She was in a skintight long-sleeved jumpsuit that, happily, left little work for my imagination. The zipper was open enough to give me a great shot of her skin, which was creamy and looked incredibly smooth.

  In addition to having the best rack in the longest bar in the biggest spaceport in the Beta Quadrant, she was gorgeous, flat out gorgeous. She had the kind of figure that started at Galaxy Class and went on from there. She moved in a slinky way that a lot of women tried to do to be sexy and only a few managed naturally. And her hair. Long, thick, brown hair, streaked with a variety of red, gold, and copper hues. It shimmered as she slithered through the crowd.

  She caught me staring at her and glared at me. The glare reminded me of an eagle's. Meaning I knew what planet she was from.

  My view was blocked by an attractive midriff without anything between the taut, smooth skin and my eyes or lips. Not a bad tradeoff. "Can I get you all anything else?" our waitress, Kathi, asked seductively. She was good at seductive—I'd already had a good time with her earlier in the day. If I hadn't spotted the somehow even hotter chick, I'd be having another good time with Kathi before we left. Now that good time was contingent upon a variety of things, where the hotter chick was heading being all of said things.

  "Not just yet, doll."

  She dimpled at me. "I'll be back later, Captain. For your fifth round of drinks and my third round of you."

  "That's what I like to hear."

  Kathi sauntered away and I enjoyed that view for a couple of seconds. Then my eyes suggested I look back at the somehow even hotter chick, which I did. She was still slinking through the bar managing to be even more seductive than Kathi. The day was really looking up. So were other things.

  A hairy abdomen blocked my view. My eyes and stomach both complained bitterly as I was so rudely wrenched from my happy place. I looked up quickly to see that the rest of the man standing in front of me was just as hairy. Wildly hairy, as if he'd never heard of the concept of beard trimming or hair brushing.

  He was dressed, if you could call it that, in the style of the Barbarians from Jirst—sort of a modest loincloth/diaper combo, bands crossing his chest, knee high furred boots, and bracers on both wrists, all leather, naturally. It was a ridiculous way to dress, especially if you were traveling through space, but "a true Barbar" wouldn't be caught dead in pants and a shirt.

  While that "clothing of my forebears" attitude was great for the female Barbars, called Barbarellas—who all tended to be big breasted, perfectly tanned, well-muscled, and wore their people's equivalent of fur and leather bikinis—having to see this much bare man-flesh wasn't something I'd hoped the day would bring me. Had this been a Barbarella, I'd have been interested—it was always a fun change of pace to sleep with someone who demanded to take charge and had creative ideas about how to do so. Seeing as it was a Barbarian, however, my interest level was at zero and dropping rapidly.

  Most Barbars didn't leave the Alpha Quadrant. The few who did tended to be trouble, in no small part because they all liked to carry laser swords and axes—which were exactly as nasty as they sounded—and create a ruckus wherever they could. Living up to their Barbar heritage or some such. Supposedly they were pleasant enough if you could get them to drop the act. So far, I'd never met a Barbarian who was willing to do so.

  Had to give this one credit, though—he was as big as he was hairy. I wasn't a wimp, but this guy was buffed out and doing what he could to ensure that his muscles rippled just standing there. I sincerely hoped the hot chick wasn't into overly muscled hairy men, because if she was, I was definitely going to flame out next to this specimen. Unless she cared about grooming. Then I was definitely the winner.

  "Can I help you?" I asked, as politely as I could manage. Laser axes, of which he had two strapped to his back, tended to make me politer than normal.

  "I'm Jamez Conazon. With z's not s's."

  We all waited. That appeared to be it.

  "Well, Jamez with a Z, now that you've shot your wad, do you mind getting out of the way? There are lots of other places to stand where you won't be blocking my view."

  "I'm not leaving. I'm here for the job." He stood up even straighter than he had been and slammed a ham-fist against one of his giant pectorals. "I am reporting for duty, Captain!" He was staring straight ahead, meaning well over all of our heads, since I and my crew were all sitting down.

  "Seriously?" Saladine asked, speaking for, I was pretty sure, all of us.

