“I play FTL for the strategy”
The insectoid alien pawed uselessly at the tools before him as hooting sirens and flashing lights made their displeasure known. A thin trail of smoke still drifted upwards from the crater blasted in the small mountain of machinery at the room’s center, before being snatched away by the scrubbers. Sensors showed the enemy’s weapons were recharging, but the shields were still down. Frustration, fear, rage, and shame roiled in his abdomen like bile.
“I play FTL for the strategy”
A loud noise from behind made him startle like a prey animal before whirling to face it, claws raised. But it was the human Bennett, his comrade, greeting him with a cheerful call: “Permission to enter the debris field, Engineer Scoops?”
In his state, he hadn’t even heard the door open.
But Bennett came striding towards him, not waiting for an answer, and Scoops noticed belatedly that his regulation coveralls were tied off in roughly the middle of his strange body.
“I play FTL for the strategy”
Of course, he thought, a little absently. Evaporative cooling. Bennett had been working hard, the grease and grime going halfway up his forelimbs was proof enough of that, and his hide was wet. He needed to moderate his body temperature. But that meant that his upper half, with its intriguing, alien landscape of sloping plains, swelling hills of muscle, and (most tantalizing of all) the valleys between them, was bared for Scoops’ staring eyes.