Ilaria

Humans have an understanding that there are different types of drunks. When a human drinks a significant amount, they fall into one of the following categories: happy drunk, sad drunk, angry drunk, dumb drunk, sleepy drunk, wild drunk or the zoned-out drunk that leads them to stare at walls with slightly-gaping mouths. When Ilaria drinks alcohol brewed on Earth, she is a sleepy drunk. One bottle of plonk and she’s out for the count. Since joining the crew of the Vanguard, she and the other humans had gotten a chance to taste Ailu't alcohol. It had been an experiment for science, of course. The results showed they all became a completely different drunk than their usual type on this tangy juice.

Ilaria became wild drunk.

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” Vitality scolded.

Ilaria groaned into the almost flat pillow that her face was buried in. A full-body hangover had her completely immobilised. Vita had been leaning into Ilaria's quarters with one hip against the door frame for the best part of half an hour. Ilaria could not be budged, though. Vitality could rant and rave all she wanted, but Ilaria physically could not leave her bed. Given how rough she felt in bed, she couldn’t fathom how awful she’d feel trying to pry herself out of it.

Vitality was not to be put off by Ilaria’s refusal to respond. She continued “We have work to do, work that can’t wait for your body to process your own bad decisions.”

Vitality was her Ailu’t counterpart, her fellow (and only other) navigations officer aboard The Vanguard. She also had very little patience for Ilaria’s shenanigans.

“I am not pulling your weight for you when you have caused your own sickness,” she added. “Either set your status to ‘OFF DUTY - ILLNESS’ or get your butt to your station. Either way, you need to choose in the next fifteen minutes, or you’ll get a disciplinary anyway for being late. Don’t make me come back here.”

Ilaria groaned again, but this time she heard her door slide shut. Vita was right, she needed to either flag herself on the system as off duty or sign in for work. As much as she enjoyed infuriating her commander, she didn’t like to have marks on her permanent report for tardiness. She may disregard any respect for authority figures, regularly make a public spectacle of herself, and generally cause havoc to every room she entered, but her mother did raise her with enough decorum to know you either turn up on time or not at all.

It took a few minutes of rubbing her face into her bed before she settled on work over a sick day. Once she had finally made the decision to attempt leaving her room, it then took a litre of water, a few mouthfuls of the gummy candies she kept hidden under her bed, a scalding hot shower and a vigorous teeth scrubbing to have her feeling well enough to face even the air outside of her safe haven.

She dragged herself over the threshold of hers and Vitality’s ‘office’ located at the helm of the ship with seconds to spare before she was clocked as late. Once she had logged her arrival and unlocked her computer, she slumped in her chair. Vitality gave her a withering look. Ilaria could admit that her work partner did deserve a medal for putting up with her some days.

Within minutes of settling herself in at the enormous table that dominated their workspace, the intercom at their door buzzed. Ilaria and Vitality shared a curious look and Vitality tapped at her interactive panel to open the door.

A young-looking Ailu't in a soldier’s uniform stepped inside. They only had a handful of soldiers aboard The Vanguard, and they all reported directly to Mercy. Best case scenario, they were a team that would have no work to do for the duration of their voyage, as they had only been included in the crew for conflicts aboard the ship or the unexpected discovery of hostile lifeforms on any new planets they came across. She locked her gaze straight onto Ilaria.

“Commander Mercy wants you in the command room, now,” she announced.

“Commander Mercy can suck my tits,” Ilaria grumbled, rubbing her face into the star charts on the table in front of her and swishing them out of order, earning her an expression of fury from Vitality. Ilaria winced. “On the other hand, Vita looks about ready to execute me so maybe I’ll take my chances with our noble leader instead.”

With a mildly embarrassing stagger, she made it to the doorway and followed the soldier along a route she knew far too well already.

The soldier left her outside the command room and disappeared down another corridor, leaving Ilaria to face down Mercy alone. She pressed the button to request permission to enter and the door opened.

Commander Mercy was sat behind her intimidating metal slab of a desk, her posture immaculate and not a single dark hair out of place from her straight brows to her slicked-back pony-tail. Ilaria loped up to the edge of the desk, overly aware of how much messier she looked than her superior.

The room was dead silent as they stared each other down, both apparently awaiting something from the other. Finally, Mercy gave in.

“Do you have any explanation for last night?” she asked stiffly.

Ilaria had not been certain what she was going to be getting a bollocking for when she entered the room, but last night’s drunken chaos had been near the top of her list. She supposed that meant the commander hadn’t found the dirty limericks she had scrawled underneath her keyboard, yet. “It was your people that supplied the booze,” she offered with a weary shrug.

“It was you that drank an inconceivable amount of it.”

Ilaria folded her arms over her chest, partly to seem defensive and partly because she hoped it would help her keep from retching. “I thought this voyage was all about the exchange of culture!” She exclaimed with mock indignity.

“Somehow I don’t think that drinking yourself cross-eyed and breaking furniture, injuring yourself and others, disabling door locks with too many incorrect drunken password attempts and running laps across the ship with almost no clothing on is part of human culture.”

“You clearly know nothing of human behaviour and social customs.”

“You put people on this ship in harm’s way,” Mercy growled. “What if there had been an emergency and we needed the use of those doors to get to the medical bay? Or the escape shuttles?”

“There’s a manual override for a reason,” Ilaria huffed childishly. Was there a tiny part of her that knew messing with the doors was dangerous? Yes. Did she feel like being scolded like a child? No.

“Unfortunately, one of the two maintenance officers aboard this ship had already been concussed by your violent version of-" Mercy glanced at a piece of paper and read out with disdain, “musical chairs.”

Ilaria squinted, partly from headache and partly from confusion at Mercy’s tone. “You’ve never played musical chairs?”

Commander Mercy gave her a look of scorn that could have wilted flowers.

“I would be happy to teach you,” Ilaria offered, allowing a mild grin to curl onto her face. “We have the perfect amount of chairs in here for a two-person game.”

“There is only one chair in here,” Mercy said slowly, her eyes narrowing at Ilaria.

“Exactly. Now we play music and fight for it!”

“What part of ‘no violence aboard the ship' do you not understand?”

“It’s not violence, just a bit of pushing and shoving!”

“No pushing, no shoving, no pinching, no poking-"

“It’s just childish fun!” Ilaria rolled her eyes. “There’s no malicious intent.”

Mercy slammed her lavender hands on the desk and Ilaria was expecting to see the metal crumple beneath them. “We are not children, Ilaria!” she shouted. “We are an elite selection of exploration specialists hurtling into unknown territories. Our mission is already rife with possible problems, stop creating more for me.”

“A problem is only a problem if you decide it is!” Ilaria countered, waving a dainty finger in front of Mercy’s furious face. “I prefer the term ‘mishap’,” she added.

“Go fuck yourself, Ilaria.”

“I thought we had rules about public masturbation?”

When Mercy suddenly leaned forward, Ilaria genuinely thought she was about to be grabbed by the throat. Instead, Mercy brought her nose to Ilaria’s and seethed. “I would be more than happy to provide you with a full copy of this ship’s rules and regulations, perhaps it will be large enough to gag your enormous mouth.”

“Kinky.”

“OUT.”

Ilaria touched her brows quickly to make sure they hadn’t been blown off by Mercy’s voice and took her leave with a worse headache than she had had going in.