Page 30 of Guardian’s Heart (Space Guardian’s Mate #1)

NOVA

Later that day, we docked at a space station so Zaarek could go and purchase things we needed for the rest of the flight. Like clothes for our guests , hygiene articles that weren't already aboard, and shoes—it was amazing how much I missed those.

I wanted to go with Zaarek, but he insisted that it was too dangerous for a human. We were still too rare not to cause a commotion.

"But I would be safe with you," I tried to entice him.

"Of course, but we wouldn't get any shopping done," he argued back, and the logic in his words deflated me.

Instead, I was left on the bridge, staring at the space station that was like nothing one could possibly imagine. The station itself looked like a giant wheel against which smaller wheels were attached, connected by rectangular tunnels. As if it had been impaled, in the center sat a large circular tower. The entire contraption was made from a black material, but thousands of lights coming through the windows lit it up. Our ship was but a speck as Zaarek docked it against one of the tunnels .

That wasn't all of it, though; hundreds of other ships were docked at similar tunnels, so close I could observe a red glowing alien on the bridge of his ship next to us. I stepped back deeper into the shadows, heeding Zaarek's warning of not being seen.

Still, I couldn't bring myself to return to our room; my eyes feasted on this alien sight, something I had never imagined to ever see—at least not off-screen.

The space station floated in the middle of nowhere. There was only vast blackness around it, besides the coming and going of lights from other ships.

More of the attached wheels were under construction, and in fascination, I watched drones or robots work on them. From the different kinds of ships coming and going to the monstrous structure, this was so far out from our technology on Earth that it boggled my mind. It also brought up the question of how many species were out there? I already knew of seven, no eight, counting the Pandraxians who were rescuing humans.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Nock startled me as he entered my field of vision reflected in the window.

"Yes.” I watched a ship, the size of a cruise boat on Earth, probably bigger, elegantly slide up to one of the tunnel arms and dock. Who was aboard? What business did they have here? Who were they?

As if reading my mind, Nock explained, “That’s a royal space barge; from its colors, I would say it belongs to the kingdom of Melvar. King Zyranus might be aboard.”

“Shouldn’t you be there reporting on that?” I teased.

“It would make for a lot of views, for sure. King Zyranus is not known to show himself in public often or to leave his kingdom. I wonder what he is…” He broke off. “Are you trying to get rid of me too?”

I shook my head. “Not in the least. Actually, I'm hoping you'd teach me some more about the databases here."

"Ah, that is exactly the reason I came looking for you." He smiled, something he did quite often, and I realized it was part of his charm that must have made him so successful on whatever social media outlet he was a guru on. "You're learning quickly, and I would love to show you something I've been thinking about."

"I'm all in." I nearly rubbed my hands in glee as the familiar tingle in my fingertips spread. Ready to hit the keyboard and do their magic.

He sat in one of the captain's chairs, and the triangular windows that had given me a view of space turned black before several screens turned on. Simultaneously to that, four cubes appeared out of thin air right in front of where Nock sat. Curious to see what he was up to, I looked at the screens.

As I had already learned, the screens seemed to appear out of thin air and were easy to turn; each side was like an open tab in a browser.

"I've set it to your language again so you can read it," Nock explained.

Feeling a little bit more open to the alien technology, I dared to ask, "But what about you?"

He pointed at his eyes. "I put in translation lenses. Don't worry about me. I'm good."

Translation lenses ?

Sure.

"Okay then."

"Good. If you find something that will help us, swipe it like this," he demonstrated by swiping at a window with his finger, moving it up and snapping it against the ship's screen wall like a projector.

"So what are we doing? Where are we breaking into?" I sat down in the other captain's chair.

"I've searched through all the databases I could get my hands on: Pandraxian, GTU, Melvian, you name it. The only two I haven't utilized yet are the Cryon's and the Ohrur's." His face remained too neutral.

"You want to use Zaarek's absence to break into the Ohrur system?"

He nodded.

I grinned and cracked my fingers, all in. Zaarek might not be happy about this, but I wasn't about to let that spoil my fun. "Okay, so how do we go about that? Firewall?"

"Quantum Grid is what we call it," he filled me in. "The Ohrur's technology is much more advanced than any in the universe. They purchase the latest inventions and turn them into what they need, so breaking into their Quantum Grid is more or less out of the question."

"Doesn't Zaarek have access to it?" I asked, wondering why we needed to break into it in the first place.

"He doesn't know it, but his access is limited," Nock filled me in, opening a window. "Here, I was able to get a hold of this. It's a hierarchical list of access to their database."

The names or titles I looked at didn't mean anything to me, aside from Space Guardian and Minder. I didn't like the title Minder , but from what I understood, he or she was Zaarek's direct supervisor.

