Core, p.3
Core, page 3
A familiar face came down the line.
“Good evening, Brian,” Jana said as she handed the slender man his plate.
“Hi,” he said. “Jane?”
“Jana.” She handed him an extra piece of bread. “For later.”
He nodded and smiled. He said nothing as he walked away.
“Do you think he’ll play?” Dyana asked, as she dished up more food.
Jana shrugged. “It’s lovely when he does, but I don’t want to make him feel like he has to.” The man was a well-known piano player in town, but unfortunately, drugs had crept into his life. Sometimes, if no one was using it, he would play the piano.
Today Jana figured he’d eat and leave.
Though, about fifteen minutes later, Brian walked up to the piano and took a seat.
He warmed up with some scales and such, but in a moment, he was playing classic rock and roll melodies that had everyone in the cafeteria bobbing their heads and humming along to the music.
It was loud and prevented any real conversation, but it amazed Jana to hear him play. The energy rose, and everyone there seemed a little happier.
The energy remained high for the evening, and even as everyone left and the cleanup was being done, Jana felt better.
Lighter.
While she enjoyed her day job well enough, it wasn’t the same satisfaction as doing a service at St. Anthony’s.
It was just after ten when she walked out with Dyana. An off-duty police officer sat in the volunteer's parking lot, watching everyone get in their cars.
“They probably don’t need to do that,” Jana said, gesturing to the police car. “We’re fine. It’s a separate lot from the main lot, and it’s practically fenced in back here.”
“That’s exactly why they do it,” Dyana said. “You know a lot of them don’t have cars. They could just walk back here and steal our wallets, or worse.”
Jana shook her head. “That wouldn’t happen.”
Dyana raised her eyebrow again. “Girl, you are far too trusting. There are plenty of those homeless people in there who wouldn’t hurt a fly, but they wouldn’t have to have the police car back here if there hadn’t been a problem before.”
Jana nodded. “One bad apple…”
“And I don’t feel like giving another bad apple a chance.”
They reached Jana’s car.
“And by the way, speaking of bad apples…”
“Oh, here we go,” Jana said.
“Yes, I’m going. Because I don’t know who your friends are outside of here, and why they haven’t said this to you, but I’m going to, because I consider you my friend.”
Jana sighed. She knew where this was going.
“This boyfriend of yours. No man I know would travel as much as he does, and not at least reach out and say ‘hey’ every day. There’s something wrong with that, girl.”
“He’s just busy.” Jana crossed her arms. “You wouldn’t expect a soldier to reach out every day when he’s on duty.”
“No, but your boyfriend isn’t a soldier. I can’t think of a job that would keep him from contacting his woman every day, at least a text, girl. A text.”
Jana sighed. “Listen, you’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Or are you just refusing to see them?” Dyana asked.
“I’m not seeing anything,” she said.
Dyana huffed as she got into her car.
3
“Mine 342 is having stability issues.” Phares ran down the list of locations that needed attention for the day. The units were gearing up and waiting for the morning debrief regarding stations and necessities.
“I’ll take it,” Shoval said. “I know I’ll get it fixed. I’m healthy.”
Phares glared.
His parental was still at his games. But at least Shoval had the wrong idea about his regular visits to Medical. If he thought Phares was being treated for an injury or weakness, he was wrong.
Which was fine by him.
The Fever grew in him. While the medics could give him a med dose every few days to tamp down the worst of it, it still ran rampant through him.
“You better,” Phares growled back at his dad.
“You challenge me?” Shoval crossed his arms.
“You already fixed it once, remember? Or did you forget in your drunken stupor?” Where the snap came from, Phares didn’t know.
It just erupted.
Shoval jerked forward. “Who are you to speak—”
“I am your superior!” Phares’s fury and rage launched him at his parental. Years of taking his parental’s attitude and digs burned in him. “And I decide what you do.” He got right in his father’s face.
“Only for the job!” Shoval snarled back at him.
“You should be—”
A green tail wrapped around Phares and pulled him back.
Olmed yanked Shoval away.
“As fun as this is, boys,” Driqan said, stepping between them, “we have work.”
“Let go of me, Erzo,” Phares said.
“Let the boy go. Let him prove his failures!” Shoval snarled.
Olmed pushed Shoval back. “Stop,” he said. The Kantenan’s horns were shifting, a sign he prepared to engage. He heaved Shoval backward, away from Phares.
Erzo put his hand on Phares’s shoulder. “Peace, friend.”
Phares jerked out of the Charro’s tail grip, and Erzo rocked back, twisting his tail around, so he seemed to hang in the air, the tail the only thing on the ground.
“No peace,” Phares muttered.
No, he wouldn’t be getting peace for quite a while. Not now, not ever, with his parental. The rest of the units murmured and broke up.
“You have your assignments,” Phares said.
