5 Not for a Million Credits
Not for a Million Credits
A fter six hours alone in a conference room the size of her apartment, Temmi’s nerves were live wires. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Gareth about why she’d abandoned her route, hadn’t had a chance to pay Shrimps their rent money, hadn’t had a chance to speak with anyone .
The guards had thrown her into a cramped podship and launched her into the sky.
The ride had been shaky, windowless, and exactly like what Temmi imagined being trapped in a tin can and tossed upward might feel like.
Once on the star cruiser, she’d barely had a chance to look around before being corralled into a giant conference room.
A projected image of an elderly albino woman, who was apparently the emperor’s chief of staff, had proceeded to ask her a series of increasingly intrusive questions:
Then, almost as abruptly as it’d begun, the call ended and Temmi was left alone in a room so big, its openness threatened to consume her. Six hours later and she actually missed the chemical stench of her planet’s surface.
Midnight loomed on X72. Ollie would be frantic with worry.
Gareth would be cursing her name, might even fire her.
And her mom...Temmi pounded her forehead against the fancy mahogany table.
She laced her hands over the back of her neck and closed her eyes.
The tang of recent varnish stung her nose.
The floor vibrated gently beneath her feet.
A faint, persistent humming carried on the recycled air.
Dots of white light lined the baseboard of the conference room, blinking occasionally.
She didn’t even have earplugs. Without them, she was like a fighter pilot soaring into battle with her shields down.
Vulnerable, unsafe, doomed to explode. Sounds were jarring to her, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes rage-inducing.
Her earplugs kept the threat of sound to a dull throb; she wore them habitually.
She couldn’t sleep without a pair. Couldn’t focus.
The thought of spending an entire day without them ignited a fiery panic in her gut.
What if she was whisked away to some prison station in the far reaches of the Expanese System, or stars forbid, the Outerbelt , and forced to sleep next to loudly snoring inmates?
(She knew from experience the torture of having no earplugs and a cellmate with untreated sleep apnea.)
You’re not under arrest, she reminded herself, pressing her forehead harder against the smooth surface of the table.
“Um, hello. Are you—are you all right?”
Temmi sat up so fast, she nearly gave herself whiplash. Her forehead throbbed dully.
The pretty man, the prince— Nix, you dumbass, she thought—stood at the head of the conference table. Temmi hadn’t heard him enter.
He appeared to be alone, though she was certain that the conference room was equipped with hidden cameras, that a room full of people somewhere were watching her slowly lose her sanity.
He was dressed less formally than he’d been that afternoon.
In fact, he appeared to be in loungewear.
Sweatpants like the kind Ollie would sleep in but made from much finer cloth and fitted perfectly to his body.
A tee shirt with some ridiculous pun of a band name.
His hair tousled like it’d dried recently, the ends just long enough to curl past his ears.
All right, fine . He was an objectively beautiful man.
Beautiful almost to the point of pain. Like an existential ache that said yes , his beauty means something .
There was a density to it, like nature had somehow conspired to show the grand plan of the universe in the slope between his cheekbone and jaw, the long flutter of his eyelashes, the sorrowful tilt of his heavy-lidded eyes, the perfect pout of his lips.
Prince Nix. Once, that name had meant hope for the future.
It’d been Prince Nix’s Alliance Scholarship, a wealthy endowment for the empire’s most promising young scientists, that Scot had taken from her.
A graphic of her ex-boyfriend receiving the award, shaking hands with Prince Nix outside Expan Central University, had circulated the local networks for a full year.
An article in a local flimsy paper had celebrated Scot’s impressive model for “organic energy harvesting.” A model that he’d stolen from Temmi.
It should’ve been her two years back, starry-eyed and hopeful, embarking on a bright future of scholarship, the whole of the universe opening before her like a jumpgate.
Instead, Scot’s betrayal had broken something deep inside her, something beyond the physical flesh of her heart and bones.
Had broken her view of people and the world.
Or, more accurately, had reinforced a truth she’d learned at a much younger age, when her father had left: that the universe was a cruel place and that people were, inherently, selfish.
Love only worked when it was mutually beneficial.
