Page 58 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

I was halfway across the yard when movement erupted from three different directions. Cyro and Kalith both launched out of the supply barn. Cyro wasn’t in the stables. He wasn’t with the horses. I was both relieved, and anxious. At least if he were with Mystery, Sass, and Artie, they wouldn’t be so alone, so terrified. Vantor was also sprinting toward me from the direction of the machinery building, his human disguise rippling slightly as he exerted himself.

Arriving at the stables first, I tore the doors open. Mystery and Sassafras were slamming their bodies into their gates, desperate to get away from the approaching danger. My eyes widened when I saw that, somehow, the fire had already spread inside the building. Smoke spilled from the rearmost stall.

Mystery reared back, his powerful forelegs slamming into his gate and nearly knocking it off its hinges. I should save Sassy first; she was the most expensive. Then Mystery. But I grabbed a lead off a wall hook, and my heart took me to Artie first, where he stood frozen with his body crammed into a corner of his stall. His ears were pinned back, tail tucked between his back legs, body shaking.

I heard the aliens tumble into the stables, but I didn’t turn around. “Get Mystery and Sassafras out of here!” I screamed, approaching Artie slowly. “It’s okay, honey. You’re fine. Let’s get you out of here.”

Where should I take him? Where would be safest?

The flames were spreading faster than I'd thought possible, crackling and spitting as they devoured the stables. Smoke billowed upward, black against the ceiling. I coughed, the noxious fog invading my lungs.

“Let’s take them to the training area Kalith just fixed!” I shouted, putting the easy loop lead over Artie’s head and pulling him gently. He wouldn’t move. He was too scared. “Please move, honey. Artie, you’ve got to move.” I was close to tears.

Suddenly, Vantor was beside me. He took control, his defensive training making him efficient even in the middle of disaster. He scooped the elderly Appaloosa up—I dropped the lead automatically—and he strode quickly away. I didn’t have time to follow and make sure he got Artie to safety. I launched out of the stall, catching a glimpse of Cyro carrying Mystery and Kalith carrying Sassafras outside.

When I faced the fire, I froze. It was out of control. I knew I couldn’t stop it. Not just me. Not without a million fire extinguishers or a lake’s worth of water.

I patted my pockets. No phone. Why was I surprised? I never carried my cell. It lived stuffed in a kitchen drawer, off half the time. I’d thought it was so retro to use the rotary phone. Tammy Tucker, certified rancher with a landline.

Should I race back into the house? Should I call 911?

I backed away from the building inferno, heat burning my body, sweat slicking across my skin to dampen my clothes. I coughed again, eyes closing against the sting of smoke. I felt the world crash down on me. This was the end. It was all over. Over. Over. Over. It’s all over.

When I was about to fall to the ground, give up right then and there and let a horrible death consume me, tentacles wrapped around my body. They held me upright, then lifted me gently, and carried me out of the stables.

Who was holding me? I glanced up awkwardly, finding Vantor’s face. Cyro brushed past us; six buckets held in the curl of six tentacles. He entered the smoke, disappearing.

“Cyro! Don't go in there!” I shouted.

“Do not worry, Tammy. He will be fine.” Vantor soothed, slowly setting me down. “Stay at a safe distance. We will handle this.”

I watched as Vantor quickly left, tentacles flowing beneath him, human legs split past the knees. He beelined for the water trough, jumping inside to soak his body. When he hurried back, water sprayed from his pores, as if he’d filled himself to bursting like a balloon ready to empty itself against the slightest pressure. Vantor ducked into the stables.

Kalith returned shortly after. He unfurled something like a firehose, its length extending toward the supply barn and their spaceship. He pointed its gleaming nozzle toward the stables and strode inside.

I stood frozen, unable to tear my eyes away from the burning stables. My horses were safe—that much I knew—but my livelihood was going up in flames before my eyes. The heat pressed against my face like a physical hand, and I backed up several more steps, struggling to breathe through the thickening smoke.

What the hell were they doing? The aliens had disappeared into an inferno that would kill any normal human being. I’d just started to move forward, some irrational part of my brain insisting I needed to drag them out, when a strange hissing sound cut through the roar of the fire.

A moment later, a plume of blue-tinted foam shot from the stable doors, arcing high before raining down on the burning roof. It glowed faintly, light pulsing through the heavy smoke and lighting the now-dark evening. The substance spread rapidly, seeming to multiply wherever it touched flame, suffocating the fire beneath its expanding mass.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, watching as Kalith slowly reemerged. He was walking backward as he handled the alien fire hose. Its tube lengthened and shortened automatically, preventing him from getting tangled up in its length.

The smoke was clearing rapidly. I could see Vantor inside the stables, his human disguise completely abandoned as his tentacles whipped with incredible speed to slap patches of glowing blue goo onto wall hotspots. He moved methodically and calmly, like he’d done this a hundred times before.

Then Cyro burst outward, looking like some bizarre octopus firefighter with each tentacle swinging buckets. But instead of the water they’d held when he’d entered, they now also held the strange azure substance. He nodded at me, then rounded the building to jump the fence and address the pasture. Flames still crawled across the fence line and grass, hunting for more to burn. Strangely, I realized, the fire had not spread farther into the dryer pasture. But the worst of it was over. My mind reeled, and it struck me that the fire really did seem to snake directly toward the stables, as if sentient.

A mystery I’d solve later. Right now, I needed to know how they’d doused the fire so quickly.

“What is that stuff?” I called out, my voice raspy from the smoke.

Cyro glanced over, his metallic eyes reflecting the dying flames. “Ionic neutralizer. Standard equipment for any interstellar traveler. It is easily compressed so we can carry great quantities in cargo. It is lucky its containment survived the crash.”

“I mean, obviously that’s what it is,” I muttered, watching as the three aliens systematically conquered the fire that would have consumed my entire ranch if left to human firefighting methods.

Within minutes, the entire blaze was reduced to smoldering patches that the aliens continued to treat with their otherworldly substances. The acrid smell of smoke hung heavy in the air. As the charred quality faded, a sweet chemical note made my nose tingle.

I walked into the stables on shaky legs, surveying the damage. Despite the darkness outside, I could easily make out the details of the scorched building thanks to the glowing fire-retardant slime. The back wall was charred black, and a portion of the roof had collapsed inward, but it was still standing. Without the aliens’ intervention, there would have been nothing left.