Page 7 of The Alien Who Saved Christmas

Over the orbit and through the rocks,

To the asteroid belt we go!

We’re not sure why and maybe we’ll die,

But there’s sure to be a show!

From “Over the Orbit and Through the Rocks”

A Christmas Carol for Non-Earthlings by Sadie Malone

Today had not gone perfectly.

Sadie could admit that. She’d spent all her money… She didn’t have a map… At least one of the ducklings was trapped in a Lego cantina… The alien she’d bought hated her… All of that stuff could’ve gone way better.

But she wasn’t discouraged. Nope. Embracing the “Never Give Up, Never Surrender” mentality of Galaxy Quest , she was pressing forward. She had a plan. - Most of a plan, anyway- and everything was going to be amazing.

Spaceships were like computers. (Probably.) Once she’d rescued her fuzzy, yellow pilots, she’d have them check the saved data or the recycle bin or whatever on the ship’s mainframe.

Then, they could retrace the See-Through Alien Kidnappers’ route.

One of their stops had been Earth, right?

Otherwise, she couldn’t have been snatched.

So, it should be easy to find the planet again.

All they had to do was rewind some tape, and it would all work out fine.

Until someone told her otherwise, she was going to believe that.

It was lucky Xane wasn’t there, because he would surely be telling her otherwise. The guy was very pessimistic. Honestly, though, she wished he was there, even if he did hate her.

When he’d passed out, Sadie hadn’t been sure what to do.

He was too heavy for her to drag him back onto the ship, and the weather in this place was not a winter wonderland.

She’d worried he’d fry in the unrelenting heat of the afternoon.

She’d settled for erecting a little tent over him with blankets and some sticks, watching over him for hours.

Once night fell and it became clear that he wasn’t going to die, she’d felt safe leaving him alone to sleep off the alien drugs, while she headed to town.

Sadie needed to keep moving forward.

That meant heading into the intergalactic tavern.

Channeling her inner mean girl again, she walked up to the building, pretending she was totally in control and knew exactly what she was doing. Pretending to be one of the cheerleaders on campus, who ruled every room they entered. Pretending her heart wasn’t beating out of her chest.

She’d left off the heavy robe disguise, because this was a bar.

Girls in bars just had better luck at getting what they wanted.

She was betting that was true, all across the universe.

Dressed in the ugly Christmas Sweater she’d been wearing the night she was kidnapped, Sadie marched through the tavern’s door.

Like through the door. She somehow phased right through the surface of the damn thing, as if it were a curtain of air.

Whatever.

Keep moving forward.

Sadie scanned the room, quickly looking for the missing duckling and coming up empty.

Every compound-eye of every E.T. in the joint fixed on her, but she pretended not to notice.

She could do this. She’d been working in restaurants since she was sixteen.

How different could they be up here? They served food and drinks.

Easy and understandable, no matter the nebula.

In theory, it should have been fine. ...Except, clearly, humans weren’t part of the bar’s usual customer base. She was suddenly the center of everyone’s attention, and she’d only been standing there two seconds.

Whatever.

Keep moving forward.

Sadie tried to brazen it out. She grabbed a drink off the tray of a passing robot, who she assumed was the waiter.

Since Xane said there was no alcohol here, she wasn’t sure what the brown sludge was.

It didn’t matter. She was trying to blend in and that meant getting a drink.

No one stopped her from taking it. They were too busy staring.

Yeah, she was not blending in. Women got checked-out in Earth bars, but rarely was it this kind of unabashed, slack-jawed ogling. At least, not average, slightly-overweight women wearing an ice-skating polar bear sweater. Having so many men watching her intently made her feel self-conscious.

Whatever.

Keep moving forward.

On the plus side, the interior was arranged a lot like an Earth bar.

There were tables, and a counter along one wall, and something that must’ve been an alien version of karaoke set up in the corner.

An alligator-y guy had been singing some screeching tuneless melody, but he’d stopped mid-song to gape at her.

Why were they all staring? She had no idea what the legal drinking age was on this planet, but no one was asking her for ID, so that probably wasn’t the issue. It had to be her humanness.

For real, though, there were so many weird-ass people on this planet. Was her species really that odd? One guy in the back looked like a mailbox. No one was watching him like they wanted to eat him alive. Why was Sadie so damn interesting to them?