From the list, I gathered that only four people had access to the unlimited database.

"The Ohrur system is built on an Oligarchy," Nock filled me in, "the four most successful corporation leaders lead their government. Those four families have been in power for centuries."

"So we need to crack one of their passwords?" I guessed.

"That would be the preferred way in."

"I'm assuming you have a program that can do that?"

He nodded but raised a cautioning finger. "Let's call this little enterprise a test. Poke around and see how far or deep we can get."

I wasn't sure I understood what he meant.

"Just let your curiosity fly like you would on any of your Earth programs."

I shrugged. I trusted he had some sort of plan, even though I had no idea what that might be. But poking was what I liked to do.

"So you're getting a bad vibe from the Ohrurs, too?" I asked Nock while searching for anything Space Guardian related.

"I've always had a bad feeling about them. At first I thought it was both the Ohrurs and the Space Guardians, but after spending some time with Zaarek, I'm sure it's the Ohrurs who I need to focus on."

He swiped a screen up against the big wall. "Look here."

My eyes moved up at the screen filled with numbers. "What is this?"

"That's how much money Emperor Daryus is spending on four Space Guardians to free his humans," Nock explained.

"What is BC?"

"Billion Credits." Nock pulled out something similar to a laser pointer, only this had a green neon light. "See here? This is Zaarek's mission, one BC. And here is another Space Guardian, Tharaax." He whistled silently. "He’s already brought in some humans."

"Alright, but we already knew that the Ohrurs are getting paid by the Emperor," I objected.

"Exactly." With a triumphant swipe, he pulled up another screen identical to the first.

"I don't get it," I confessed, scrutinizing the numbers, which reminded me of an Excel spreadsheet, quite amazing, actually. And then it hit me. "They're different."

On the second screen Nock had pulled up was an additional column. "SPB?"

"Space Guardian Bonus," he said with a sneer. "This is what the Space Guardians see, and this is what the Ohrurs look at."

"Oh." A pang of sadness washed over me for Zaarek. I was sure Nock had done so intentionally as Zaarek's name was pulled up, showing two billion credits in his name. Now, that sounded like a lot, but I remembered from Earth that certain currencies had sounded astronomical to me, too, until I found out that one dollar was worth a thousand pesos in Argentina, for example.

"How many credits does it cost to buy… " I tried to think of something modest. "A pair of pants."

Nock blinked at me as if I'd lost my mind.

"Humor me, please. I'm just trying to get a feel of how much a billion credits is."

"Oh, a pair of pants, nothing fancy, might cost you about twenty. A spaceship like this one, probably half a billion. Does that help?"

It did, and also made me curious, "And that one?" I pointed at the royal ship, the one he had been so in awe of earlier.

"That? Probably twenty."

I whistled lowly. "Wow."

"Yeah, can we concentrate again?"

"Sure." I continued my search, but my mind was too occupied with thousands of questions.

"So you hated Zaarek at first?" I asked a little while later.

Nock sighed loudly, not happy about the new interruption. "I thought he was a killer."

"Well, if I remember correctly, you said he was a judge and executioner and that criminals had certain rights, too." I brought up the earliest conversation I had overheard between the two.

He turned to me in surprise. "You were listening?"

"What can I say? I'm a genius at multitasking."

"I'm still kind of on the fence on that, but what Zaarek said about him having a sense for criminals." He shrugged. "It kind of made sense to me. I still think people deserve a trial, but I'm also not totally ignorant to know that some criminals get off on technicalities."

"So you were pulling his strings to get him talking?"

"Pulling what?"

Sometimes, I forgot that even with the magic of translators and the alien tech, some things I said didn't make sense to them. "You were egging him on."

His expression remained blank. Shit . "You were goad… ah, fuck…" My mind searched for the right words. "It’s when you keep pushing someone—teasing, provoking, or nudging them—until they say or do something they don’t really want to. Like poking at them just to see how far they’ll go."

Nock tilted his head. "Why would I poke someone with words?"

"It’s not literal," I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. Why did this have to be so complicated? "You were trying to get Zaarek to slip up, to say something he didn’t want to say. It’s like pushing buttons you know you shouldn’t press."

"Ah!" Nock’s eyes lit up. "So I was… verbally activating him?"

I blinked, then smirked. "Sure, let’s go with that."

"Something like that, yeah," he confessed, making me smile.

"What do you think about Zaarek not knowing what species he is and his headaches whenever we ask questions about his years before he became a Space Guardian?"

"I don't know, but it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. They did something to him," I confessed my deepest fears. And they would pay for it. Nobody messed with someone I cared for. The Ohrurs would soon find out that they bit off more than they could chew.