Shoot for Earth: MedSci Missions 3

When he’d first agreed to the job on the planet the Ambassador had asked him to do, he’d missed his friend Sufra. She was so smart and alluring without even trying; but these barian girls…wow! What they could do with a tail…he’d had to leave Ah behind, too, after bonding with him in captivity with the Greys. He had Scott, though. He was cool. After some long chats, the guy had convinced him he wasn’t the one stealing supplies on board to do who knew what with. The illicit experiments Scott had been kicked off the ship for had been with the best of intentions. Though O’Bien had asked him if he would work on this world along with the banished Scott, he hadn’t really had much choice. After he’d agreed he found out the Ambassador had pretty much promised the people of Fabar that he would. They were happy he would do his genetics work on their world, but excited that he would be there to play the music they loved so much in his spare time.

Here was Scott coming for him now. Ramone grinned. “Give anyone a cold, today?” It was his regular greeting.

“Nope,” Scott said. His standard reply.

“You ready to rock?” This too was pretty routine.

“Sure am!”

“You’re not singing, though, not anywhere near a microphone.”

Scott shrugged, but Ramone could tell he was genuinely disappointed.

“It was fun, though, having you up there last night. You know what, I could use someone to squeeze the sphincter bag.”

“Hmm. I’m a sharp-shooter. Good with squeezing a trigger, but I don’t know if I can figure out how much to squeeze a bag to make the right sounds.

“If we eat on the go, we have time to try you out on it. If not, it would be fun to add in a bit of Earth-style percussion. I could come up with something to shake with dried beans or whatever.”

“Well, I guess improvising and innovating is what your crowd loves. Let’s see what I can do.”

What he could do was make loud, rude noises every time he squeezed the air bag of the instrument. Ramone’s fellow geneticist Dymo, whose studio they were in, waved his tail rapidly in laughter.

Ramone grimaced. “Try it like this.” In his hands, the sounds emitted had a mesmerising vibrato. “Gentle and steady,” he instructed softly, handing it back.