Chimera for Christmas: A SciFi Alien Holiday Romance, page 1
Table of Contents
NOTICES
Chimera for Christmas
CHAPTER ONE | Sophie
CHAPTER TWO | X
CHAPTER THREE | Sophie
CHAPTER FOUR | X
CHAPTER FIVE | Sophie
CHAPTER SIX | X
CHAPTER SEVEN | Sophie
CHAPTER EIGHT | X
CHAPTER NINE | Sophie
CHAPTER TEN | X
CHAPTER ELEVEN | Sophie
CHAPTER TWELVE | X
CHAPTER THIRTEEN | Sophie
CHAPTER FOURTEEN | X
EPILOGUE | Sophie, Three Years Later
NOTICES
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, used, transmitted, or shared via any means without express authorization from the author, except for small passages and quotations used for review and marketing purposes.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and incidents in this novel are fictitious and not to be construed as reality or fact.
Chimera for Christmas Copyright © 2021 Veronica Doran
Chimera for Christmas
A Holiday Scifi Alien Romance
Ursa Dax
CHAPTER ONE
Sophie
Everybody knew the best vacay spots depending on the time of year – Navaret 12 to celebrate the end of their dry season, when the planet’s yawning salt flats turned into mineral pools for soaking. Exdrok to celebrate Almonrok – the death of their religion’s goat demon, where feasts and alcoholic beverages tinted red to look like blood were enjoyed well into the wee morning hours. But when it came to Earth winter solstice celebrations, there’s nowhere anybody would have rather been than Elora Station.
Earth-run, aka human-run, the place became an absolute shrine to human revelry and saccharine commercial goodness during Old-Earth’s winter months. Ancient winter traditions from the Northern Hemisphere of Old-Earth thrived there: Hanukkah, Yalda, Dong Zhi. But, being an entertainment and commerce station that was originally founded by the Old-Earth US Faction of the Terratribe Alliance, Elora Station was dominated by one winter holiday in particular: Christmas.
Every year (by Old-Earth year standards), humans and aliens alike descended on Elora Station to work, shop, and play. And this year, I was going to be among them.
I’d never actually been to Elora Station before. Never even been off of Terratribe 1, one of the oldest human colony planets. But, when a girl finds out her new boyfriend is cheating on her and gets laid off in the same week, something’s got to give. Luckily, Elora Station was always looking for seasonal employees for the winter rush, and I managed to snag myself a job in a coffee shop on board.
So that’s how I ended up there, shivering in the Elora Station decontamination room after getting hosed down with all manner of disinfectants.
“Once the light chamber is finished decontaminating your personal items, you can dry off and get dressed,” a bored-sounding human voice directed me through an intercom nearby, making me jump.
“Holy Terra,” I muttered, rubbing at my arms, looking around the plain white room. At one end of the room was a large, open cube that I’d had to put my suitcase into after I’d opened it. I watched as the cube blasted my stuff with some kind of blue beam of light, giving whatever Terratribe nasties I’d brought with me a good ass-whooping. Why couldn’t they use the blue light on me, too, instead of hosing me down like a damn shuttle in the cleaning bay?
Squeezing excess liquid from my black hair, bedraggled now with the wetness, I hopped from foot to foot, wiggling to keep warm as the blue light finally finished doing its thing. A second later, a conveyor belt within the cube came to life, jerking my stuff out of the cube and out onto the floor of the room. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a smooth ride, and my stuff exploded all over the floor: a catastrophe of fluttering fabrics and a clatter of small bottles of toiletries. I sighed, gritting my teeth as a sad, thin-looking towel followed on the conveyor belt, almost like a crappy little flag of apology for upending my suitcase.
Taking a deep breath, I knelt, my bare knees feeling tender against the hard floor, and started shoving all my stuff back in the suitcase. I’d tried to pack everything nicely, but now it was a jumbled mess. Oh well. I guessed it didn’t matter if things stayed tidy and wrinkle-free in there right now. What mattered was getting dressed and getting the hell out of this room.