  "Yes," Jamez said, still staring at the wall behind us. "I have trained and I am ready."

  "Ready for what, young man?" the Governor asked.

  Jamez started blathering about his Barbar background and training. My ears turned off. I shifted in my seat and was just able to spot the hot chick again. And she was definitely a chick. A slinky chick, happily still heading my way.

  She was still shooting the eagle-glare at me as she came up behind Jamez. "I'm looking for the captain of the space vessel three-three-six-nine." Her voice was like honey.

  "And you've got him. What's a nice girl from Aviatus doing in a place like this?"

  She jerked and her eyes widened. She also drew in her breath sharply, which I found particularly rewarding. "What?" She sounded freaked out.

  "Seriously? The hottest chicks in the galaxy come from Aviatus. You're making your planet proud, I can promise you that."

  Her glare changed. Now I had a vulture-glare hitting me. Maybe it was time to turn back to Jamez. Risked a listen. He was still blathering about drinking mare's milk and dragon's blood as a child. My ears shared that they were only interested in what the hot chick had to say.

  "What are you insinuating?” she hissed.

  "You know, that's impressive. There was only one 's' in that sentence and yet you managed to make it all sound hissy. I'd ask where you learned to do that, but it's probably not important right now. So, what can the Outland do for you?"

  She blinked and the vulture-glare disappeared. "You refer to yourself in the third person?"

  "Sometimes. How should I refer to you?"

  "I'm not giving you my name," she snapped.

  "Okay, Slinkie. So, what's your pleasure?"

  She blinked again. "Excuse me, what did you call me?"

  "Slinkie. I watched you walking, I think the name fits you. And, until you tell me your real name, that's what I'm calling you. It's that or doll. And I'm just betting on which one you're going to pick."

  She rolled her eyes. "Between 'doll' and Slinkie? Yeah, Slinkie it is. Besides, that's actually my name. That's why I was shocked that you knew it."

  The Governor and Saladine both snorted. Nice to see they'd stopped listening to Jamez drone on, too. Risked a look out of the side of my eye—Randolph was still listening to the Barbarian. Well, unless we were talking about taking care of the Sixty-Nine or anything else mechanical, he wasn't the sharpest weapon in my or anyone else's arsenal.

  "Sure it is. So, what can the best pilot in the galaxy do for you?"

  "You have literally no problems with your ego, do you? You're a little young to be this cocky."

  "I have literally no problems with any of my parts, and I'm not as young as I look, Slinkie." I wasn't, though I wasn't all that old, either. But I'd become the best pilot in the galaxy before I'd graduated from the Academy and I'd been flying the Sixty-Nine since I'd rescued her from her sad situation of being piloted by someone other than the best, and that was a good seven years ago. "I'm betting I'm still older than you."

  She sniffed. "Maybe."

  "Definitely," the Governor said. "I put you at no more than twenty-three standard years, young lady, and our good captain is a few years older than that."

  Well, three was a few, right? Old enough, at any rate. "What the Governor said."

  Jamez noticed we weren't listening to him. "Why are you talking to her instead of me?"

  "Uh, she's a lot prettier. For starters."

  "She cannot do what I can do." James started to grab one of his axes.

  And Slinkie moved. She grabbed his bicep with both hands and spun him toward her, rammed her knee up into his groin, slammed a rising elbow strike at his chin as he was buckling, kicked out his knee with her raised foot, yanked the arm she was still holding down, let go of his arm and wrenched the axe out of his other hand, kicked his head back, stomped on his chest, and had the axe activated and at his throat—all in less than five seconds. Jamez was out cold.

  "Yeah," Slinkie said, "you're right."

  "You're hired." I noted Central Receiving Security had, unsurprisingly, taken an interest. "And we're leaving."

  Thankfully, my crew didn't argue. We just all got up, I put my arm around Slinkie's waist, the Governor grabbed Jamez's money pouch and dropped it on our table for Kathi, and we headed off in the opposite direction, meaning toward the back of the bar. Slinkie still had the axe.

  "Deactivate that, would you?" Saladine asked nicely, as he and Randolph helped the Governor move quickly. Hasty escapes tended to be hard on the old man.

