Kiss the Guardian Read online

  Kiss the Guardian

  CHAOS STATION 1.5

  Jenn Burke & Kelly Jensen

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Wenchang Station, 2269

  It was just an average delivery job until the clown rolled by on a unicycle.

  For a second, Zed thought he’d hallucinated it. Alien poison was flowing through his veins, after all, and God knew what form his mental degeneration would eventually take. Hallucinations were a definite possibility. He’d never had a particular thing for clowns—good or bad—but hallucinations didn’t care, right?

  He breathed a sigh of relief when Flick muttered, “What the fuck.”

  “I…do not know.” Qek clicked, her broad, blue face smoothing as she tried to understand what had just moved past them. “That…I have never seen such a thing before.”

  “Oh my God, is the carnival today?” Ness grabbed Elias’s arm, as if she were trying to stop herself from bouncing. Her wild red curls vibrated with the aborted movement as the captain looked at her with an expression stuck somewhere between amusement and confusion. “We’ve got to check it out.”

  Flick narrowed his eyes. “Wait, what carnival?”

  “The carnival.” Ness waited for them to clue in, but even Zed was drawing a blank. “You guys seriously need to absorb some culture at some point,” she said on a huff. “Wenchang Carnival. It’s a big deal, used to happen twice a year? Ring a bell?”

  That sort of did tickle a memory, actually. “Before the war, right?”

  “Yeah, and this is the first one since the war ended. And we’re here while it’s on! I always wanted to check it out.” Still holding Elias’s arm with one hand, she gripped Qek’s with the other. “C’mon, Captain, you’re going to win Qek and I some stuffed animals.”

  “Oh…great.” Though Elias’s voice was dry, his expression had slipped fully into the amused side of things.

  Zed looked at Flick. Flick looked back. He couldn’t quite read his lover’s expression. Were his brows lowered because he thought the carnival was stupid or because he was trying to figure out how the ship’s doctor could be reduced to an excited schoolgirl by the promise of cheap toys?

  “You, uh…” Zed shrugged as they trailed after the rest of the Chaos’s crew. “You want to check it out? I could try winning something for you.”

  “Or maybe I’ll win something for you.”

  “I have better aim.”

  “I figure out angles.”

  “I’m stronger.”

  “I’m trickier.”

  “Are we seriously arguing about who’s going to win what?”

  “Maybe.” Flick eyed the colorful stalls that came into view as they rounded a corner. “Want to make it interesting?”

  Zed couldn’t stop the smile that bloomed on his lips. He had a flash of what they’d been like back at the Academy—always up for fun and games. “What, we’re competing now?”

  “Whoever wins the most challenges—”

  “Gets the most toys?”

  Flick glared at him. “No. Whoever wins the most challenges gets to have the other person do one thing for them.”

  “Just one?”

  “Greedy bastard. You in or out?”

  Zed’s grin widened. “Oh, I’m in.”

  Being tricky meant choosing the game that made the best use of Felix’s talents, and that meant not trying Ring the Bell.

  “Aww, c’mon, it’s just for fun.” Zed smiled his most winsome smile—or simply plucked another charmer from the collection. “And you’ll like the thing you have to do for me.” He winked. “Promise.”

  Zed was obviously thinking of sexy things. Felix liked sexy things. “Fine.”

  Elias went first. Felix did not laugh when the captain failed to ring the bell. Nessa gave it her best, swinging the mallet against the plate with a small shriek. She did not ring the bell. Felix didn’t really care if Zed managed the feat, he simply enjoyed watching his man move—his grip on the mallet handle, the way his torso twisted, the bunch of musculature in his arms. He rang the bell.

  Despite his contrary nature, Felix gave it his best shot. The holographic arrow darted up from the plate and stopped just short of the bell. The silence was deafening. Mustering a smile, he handed the mallet to Qek.

  “Give it all you’ve got!” Nessa encouraged, jumping and clapping her hands like a toddler.

  Qek’s forehead smoothed, a sure sign of thought. Then she swung the mallet down with surprising force. The arrow shot up the pole and slammed into the bell.

  “Damn.”

  “And the winner is our ashushk friend!” the barker announced, handing over a fluffy approximation of a Gentian squirrel.