A frisson of excitement ran through me as I thought about what was to come. So far, all I’d seen of the station was the bay my shuttle had entered, then the long tunnel I had been jostled down along with the other travellers from my shuttle. We had all been pressed into individual rooms like this one and ordered, via intercom, to strip down for disinfecting procedures. So I hadn’t actually gotten to see any of the hustle and bustle of Elora Station yet. And, let me tell you, that hustle and bustle was legendary. My best friend, Maggie, and I had always tried to do something for the holidays back on Terratribe 1. But I’d never experienced the shining, glossy experience of Christmas on Elora Station. And frankly, I couldn’t fucking wait.
Smiling at that thought and ignoring my goosebumps and messed-up suitcase, I scrubbed the towel along my arms then down my legs. My first moments here may have been a tad bumpy, but that didn’t matter. I was going to work here until Christmas Eve, earn some great extra money and hopefully even some tips, then I’d be able to head home with a clear head and a fresh perspective. It was going to be the best Christmas ever. I was sure of it. I would make sure of it.
Freshly scrubbed, I wiggled into an outfit I grabbed basically at random from the top of my suitcase – a simple pair of black leggings, and a holo-top with cropped sleeves. While slipping into the clothes, I wondered if I should save the holo-top for another day. It was the nicest item of clothing I had – my only holo-clothing. It shifted in colour depending on the temperature of your body. Maggie had called it my titty mood ring whenever I’d wore it on Terratribe 1. Her nickname for it always made me roll my eyes, but honestly? I didn’t care. It was pretty, and it usually shifted between shades of pastel blue and deep green that accentuated the emerald flecks in my hazel eyes.
Finally, I pulled on my one pair of somewhat dressy indoor boots. The only other boots I owned were a big pair of sharpatti bear skin ones for winter. Coming from a cold life in New Toronto on Terratribe 1, lighter and dressier footwear wasn’t exactly practical. But I did have these little black ankle boots, made on Terratribe 2, that my dad had brought back from a work trip. And I’d saved them just for a moment like this.
As I slipped my little boots on, so unlike anything I wore at home in my old life, I felt like I was slipping into an entirely new skin. I stood, feeling taller than before, and not just because of the heels on the boots. I tossed my still very wet hair over my shoulder, doing my best to finger-comb it. Where the moisture from my hair cooled my holo-top, the fabric shifted a silvery blue. Further down my torso, where my skin warmed it, it was a much darker teal colour, bordering on green. The hem of the top hit just above my hip, met by the high waist of my black leggings.
I took a deep breath and smiled, squaring my shoulders. The door in front of me slid open, and I began to walk through it, feeling like a brand-spanking-new woman. I was here, I had made it, and nothing could stop me now.
Nothing, except the voice on the intercom echoing behind me, saying, “Ms. Allen, you have left behind your suitcase. Please clear the decontamination room of your belongings for the next guest.”
Shit.
Face hot, I scurried back into the room, snapped my suitcase shut, then yanked the handle up to roll it out into the station.
OK, OK, it’s fine. Second time’s the charm. Here we go.
And while I may not have felt quite as tall as I did before, as I stepped out of the room and into the miraculous bright lights and dizzying colours of Elora Station, well, I still felt pretty fucking good.
CHAPTER TWO
X
“I still don’t see why you bothered hiring someone for the holidays,” I grumbled, pouring the freshly-steamed gangdo seed milk into the balbo-shell tea. The crimson balbo-shell tea foamed as the gangdo seed milk hit it, and I swirled the milk jug, creating a delicate white leaf outlined in the red before handing it to the waiting customer, a beetle man of XrkXrk. He disappeared into the crowds with a grateful flash of his antennae, and I turned to give my boss Shelly, the owner of Hallowed be thy Bean, my full attention.
