Free Soldiers of Fortune by Joshua Dalzelle Page B

active sensors) lead the way.
     
                  When they walked into their suite, there was evidence that there had been what could be called a struggle. Either that or a bomb had gone off in the room. “What. The. Fuck?” Jason asked to nobody in particular. “I’m assuming there is some sort of rational explanation for this.”
     
                  “Look, Captain,” Kage began, holding a rag to his nose that looked to be soaked in greenish blood. “I know this looks bad, but almost all of it was an accident.” Jason held up a finger, demanding silence as he took in the rest of the room. One of the sofas was completely upended and a set of enormous feet, that could have only have belonged to Crusher, were sticking up in the air from the other side. Another large chair was smashed flat and there was broken glass covering much of the floor.
     
                  “Where is Twingo?”
     
                  “He’s in the bathroom… in his room,” Kage said. “But he’s probably wanting to just sleep it off,” he finished hurriedly. Jason stomped out of the room as Doc and Lucky rushed over to check on Crusher. Crunching over more broken glass, he went into the indicated bathroom and found Twingo unconscious, beat up, and laying in the shower stall with a wet rag on his head. After checking to see that he was still breathing, Jason decided to leave him where he was and walked back out into the common area. As he entered he saw that Lucky had Crusher sitting up on the one couch that wasn’t flipped over.
     
                  “Ok, Kage,” he said calmly. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say this didn’t happen because three platoons of hardened marines charged into the room. So… start talking.” He leaned against the door frame to Twingo’s room and crossed his arms over his chest.
     
                  “Hmm, where to start…” Kage said, looking for support from anyone in the room. “You knew the bar was fully stocked, right? Ok. Well we started drinking after you guys left, and then we started to get bored. We knew you’d be mad if we went walking around outside, so we started playing drinking games from our own homeworlds.”
    I can already see where this is going…
                  “It started off tame enough, but then Crusher said we couldn’t handle the games his people played, so Twingo challenged him to play what he called ‘Stollanari Arm Wrestling’. He had Crusher make a fist and told him to pull it towards him with all his strength while he held onto it with both of his own hands. If he could get his fist out, he won.”
     
                  “Then what?” Jason prompted.
     
                  “Well, Crusher starts pulling towards himself, almost lifting Twingo off the floor,” Kage continued. “Then, Twingo just lets go and Crusher punched himself in the face as hard as he could. Twingo yelled, ‘You won!’ But then Crusher came after him, that’s what happened to that chair,” he pointed at the flattened piece of furniture, “and Twingo’s face… and body.” Crusher was sitting on the couch glaring at the smaller, four armed alien out of the eye that wasn’t swelled shut as he recounted the night’s events.
     
                  “That explains one chair,” Jason said, still angry, but suddenly trying hard not to laugh. "Crusher, you actually beat up one of your own crewmates?" Jason was stunned.
     
                  "No, no, no," Kage interjected. "He tripped and fell chasing Twingo... but he is really fast, so Twingo sort of got caught up under him on the way down." Jason winced at the thought of being smashed to the floor underneath the hulking warrior.
     
                  "Fine. So they broke the chair playing... What was it? Stollanari Arm Wrestling?... why is the floor covered in glass?"