The Alien's Snack: A SciFi Alien Romance (Alien Snack Searcher Book 2), page 1
The Alien's Snack
Alien Snack Searcher Book 2
Alina Riley
Copyright © 2024 by Alina Riley
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Epilogue
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Chapter 1
Hazel
I scowl at my team. “Come on! Lunch is over and all of you look like you haven’t eaten.”
The three males working for me are such slackers. I’m the female here, but it feels like I can do things better than them by a ton.
I hiss. “You have four arms, come on!”
“I’m sorry, boss.” Kruhol gets quicker at mixing and hammering the mixture we need for the fishballs.
It is still early, but there are already beings lining up out there at the stall.
I turn up the stove and stir the curry sauce. The fishballs are important, but the sauce is the soul of the food. After training my guys for a while, I’m confident in letting them make the fishballs, but when it comes to the sauce, not yet. I’m still going to do that for now.
I glance at the clock, making sure there is enough time to prepare everything and make sure we fulfill orders that will be piling in.
The other guy is over there, making the mixture of fish and tubon powder into balls. Tubon is a starchy plant, not used in the traditional recipe originating from Earth, but for the beings on the space station, no one cares. At least these don’t taste too far away from potatoes. Most of these beings have never tried the traditional ones, anyway.
The last one is taking the tray with the completed fishballs and tossing them into the frying pot. The crackling noise of boiling oil is music in my ears. I like it when the stall is humming into life.
I separate the curry sauce and start cooking the completed fishballs. It will take time before these are ready and...
There is a group of coal-gray beings coming to the stall. My heart skips a beat. It isn’t rare for beings to travel as a group, and not rare for them to walk around like that, but somehow...
My stomach sinks despite the fact that I don’t even understand what’s wrong with those beings. But they catch my eye and...
I look away before it becomes rude. They probably aren’t looking my way. But I’ve been on the space station long enough to know better than to keep staring.
No one ever knows who is who, and who knows what the other beings are about? They could be bandits, merchants, straight-up criminals on the run, and everything in between.
It is always smarter to stay under the radar and hope nothing bad will happen.
Given this is a space station, most of those behave just so they will be allowed into this place. There’s no rule here, or say, the owner of the space station makes the rule. I’ve never met that being. I pay my rent to his bank account, and that’s almost all the communication we have. As long as I keep paying and stay out of trouble, they don’t care.
There are guards around here to make sure every visitor is safe, but I know better than to rely on anyone for my own safety, or my employees.
They come over and stop at my stall. There are a few who were already lining up, but these ignore the line. One of them, probably the leader, says, “What do you have here that smells great?”
Now, I want my guys to answer that, but... I head over, wiping my hand with a wet towel. “We sell fishballs.”
They look at each other and the leader says, “Okay, give my team some.”
Give?
I’m not a charity. And the food isn’t ready, anyway. “You can join the line. We’ll start fulfilling orders once the fishballs are ready.”
The leader scowls. “What? Are you saying that I have to stand in the line?”
I nod. “Yes, look at the line. Everyone’s already waiting.” My heart races as the leader glares at me and shows off his horns. It is tempting to just let him do whatever, but then...
Someone in the line, a strong-looking guy with golden scales and horns sneers. “Line up.”
The leader of the coal-gray ones hisses back. “Who are you to tell me what to do?”
Before I can blink, the golden scale jabs his laser gun at the leader’s chest. “Questions?”
The leader sneers and takes a deep breath with me staring at both of them, not daring to breathe. I suppose it isn’t my problem if they fight, but I don’t want to cause any trouble for the space station as a whole, either.
Worse, all the guards seem to be gone, and no one else will want to help. Not that I even know how they can help.
The leader says, “You are just a single male.”
The golden scale lifts his brows. “You, one life.”
They remain glaring at each other while I have no idea what to do. Do I tell them to get to the line? Call the guards? Pretend it isn’t my business and go check the curry instead?
Eventually, the leader huffs. “Fine, you better be careful, otherwise...”
The golden scale sneers when a big rock-bodied guy comes over to join the golden scale’s side and says, “Oh, what’s happening? This doesn’t look like we’re just getting fishballs.”
“Line up.” The golden scale repeats to the coal-gray one. The leader of that group finally grunts and heads to the end of the line. The rock guy watches and scratches his head, but he shrugs and follows the golden scale back to the line, where they had been the first in the line.
I let out a breath. Sometimes, arguments and fights happen, but my team and my stall have been good at staying away from those. As a small food stall, we are as far away from conflict as we can be, yet...