The rest moved out, heading off to do their job of maintaining the asteroid field’s integrity while the miners worked.
Technically, they all were miners, but Phares led a team of determined structuralists who made sure everything remained stable, and no miners were stuck inside a collapsed asteroid.
Or worse.
His parental was one of the structuralists.
When Phares received the position of unit foreman, he’d assumed his parental would show some pride in his achievement.
Unfortunately, it had not worked out that way.
“You cannot let him antagonize you like that,” Erzo said as Olmed hustled Shoval out of the room. “It is jealousy, plain and simple.”
Phares grumbled. “It matters not. He will never show me respect because I’m his offspring.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to let him goad you.”
Phares rubbed his head. “I have not been, uh, well,” he said.
“Maybe you need a vacation.”
“I have one scheduled.”
“Are you in the bunch going to Disguised Serenity next week?” Erzo asked.
Phares nodded.
“Great. Me and Olmed will be on that trip as well.”
Phares rolled his eyes.
“Why do you roll your eyes?” Erzo asked as he scooped up his gear. “Vacations are supposed to be fun!”
“If we’re both away, then who will man the department while we’re gone?”
They looked at each other.
Most likely Shoval.
Great.
Just perfect.
“Are you ready to head out?” Olmed asked as he took a seat next to Phares on the transport.
“I guess.” Phares should have taken another injection today, but with him leaving, he decided to forgo the shot and hope his Fever would help him simplify the whole dating agency arrangement thing.
It didn’t help that he was already exhausted, and his head ached.
Though part of that could have to do with dealing with Shoval. His parental had been extra difficult recently, and his patience had disappeared like air into the vacuum.
“Think it’s time we all got away from the mines a bit,” Erzo took a seat, his green tail curling around his feet as the chair adjusted to compensate for the appendage.
“Didn’t realize you two were coming.”
Erzo rubbed his head. “It was time for me, I think. Settle down. All that.” He glanced at Olmed. “Right? You’re ready to dig in and get anchored.”
Olmed nodded. “Establish roots.”
Phares turned to Olmed. “You never told me why you’re here, at the Mining Guild, instead of back home on Kantenan, with your people.”
Olmed didn’t look at him. “No, I didn’t.”
Phares held out his hand. “So? Why?”
“Did not say I would now, either.”
Phares glanced at Erzo, and the green Charro just shrugged.
Olmed wasn’t the first humanoid to come to the Mining Guild, who didn’t want to talk about why they’d chosen to mine.
Phares understood that. Having grown up in the Mining Guild, he knew that many came and went.
He was there because he was raised there. Hence the reason he was very relieved to be going to Disguised Serenity. He needed a break.
From mining. From his parental, more than anything.
And while Disguised Serenity was a space station, it was its own world, too.
The space station was a beast of a place on the edge of the Terran Empire and the Rhimodian Cyborg territory.
It began as a junkyard filled with old, broken-down ships. The location, near the warp tunnels that spanned the galaxy, had no real potential. Some genius scavengers started combining all the broken ships into one. Over the decades, the junked ships had morphed into a mishmash of a massive space station.
Disguised Serenity became a refuge for travelers to stock up on supplies or get off their ships and stretch their legs. Businesses set up operations out of the station, and those without a home could typically find a residence there.
Supposedly, there wasn’t much one could not find on Disguised Serenity. It remained a source for basic resources and the occasional rare treasure. As a place that existed outside of any area’s claim, the neutral territory carried rules but didn’t belong to any singular galactic empire.
Laws were more recommendations than anything. Many mercenaries worked out of Disguised Serenity, simply because it was a safe territory for many factions.
Phares wasn’t as familiar with it as others would be, like Erzo, because his people, the Charro, were typically mercenaries for hire. Erzo was one of the few Charro that Phares had met who wasn’t a merc looking for, well, something. Erzo didn’t talk much about his history, but Phares respected him as a miner.
One thing, however, was not illegal in Disguised Serenity, or anywhere in the galaxy.
Mate-finding services.
Though Phares wondered about the process. How much say would he have, and how did other potential mates join up?
Would he be shoved into a room with a female and told that she was his? Or would he be led to a room full and expected to pick from them? Or the other way? Was he the one who would be selected by a female?
Whatever it was, with the way Phares’s Fever began burning, he hoped the Intergalactic Dating Agency could find him a proper mate. He didn’t really care what she looked like. If she quenched his fever, then that was all that mattered.
He didn’t want to force anyone to be his mate, and if he didn’t find one, well, he’d just have to live with the Fever.
If he could.
There was only so much that the doses could do for him.
“There, that should do it. You’re all vaccinated and approved,” the medic said.
Phares nodded and rubbed the tender injection spot where he’d received several inoculations. It didn’t surprise him he was behind on his vaccines. Wasn’t exactly a priority for him back on the ship. “What now?”
