Showing results for "Patrick Jackson" in Science Fiction

Desperate to escape the clutches of the alien lizard mafia, I accept a spur-of-the-moment job offer on a distant planet. A monstrous, grumpy alien is building a new home in a distant colony, and he’s looking for an assistant. He needs me to hold his hammer. I get it. It’s a big hammer. He's a lonely barbarian brute with a gruff exterior, but I soon learn that inside, he's hiding a squishy center. When he unexpectedly enters his mating frenzy, there’s no one around to handle the job—except me. He gives me two options: return home or stay and help him with a whole different kind of nailing.

It is a simple job. Sneak aboard a pirate spaceship and steal a precious artifact from the brooding, too-hot captain, Matis. Before I know it, I'll be on my way back to Earth with enough credits to cure my mom's sickness. Is it my fault I accidentally stab him? Instead of making me walk the interstellar plank, he makes me serve as his cabin boy. Good thing he doesn't realize I'm not a boy. His snarly outside hides a squishy center, but someone's out to kill him, and who needs to get tangled up in that? Then we're trapped on a rogue space station with alien pirates trying to kill us.

When I took a nanny job in a distant colony caring for two young boys who recently lost their mother, I expected I'd grow to love them. Having experienced loss myself, I knew how hard it was to heal. What I didn't expect was to fall for their father, a big, burly alien with scars on his body that mirror those in my soul. Between teaching the boys and bringing fun back into their lives, I get to know Firoh, a guy I sense needs love as much as I do. It isn't long before I can see myself living in this alien colony forever, as long as I can be with Firoh and his sons.

I was hired to tame alien pets, but my beastly alien boss is determined to tame me. As a pet whisperer, I’ve yet to meet a snarling beast I can’t turn into a purring pussycat. When a billionaire alien living in a castle on an isolated planet posts a job looking for someone to housebreak his pets, I'm confident I can train them to eat out of his hand instead of trying to bite his head off.

Wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to hard labor on an alien prison planet, I think my life is over. Until my rescue comes in the form of my older brother's best friend, Shaede—a blue-skinned alien who broke my heart years ago. But he gets caught too, and before you know it, we're handcuffed together and locked in a cell with only one bunk.

When the elderly duchess I cared for dies, her slimy son—my ex—tells me he wants me back. Um, no. I flee, and at the Intergalactic Employment Agency, I'm offered a job teaching an alien warlord sophistication so he can woo a mate at the upcoming Match-Mating Soiree. If anyone can domesticate a brute, it's me. In between teaching Forje how to converse politely and dance without crushing his partner's tail, he shares his battle scars and unusual poetry.

After my ex dumps my possessions on the sidewalk, cleans out our bank account, and steals my landscaping business, I'm once again submitting job applications. It’s that or no roof over my head. With the Intergalactic Employment Agency’s help, I land a position as a gardener for the owners of an off-world alien castle. Other than needing to tackle a rogue vine infesting the front shrubs, it’s an easy job. Best of all, I work alongside Dekrin, a dirty-mouthed fellow gardener who enjoys rolling in mud and wearing low-slung pants.

To raise credits for the local creature shelter, I enter Interstellar Chef. If I win? I'm awarded the catering job of a lifetime and prize money I can donate to the shelter. It won’t be easy—contestants must prepare exquisite meals in dangerous alien locations, and fellow chefs have been known to attack the others. Some competitors don’t make it home alive. All I have to do is avoid my stiffest competition, Thrombuka Nargoth, the brutishly handsome, golden-skinned alien who once left me stranded without my undies in a secluded hallway of a dive bar on Quazar 3.