Chapter Eight

 

Three days later, Anya stepped into Zocrone’s one and only hospital with a new spring in her step. This was the first time she’d shown up for work here without dreading how things would go when she saw Kromin. The man had turned over a completely new side of himself, and she could hardly believe that he was the same man who had caused her so much trouble over her first week on the job.

She wasn’t sure the exact moment that things had changed. But she knew that somewhere during the surgery for the injured miner, Kromin had realized that he couldn’t do this alone. That surgery would have been a disaster without her assisting him. Not only that, but the day that Kromin had had to deal with an appendectomy and a heart surgery on the same day would have been a disaster without her. How many other days had he barely made it through before she came along? She was thankful, not only for her sake but also for the sake of the Zocronian people, that Kromin had finally opened his eyes to the need for more help in the hospital.

But Kromin’s viewpoint on hiring more help wasn’t the only thing that had changed. When they had kissed back in the mines’ supply room, they had admitted to each other and to themselves that what they felt for each other went much, much further than friendship, or than just mutual respect for each other as colleagues. They were attracted to each other, but how far would they take that attraction? Was this going to turn into something permanent?

There hadn’t been a good opportunity to explore these sorts of questions while they were stuck in the mines. There were always people around, and Anya didn’t want everyone listening in while she tried to figure out what her feelings meant. The storm had raged on for three days, though, and waiting that long in the mines had been torture. Last night, in the dead of the night, the storm had finally broken. The miners hadn’t cared about the late hour. They had all piled into rovers and made the trek back to the city dome. By the time they got there, Anya knew it was too late to have a serious conversation. She could feel the exhaustion in her bones, and she would need to be up early the next morning to come work at the hospital. Kromin had agreed that it was best to leave any serious conversations until they were more rested, and he had left her in the lobby of her apartment building with a simple kiss on the lips.

Now, as Anya walked toward the break room of the hospital, she nervously chewed her lip. What would it be like to work with Kromin today, now that so much had changed between them? She wasn’t sure quite what to expect, but she had a feeling it would be good.

When she opened the door to the break room, though, she was surprised to find that Kromin was not alone in there. Daxar, Jarmuk, and Toryx—Kromin’s three best friends and the three most influential men in the Zocronian government—were all sitting around one of the tables with Kromin. All four of the men had grave expressions on their faces. They were sipping tea and looking down at some sort of spreadsheets on their e-assistants. No one had even noticed Anya walking in, so she loudly and awkwardly cleared her throat. They all looked up, startled. Kromin smiled at her, but he was the only one. The other ones weren’t being unfriendly, exactly. They just looked concerned, like they’d just heard news that their favorite pet might have been run over by a bus but no one knew for sure.

“Everything okay?” Anya asked.

Daxar let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Not exactly. But it’s nothing you have to worry about.”

“Oh, come on, Dax. She’s basically second in charge at the hospital now. It’s important for her to know what’s going on.”

Anya couldn’t help but smile, even though Kromin’s words sounded slightly ominous. It felt good to have him sticking up for her.

Daxar shrugged under Kromin’s pointed gaze. “I suppose you’re right. Anya, grab yourself a drink if you want one and then come sit down.”

Anya didn’t bother getting herself a drink. Her stomach was tightening up with nerves, and the thought of eating or drinking something made her feel a little queasy. Something was very wrong here. The last time she’d seen Jarmuk and Toryx look this upset had been when Daxar had gone to try to save Nova from a basestos explosion.

“What’s going on?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from sounding hopelessly shaky.

“To put it simply,” Daxar said, “The storms have cut off our supply lines.”

Anya frowned. “Our supply lines for what?”

“Pretty much everything,” Toryx said. “There hasn’t been more than a half day break in the storms in the last two weeks, and from the forecasts it looks like the next few weeks are going to be just as bad.”

Jarmuk nodded. “Just as bad, if not worse. That means we can’t get any sort of outside shipments in. It’s unsafe for any ship to travel through the atmosphere. Hell, Evie almost crashed the Starburst on her way back from dropping you and Kromin off at the mines. The whole thing was just a little too close for comfort.”