  Qek counted the tentacles, perhaps checking for anatomical correctness. “I have not seen a live Gentian squirrel, but in the pictures I have seen, they are not pink.”

  “It’s a toy, Qek.”

  “Do adults play with toys?”

  Nessa cuffed the side of Felix’s head before he could instruct their pilot further in the art of human sexuality. “Hey.” He rubbed his offended curls.

  “Think of it as a keepsake,” Nessa said.

  Producing a wrinkled smile, Qek stuffed the squirrel under her arm. “What will we play next?”

  Elias was scratching his head. “How come Qek managed to ring the bell harder than Zed?”

  “I deduced it was a matter of applying the correct amount of force to exactly the right point of the plate.”

  Zed laughed. “Okay, let’s see you apply science to Whac-A-Lem.”

  Qek whacked the Lems that were only thinking about poking their holographic noses out of their holes. Then she bowled a perfect game of Skeeball. When all of her stupidly light ping pong balls found their way into fishbowls, Felix had to bite his lips over a pout. How was she doing this? More importantly, without any points, how could he convince Zed to help him flush the water cycler aboard the Chaos? Sexy favors be damned, that was a messy job and he wanted help with it.

  The little blue ashushk bounced up and down on her toes, a move obviously borrowed from Nessa, as she collected her prize for popping the most balloons with a dart.

  Felix elbowed Zed. “You were covert ops, man. How come you can’t kill six balloons with four darts?”

  “Because it’s not fucking possible!”

  “Qek’s green giraffe begs to differ.”

  Grumbling, Zed led the way to the shooting gallery. “Okay, this is where we’ll separate the men from the ashushk.”

  Nessa’s hand shot out before Zed could duck and he got his first cuff of the afternoon.

  Felix leaned in to Zed’s side. “You know Qek looks after the weapons stored aboard the Chaos, right? She can break down a plasma rifle in thirty-seven seconds.”

  Zed gaped and Felix wished he had a ping pong ball. His mouth formed the perfect O.

  Qek won the match—passing off yet another stuffed animal to Felix—and then she met her match. “I do not understand the point of the next game.”

  Felix glanced up from an intense study of the neon yellow python wrapped around his wrist. The faux fur was incredibly soft and the eyes were sort of cute. “Huh?”

  “It’s a kissing booth,” Nessa explained.

  “How is the game played?”

  “Well, it’s not a game. You just pass over some credits for the chance to kiss someone really attractive.” Felix glanced at the booth’s occupant and frowned. “Ah, normally it’s a really good looking girl or guy. I dunno what that’s supposed to be.”

  The booth’s attendant waved them over. “Want to kiss the Guardian?”

  Looked like a cross between an elephant and a Berian cockroach. This was supposed to be the most technologically advanced spe
cies in the galaxy?

  Zed poked a finger toward the shimmering holo. “That is not a Guardian.”

  Elias nudged Zed in the middle of the back. “You should probably kiss it to make sure.”

  “I wonder what the Guardians would make of this representation,” Qek mused.

  “I got reliable information that this is a bona fide depiction of an actual Guardian,” the barker said.

  “I think you’ve been hoodwinked,” Elias replied.

  Nessa tilted her head. “I don’t know. I think it has a certain majesty.”

  Zed slung an arm around Felix’s shoulders. “Well, I’m not going to kiss it. Not when I got a perfect pair of lips right beside me.”

  Corny as hell, but the declaration warmed Felix’s middle. “Neither of us got any points,” he murmured, putting his mouth close enough to Zed’s for that kiss.

  Zed pecked his lips. “Just as well we didn’t wager with Qek.”

  “I would have asked for help flushing the water cycler,” the little ashushk said.

  “I thought it was my turn to do it?”

  “Perhaps you’d like to help me with it, Fixer?”

  Not really, but it would be uncharitable to say no when Qek had given him his fluffy yellow snake. Felix mustered a smile. “Okay, sure.”

  Zed’s lips brushed his ear. “After, I can give you another job to do. One you’ll enjoy.”

  Felix’s smile spread into a grin.

  “Hey, isn’t anyone going to kiss the Guardian?”

  Felix gestured toward Elias. “It’s all yours, Cap’n. Go for it.”

  FIN

 

 

  Jenn Burke, Kiss the Guardian

  Thanks for reading the books on GrayCity.Net