To say Bahram was angry was an understatement.
The alien has stormed out of the bridge and gone straight to the med bay.
He had walked all the way in a frightful rage, officers and ensigns jumping out of the way or plastering themselves to the wall as he crossed them.
On his best behaviour, Bahram was already scary. He was taller than anyone in the crew, with well-defined muscles and wearing a perpetual frown. Being tall and having a powerful musculature was natural given his race. This is why most of the Sho-gour living amongst smaller races carried themselves at an angle to appear less frightening. And they smiled. They smiled a lot.
Bahram was an oddity in that he stood proud, straight as a laser. And he never smiled. He smirked on occasions.
As he reached the Med Bay reception, a chill passed through the human personnel in attendance.
"Are you here to see the Captain, sir?" said the most courageous of the receptionists.
He regretted talking immediately. Bahram's looked like he wanted to strangle him.
If he could read Bahram's mind, underneath the rage, he could have noticed an intense fear of losing the captain as well as waves of regrets. Bahram was leaning into the anger to quiet down the grief. A mind shielding technique he had learned during his cadet day. He had no intention to broadcast his feelings to any of the telepaths on board the ship.
"Yes," he said through gritted teeth, "I'm here to see Captain Hugh."
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"I'll call one of the doctors to bring you to him." said the receptionist. He activated his wrist communicator and quickly jotted down a message.
Bahram was pacing up and down the reception area while the other crewmembers were carefully ignoring him. After a few minutes, a doctor rushed to him. He recognised her; she had looked after his injuries when he had been caught in a collapsed building on Vena Alpha 4. Doctor Mir. She was a gifted neurosurgeon. If she was overseeing the Captain, it meant that whatever had happened to him was pretty bad.
"Hi, Barham, you're here to see the Captain?"
"Yes, what's his condition?"
"I can explain, or do you want me to dump you the information?"
"Ah, yes," thought Barham. She was a mind-reader. Good thing he had shielded his mind.
"Explain what you know" was his answer.
"Follow me." She told him everything she knew.
As they reached the Captain bed in the med bay, Barham had learned that while the official line was that the captain and Lula were in a deep coma, the truth was that their mind had "left their body", as Doctor Mir put it.
"At least he looks at peace." thought Bahram as he was standing next to Captain Hugh's bed.
He wanted to reach across and either slap him until he woke up or hold him. That last thought was especially dangerous, so he only let it bubble up in his mind an instant before he pressed it down into the recess of his brain.
He took a closer look at Hugh's face. He had once been told that human's faces freeze in the moment of death. Fear and horror would be expressed in an eternal grimace. But Hugh just looked asleep.
Not that Bahram would know what he looked like asleep. He had never secretly gazed at the Captain from across the Med Bay after perilous missions, looking at him through his set of semi-transparent second eyelids.
It was disturbing to see him on a Med Bay bed without knowing what had put him there. Barham decided at once that he was going to find and maim whoever was responsible. He had been excellent at maiming in the academy but had grown rusty in a mostly humanoid environment. He would need to train.
He left the Med Bay without a word, to the staff's relief present and went to the lift. He would go straight to the Sports Center and train, both to get back to the physical peak and to centre his anger until it engulfed him.