A Bit of Muscle [Alna]

[Sarge Potteiger]

Picking up his plate and near empty glass, he ambles his way into a bunk room and sighs a bit. Part of him was angry at her. Part of him was angry at himself. Why she thought to potentially startle him was beyond his comprehension, but she'd meant well enough. Now he'd scared her.

He shouldn't have fallen asleep. If you knew the potential existed for something like that, you had to make strides to avoid it. Taking a long, deep breath, he cuts half the steak off and goes to find a fresh plate.

Leaving the half for her in the mess hall he disappears into his room to eat his own food and be alone with his thoughts. She had to calm herself just as he did.

 

[Alndys]

She'd lost control. She had a stranger on her ship, who might at any given moment lose his mind and kill her. She needed options. Alna went down her list - upon death, open the airlock and decompress the ship. Check. Blaster hidden in the cockpit, her quarters, and two in the cargo hold? Check. Knife in the shower? Check, although she doubted she could best him in hand-to-hand. Still, having her options for defense open and laid out made Alna feel a bit bitter, and knowing that if she died then so did he was a grim sort of reassurance. She'd never killed anyone before, but it wasn't because she was a pacifist or squeamish - she'd just never really had to do it before. A healthy mix of self-preservation and careful forethought had always sufficed to keep her hide intact. Alna wasn't a warrior. Alna was a tinkerer, a saleswoman, a pilot.

She'd wear her blaster at all times, even if the recent scenario had just proved that it wouldn't do her much good. The presence of the weapon was reassurance enough, and perhaps that had just been a fluke. She'd been sluggish and slow. Now she knew the score, and next time, Alna resolved to be quicker. Upon emerging from the cargo hold, Alna noted that Sarge had left half his steak for her - an apology, maybe. An act of contrition for ruining her meal? Half a steak was not a full steak, and the thrifty woman that she was, Alndys mentally tallied both the apologetic gesture and the cost of the food that had been dashed to the ground, minus half a steak.

Glancing at the door of the cabin Sarge had chosen as she passed it, Alna took her food into the cockpit and watched the stars fly by as she ate. A normal part of her normal life, dinner and the majesty of the universe splayed out before her eyes.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Sarge merely gave a grunted response from back near where the shower was. Water began to run, and steam filtered out as he sought to remove the fresh blood from his body, along with the sweat he'd built up unknowingly while dogfighting.

He'd no clue where they were headed, and he didn't care. Getting away from it all was exactly what he needed, and if it took an enterprising Lorrdian on an old freighter to do it, so be it.

Who knew, maybe they'd pick up a new crewmember or two.