The mess hall was extremely busy today. Gine chopped slab after slab of meat in the kitchen, trying to keep pace and not get too overheated in the cramped area. The main dining room was packed with Saiyan planetary purging crews. They were all either laughing, shouting, fighting, or drinking; creating a cacophony of sound that drowned out her own thoughts. The heat of so many sweaty bodies together in conjunction with the thick hot air of their world was making the work more unbearable by the minute.
Everyone had just returned from their off-world missions, on Frieza's orders for all Saiyans to return to planet Vegeta. No one knew why, and it was certainly the buzz in the air among everybody. Rumors ranging from one big job to be announced or a great reward for all they've done, but also complaints about how they've all been pulled from their conquests. There wasn't much that Saiyans hated more than being denied a great fight or losing one, but they were not going to question Frieza's orders. No one in their right mind did.
Gine was in the middle of slicing another giant beast leg when someone shoved past her, making her drop the cleaver. It lodged itself onto the cutting table less than a hair's breadth from one of her fingers. Despite the armored gloves she wore, it still could've ended badly.
Angry, she wheeled around to see the head butcher rushing away and past other kitchen staff.
"Hey, watch it!" Gine called out to him.
The butcher turned to look back at her, he was much bigger and more mean-looking than her. "What's the matter, weakling? Did I push you too hard?" He said mockingly.
Now Gine was more than angry. She was used to this kind of slander against her strength as a Saiyan, but she wouldn't stand for being mistreated for following basic kitchen safety.
"You almost made me lose a finger!" She yelled, holding up the cleaver and the digit it nearly severed.
Almost immediately she regretted speaking up when he rushed back toward her, shoving several other workers aside and stopped just in front of her, shoving his face nearly into hers.
"Oh yeah? Well, what are you gonna do about it?" He threatened. The other kitchen staff stared at them awaiting her response.
Gine shrunk where she stood, willing herself not to show how humiliated she felt. She had experienced this kind of game far too often throughout her life. Being pushed around by other Saiyans for no other reason than being a particularly sorry excuse of a warrior. Being goaded into a fight that she would surely lose, be laughed at and forgotten about. Rinse and repeat.
She had it happen far too many times to count, but had never gotten fully numb to it either way. The butcher was no exception, as he reveled in causing her trouble for the fun of it. He had nothing better to do than run a kitchen, for like her he could never return to the front lines, but she suspected he wanted to feel better about himself if someone was weaker than him as subordinates. That still didn't make it feel any more bearable, but where else could she get work?
The butcher's lips curled smugly. "Hmph. That's what I thought. How pathetic!" He turned around and marched off as if nothing happened. The rest of the staff went back to work also pretending they didn't see anything, but she could see some of them snickering at her.
"Jerks." Gine cursed under her breath as she went back to chopping again. She briefly fantasized that the piece of meat she was slicing was the butcher's face as she drove the clever through it as hard as she could. That was never going to happen, but it was the only comforting thing she could think of.
"GINE!"
She stopped chopping and looked up; her foul mood immediately evaporated. Through the bombardment of sounds in the mess hall, Gine knew that voice anywhere. Her kind eyes, kinder than any Saiyan eyes should have, lit up in surprise and excitement when she saw who that voice belonged to.
"Bardock!" She called back.
Ecstatic for reprieve from working in this hellhole and seeing her partner, Gine set the clever down and ran her way through the crowd. Weaving her way around burly and rude customers towards the only particular Saiyan who's hair resembled a palm tree. A dashing crisscrossed scar ran across his cheek.
"Hey!" She greeted Bardock with a smile and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back too, which she thought was interesting since he was always somewhat distant even in their most intimate of moments. But she enjoyed it immensely, it's been months since she's seen him.
"I didn't think I'd see you for a while, even with this recall that's going on." Gine said as they held each other.
When they parted, she looked up at him, and Gine's expression fell into one of concern.
Bardock just stared at her, and through her as if he didn't notice that she was talking to him. The look in his eyes made him seem haunted, and, if she could believe it, sad. Like he must've seen something unspeakably horrible.
"What's wrong?" She asked quietly, resting her hands on his shoulders reassuringly.
Bardock snapped out of his trance and looked at her.
"How's-." He began to say, but the sound of glass shattering made him stop and jerk toward the sound on reflex. The commotion in the mess hall was going up a couple notches. The patrons were getting rowdier; they started bumping into them and cut off Bardock from speaking further.
Gine groaned from the noisy fumbling of drunkards and decided to take their reunion outside. "Come with me!" Gine said as she took Bardock by the hand and forced their way through the crowd of the mess hall, out the entrance and into the open.
On the streets, the capital city of Planet Vegeta was bustling with activity. It had been a very long time since the entire Saiyan population was back on the planet at once. Thousands of people were out and about; walking by and conversing with old long-lost comrades or picking fights with strangers, but out here at least Gine and Bardock could hear each other. The intense heat of the red giant that was their world's sun bore down on them in the late afternoon.
Way up in the sky, faintly visible, was Frieza's command ship in orbit. While she and Bardock stood there outside, he looked up at the vessel for a very long moment with a mixture of emotions she couldn't read on him.
"Bardock." She got his attention again, his behavior starting to worry her. "What's wrong?" She repeated.
He looked at her more focused this time. "Uh...Gine, how is Kakarot?"
"Kakarot?" Gine asked in surprise.
Saiyan fathers rarely if ever asked their mates about the well-being of their offspring after they were born, let alone the second-born of low-class warriors who were pathetically weak. As was the aforementioned child he was asking after. Much like herself, even as a firstborn she never knew who her father was.
Yet it seemed like something else was bothering Bardock.