Chapter 25
"Why can't we just jab them with a translator chip like the one you stuck in me?" Arnina asked Tiffany.
I rubbed the sore spot behind my ear.
Tiffany had pressed something against that spot and pulled a trigger.
It hurt. What hurt more was the sudden headache that was slowly fading, a side effect of the translator implant.
Whatever. It was worth the price. It seemed to be working pretty quickly, but it turned out that they couldn't give them to the cat elves yet. They were calibrated only for species the horned aliens knew about, and they hadn’t met the cat elves yet.
The cat elf galactic empire was on the other side of the closed-off Terran territory and another unfriendly species that Tiffany's ship had skirted around while exploring.
"It took a lot to update it to take visuals into account," Tiffany replied. "We were only able to do it because we've been able to skim massive amounts of data off of their networks to run through a machine learning model."
"That doesn't answer her question," I pointed out.
"Figuring out sticking it in a new species is hard and will take more time to make sure it won't hurt them," Tiffany said. "We've been talking to these furry elves using a written translator."
"So I can understand you, but you have no idea about me yet," Arnina sighed, making mooneyes at her Boy Toy.
"Oh, let me type that out." Tiffany lifted the tablet in her hands.
They didn't have a physical implant for the cat elves, but they had programmed some tablets to create a visual audio display to translate typed English into their movement and tonal based language.
"Don't tell him," I said. "He's already said a bunch of juicy stuff. If he doesn't know you can understand him, he'll say more."
I felt a little bad about suggesting that, but not entirely.
These aliens totally wanted to bang us. We needed some way to catch them out if their intentions were not cool.
"That is unethical." Tiffany's husband grinned. I really needed to learn his name, but we humans had been so focused on our conversation that I hadn't asked yet. "I love it," he finished.
"Do you and your husband and friends want to come stay with us?" Arnina asked Tiffany.
"We've been stuck in this port for a few days while we figured out the translators,"
Tiffany's husband rumbled. "One of the programs is on that tablet."
Tiffany tapped pictures on the tablet with a touch keyboard.
"Type in there, and their written language will appear there. A basic idea, but it was a pain to get working. How do you think this will work?" Tiffany asked. "The prime minister there seems to want to get rid of you, and though that fellow is into you, it sounds like a of drama."
"The wardrobe lady is the prime minister?" I asked. "Neen! Your boyfriend is the son of the prime minister!"
"That's what her title translated to," Tiffany said. "We don't know how accurate it is. This is the alpha testing phase."
"My plan is to fake it until you make it," Arnina nodded.
I looked at my own tablet translator that they gave me.
"Ladies! Horny aliens! Let's commandeer this car!" Arnina called out.
I blinked to see Arnina walking towards the car we’d arrived in.
I'd missed something.
One of the horned aliens said something to Arnina that I didn't hear.
I quickly jogged over to them.
"Legolas, stay with the others on the ship," Tiffany's husband instructed.
Ooh, that was a great name - but why did a horned alien have that name? That was a human pop culture name. How strange. I looked at him, and all I saw was muscle and a mischievous grin directed at Arnina. He looked like a whole lot of trouble, and if he was staying with the ship…
"I'm staying on the ship, too, to snoop around," I said. Arnina glanced at me and nodded, acknowledging my words. "Get me a phone bracelet and send it to me, okay?"
Zale and the Boy Toy stood to the side, speaking quietly.
"I'm going to make sure our ride out of here is secure," I whispered to Arnina, then I turned to grin at the alien.
"I can show you the best place to sit on the ship," Legolas beamed as he spun in place to head over toward me, sending a shiver of excitement through me as he pointed some of that warmth in his gaze at me.
Damn.
"Is it on your face? Cause if it is, then you're going to have to come up with a better pickup line," I quipped, then quickly walked off so he was behind me.
Yep, I was flirting.
I did not know what to do with myself, surrounded by all of this muscular manliness.
Alienness? Could I even use the word manliness to describe a hot alien male?
At least, I was assuming he was male. He was an alien, after all. They could very well reproduce asexually or be able to swap sexes at will, for all I knew. I shouldn't assume that he had the ability to penetrate just because he was looking at me like I was a flower and he was a bee.