  "I know how to work it, you turkey," she snarled.

  "Oh, it's not that I don't trust you with it," Saladine said, still nicely, as Randolph opened the back door and we hustled through it, "but because it glows and, in case you didn't realize it, we're now escaping from being captured and questioned by spaceport security. Unless that's what you want."

  Slinkie deactivated the axe. "Good point."

  We were in the part of the spaceport that most travelers never went into—the back alleys that the businesses used for their trash, extra storage, and so forth. They weren't well lit because there wasn't a good reason to waste the power for this kind of thing, there were a lot of boxes guarded by the age-old method of leaving Hands Off signs around them, and they had a lot of corners, twists, and turns, all of which meant they were great for escaping.

  "I still need the parts, Nap," Randolph whined.

  "Why is he calling you 'Nap'?" Slinkie asked. "I thought your name was Alexander."

  "Nap likes his middle name more," Saladine said. "Just like you like Slinkie."

  "Ah." She seemed to notice that I had my arm around her for the first time. "Why are you moving me along like I'm a hatchling?"

  "Because we haven't worked together yet, Slink, and if you trip I'll keep you upright. Unless we're near a bed. Then I'm all for us both falling down."

  "Do lines like that actually work for you?"

  "Like a charm."

  "They do," Saladine confirmed. "As hard as that might be to believe."

  "Women," Slinkie said disgustedly.

  "I'm all for women, Slink. Let's just get to our main woman and get out of here. But, while we dash along, are you as good with guns as you are with Barbarians?"

  "Better."

  "Big cannons that are on spaceships, too?"

  "If it's a gun, I can shoot it. To kill."

  "I think I'm in love. Randolph, can you possibly steal the parts we need so as to save us some time? And money."

  "You're thieves?" Slinkie asked.

  "Pirates, babe. Smugglers. All around bad men." Hey, I was proud of what I'd worked hard to achieve.

  "I didn't think I was signing up with bad men."

  "Seriously? Somehow, you beating up poor Jamez the Now Really Embarrassed Barbarian and us using his money to pay our bar tab was okay, but us relieving a merchant of some of his wares isn't?"

  "Oh. Well, when you put it that way . . . I think we're behind the biggest of the spaceship parts stores right now."

  "She's right, Nap," Randolph said, as we came to a halt and he took a good look at the Hands Off signs. "What we want isn't out here, but I should be able to get everything we need from their backroom stock." He tried the door, because we all lived by the motto that it was better to see if the easy way was going to work. Naturally, the door was locked.

  I forced myself to let go of Slinkie's waist—for which I deserved a huge reward—and picked the lock. Just in time—I heard the heavy sound of security feet pounding down the hallway behind us. "Everyone in." I shoved Slinkie through, hurried the others along, and shut the door just as security rounded the corner. I locked the door behind us. "They may have spotted us."

  "They wouldn't be the only ones," Slinkie said, keeping the laser axe behind her as she indicated the two women standing there, looking slightly shocked.

  They were dressed to appeal to those who came in for parts, meaning ship's engineers and similar—in other words, lots of men and women of the liking other women persuasion. They were both in tight, black Capris, hot pink short-sleeved collared shirts with the top several buttons undone, black high heels, well done makeup, and hair up in ponytails. They were definitely firing on all cylinders in terms of being able to upsell pretty much anyone.

  They each had nametags, which was helpful. Missy had dirty blonde hair, Chrysta had red, they were both well-endowed—though Slinkie was the clear champion in this event—and both were nice and easy on the eyes. The day was definitely looking up.

  "Ladies!" I flashed them the Patented Outland Smile, guaranteed to charm any and every female in the galaxy.

  Missy and Chrysta both giggled. Slinkie rolled her eyes and muttered something about being stuck with a bunch of egg stealers. I ignored her and the fact that she, apparently, wasn't finding the Outland Charm enticing. Yet. If she could roll with us in this situation, then she was potentially good for the long haul. And if she couldn't, then leaving her here on Central Receiving was the nicest thing I could do for her.