Temmi stood abruptly. Sudden spots swam in her vision. She blinked them away, clueless as to the protocol for addressing an imperial heir. Should she bow? Curtsy? Grovel like a rat? Call him a narcissist like she had his sister? She settled on standing awkwardly like a loser.
The prince pulled out a chair and assumed a seat at the table’s head. Relieved, Temmi took that as her cue to do the same. A wide expanse of mahogany separated them.
Ollie was gonna lose his mind when she told him about being alone in a room with Nix Expani. If she ever got the chance to tell Ollie. Panic squeezed tight her airway. She swallowed, trying to breathe through it.
“Your Highness”—that, at least, seemed like the proper address—“what am I doing here?” She’d meant to sound polite, but even to her own ears, her tone came out distinctly aggravated.
She took a calming breath. She wasn’t looking to make her situation worse.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I should be getting home.
I have responsibilities, and my family will be wondering where I am. ”
Nix folded his hands politely atop the table.
He wore elbow-length supple black leather gloves.
Their formality contrasted starkly with his otherwise casual attire.
Placed over the glove on his right thumb was a heavy brass ring bearing the seal of the Expan Empire.
“May I call you Artemis?” he asked, his voice accented in that posh way belonging to the Expanese high society.
A silkiness in his tone caused a shiver to travel up Temmi’s spine.
She became excruciatingly aware of the smeared grime on her cheeks and rumpled state of her jumpsuit.
“Artemis is fine.” She swallowed, reminding herself that she absolutely did not care what this spawn of century’s old colonization thought of her.
His mouth quirked into a half smile. “Then, Artemis, I’m here to extend an offer. I wanted to do so personally. I apologize for how long we’ve kept you waiting.”
Apology not accepted, Temmi thought, but bit back the retort. Her stomach whined loudly; she crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to tell it to shut up.
The prince raised an eyebrow. “Did no one bring you any supper?”
I’ve been alone for six hours, you royal bastard was what she wanted to say. But again, she was being polite. “No, but it’s no bother. I’m more than used to skipping meals. If you’ll just give me leave to go, I can take care of myself.”
“That’s not—” He stood abruptly. “One moment.” He crossed quickly to the conference-room doors and stuck his head into the corridor. Temmi’s Expanese wasn’t good enough to catch the quick, hushed exchange. He turned back to her a moment later but stayed near the doors.
Long minutes passed in awkward silence. Minutes during which Temmi’s stomach continued to embarrass her. For the second time that day, she wished for someone to stick an LZ’s laser point against her head and pull the trigger.
A young man in a blindingly white uniform hurried into the conference room.
He carried a silver tray in trembling hands, sweat lining his brow.
Quickly, he deposited the tray in front of Temmi, turned to Nix, and bowed low at the waist (so, bowing was a thing, then) before darting back out of the conference room.
Nix, finally, resumed his seat at the table’s head.
A decadent aroma wafted from the food tray.
The insistent whines from Temmi’s stomach became overwhelming gurgles.
There appeared to be various vegetables and a white filet of some kind of meat.
She couldn’t say for certain—she’d never eaten real meat before.
Just the imitation shit the drugstores sold.
X72 had no animals to butcher, no sea life to catch, and was too distant and poverty-ridden to warrant any rich imports.
Or, rather, those imports didn’t make it into the hands of people like her.
She glanced at the prince—he was wearing an amused expression. Well, fuck him. She dug in to the food. And, involuntarily, moaned. Which was, again, embarrassing. But also, this was easily the best meal she’d ever eaten.
“You gonna tell me why the hell I’m still here, or just keep staring at me like I’m a mining exhibit?
” She winced at her own words. Be polite, Temmi, she told herself.
Though to be fair, politeness had never been a character trait she’d possessed.
And anyway, she’d been quite cordial up to this point.
Nobody was perfect.
He moved his hands from the table to his lap. “We want to cast you as X72’s contestant in Love Galaxy ’s upcoming season.”
Temmi fully choked on a chunk of flaky meat-stuff. “Come—come again?”
“Oh, we would like to cast you—”
“No, I heard you.” She twisted the lid off an aluminum water bottle and took a gulp. “It’s a funny joke; I’ll give you that. Really, though, when can I go home?”