Date Night on Union Station by E. M. Foner

Author:E. M. Foner [Foner, E. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paradise Pond Press
Published: 2014-05-02T23:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Joe dispensed with the silver suit for his second Eemas date in the theory that it had brought him bad luck. Instead he wore an old dress uniform with all the identifying marks removed. The buttons were a little tight across his gut, but sorting through metal scrap helped keep him in shape, especially since mass doesn’t disappear with weight in lower gravity and his tendency was to just lift more. Chasing Beowulf around the scrap yard to get back his gloves helped also, though he couldn’t get over the feeling that the dog was exercising him like a four-legged drill sergeant.

The date was at Camelot, a medieval-themed hotel casino that was primarily popular with humanoid species who favored edged weapons. Most sentient beings who retained personal weaponry ended up eschewing the advanced hand weapons that could slice a building in half in favor of sharp and pointy things that cut and stabbed. You never knew if the other party would have defensive technology in place that could turn your energy or projectile weapons against you.

Hereditary rulers preferred not to have a lot of high-tech weapons that could turn every peasant into an army rattling around a planet. Sticking with old-fashioned weapons on the ground meant that trained soldiers had a tremendous advantage over rabbles and militias, but as soon as spaceships were involved, victory went to the technically advanced. Most interplanetary and interspecies conflicts were fought and decided with words, before any large-scale bloodshed took place.

Joe’s dress uniform was really a standard officer’s uniform that didn’t have any repair patches on it, patches which frequently aligned with scars on his skin. It was primarily recognizable as a military uniform by the number of pockets and loops for holding various weapons and other field necessities. Stripped of combat survival gear, it resembled something an upscale tradesman might wear.

As he cut through the Little Apple on his way to Camelot, wearing the uniform brought Joe’s senses onto high alert and he spotted the ambush laid by the flower girl in time to cross to the other side of the main drag. Chuckling to himself, he looked back over his shoulder to see how she reacted to being outsmarted, then came to a dead stop as something soft bounced off of his long legs. A tearful little face looked up at him.

“Please excuse me,” Joe stammered, finding he had almost run down a petite ten-year-old girl in an old frock with smudges on her face.

“Oh, sir, look what you’ve done to my flowers.” The girl stared up at him pathetically while pointing at the mound of yellow daisies on the walkway. Joe was no horticultural expert, but they looked slightly wilted to him, perhaps leftovers from a slow evening the night before. But he knew when he was beat.

“How much for the lot?” he asked, trying to sound cheerful about it.

“All of them?” Her eyes opened so wide that they seemed to stretch from one side of her head to the other, with just the thinnest strip of nose to keep them apart.

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