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“You’re sure?” he finally asked.

“I’m sure.”

“You’re stubborn.”

I laughed at that. “Don’t we have to be,” I asked him with a grin, “to make a life out here?”

“Can’t argue with that,” he muttered. Then, with a final, heaving sigh and a smack of his calloused hand on my shoulder, he said, “I suppose you’d better go over there and propose.”

My heart slammed.Propose.

Propose marriage. To her. The beautiful human female who currently looked like she wanted to throw another hammer at my head.

I couldn’t wait.

5

JAYA

Iwatched the two Zabrian males – at least, I assumed that’s what they were after the whole “penal colony for Zabrian Empire murderers” explanation – with suspicion. Strangely enough, the murderer thing wasn’t even the main cause of my suspicion right now. No, right now it was due to the weird, quiet way they were talking. The purple one who called himself Warden Tenn looked both weary and wary, as if whatever the big, brawny green guy was saying was exhaustingly absurd and that there would be consequences as a result. Messy ones. That the warden would have to clean up. His full mouth was thinned into a critical line, his face hard in the shadows cast by the brim of his hat.

The green guy, however, provided a perfect contrast. His shoulders were drawn back with confidence, his white eyes were bright and, frankly, beautiful. He was smiling so big I might have assumed he was drunk if he were human.

Maybe he is drunk. Seems more believable than the idea that this guy is a murderer…

He just seemed too…nice. I travelled basically non-stop, and didn’t always encounter the best, most kind-hearted sorts of folks. Suspicion was my default setting these days. It was how I kept myself alive and my ship under my control. But this guy had managed to disarm my vital sense of caution in the span of about two minutes, at least before the warden showed up. He hadn’t been the slightest bit pissed that I’d accidentally split his freaking face open by throwing my hammer in a bout of frustration. And then he’d stood there, smiling and bleeding all over himself, while he told me to go and get my weapon! So I could feel more “at ease!”

Who the hell does that?

Now I was suspicious all over again, because there was nothing normal about that behaviour. For all he knew, I could have been the murderer! I watched him as he talked with the warden. They were still engaged in their murmured conversation that, as far as I could tell based on the starry-eyed looks the green giant kept sending my way, revolved around me.

Of course it revolved around me. What the hell else would they be talking about when I’d basically just crashed uninvited into their weird, idyllic little prison of a world?

A penal colony where I’m not even allowed to stay long enough to fix the Lavariya.

What amazing luck you have, Jaya…

Guess I used up all my luck navigating out of that asteroid field.

“We should have landed on one of the moons,” I muttered to myself, glaring accusingly up at the exceptionally bright, clear blue sky, as if it were the sky’s fault that I’d chosen to land on the planet of big muscly murderers instead of a quiet, airless moon where I could fix my ship in peace.

There was no way I could make it to one of the moons now, even if this cowboy hat-wearing warden character deigned to let me use one as my base. I’d be able to fly somewhere within this world’s atmosphere if needed, but I was stuck on-world until I got a sonic recalibrater and repaired the burnt-out connections the failure had contributed to.

Except apparently I wasn’t allowed to stay here, no matter how stuck I was.

I’m not leaving my ship.

I repeated it fiercely inside my own head, echoing the words I’d said out loud a few minutes earlier. TheLavariyawas everything to me. Literally everything. My home, my freedom, my livelihood. My history and my future all at the same time.

If the warden wanted me to leave her, he’d have to literally drag me away. Which, based on the size of him and the delts, bis, and tris positively popping out of the tight, short sleeves of his uniform, I had no doubt he was absolutely capable of. A life of tough jobs and doing my own ship repairs meant I was pretty damn strong, but compared to him and his smiley green friend – or prisoner? – I was positively scrawny.

I didn’t even have my goddamn stunner.

It didn’t matter. I would do whatever it took to stay with theLavariya. Leaving her behind and trying to come up with the credits to haul her away months or even a year from now was simply not an option, not the least of which because I’d have no good way to earn the required credits without her!

I was just gearing up to chain myself to theLavariya’sside in protest when the two Zabrians appeared to come to some sort of decision. They both turned to face me. The warden looked resigned. The green guy looked ecstatic.

It was fucking alarming. Why was he smiling at me like that?