I shrug and return to the back end of the stall. Kruhol is stirring the pot of curry with a hand, rolling the fishballs with another two hands, and putting the fried fishballs into the pot of curry with the other. Sometimes, I wish I had four arms too. That sure looks handy.
When the fishballs are ready, I get them into bowls and start serving the queue. I think I’ve seen the golden scale before, but when they aren’t human, my ability to identify them at a glance is bad. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” The golden scale pays in coins and takes his food with the rock following him. They get plenty and I’m glad they enjoy the food.
There are a few others buying, then it is the coal-gray guy’s turn. The leader huffs. “Give me ten servings.”
Somehow, it feels like they aren’t going to pay. “Are you paying in coins or card?” I point at the menu with the prices written on it.
The leader sneers at me. “So, are you saying—“
One of his guys pokes his side and nods to the corner of the alley. I follow their gazes. The golden scale male is there, and he is watching. Maybe he has the same concern as me. I can’t thank him enough for what he did for me and the stall.
The leader clears his throat. “I’ll pay with card.” He fishes out his as I put the fishballs into the bowls for them. Maybe he doesn’t want to look like he is intimidated by the golden scale. He huffs and adds. “If you have good food, we’ll return.”
Maybe I don’t want them to return. I have more than enough good customers who won’t cause me any trouble.
The leader walks off and his fellow hurries to take the food. One of them remains staring at me for longer than the other. My heart skips a beat at that. What does this want?
I turn around and work on preparing for the next order. I don’t want anything to do with these anymore. Hopefully, they will leave the space station quickly enough.
Chapter 2
Zil
Even long after we’ve left the food stall, my heart is still racing. The captain is walking ahead of us while we carry the bowls of fishballs. I’ve never tried these, but they smell so amazing that I want to steal one for myself before we reach our ship again.
It has been a while since I’ve been on a space station, so everything is new again. It is always great to be somewhere with more than uzains around. It gets boring when all I talk to is my own kind.
More importantly, the human female in the stall makes my heart race. I don’t know why, but I want her. I want to talk to her. Obviously, not the way Captain sneered and threatened her.
But how will I get a chance when I’m supposed to be following my team around?
I hope Vrek is here. Maybe he can help me with that. Since he got Serena, he has to have learned how to talk to a human. I talked to Serena too, but just a bit.
Hopefully, they are doing well on their spaceship. Now I don’t fly with them and have since swapped to another fleet.
Captain stops in the middle of the road and we stop, almost bumping into each other. He says, “Zil, what do you say? Do you think that human was disrespecting us? And somehow, the ugly golden scale male dared to interrupt and point a gun at me.”
“Well... I don’t like the golden scale one. But the human female... Maybe it is worth it to pay instead of catching attention. We can always use more neutral space stations that won’t mind letting us stay.”
Captain grunts. “Somehow, you are the good-tempered one. I still think we should punish the human.”
Oh... What does that entail?
My heartbeat races some more. If we are to punish the female, does that mean the Captain wants to grab her and put her on our spaceship?
I ask, “What do you want as a punishment?”
“Hmm... We’ll take her to the ship and... We will figure that out.”
My stomach twitches. I want the female. Maybe this is what’s called the bond. Vrek said he felt that almost the moment he saw Serena, even though he didn’t have a word for that and didn’t completely understand it, either.
I clear my throat. “What are we going to do, though? There’s no reason for us to keep a female on the spaceship. It is a uzain battleship.”
“Yes and no. if I want to, I’m going to do that.”
I shrug. I suppose this captain is even more quick-tempered than the one on Vrek’s ship. Maybe that’s the reason the base camp wants me on this ship, too. “Don’t ruin it. We don’t want to cause trouble.”
Captain lifts an eyebrow at me, and I fight to stand my ground. I’m the coach of this ship; technically, the second in command. But, practically, I’m here to advise Captain, so he should listen to me. He knows why I’m here, and I don’t care whether he likes the arrangement.
Every uzain thinks they can lead a ship on the first try, but that’s usually not the case.
The other uzains look at us, seemingly trying to decide on something. We are uzains, we don’t do voting. But we are uzains, the captain says it and it is the rule.
Eventually, Captain shrugs. “Okay, if that’s what you think.” He continues to the plaza with tables and benches. Some beings are there resting, and some are enjoying food from the various places in the space station. “Here, let’s enjoy the food. If it isn’t good, I’m going to...” He pauses for an awkward moment before he clears his throat. “Before the others see these.”