  "You're not supposed to be here," Missy said. I detected a faint accent in how she rolled her "r"s, marking her as a Jinnie from Jirsh. We were in luck. Jirsh and Jirst were sister planets and, like many sisters, they didn't always get along. Jirshians, Jinnards in particular, hated everyone who lived on their sister planet of Jirst, Barbars especially.

  "We're escaping from a lunatic Barbarian," I shared, somewhat truthfully. I mean, it was technically Jamez's fault we were currently in this situation. "Is there any chance you lovely ladies can help us to hide?"

  Chrysta's eyes flashed. "Barbarians are the worst!" She, too, rolled her "r"s. The Outland Luck was holding firm.

  "We can help you," Missy said, sounding like she was ready to make her planet's Active Gods proud by destroying all the Barbars in the area. It was probably a good thing we hadn't run into a Jinn—he might have suggested we go out and kill the Barbarian as a bonding exercise. "But this is where we’d tell you to hide, and if that Barbarian saw you come in, then he'll be coming through our door in moments."

  "We should call Security." Chrysta reached for the intercom. Of course, calling security would be worse than going off to cause Jamez serious pain. Well, for us.

  "Oh, no need for that," I said quickly. "I think they're already after him. But I didn't want to take any chances with my crew."

  "Oooh, are you a pilot?" Missy asked, batting her eyelashes. Chrysta got in on the eyelash batting, too. This was definitely going to be a stop to remember.

  "He is," Saladine said. "I'll bet he'd be willing to tell all about our adventures, but I think we might want to do that somewhere else."

  "We could go into the dressing rooms," Chrysta suggested.

  "Why are there dressing rooms in a supplies store?" Slinkie asked.

  "We sell clothing popular with those who work hard day and night," Chrysta replied, clearly repeating a slogan. "If you want to change out of that tight suit and get into something that'll be much easier to work in, I think we have your size."

  "I'm good, thanks," Slinkie said, just this side of snarling.

  "Don't worry," Missy said. "No one will see you changing. There's no one else in the store right now. Things are slow."

  "That seems unusual," Randolph said.

  Missy shrugged, which, considering her outfit, was a pleasant thing to watch. "It's probably because of that stupid princess."

  "What princess?" the Governor asked, sounding just this side of ready to fall asleep. I shared the sentiment. In the grand scheme of things, my viewpoint of royalty was that all of them could get spaced and the galaxy would probably be a better place.

  Chrysta's turn to shrug and help me remain in my happy place. "She's a runaway bride. They think she's come to Central Receiving for some reason. It was supposed to be exciting, but nothing's happened. At least, not around here."

  "Who cares?" Slinkie muttered.

  "Not me." I could hear the sounds of security at the back door. "Girls, I have a great idea. Why don't you take us to those dressing rooms? In fact, why don't you take me there, and let the rest of my friends here help make it look like the store's busy?"

  Slinkie gave me another shot of the vulture-glare. "Really?"

  "Really, Slink. In fact, you're dressed close enough to how Missy and Chrysta are—why don't you pretend to help Randolph and Saladine find things?" Slinkie's jumpsuit was typical of what a lot of spacers wore, but it was also something I'd seen plenty of mechanics and ship's engineers in, too, though, as Chrysta had pointed out, none of their suits had been skintight. She'd look like a customer to anyone who knew the girls and like she worked here to anyone who didn't.

  Slinkie opened her mouth—to argue, I was pretty sure—but the Governor spoke before she could. "I'm an old man," he quavered, "and I demand to sit down. That horrible Barbarian tried to strike me and I'm still not recovered."

  Missy and Chrysta instantly went into solicitous mode and Slinkie slammed her mouth shut. She handed the axe to Saladine, shoved Missy and Chrysta away, and put her arm around the Governor. "I'll help you, sir," she said sweetly. "Girls, where should I take him?"

  Missy and Chrysta led us to the employees' bathroom, presumably because it had a small couch for the Governor to sit on. I chose to not ask why there was a couch in here, because my Great-Aunt Clara had told me far too much about women's "delicate conditions" —of which woman apparently had a plethora—when I was growing up and the less I thought about them, the better.