Page 7 of Married to the Alien Mountain Man

I skidded around the outcropping to find a wide, flat area of pink stone between towering peaks. A near-perfect natural landing pad. My eyebrows rose as I slowed to a stop, impressed that any pilot who had not visited this world before could find such a place, especially under what I had to assume had been some sort of distress.

The ship appeared to have landed alright, as far as I could tell, anyway. It was not a large vessel – probably meant for carrying only one or two people – and was vaguely tube-like in shape, but tapered into slightly rounded points at each end. This gave it an arching, scythe-like quality from where I viewed it.

No sign of the pilot.

No sign beyond yet more footsteps. Coming from the other side of the ship.

I hurried around the vessel, then froze.

There stood a lone pilot in the stony valley.

They were bipedal, but their features were entirely obscured by a thick white suit and large, round helmet.

“Atmosphere is breathable,” came a sudden voice through the open door of the vessel, though I glimpsed no other occupants.

Before I could attempt to figure out who had spoken, my eyes were drawn back to the pilot, who now unfastened their helmet, removed it, and…

And revealed the prettiest face I’d ever had the pleasure of seeing in my entire blasted, exiled life.

Ahumanface.

She stood at least two heads shorter than me, and yet it was as if she’d suddenly grown larger than any other thing around us. More imposing than the towering mountains. More dizzying than the searing breadth of the sky.

My vision became a dark, opaque tunnel with only her visible at the centre.

Her face was small, her cheeks lush lines leading down to her jaw, the bridge of her nose elegantly curved. Her skin was a rich, medium brown, her hair a darker shade than this, cascading about her shoulders in waves as she freed the lengths of it from inside her white suit. She had a shorter layer of hair at the front that fell forwards over her forehead, drawing my focus to a pair of large, intelligent eyes with deep, dark wells at their centres.

“Thank goodness for that,” she said, her words easily parsed by my inner ear translator. “I was worried I’d be stuck in my suit out here for weeks.”

Even her voice was beautiful.

“It should take about two weeks to get a delivery from Elora Station to this planet, assuming the delivery is allowed by local authorities and that you don’t use sonic freight,” said the voice from inside the vessel. This disembodied voice, as far as I could tell, was not a male voice.

That was good.

I did not stop to analyze why, exactly, I thought it was good this pretty pilot was not travelling with a male. I was too distracted by the high peal of her sudden laughter, the intimate revealing of her straight white teeth and the pink wetness inside her mouth.

A pink wetness that made my lungs feel hot and strange even though I had stopped running some time ago.

“Sonic freight? Come on, Lala. I’m going to be scraping together every credit we’ve got just to pay for the recalibrater and get a normal delivery. We’re in the fucking space boonies out here.”

The pilot left her helmet in the dust and went back into the vessel. When she returned, her suit had been stripped away to reveal tight trousers and a short, sleeveless shirt that showed a sliver of her abdomen and lower back. I spent so long staring at that exposed strip of her skin that I did not at first realize she had a large tool in her hand now. A hammer, I was fairly certain.

She was approaching a panel near the back of her vessel and she still had not noticed me. She kneeled down and pried off a panel near the bottom of her ship. Though this panel had appeared small to me at first glance, the opening now created was more than large enough for her to crawl completely inside. I watched in fascination – and no small amount of unease – as her entire body disappeared. The sounds of banging, breathing, and what I was fairly certain was human swearing, floated out of the opening.

“Damnit! Half the connections are shot now!” the pilot called to her invisible companion. Her lovely voice was harsh with frustration.

It made me want to help her.

I was just striding forward, about to make myself known and offer whatever assistance I could, when she unexpectedly shoved herself back out of the opening, stood, turned, and hurled her hammer.

Hurled it right at me.

I knew she saw me the moment the hammer left her hand. Her large eyes got even larger, her mouth dropped open in shock.

At least that means she probably didn’t throw it at me on purpose.

Even so, it was difficult to dodge the thing. I ducked, but the flying hammer still managed to skate painfully across my forehead and ear and take my hat tumbling to the dusty ground with it.

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