Another tech ran a scanner over Olmed, and Erzo got his own dosing from a hypo sprayer. They had been brought straight from their transport to this medical office to check them in and start the process.
Phares turned back to the tech who had stepped away. What was the male’s name? He tried to remember. “Duke, is there anything we need to do now?”
The medic turned around. “I believe that Re-lee is on her way to explain the next phase of the process with you.” Duke looked past him to the door. “There she is, right on time.”
“Hello, gentlemen,” said the pink-skinned humanoid as she walked in. Warm, trusting smile and quiet confidence in her steps, she crossed the clinic and stopped right in front of them, a tablet in her hand, and she slid her fingers over the keys. She seemed tiny compared to them, but all the miners had their attention on her.
“How was the travel?” she asked.
“Fine,” Erzo said. “How are you today?”
“Lovely, thank you."
“I would say so,” Erzo said, his gaze running over her.
Phares glared at him. “Knock it off.”
“You flatter me,” she said. “I hope you are ready to begin this journey with me. I receive you all to the Intergalactic Dating Agency.” Her tone shifted to a slightly more formal one, like she was ready to take care of her job now.
Friendly chatter was over.
She tapped on her tablet.
“How does this work?” Olmed asked. “Some of us have biological indicators if we have found a mate. In our species, it is believed they are fated from the stars.”
She turned to Olmed. “Yes, that one true mate, the one who will balance you and bring you the harmony for your connection, is a powerful indicator of compatibility,” she said.
“But how, though?” Olmed asked, crossing his arms, his red skin pulsing as he spoke.
"Fated mates, especially those triggered by biological markers, have matching markers in their mates. We simply find those matching markers and bring you together with that person.”
She makes it sound so simple, Phares thought. Beneath the surface, he felt the rumblings inside him, the Fever that was burning just below his skin, desperate to mate. He still didn’t trust it. Even if there was science behind finding the mates, how could the science know?
How would he know? His parental had mated with a female, and she had disappeared when Phares was a boy, even though she was Shoval’s Fever mate. The bond was supposed to be forever and eternal, yet Shoval’s had not worked out.
Xianans were known to be difficult. Shoval was worse than many, but he followed his Fever, and it failed.
Phares had no reason to trust the Fever. Yet here he was, with a female who seemed to think she could find him the perfect mate.
He doubted it.
4
Saturday morning came and Jana bounced out of bed, thrilled to death because she knew Stefan would come sometime today, and she'd finally get to see her boyfriend.
It had been a long week, and she was ready for some together time. After talking with Dyana at St. Anthony's, she felt her own worries building. While her friend was right, and that there might be something for her to be concerned with, she had to believe Stefan could explain why he didn't call when he was traveling for work.
Jana reminded herself of that old phrase—absence makes the heart grow fonder. Surely he'd be thrilled to see her too when he got back.
She fixed her hair and her makeup and did all the things so she'd look great when Stefan arrived, constantly checking her phone for texts or arrival messages.
Nothing.
"He's just running late," she muttered and flipped on the television.
It was on the true crime show channel she liked.
Nobody suspected it…
But there had been signs…
“Why does that damn television seem to talk to me?” Jana shook her head and turned off the TV. She didn't want to think that she was overly naïve, or anything like that. She wasn't a foolish girl, she really wasn't.
She just...
She believed in people. Especially those she cared about.
Stefan, she believed.
Sure, it was perfectly normal for a boyfriend to go out of town for almost a week and not reach out to her during that time.
That was normal.
Surely it was—
Her phone chimed.
Jana leaped out of her chair, fumbled with the phone, and dropped it, trying to get to the text message.
Riippp.
There went the side of her new dress, caught on her chair.
"Damn," she muttered, and picked up the phone. Hopefully, the rip didn’t ruin the fancy garment. She might be able to stitch it back up.
Then she felt the rip expand.
Nope, that was going to need a seamstress or a trash can.
She sighed as she opened the text message.
But she shouldn't have bothered.
It wasn't Stefan.
Hey, it's Polly. Meet me at Tribute Park?
Jana sighed.
Her little dress wasn't the right outfit for wandering around the park, but with Stefan apparently a no-show, what else was she gonna do?
Besides, maybe Polly had heard from him.
And a sense of dread ran through her.
"What if something happened, and Polly wants to tell me in person?"
Ok. Now? - Jana
Yeah — Polly
Jana ran into her bedroom, yanked off the torn dress, and leaped into the closest jeans and T-shirt that weren’t too dirty before darting out the door.
Jana reached the curve on the sidewalk, where she’d agree to meet Polly near the concrete and metal sculptures. The sun was scorching, and she could already feel sweat on the back of her neck. She had pulled her hair up into a ponytail, hoping it wouldn’t ruin the curls she’d painstakingly added to impress Stefan, but just being outside for a few minutes already felt like she was melting.
