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Zekha scowled at Varen when the human mocked him for asking, what he thought, was a very sensible line of questions. Of [i]course[/i] he was an adult, but in the Dug's experience if you gave people free reign to do what they wanted without any directives, it would get out of hand. One asshole decides not to do their dishes, then the next person piles theirs up, and absolutely nobody wanted to clean the lavatory after aliens expelled half their body weight inside of one. 

"Putrid bantha sty, got it." Zekha retorted. The captain didn't want disciple? That was fine with him; it meant he'd get to reap what he sowed and Zekha would be largely left to his own devices, which he'd do his duties beyond expectations. The rest of the ship could turn into the equivalent of a refugee camp for all the Dug cared; he just wanted free reign to pursue his own interests without any overbearing captain or first mate butting their squashed hideous noses into his business. Give him a week and the right parts, and Zekha would have a personal droid to clean up after him, leaving his mind free to pursue much more worthy pursuits. If Varen decided to keep being a flippant [i]slimo[/i], he'd soon discover the ventilation system going to his quarters would start accumulating a variety of unpleasantness without warning.   

The rest of the tour was concluded in prompt fashion, the [I]Phoenix[/I] uniformly disappointing throughout. The entire ship should have been scrapped before most everyone aboard was born, but alas, Zekha was getting the impression that the captain was an extremely cheap individual who would have prostituted his own mother for a few credits. Whatever the case may be, the Dug's mind was whirring with possibilities for tinkering, to make the shitheap that would be home for the foreseeable future respectable, if not somewhat admirable. He only briefly noted that the ship had armament; something like that was more ceremony than practical. This thing wasn't going to be out maneuvering an interceptor or pirate barge.

At last, they approached what was to be Zekha's quarters and the adjacent engine compartment, which to the Dug's pleasant surprise was in good working order at a cursory glance; the readings looked to be in the green and nothing sounded off, such as auxiliary cooling pump cavitation or severe fluctuating frequency in the hyperdrive; the only thing that was of some concern was that some of the systems were running a bit hot, which usually meant that the system was calling for more power than the generators were reliably putting out and the coolant pumps were either losing prime or the pipes themselves were causing head loss. The Dug tilted his head at the Captain's request for readings every 12 hours; something like an ancient creaking ship such as this needed routine rounds, likely every 4 hours or so, because once one system failed, the whole thing would start a chain reaction of problems if one weren't diligent. He was also surprised at being assigned two lackys for the take off prep, although it couldn't hurt to have multiple eyes and trained crew in case something happened to him. As the crew departed to their respective stations, Zekha was stuck with a towering Wookiee who looked like she didn't know what the heck a wrench was and she said as much. At least she didn't overstate her utter lack of experience. There were things any idiot could do, and the Dug appreciated that Liak'ykam, or Leaky as he was starting to think of her, bothered with a translation device. It was above par for his usual dealings with her species. 

"Easy enough, my shaggy friend. I'll have you watch some of the instruments, or in rookiee terms, the glowy screens and needles that ain't supposed to move much." Reaching into his tool belt, Zekha produced a white-tipped marker and began to mark the various gauges in basic for what they did after quickly affirming from memory what exactly correlated with what, and with that out of the way said, "All you have to worry about is making sure that the dials and bobs don't go outside those white markings, got it? If they do, tell me right away unless you like sucking in the vacuum of space or radiation leaks. Once we're out of orbit, I'll have you start putting together an inventory of whatever supplies we have on hand so when yours truly has to fix something, we aren't tying joints together with your shaved fur. Likewise, those screens over there," he pointed to the SCADA system, "Will tell you if there's an alarm, and if anything starts blinking red or yellow, again, find me."


Turning to the Twi'lek, he considered the blue-skinned woman for a few moments. Deciding to err on the side of caution and assume that she was just as clueless as Leaky, he pulled out a datapad and spent a few moments going through files he had leftover from his previous tour on a 587-R class transport, pulling up a checklist and locking the device on the file to prevent snooping. "There's not a lot you can do right now that wouldn't take me hours to make you understand anything that isn't more basic than buttered Gorg jerky, so there's a basic pre-flight checklist for securing the ship before departure. Doors, ramps, equipment that's laying around, things that sound very wrong, make sure it's secure or somebody's going to get a concussion or worse if our Trandoshian pilot turns out being an alcoholic or a death stick addict. We'll go over anything you don't know after I make sure everything here is passable." Zekha said, looking between the two women. Why couldn't one of them be a Dug? They'd be prettier, and how anyone got anything accomplished with only two hands was beyond him. Setting down his tool belt, he produced a pair of hearing protectors for himself and scrounged up some old plugs he'd stuffed in a hard case if he had to make do. He had no idea if they'd fit either a Wookiee or Twi'lek, but it was all he had. Offering them up, he said, "If you need to ask something, make it quick; this ship gets loud enough you'll swear we're all about to die when it's getting up to speed."