To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch5 Ship life

Ship life

Doctor Bachir's tour likely wasn't as good as Karega's would have been. The grizzled man defiantly wasn't a conversationalist, but he still managed to make the long silences not feel awkward. A rare skill Alwen envied. What little conversation there was, was short and to the point.

"Where's the crew, Karega said there was about two thousand of them?"

"Shore leave" he grunted.

"And what is a typical day in the med bay like?"

"Not to bad, though the whole crew is full of stubborn asses. They wont leave their post even if they melt their arm off, so we make 'house calls'"

"Has that happened before?"

"Yup, Kevin's the head snipe in the engine room. Burst plasma pipe took his left arm past the shoulder. His subordinates had to call me away to take care of him, still refused to his precious 'baby'. So I called a maareen to gag him with chloroform and drag him to the med bay" he explained as they entered the mess deck. A large room where the most divine smells wafted out of the kitchen.

"I'm sorry I don't know that word, what's a maareen?" she asked, butchering the word.

His ears twitched and he glanced over his large shoulders at her "That's a human word, no equivalent in galactic common. I guess you could best relate them to a ship security force, but that doesn't really cover the breadth of what they are. You will being seeing plenty of them" he promised.

"Do maareens get hurt often"

"Yes" he grunted "Doing the dumbest stuff too. A bored maareen is a dangerous one. They'll push too hard in their training, or come up with dangerous contests to prove who has the biggest testicles. Though the handstand marathon around the ship was fun to see, deck apes weren't to happy about that. 'A bunch of sweaty maareens mucking up there good floors' they complained, until Alice gave them whiplash with her tail." he was grinning now as they approached the kitchen.

"Hey butch!" he roared into the back.

"What you furry brown ass" a brassy female voice called back.

"Come out and meet the new girl, and behave she's a holy women"

A large powerfully built human women with shorn deep purple hair emerged and leaned on the counter. Her thick biceps were covered in unnatural whirls and colors, a beautiful if strange peace of art inked onto her skin. On one arm she saw nine distinct levels of art, each displaying a different realm of suffering. On the other there were winged Terrans on clouds playing strange stringed instruments. And she wore a weird ruffled white hat, and was hold a massive curved meat cleaver "So a holy women eh, like a nuun or a monk" she said drying her hand on a towel she them tossed over her shoulder.

"I'm not sure what the first word was, but all doctors on Torwen are sworn to the goddess of healers, Ashendra."

"That's not a celibate order I hope," she said looking Alwen up and down.

Heat bloomed across her face "ah...um, no but I just got on board, I would prefer to settle in first" she chirped.

Butch boomed with laughter "Relax kid, I'm not gonna take you right here in my kitchen, that's unsanitary."

Well at she had her priorities straight, though the whole offer surprised her. Alwen hadn't even had a first kiss, casual sex with an alien was defiantly not on her list of space adventures she'd dreamed about.