3. Noelle

"No,stop it, that's not how you do that at all." I placed my hand over the trainee's and stopped her from breaking anything. What was the girl's name? Ursula? Uriah? I glanced down and read the hastily affixed name tag.

Orsula.

Okay. Sure.

Orsula was an eager young Oscavian who'd signed on with the half dozen other trainees this session. She was on some sort of exchange program from the Oscavian Empire and was doing her best to help. Unfortunately, she didn"t seem to quite grasp which side of a screwdriver she was supposed to use.

With Fran dead and Darian … gone, the maintenance crew was overwhelmed. It wasn't just the lack of sleep leading to my exhaustion these days. There was too much work and not enough crew to do it. The trainees should have been helpful, but Orsula was one of the more competent ones.

The gods were laughing at us.

"What am I doing wrong?" The Oscavian's pinkish cheeks went purple with a blush, and her brow furrowed in concentration.

Everything.I bit back the retort. Barely. She was here to learn, just as I'd once come here to learn. I just didn't have time to teach her. "You need to loosen this connection before you do anything. It's all in the diagram." I said it calmly. I tried to channel the monks of the Temple of Peace back home.

It wasn't working. And I couldn't take more of this.

"Head back and study your diagrams. We'll try again tomorrow." I stood before Orsula could complain.

She scurried off, head hanging low, and shoulders hunched. On another day I might have felt bad for crushing her feelings; today I was just glad she was gone.

No one was in the changing room when I got there, and I was grateful. Normally I'd chat with Pippa, and we'd head off for dinner together or plan to hang out. But ever since she'd gotten her new boyfriend, we'd been hanging out less and less. She was working just as hard as me, and free time was beyond limited these days. I shouldn't hold it against her.

My comm beeped with a reminder that I had a call scheduled with my family in thirty minutes. I groaned.

I loved my parents, truly. And our relationship had improved immensely once I moved to a place it would take them more than a month to travel to. These calls were expensive and complicated to set up, and I tried to never miss them.

Today I just wanted to nap. Instead, I trudged back to my room and set up the equipment. Then I changed into one of my nicer dresses. It was silky and black with a rainbow of sparkly stones embedded in the material. I'd only ever worn it when calling home. On the station I basically lived in my work uniform.

The holo player came to life and projected a thirty second countdown timer hovering in the center of my room. I took a few centering breaths before taking my seat and smiling as my mother and father came into view.

The holo player made it so it almost looked like we were sitting across a table from one another. They were in front of me in three dimensions with only a slight flickering of light betraying that they were light years away.

"Noelle!" My father's face lit up, the lines around his eyes crinkling as he smiled. "You look wonderful."

"You wore that dress last time we spoke." Mother's smile was tense. Golden jewelry glittered around her neck, and she wore a white tunic, the sleeves fashioned into braids around her arms.

"I like this dress." Damn it. Of course she'd remember that. I had a handful of dresses that met my mother's standards, and I tried to cycle through them. Wouldn't want her to think I was some kind of common worker.

"She looks great, my dear." My father placed his hand on my mother's, and her expression softened. Minutely.

"Dravis's wife has given birth to their second child," was mother's next volley.

"Lovely." I had to keep my voice neutral. Dravis and I … well, there was history there, and it wasn't exactly pretty. Mother wouldn't let me forget.

"Honey …" Father knew what my mother was doing, but he'd never been able to stop her when she was in a mood. And she was certainly in a mood today. Dravis's second child should have been her second grandchild, she was thinking. I should have done my duty and expanded her would be social empire.

Instead, I was a mechanic on a far-off space station.

It only got worse from there, and by the time the call ended I had a headache and my skin was itchy, like I needed to slough it off and grow a new one.

Food and then nap. It was what I needed more than anything.

I tore the dress off as soon as I could and let it pile on the floor before pulling on soft pants and a baggy T-shirt. Things were looking up. But when I approached the food processor in my prep area, the screen was blinking, and not even judicious percussive maintenance would resolve the issue.

Tears pricked my eyes, and I had to squeeze them shut. I just wanted dinner. My stomach growled. I didn't have any meal bars hidden away, and I'd eaten the last of my special snack stash the week before. If I wanted food, I'd need to head over to the mess hall.

I really didn't want to people.

But I was hungry.

Damn it.

My stomach growled again, and I glared down at my body before angrily shoving my feet into a pair of slippers and stomping over to the door. I slammed my hand down on the sensor to open it and let out a yelp of surprise when I saw Ryklin just standing there.

What did this freaking stalker want?

"Are you kidding me?" I demanded, stepping fully into the hallway and crowding his space.

Ryklin looked down at me, eyes going a bit wide. He swallowed, his throat bobbing, and looked down the hall as if he might escape my wrath.

But he was the unlucky winner of my mood. Maybe I could have held back if I'd seen him earlier in the day, but my mother's disapproval was still ringing in my ears, and my stomach was grumbling, and I just needed this day to be over. I didn't need a hulking blue alien following me everywhere I went.

"You need to stop this," I said. "You're being a freaky stalker, and it's not cool. Are you going to hold a blaster to my head and demand I accept you as my mate? I'm not going any damn place with you! Stay the hells away from me." I punctuated the glare with a firm poke at his chest.

It made my knuckle hurt.

Down the hallway, Pippa's door slid open, and she stuck her head out.

Ryklin turned away from me and held out a package that I hadn't noticed he was holding. "I discovered a few of Drex's things in the back of a drawer. Please deliver these to him."

Pippa took the pack. "Of course. Um, would you like a cup of tea?" She glanced between him and me, and I was certain she'd heard my meltdown.

My cheeks flamed. I wanted to run, but that felt like ceding ground, and my feet were rooted in place.

"No, thank you. Have a nice night." He turned and left without glancing at me. As if I didn't exist.

Pippa looked over at me. "Are you?—"

"I'm fine," I snapped before she could say anything else. "Food processor broke."

"You can?—"

"I'll talk to you later." I turned on my heel and stalked towards the mess hall. I'd looked like an idiot talking to Ryklin like that, and I didn't want Pippa's kind eyes or inquiring looks. No, thanks. Not tonight, not ever.

Every word I'd said to him had been justified, even if he hadn't been stalking me tonight. There'd been the other day when I didn't believe for a moment that he'd just happened down that hallway. And there'd been other times over the last two months where I'd seen him, and it wasn't a coincidence.

At first, I'd been flattered … sort of. Or at least happy someone was looking out for me.

Now I needed him to stop. I didn't need some lumbering giant of a Detyen looking out for me. I was a big girl; I could do it myself.

That certainty was challenged when I tried to turn off my light to sleep a few hours later. My body started shaking, teeth chattering, and I was certain the door would burst open at any moment and someone would drag me away to my doom.

Maybe a lumbering Detyen protector wouldn't be so bad after all.

But none was coming. I turned my light back on and pulled my covers up. The nightmares came, as they always did. But I fought them off on my own.

I didn't need anyone's help.