Anya winced. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Evie since getting back to the city dome, but she had assumed that the flight back had been fine since she hadn’t heard otherwise. Evie was one of the best pilots in the Seven Galaxies at flying through stormy weather. If even she was having trouble with Zocrone’s stormy atmosphere, then things were really bad. Anya hadn’t thought much about it, but she did remember now that it had been storming once again when she left her house for work this morning. The storms had become so nonstop that it was almost like she didn’t notice them anymore as they constantly raged outside the city dome.

“Okay,” Anya said slowly, trying to process all of the information she’d been given. “So what does the break in supply shipments mean for Zocrone?”

“Well, we don’t know what the exact impact will be,” Kromin said. “It depends on how much longer the storms last. But right now we’re starting to get worried. We’re running low on a lot of crucial supplies here at the hospital, and other industries are running low as well. The food markets haven’t had any fresh meat ship in for weeks, and we’re running out of staples like flour and eggs.”

“I see,” Anya said. Zocrone itself was pretty much a wasteland of a planet. It had nothing to offer in terms of useful plants or animals outside the city dome, and even water was scarce on the planet. Its one major resource was Zekkardite, the toughest and yet most flexible material in the Seven Galaxies. Zekkardite brought huge amounts of income to Zocrone, and that income was used to pay to ship in pretty much everything else that the Zocronians needed.

Daxar rubbed his forehead, looking weary. He hadn’t faced many crises like this during his time as Chief. Thankfully, long delays in shipments were relatively rare. But when something like this did happen, it could be devastating to Zocrone. As Chief, Daxar had to make sure that the city dome didn’t run out of vital supplies like water and food. And as his advisors, Jarmuk, Toryx, and Kromin were responsible for helping him enforce rations when supplies were low. As Anya had expected, Daxar began talking about the ration procedures with his next sentence. “We’re instituting level three food and water control procedures. Any exceptions to level three protocol must be approved by myself or one of our military commanders. With these kinds of precautions in place, Zocrone should be able to comfortably last at least six more months without any water shipments. By that time, the stormy season will be over, and we should have had a break in the storms long enough for some shipments to come in. Food is a little trickier to preserve than water, but as long as we still have fruit growing on our trees and turq birds for meat, we should be okay. We also have a good supply of food bars in the government vaults. Not the tastiest of meals, but enough to keep people from starving to death, at least.”

“The more worrisome problem is the hospital supplies,” Kromin said. “Unfortunately, we’re running quite low on some staples like skinsealer and pain meds. Our anesthesia supply is also dwindling. If we need to do a lot of surgeries between now and the next supply shipments, we could be in trouble.”

Anya frowned, confused. “But it’s only been a few weeks without shipments, and there haven’t been that many surgeries, have there?”

Kromin looked down at his hands, his ridged, blue forehead crinkling up even more than normal. Anya had never seen him look more distressed or more vulnerable. Before he spoke, though, he raised his head to look her in the eyes. “I screwed up, Anya. I’ve never kept emergency rations of medical supplies. I should have done that, but it never occurred to me. And I was so busy trying to keep up with everything around here on my own that I only ordered supplies when it became absolutely critical.”

Anya sat back in her seat, stunned. So Kromin had been operating for years on a “barely enough” supply chain plan. Not the smartest idea, to be sure. But Anya didn’t need to explain that to him. From the expression on his face, and the pain in his eyes, he knew he’d screwed up.

“Well,” Anya said brightly. “At least now you know that that’s a very bad idea.”

His expression didn’t change much, but Anya could see the gratefulness in his eyes. He gave her a half smile, then spoke again. “I’ve already told Daxar that you’ll be staying on permanently, and that I’m planning to hire more doctors and personnel to help out around here.”

“You are?” Anya was happy to hear that. She’d been hoping to convince Kromin to at least hire some receptionists, but she hadn’t wanted to dump too many demands on him at once. Now that he’d realized his folly of trying to do it all alone, though, he was making a complete turnaround in the hospital.

