Dr. Zek looked down at his work, all of the men and woman that had been brought on board were stabilized. He took note of the woman who had been shuttled on board who was standing, appearing to be in deep thought. He wasn't much for conversation, but had learned a lot from Mia in the last few weeks. Being a physical doctor, he had excelled at medicine, but knew little about psychology. He thought of this as a learning opportunity. He approached the woman, making himself as short as possible as to not seem imposing (this was Mia's first tip.) He also allowed his tentacles to fall to his side instead of animating them (Mia's second tip.) 

"Hello Miss," the tentacled creature spoke, his motive translator echoing in it's robotic manor, "I noticed that you were carried on board. Do you have any injuries I could treat?" He paused for a moment, "Or anything you'd like to talk about?"

The tall, quiet, nervous-looking woman looked up, but if she found anything strange about the Doctor's appearance, she was doing a very good job of not showing it. She was dressed like a civilian, though her anxiety aside, she was standing alert, like a soldier. She shook her head at the questions.

"I wasn't hurt in this incident, and I don't have anything else wrong with me that you can treat. As for things I'd like to talk about..." The woman chuckled, though there was no humour in it. "How long have you got? I'm back on a military ship for the first time in years. In fact, since First Contact. Part of me feels like it was yesterday and I've lost nothing, but at the same time, it feels a lifetime ago since I was discharged. They still don't have a name for what those Nomads did to me, so they just call it 'extremely severe PTSD'"

Nippikin thought about his conversation rules. The main one, find common ground.

"I also have not been on a military vehicle in sometime, although I never faced the Nomads."

He remembered an interesting fact about First Contact, and thought it important to share.

"Also, I have seen evidence that the First Contact survivors have the highest suicide rate of all soldiers....So," Nippikin realized his mistake as it came out of his mouth. Another rule of conversation is to give complements so he ended his sentence, 

"You must be very resilient to have continued living. It is very impressive."

The woman looked down at her boots for a few seconds. "I'd never kill myself. I know I'll get better eventually, then maybe I could get a job, or even get back into the military. But....I can see why others would kill themselves.There's little this society trusts me to do now they know how easily an attack can be brought on. Why just today, one of the civilians grabbed my shoulder and I threw them to the ground and was a millisecond away from breaking their arm before I even realised what I was doing, and when the guns started firing, I just crouched and hid my head because I couldn't deal with it in any way. It's...no way to live."

She looked back up, a slight smile on her lips, though her eyes were still far away. "There are good moments, though. My last job was as a nanny, and I love kids."

"Just this morning I helped a human child. They had a Lunarean Infection." he thought about his own thoughts on children, it had been some time. "Where I come from, children are raised communily, and I have not attended a breeding yet. Are you a parent or do you simply have a hormonal reaction?"

"I'm not a parent. Haven't even dated since I was fifteen. It could just be a hormonal reaction. I admit, I'd love to have kids if I thought I could raise them properly."

"I am also not a rearer, I did not have the skills necessary." Nippikin made sure to continue creating common ground. 

There was a groan from the corner, the man with a bullet wound appeared to be awake and poking at his bandage. He yelled over at the two.

"Hey you shits. Why did you shoot me, I just wanted some damned food. That's all we bloody wanted!"

Nippikin was speechless and looked over toward his new acquaintance in hopes that she would know what to say.

The woman spared a glance at the Doctor, communicating that she'd be more than happy to be of some use, and walked over to the man. "We didn't fire into the civilian populace. That was the action of several gunmen and snipers who were trying to cause chaos, from what little I've gathered from listening to conversations. I was personally delivering fresh supplies to the food tent when the shooting started."

The man looked up at the woman above him, she seemed like a soldier. Something was familiar. 

"Wait, you're that one that broke that guys face. You're a monster. This whole thing probably wouldn't have even started if it wasn't for you!"
The man lifted his arm to point at her, but dropped it due to the pain "Fuck you. The Nomad should have just wiped all you soldiers out before they went to sleep."

Nippikin watched the interaction. He felt an urge to intervene but was reminded of Mia's words "Most human women take offense when someone try's to fix their problems, Nippikin." Nippikin pulled out his pack and got a sedative ready, in case things got violent.

The woman's face changed. Now she really looked like a soldier, with a face that, rather than sporting anger, sported a weary kind of unhappiness at the man's words. "You can blame me for the chaos if it makes you feel any better. I'm used to being reprimanded for chaos, and I'm equally used to being a scapegoat. And maybe the Nomads should have wiped me out. But they didn't. I survived with my body intact if not my mind. And now I'm here....Is there anything I can do to help?"

The man looked down, and closed his eyes, clearly defeated. "No. You can't do anything." He looked down at the ground refusing to continue eye contact.

Nippikin walked up to the man to check his wound, which appeared to have started bleeding again. As he passed the woman, he spoke quietly "For me, this was a good moment. Thank you for the support."

He began to work on the man's wound again, making sure to be just a little rougher than he usually would without causing damage. 

He looked back at the human woman with two of his 3 eyes, "My name is Nippikin Zekliaoson, but my friends call me Nippy. You can call me Nippy if you want."

"Dalry Soumers, but you can call me Ry," she answered, gaining no small satisfaction from seeing Nippikin's harsh treatment of the patient. God knows she wanted to hurt him herself if his condition didn't cause her to feel a sympathy and protectiveness.