollen was what made me sick when I was on their planet.”
“Ok. So, you working on a way to not react to it so badly?”
“I’m just a student,” I said, closing the image of the flower away. “I’m not exactly equipped to come up with my own allergy medication. Plus, the only time we had one of these flowers here, it died after two weeks. I’d need a fresh specimen and that means I’d need to go back to that awful valerian planet. Which isn’t happening.”
“Could happen.”
“It’s not happening and I don’t want to go back there anyway. Sylos was a nightmare. First with the allergies. Then the attempted kidnapping by the gek and then with Saleuk.”
“Oooh, right. The sexy valerian that had to babysit you.”
“Excuse me?” I drew back like I’d been struck in the face. “He was not babysitting me, for one. And for two, he was not sexy.”
“Actually, you said he was once.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. When we first started hanging out, you might have let it slip. You were three drinks into a mental breakdown, but still. You said it.”
I was doing anything I could not to turn red over the notion. I tried to search my brain for the moment I said out loud how attractive Saleuk was and couldn’t find it. But it wasn’t unlike me to blurt things out if they were on my mind.
My thoughts wandered back to the valerian. He was intolerable. Tall. Fit as hell, like every other being of his race. He had a wicked smirk I swore I’d slap off his face if I ever saw him again and skin that subtly changed shades depending onhis mood. All valerians could change colors like they were damn mood rings.
“You’re doing that thing,” Thomas said.
“What thing?”