“Yes, I’m hiring support personnel,” he repeated. “Going forward, I’ll have someone who is specially trained on how to keep supplies stocked, and their primary job will be to make sure we have enough of everything on hand. I’ll also be looking for more doctors, although I’ll have to look outside of Zocrone for that. No one here except me has gone to medical school for a few decades.”

“No one?” Anya could hardly believe it. Surely someone had wanted to follow in Kromin’s footsteps.

“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” Daxar spoke up. “When I closed the planet off to outsiders, our people lost interest in going away from here for a few years to lean a skill.”

“But since those restrictions were lifted, there’s been a lot of renewed interest in travel, and in learning more about the outside world,” Kromin said. “My plan is to campaign among the younger people here and encourage many of them to head off to medical school. Then we’ll build a pipeline of young professionals to shore up the hospital. In the meantime, you and I will do the best we can. Of course, hiring receptionists will help.”

“And the low supplies?” Anya asked.

A shadow passed over Kromin’s face again. “We’ll do the best we can. We’ll only use what we absolutely have to, and hope that we have no major emergencies before we get more. The most urgent is the skinsealer. We tend to use a lot of that, and we just severely diminished our supply by treating the injured miner. That took quite a bit more skinsealer than usual.”

“Well, it was worth it, because he’s recovering nicely from what I hear,” Toryx piped in.

Kromin nodded. “Yeah. He’s gonna have a sludging ton of scars, but other than that he should be fine.”

Daxar drained what was left of his tea and started to stand. “Alright, you all know what’s going on, and you all know we need to be careful of what we’re using. I’ll be making a citywide announcement in a few hours about the rations. It won’t be easy, but we’ll make it work. We’ve been through hard times before, and we’ve proven that our water preservation and rationing works. We can do this.”

Jarmuk and Toryx stood as well. “We’re going with the Chief, Kromin,” Jarmuk said. “Let us know if there’s anything else you need from us.”

Kromin and Anya bid goodbye to the other three men as they left, and a minute later they found themselves sitting alone in the quiet break room. The silence between them hung heavy for a few moments. Kromin nursed his tea, and stared off into the distance. Finally, he turned to look at Anya with regret in his eyes. “I guess you must think I’m a pretty big sludge-up,” he said, his voice sounding more tired than she’d ever heard it.

“I don’t think that.” Anya reached across the table and grabbed his hand. She intertwined her fingers with his, enjoying his warmth and admiring the way that his big blue fingers looked tangled up with her pale human fingers.

He sighed and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I made some mistakes, but I’ve owned up to them now. I just hope I wasn’t too late.”

“You weren’t. We still have some supplies, and the storms can’t last forever.”

Kromin laughed. “I hope not.”

Anya wanted him to say something more about the way he felt about her, or to comment on their budding relationship. But he didn’t seem to be in much of a mood for talking, and she figured now might not be the best time to bring things up. They should get their work done and make sure everything at the hospital was as much in order as it could be. Tonight, when they were away from this building and away from the stress of it all, they could discuss their personal life. It wasn’t what she would have preferred. She was dying to know how he felt about her. But she would be sensitive to the fact that this morning hadn’t gone the way either of them would have preferred that it go.

“So,” she asked, sitting up straight and forcing a smile onto her face. “What’s on the patient agenda for today?”

“Not too much. We’ve got a few of the miners here still, but I think they just need clearance and they can be sent home. Daxar told me that they seem to be doing much better than when we first left to go help the man injured in the mines. The flu patient is gone, and the appendectomy patient should be good to go home after a quick check as well.”

“So finally, not a bad day at the office, huh?”

Kromin laughed. “Don’t jinx it. But yeah, I think things should be quiet today. Which is good because I need to go to our supply room and take stock of what is down there and what we’re running short on. If you can take care of the patients, I’ll go get started on the supply room.”

Anya swallowed hard. “You trust me to take care of them all by myself?” She hadn’t meant to sound bitter, but she must have come across that way because Kromin looked a little hurt.