Her greying hair curled around her wizened face. Well, that hair had been greying yesterday. She’d had it freshly tinted bright green for the season. She often did so, changing her hair to match her mood and the time of year on her people’s old planet of Earth.
“You know why I had to hire someone, X. This place runs way better with two people than one. And neither of us could have predicted a Hadorian prince sweeping Aiden off his feet and spiriting him away for our busiest time of year, could we?”
I grunted. I liked Aiden. He was half-human, half-Hadorian, and he did his job well. He didn’t get in my way, and though he tended to talk my damn ear off, he was still good to work with. His dimpled smiles and constant flirtations with the customers belied his hard-as-steel work ethic. And I had a feeling that whoever was coming to replace him during his vacation wasn’t going to live up to what I had come to expect in a co-worker.
“So, without Aiden, you know I had to get someone else in. Her name is
I grunted again, letting the sounds of that name roll around in my head. It sounded... soft. I didn’t particularly like soft things. Too vulnerable. Too hard to take care of.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Shelly said, narrowing her gold eyeliner-rimmed eyelids at me and pursing her lipsticked mouth. “You’re thinking she’s going to get in your way or that she’s not going to work hard. But I interviewed her myself. Well, virtually at least. She seems solid. And she’s from the manufacturing district of New Toronto on Terratribe 1, so you know she’s gotta be used to hard work.”
“Hmm...” That all sounded... OK. I guessed. With a sigh, I looked around the tiny coffee shop. It was more a kiosk than anything, but built into the wall, not out in the middle of the bustling aisle the way some of the other kiosks were. We didn’t even have a door for patrons to come through – just a window sectioned vertically into two parts with a counter to pass drinks and payment scanners though. “I hope she isn’t much bigger than Aiden,” I grumbled, running out of things to complain about. My own frame took up a huge amount of space in the tiny area. Aiden had been wispy, even for someone with Hadorian blood, and he was quick on his feet, too.
“Well I didn’t ask for her height and weight in the interview, X,” Shelly said with a roll of her eyes. “You can’t be the one to complain about size when you’re the one taking up all the space in here anyway!”
She had me there. I looked at Shelly’s kind face, softening and forcing my broad shoulders to relax. When I’d arrived on Elora Station after my term with the Galkor forces had ended, she was the only one who’d taken a chance on me and given me work. Ex-members of the Galkor Chimera Guard tended to stand out in human-run spaces like Elora Station. Our reputation always preceded us. It was a reputation well-earned, but still, it made people wary. The only other job I probably could have gotten here was as a bouncer for one of the clubs in the lower levels of the station. But after a lifetime of doing violent shit for work, I’d needed a change. Shelly had offered me that, to my eternal gratitude.
She’d always been good to me. So I forced myself to smile, my snout pulling stiffly.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” I ground out.
Shelly grinned broadly.
“You bet your Chimera hide it will be! Because you’re the one who’s going to be training her!”
With that, Shelly turned and pushed at the full length of the window so that it opened like a door, flouncing out into the crowds.
“Wait,” I called as her five-foot-nothing human frame began to disappear. “When does she get here?”
I couldn’t see Shelly, now. But I could hear her bright voice, calling through the bodies obscuring my view.
“She’s already here! She just arrived, and she starts tomorrow!”
Tomorrow. That was... soon. I sighed, rolling the tight white cuffs of my sleeves up my thick forearms. Tomorrow I’d be sharing this space, a space I considered almost as much my own as Shelly did, with a stranger. Some Terratribe girl. I felt my face falling into a scowl, and the Navaret woman who’d been approaching the counter squeaked and turned the other way, her feathers flaring up along the back of her neck, an automatic fear response.
Get a hold of yourself, you dolt. You just lost a customer because of your mood.
I started polishing the counter behind the window, trying to keep the glower off of my face. Shelly was a damn good businesswoman. I had to trust her to make the right choice here. As much as I loved Hallowed be thy Bean, it was her business, after all, not mine.
