The ship docked at the station and first part of the plan rolled out exactly as planned.

When Investigator Oran reached the ship he was informed that the Commander and most of the crew were on station leave, Mtak was delivered to station's central Tamare holding facitlity along with evidence of his unfitness for spaceship duty and Engineer Ames Storm had resigned his post and left with his belongings.

Investigator Oran hated space travel for the same reason Mtak had gotten in trouble. His kind were unfit for it indeed. The station was barely tolerable for the few day's stay he needed to conduct this investigation. He was in Tamare terms a mut - fifth generation hybrid with only a third of Mtak's hybrid species in him. It must be even worse for Mtak. More than now irrelevant breach in suborinate relations it intrigued Investigator Oran how Mtak had become assigned to be a second in command on her ship. He decided to interrogate Mtak instead of chasing the Commander. Human hybrids were known to be prone to affairs. Having a fling with a human would be nothing new. Usually posting the Tamare to a sufficiently long distance away and some hush money to the human fixed it and it seemed this one had fixed itself. But how Mtak had ended up where he was was quite unusal for Tamare where everyone was made for the job they did.

Ktak was standing in front of the temple fretting. Occasionally she paced the length of the stairs. Ames had disembarked separately with his things and was to meet her at the temple. She could not help wondering if... perhaps... he changed his mind and would not come at all. But there was still few minutes left for him to not even be late.

Stella was next to appear.

"Don't worry, that man would follow you to battle, if that's where you were going you know." she told her. "He will come."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Ktak gave her a small pained smile. She was in her best dress uniform and looked quite fetching. Stella had offered to aquire for her the classic white dress, but somehow, it did not seem appropriate. She was a Tamare Commander and this would be what Ames was getting, not an oversized bluish human woman.

Then she noticed Ames approaching. He was wearing an all white suit and his usually unruly hair was neatly styled. The grubby engineer cleaned up nicely she thought to herself.

He climbed a few steps higher than her and leaned down for a quick kiss. "You look beautiful, dear!" he said.

They turned to climb the stairs, but Stella stopped them.

"We are still waiting for a few people," she said smiling. "It's hardly a wedding without some guests."

Over the next 5 minutes most of the human crew turned up and quite a few of the Tamare as well and when they finally entered the temple, they were followed by a crowd of glamouring people. The priest and priestess were quite surprised. This was supposed to be an elopment, but it sure had a big audience for one. One look at the couple was enough to convince them that nothing about this was going to be exactly usual and being the place where odd couples came this was saying a lot. Their usual was quite broad term. And they needed a bigger ceremonial cup for the lady. Priestess hurried off to find one and add a few extra ounces of those mystic herbs to the mixture as well.

The ceremony was much like any wedding, a speech, the wows, but then the couple were to drink a spiced wine and then to be led to the back chamber for the formalization. The drink was some strong stuff, because neither could later exactly remember what happened in the back room. Next thing they knew, they had the certificate and they were leading the procession to a place Sarah had arranged for a party. She had decided to invest her earnings from winning the bet to celebrating properly.

It must have been a good party, because Ames could later clearly recall only glimpses of it. He did remember spending most of it sitting on Ktak's lap getting kissed now and then to the accompaniment of cheers. But he also remembered holding Tomas's coat while he was throwing up and simultaneously appologizing again for ever insulting his wife.

They stayed at the Inn station side for two nights to recover and then headed back to the ship.