Men started heading towards her from two different directions.

Crap. One of them looked almost normal, which didn’t help mitigate the feeling of danger.

Sadie didn’t like this. At all. She was determined to move forward.

The motto might have come from a Disney cartoon, but it had served her well in life.

Sometimes it was okay to move back a little bit first, though.

She retreated a step, edging towards the door.

And ran into a wall.

What the hell…? Who had built a wall in the doorway? Sadie craned her neck backwards and realized that a giant barrier hadn’t magically appeared in her path.

It was Xane.

Her four-armed impulse-buy stood directly behind her. His amazing turquoise eyes stayed on the other patrons of the bar. One gigantic hand clamped down on Sadie’s shoulder, weighing a ton and enveloping a large percentage of her upper body.

Everyone in the bar froze.

Xane’s head tilted to one side, his blackened horns glinting in the low light.

Sadie wasn’t an alien body-language expert, but it seemed like a challenge.

Nobody was dumb enough to accept it. The men who’d been approaching her stopped short.

They must not know how weak Xane was feeling, which was fine with Sadie.

She grinned, thrilled to see her knight in alien armor. “Hey, Xane.”

He spared her a quick, angry look. “I told you to stay away from this place, woman.”

“I know, but I don’t have a choice. I need someone to fly my spaceship. I feel like I mentioned that.”

He didn’t listen to that logical explanation.

He was too spellbound by her hair. His pupils dilated, like he was fascinated by the very average brown curls.

Then his tropical blue eyes dropped lower, roaming all over her body, like he just couldn’t stop himself.

This was the first time he’d seen her without the heavy robes, and he seemed shocked by her human curves.

Did alien women not have breasts? He looked entranced.

Sadie let him gape. While the stares of the other guys had made her nervous, the weight of Xane’s gaze made her blood heat.

That was probably bad. He was an alien, after all.

But his eyes were simply… perfect . Goodness and honor shone from their cerulean depths.

Sadie had spent a lifetime reading people’s eyes. Xane’s were magical.

Whatever residual fear she had of the man’s frightening appearance melted away. She trusted her instincts about his nature. And since he’d followed her here and had protected her against the creepy guys, it seemed likely he didn’t hate her after all. That was great!

Xane finally dragged his attention away from her and muttered a curse under his breath. Shaking his head, he headed for a table in the corner.

Sadie trailed after him, still clutching her drink. “Wanna sit together?” She asked, as he flopped down with his back to the wall.

“What I want rarely matters. I have never been surer of that than I am at this moment.”

She ignored that gloomy pronouncement and plopped down in the chair across from him. He looked winded to her. All the exertion of the day was getting to him. “Why are you here?”

Silence.

Sadie tilted her head, translating that without the aid of her lousy translator. “You remembered me saying I was coming here, huh? You woke up and came looking for me.” She was touched. “That’s sweet, but you shouldn’t have risked it. You’re too fragile to be moving around, yet.”

Xane gave her an aggravated look, not liking that remark. He was such a guy.

“Oh, you know it’s true.” Sadie rolled her eyes.

“Rtaharions are never fragile.”

“You passed out, Xane. Not to mention the auction and those three-legged things hitting you. You’re hardly at full strength.” She frowned just remembering what he’d been through. “No, better let me deal with this. I have everything under control.”

“It didn’t look that way when I arrived.”

“Well, I noticed it getting a little tense in here.” She allowed with a sigh. “For a minute, I was afraid I’d have to leave without finding the duckling.”

“Odds are, you would not have been allowed to leave, at all.”

“Yeah, everybody kept staring at me. It can’t just be my humanness, right? I guess it could be this.” She gestured to her colorful top with a rueful face.

“That is a wise guess.”

She felt a little embarrassed. “The waitresses at the diner wear ugly Christmas sweaters for the whole holiday season. It helps with tips. I don’t usually dress like this. Do you guys have polar bears in space? These are polar bears.” She adjusted the fabric to point out the cartoon animals.

He stared at her chest. Fixedly.

“Real polar bears don’t ice skate, of course. Wait, do you have ice skating in space…?”

Xane cut her off. “No one here is looking at your clothing. They’re imagining what’s under it.”