I suppose that makes sense. I would love to try out these fishballs. They smell so good. In the thin metal disposable bowls, the fishballs are in brown sauce. The human gave us thin sticks, which I suppose are the correct utensils for these. I suppose she prefers these over forks.
There is an empty table for us, so there’s no need to kick others out of their table, which is good for us. We should behave in a space station; it is easier for the captain when there’s no need to draw unwanted attention.
We put the bowls on the table after we were seated. Captain tries a fishball as I pick up a stick for mine. These are chewy ones. There is a layer of oil floating on the brown spicy sauce. I like them.
I’m eating, but something seemingly tickles my back. While the others are busy with food, I turn around.
Something moves in the background, but it moves away too quickly for me to identify it. I scowl at that. Are those Empire’s minions?
Since that action with Vrek, it has been a while since we attacked the Empire’s facilities. But I suppose the Empire will never let us go if they have a chance to kill us.
But...
Maybe it is the male who interrupted us. If I remember correctly, that’s a nekrozzro. Maybe that male thinks that he has strong enough horns to fight us. But there were five of us while he was alone. Maybe counting the guy whose body is made of rock. There were two of them, but do they think they stand a chance?
Not that I’ll ever fight those mineral-based beings. Those don’t get hurt easily, if at all. It will be like attacking a wall, and that’s not an off description.
Maybe they are the ones peeking at us, trying to make sure we won’t cause trouble. But they are just other visitors to this space station, like us. They aren’t in the guards’ uniform. Maybe just a nosy one. There are a lot of those beings around, every one of them thinking they are superior or something.
But somehow, it feels like I’ve seen that nekrozzro before. Is that because every nekrozzro looks similar at a glance?
I stab another fishball, dipping it fully in the sauce before putting it into my mouth. There seems to be something in the sauce, maybe onion, or tender pieces of meat, which are probably the ingredients for the sauce. We ordered more than our headcount, but the fishballs disappear quicker than I want.
My heart skips a beat when I think of Vrek and Serena again. If I capture the woman at the stall, will she make me fishballs? Serena eventually agreed to make us doughnuts, but every human is different.
I shake my head and try to get that thought out of my head. I’m the one telling Captain to give up trying to capture that woman. I’m not going to end up doing it myself.
What happened with Vrek and Serena should be an exception, not the norm. It isn’t like uzains are the ones hunting down other beings and taking them to our ships after all. We don’t do that.
Chapter 3
Hazel
It is such a long day. But every day feels the same when business is good. I have nothing to complain about. My legs are sore, and I can’t wait to be on my own bed. It will be great when I light the fragrance dispenser and sleep through the light.
The space station is a busy place. The lights are always on, and sometimes it feels like time doesn’t exist. All they do here is dim the light a tiny bit, and they wouldn’t even entertain that until a lot of us who work here complained about it.
My stall is closed, and my team is off to their own place for the night. There is a zone that’s for those of us working here. Sometimes, it feels stupid to be paying rent for the stall while also paying rent for my own apartment. I suppose that was how I lived before I set up the stall here, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s just... something always feels wrong. Maybe I don’t enjoy the idea that my whole life is dependent on this space station and its owner.
I groan at myself as I head to the space station’s parking lot. That’s how other beings live, too. Most of them live and work on the same planet, which is the same as me.
There are beings walking around, still spending their time purchasing supplies for their next trip or just here to take a vacation. Not all stalls close and open at the same time, so there is always something for visitors to look at.
I turn a corner, away from a group of loud ones that seem to be half-drunk. Maybe I’m just grumpy, but they should get out of my way and stop annoying me with their laughter.
The stall is closed and I’m not serving any customers. It feels so good to keep a grumpy face instead of always smiling. No one can complain about how I look, not that I would have cared. They can be gone if they don’t want to buy from me because I don’t have a perfect smile.
Wait...
I know it is dumb to think someone is watching me when there are that many beings around, each minding their own business, but it feels like someone is really watching me and following me.
I hurry down the alley and take a turn, only halting right after the turn.
Someone grunts. His voice is familiar, but—
A strong shock rushes through my body and my limbs turn into jelly at once.
The one hits me with whatever tazer it is that hisses. “This is what you get for humiliating me.”
What? Who is that?
My head hurts and it feels like I’m falling asleep. I’m not walking, but whoever that is grabs me to move with them.
Fuck!
I open my mouth to scream, but the surge of electricity comes again, shooting even stronger numbness into me.