I hadn't seen inside his pants yet, so I had no idea what was going on there.
He might just want to lick my pollen.
Even though the hot cat elf alien had my heart twisted into a knot, I was afraid of having my heart broken.
Zale was right there, unable to understand my conversation with the horney guy and I felt a flash of guilt.
I quickly pushed it aside. I had to be practical.
Zale wasn’t telling me that he wanted to marry me tomorrow.
What if his species didn’t even have monogamy as an option?
I couldn’t go committing myself to one guy I couldn’t even communicate with just because of one night of incredible, mind blowing connection.
"My face knows how to get you some coffee," Legolas said as he caught up with me.
"Coffee, chocolate, and foot rubs are included in the face sitting."
My mouth started moving before I thought about the words.
They came out, just like they did at the club.
"Your dick better vibrate if you're going to throw down that kind of game," I said, my tone warm as I gave the horned alien a sultry smile.
Immediately afterward, I regretted it.
What was I doing?
I didn't really feel that way. The words just came out of my mouth: casual and easy, a product of the environment I had worked in for the last two years. I had gotten used to empty flirting with men.
But that environment was gone.
I didn't have to act that way.
I flushed as I checked for Zale, only to see that he was following us, his ears flattened back on his head as he glared at Legolas. I squeezed the translation tablet against my chest.
I didn't want to act that way.
Yet I knew that wasn’t going to stop me.
I watched Legolas as we walked up the ramp and through the overly large hatch door into the spaceship. It was large enough for four of the horned aliens to walk through side by side. I barely noticed the details, taken aback by the awkward smile on Legolas's face.
When I said something forward like I'd just done, normally I'd get a couple of different types of reactions.
Guys would sneer, leer, and laugh, and every once in a while, I'd get a flash of anger or embarrassment from them.
I would continue giving them my give me all your money smile and not worry about it, but if they hung around too late I would make sure the bouncer kept an eye on me until I got to my car.
Legolas was an alien, so I wasn't entirely sure what emotion I was seeing.
All I knew was that it was there.
"Penny for your thoughts?" I asked.
"My thoughts are of value." Legolas lost all expression as he looked at me, his face perfectly neutral and relaxed. "But you do not need to buy them, even for so little."
"Penny for your thoughts is a colloquialism used to ask another person what they are thinking," I explained. "I am not undervaluing your thoughts; I am trying to be polite in asking for them."
“Oh.” Legolas smiled. "In that case, I was thinking about whether you were serious or not with your flirting.
I haven't had a human woman flirt with me before, and the training course warned me not to make any assumptions, because human women all react differently and have different options about interactions. "
I knew I should tell Legolas I wasn’t actually going to sit on his face.
It wasn’t fair to lead him on but at the same time, I didn’t want to backtrack.
He wasn’t giving me aggressive or violent vibes and even though I emotionally didn’t feel like following through on the flirting, I didn’t want to stop it completely.
So instead I evaded his question.
"Training course?" I asked as the doorway led into a storage bay filled with crates stacked and strapped down. On one side of the bay stood a small shuttle with no wheels sitting on top of what looked like an automatic hatch.
Flirting wasn’t a promise of action.
I glanced back to see that the large open door we walked through was set into a huge, closed cargo bay door that looked like it could open up by parting in the middle and sliding into the wall of the ship itself. Basically, the cargo doors had a small person sized door in it.
"I've taken all of the courses, both those required for long-term contact with human women, and some of the electives!" Legolas said. "Including initial courting and green light signals, stop and do not pass go, cunnil-"
"Whoa," I said. I definitely didn't need to hear that he was skilled at pollen-eating. "Who came up with these titles?"
"The Human Council of Queens, of course," he replied.
"Is Earth like a feminist totalitarian government now?" I gasped.
"I don't know," he shrugged. "I don't know much about the Terran territories or planets. Their controlled space is a no-go zone. The Human Council of Queens is on our home planet."
We walked through a smaller hatchway that led into a hallway.
"So, is the Council of Queens outside of human space?" I asked. "You have a human based government on your home planet?"
"Of course," he beamed. "It's made up of the queens of your era."
"Beyoncé was kidnapped, too?" I gasped.
"Who?" he replied.