With that thought in mind, I got my ass back to work, ready to face the next customer coming my way.
CHAPTER THREE
Sophie
So, I finally had my suitcase and had stepped out into Elora Station.
But that was as far as I’d gotten. About two freaking steps and then total stasis mode. But I couldn’t help it. This wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen in my twenty-six years of life so far.
This place was... breathtaking. In the literal sense of the word. I gasped, my chest heaving, as I tried to breathe around everything taking up all the space in my senses. I stared, slack-jawed, at the shining, stacked ring-like structure of the gigantic station I now found myself in. The layered rings of the station’s different levels went up and up and up. And down, I realized. I was about at the mid-point, here. The centre open space of the station was a column of nothing, interspersed with the up-and-down chug of hover-vator orbs. We had hover-vators at the factory at my old job, but they were old, clunky squares that shook as they moved through the air. Here, the egg-like shining hover-vator cars skimmed up and down easily, zipping people from one level to the next.
And, holy Terra, the people. So many of them! And so many different kinds! Terratribe 1 wasn’t much of a tourist destination, so it wasn’t often I got to see more than a few non-humans together at once. But here, it was probably equal numbers of humans and aliens. And those numbers were big ones. The crowd surged past me, carrying more species of creatures than I could even hope to count or recognize. I forced my floppy human mouth to close and swallowed, girding my loins. I was going to have to join that crowd, too, if I wanted to get anywhere.
OK, here we go, I told myself, taking a huge breath. And with that, I stepped quickly into the churning crowds, dragging my suitcase behind me.
So far so good. I settled into a quick rhythm among the chaos, the heels of my boots clacking as people chatted and laughed all around me. I was on the outskirts of the crowd, really, near the edge of the ring, so I was able to check out all the stores and restaurants as I passed. I’ll have to come back when I have time off and I don’t have my bag, I thought, my eyes popping out of my skull, as I passed shining store window after extraordinary cafe.
I turned my attention forward once again as I walked, only to be greeted by a gigantic glowing sign, right in front of my face. I squawked, flinching to the side to avoid impact, toppling into a heap with my suitcase and taking down another hapless shopper with me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, scooting up and away from the unfortunate casualty of my clumsiness. As I stood, I checked over my shoulder to make sure I wouldn’t crash into the sign again, only to see that it wasn’t there.
What on Terra...?
“All is forgiven. I am not injured.” The person, who I now saw was a slim Navaret woman, chirruped from below me, her words translated by my inner-ear translation device. I reached down to help her, and she took my human hand in her bright orange, clawed one. It was hard to tell if she was smiling with her beak-like mouth, but I decided, embarrassed, that she didn’t look angry, at least.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I babbled again, reaching to my suitcase handle now that I knew she was OK. “I didn’t see that sign before. Or, I thought I saw a sign...”
“They are holograms. Projected advertisements. You can pass through them unharmed,” she said, her fluffy royal-blue feathers smoothing atop her head and down the back of her neck.
“Oh,” I said, flushing again, feeling like a total Terratribe rube. But we just didn’t have stuff like this in the manufacturing sector of New Toronto. I looked around, noticing for the first time the bright rectangles of light and colour appearing in the crowd, right in front of shoppers’ faces, before stuttering into nothingness once more only to reappear somewhere else. Most people walked right through them.
“Is this your first time on the station?” The Navaret woman probed, fixing her four blue eyes on me. Thankfully, unlike a lot of the people passing me by right now, she was about my height, so I didn’t have to feel any smaller than I already did.
“Yes, how can you tell?” I joked, letting out an awkward laugh.
“Well, toppling over at your first flash of a holographic advertisement was my first indication,” she replied. The skin at the side of her beak pulled slightly, and I decided that, yes, she was definitely smiling. Thankfully.
“I’m Sophie,” I said. “I’m from Terratribe 1. I’m here on a seasonal work contract.”
