Grumpy Alien King by Celeste King
Heather
“Recalculating,” the shuttle’s nav program flat, computerized voice said for the thirtieth time this trip.
“No, don’t recalculate,” I shouted at it. “I’m finally getting there!”
“Recalculating.”
“How can you be recalculating again? I haven’t even changed flight paths!”
“Recalculating.”
I kicked the navigation panel.
“Recalculating,” I said in unison with it.
“Recalculate this,” I told it, flipping it off.
Then I settled back in the uncomfortable shuttle seat and folded my arms and legs in a huff.
Somehow, between my classes on Sexual Anatomy of Known Races, Etiquette for Brides, Self-Defense, and Men Are From the Strayne Nebula and Women Are From Gaitram VII, I missed the class they offered on shuttle piloting, I thought ruefully.
I was already late. The shuttle’s navigation systems simply refused to cooperate. I swear I’d plugged in the proper coordinates, but it kept taking me on all kinds of interstellar detours.
Why do they send us by ourselves, anyway? I huffed silently. Wouldn’t it make a stronger impression if we had a chauffeur?
Thoughts of a personal driver led me to remember the few scant details Yves had given me before I’d left. Or, rather, before I’d been put helpless into a shuttle with a mind of its own.
“You will never want again, Heather Sinclair,” the old Headmistress had intoned. “You are marrying a man of great means. You shall have whatever you wish.”
Like a chauffeur, I mused now, a smile growing on my face. The agency would undoubtedly be receiving a sizable dowry for me. Thirty percent of that would then go to me, which I would in turn pass along to my aging parents. But if this guy was loaded, it was possible I could get even more cash sent homeward.
That would make it all worth it.
The smile froze on my face as something on the nav computer’s screen caught my eye. There was a spinning wheel on the screen, indicating it was processing something.
“Don’t you dare be fucking recalculating,” I told it through clenched teeth.
Then the screen went completely blank.
“What the fuck?”
One word went across the screen: JAMMING IN PROCESS.
“What are you jamming?” I wondered. “Or jamming to? Did you take a dance break, nav computer?”
I tapped at it. Then my attention was caught by a sight outside my viewscreen.
The shuttle had just descended out of the clouds. Below me, on a lush, perfectly manicured green hill, sat a giant compound of a house.
Holy crap. Is that where I’m going to live?
The place looked almost as expansive as the main campus of Teshie’s entire school. It was modeled in a style I recognized from my Architectures of Sanax Bank Signatories as early-Trixian Dynasty. Which meant lots of rich, muted colors, open spaces, straight lines, and a certain pompous presentation.
I’d never been intimidated by a house until that very moment.
TeshieTraining, don’t fail me now, I thought.
Something was moving near the edge of the compound. I strained my eyes to see. It was kind of long and round. Pointing itself in the direction of my shuttle. I tried to identify it. It wasn’t something we’d learned about in the architecture classes.
Then the edge of it erupted in fire and I realized that it was something I’d learned about in Legal Weapons of the Sanax Empire.
I was being shot at!
The laser bolt flew past the viewport. It came so close to hitting the shuttle that the heat of the bolt warped the viewport’s plexi-glass.
What the fuck?!
I reached for the shuttle’s controls, but they wouldn’t give. I glanced again at the nav computer. Jamming, I realized. As in, being jammed. By my future husband’s house. Which was also shooting at me?
There were horror stories about this sort of thing. Girls at Teshie’s whispered about them. Other mail-order-bride institutions where sadistic men ordered the women only to torture, maim and murder them.
But Teshie’s was the best company of its kind in the galaxy! They specifically noted in their promotional materials that they weeded out the sociopaths and nutjobs!
The laser cannon below me was tracking me for another assault. I yanked at the controls, which still refused to respond. Then the comm systems activated and a voice came over the speaker.
“Teshie Shuttle 2781, you are not in danger.”
“Coulda fooled me,” I said.
“The shots were fired in error.”
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
“You are to land immediately. We are illuminating the pad.”
I glanced out the warped viewport. A landing pad, big enough for three shuttles like mine, located on the east wing of the compound, lit up. It was right next to the cannon that had just been trying to blow me out of the sky.
“Land now,” the voice over the comms insisted.
“I heard you the first time,” I muttered.
Next thing I knew, the Jamming message disappeared from the nav screen. The computer told me it was recalculating, so I kicked it with the heel of my boot this time. It shorted out. I took over piloting and somehow managed to land without destroying me, the shuttle, or any part of the house.
I flicked a few switches that I hoped started the touchdown sequences and not the self-destruct, then gathered myself and headed for the shuttle door.
Pausing a moment, I took several deep breaths. This was it, I knew. My future was at hand. Would it be happily ever after with a decent man who just hadn’t had the time or the skills to land a bride the natural way? Or would I be stuck with some disgusting old man? Would it be someone I could grow to love? Or someone I’d always have to fake caring about?
The shuttle doors opened. My stomach knotted.
Standing before me was the thinnest Sanax male I’d ever seen. He was wearing a tweed suit that was too long for him, making him look like a boy. He had squinched-up eyes and seemed like he was there under duress.
My heart sank.
Looking past the thin Sanax, I caught a glimpse of perhaps the handsomest dragon I had ever seen in my life. The dragon was in the process of throttling some poor schmuck.
Recalculating, I thought.
