Commander Ktak was feeling agitated. His second in command, Mtak, was getting on her nerves again. The Tamare was a mix with physically powerful, but not that smart race looking like a snout faced six eyed monkey and had hard time grasping that different species had different body functions. His hybrid origin species had been scent hunters and every new chemical in the air bought on a cascade of complaints from Mtak. Listening to his whining about how everything on the ship smelled and humans worst of all was unpleasant. He was getting reassigned off this ship as soon as possible. The species was unfit for space fare and Commander often found herself wondering who had been bribed for him to be assigned on a ship and with such a high rank in the first place. His kind were generally colony governors on new settlements, where he species had most advantages.
She shut out the litany of complaints and thought of something much more pleasant. Ames. The little quiet human engineer was doing something rather strange to her. Her human side she had been usually able to count on to be rational and sensible ally was going haywire. She could not help but smile seeing him and feel this warm feeling inside. She found herself wandering around in maintenance floors whenever she had time conducting inspections and for a while she pretended that she was doing just that, but recently she had to admit even to herself - she was looking for a run-in with Ames. Too bad he never dared to look up at her...
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Fed up with Mtak’s complaints, she announced, "I’m going to inspect the 4th maintenance deck," and walked out of the door.
Ames had just finished repairing the coolant leak on 6th floor and was hungry. Maintenance crews had access to the officer’s mess hall at all hours, so he headed there. Maintenance crews often needed to work through regular mealtimes and needed to eat when they could and as ship was not big enough to justify two round the clock mess halls they shared with the officers.
The mess had a clump of officers in one corner. Commanders second, Mtak, was almost shouting at the two poor lower ranking officers obliged by rank to listen to him and gave him a look of pure disgust on entry, while sniffing the air. He put on his noise protectors, turned on his music and served himself a well-earned dinner in furthest possible corner from Mtak and his entourage.
Ames ate oblivious to his surroundings. Death metal from headphones could drown out even Mtak. He was almost done with his dinner when all hell broke lose. Before he understood what was going on he had a nasty bump on the head, a broken arm and was being dragged somewhere. The tried struggling but it was no use - Mtak, who was doing the draging, turned around and served him a hard foot in the gut before resuming the dragging along the corridor.
Ames tried to get his bearings and when he realized where he was headed, panicked. He seemed to be dragging him the nearest airlock. Spacewalks were part of his job, but not without a suit... He tried to scream, but all that came out was blood in bubbles and a muffled gurgle.