“Anya, things are different now. I promise you that. I know we haven’t had time to sort through our feelings or through what, exactly, is going on with us. But I’m not going to treat you the way I did before. I know you’re a smart, capable doctor, and I’m going to treat you like that, okay?”

“Okay.” Anya bit back a smile. It felt good to have Kromin believe in her. Yes, she wanted to have a conversation about more than just patients, but at least for now she knew where she stood with him on professional terms. She turned to leave the break room, but before she reached the door, his voice stopped her again.

“Oh, and Anya?”

She turned to look at him. “Yeah?”

“It’s definitely not going to be a bad day. I’m pretty sure that any day that I get to look at your ass in those scrubs is a good day.”

Anya grinned and felt herself blushing. She put a hand on her hip and feigned indignation. “Hey, Mister. No harassing on the job.”

He gave her a sly grin. “Tell me to stop talking to you like that and I’ll stop.”

Anya chewed her lip but said nothing.

“Uh-huh,” Kromin said in a triumphant tone. “That’s what I thought. Now go get to work.”

Anya left the break room, her heart pounding in her chest and a warm, sweet heat spreading through her body. She knew she needed to get her emotions under control so that she could get her work done properly. The last thing she needed was to make another distracted mistake and give someone an extra steroid shot again or something like that. But for just a moment, she wanted to enjoy the pure pleasure of knowing that Kromin was attracted to her.

Outside of the first patient’s room, Anya closed her eyes for a minute and let herself daydream about the way Kromin had looked back in the break room. His fog gray eyes had been darkening with pleasure as he looked at her, and his thick, powerful tail had been swishing behind him. Anya knew both of these things signaled that a Zocronian was attracted to someone, and she felt a thrill at knowing that the someone he was attracted to was her.

She was hopelessly attracted to him. As if his height and strength wasn’t enough to make any woman swoon, his face alone was enough to make her fall for him. That prominent, ridged forehead. Those, sharp, high cheekbones. And that perfectly blue skin. Anya found herself wanting to run her fingers across that skin. She wanted to feel him, all of him. She wanted his lips pressed against hers again. She wanted to run her hands down his strong biceps and across his broad chest. She wanted…

Anya forced herself to take a deep breath and to derail that train of thought. She’d allowed herself a moment, but now she really needed to focus on work. Her patients needed her, and if she kept letting herself focus on Kromin’s body, she wasn’t going to get anything done today. She’d probably end up heading down to the supply room and attacking him with a kiss. And as much fun as that would be, it wasn’t why Anya was here today.

Anya took a few more deep breaths until she felt herself calming down, and then she began her rounds before she could once again begin thinking about Kromin’s sexy blue body.

The day went by surprisingly quickly. Once she got into a work groove, she lost herself in that work, forgetting even about Kromin, at least for a little while. This was what she loved to do. Helping patients feel better, and putting her medical skills to constant use. As much as Anya had loved flying on the Starburst as a medic, there had been something missing from that life. The times that her crew needed medical attention had been few and far between, and Anya had felt like her skills were getting out of practice. But here in the Zocronian hospital, she could once again put her talents to good use.

By the time lunch rolled around, Anya was starving. She hadn’t had a chance to eat anything for breakfast, because she’d been so distracted by the impromptu meeting with Chief Daxar. Now, she went to the break room to get a food cube, trying not to think too hard about how devastating it could be for the hospital if there were several more weeks before supplies could come in. The Zocronians relied on this place.

Anya took her time eating, but to her disappointment, Kromin did not show up in the break room. She’d been hoping to have a chance to eat with him, and she ate as slowly as she possibly could in hopes that he might stop by. But either he had already eaten or wasn’t planning to eat at a normal lunch hour, because after she had slowly cleaned the last crumbs off her plate, he still hadn’t shown up. Anya decided to go to him and see if he needed any help in the supply room. Her work with the patients was done for the time being. She had released some of them to go home, and the others all just needed to rest. She would do another round of checks on them this evening, but for now they were all set. No new patients had arrived today, either. It was looking like the rest of Anya’s day was going to be quiet.

Time for her to make her own noise.