Human Asleep. Can’t Move.

“Min,” the voice on the communicator crackled. “Min I know you can hear me! Where are you?”
Min, who was tucked away comfortably in a quiet nook of the ship’s library, pulled his ears back tight against his skull. Maybe if he did so tight enough, he wouldn’t be able to hear the whiny voice coming from the comm device on his wrist.
No such luck.
“Min, you were supposed to get the lower deck cleaned up a quarter of a cycle ago. I just walked by and the remains of the send-off party are still everywhere. The floors are a mess and the recycling compactors are full to the brim! I know we don’t get new passengers until Moyrs 2, but we’re halfway through the Tamp System now and still have a lot to do! You’re supposed to be on duty, so where are you?!”
Min sighed and rubbed the sleep from two of his eyes. The human sleeping next to him stirred at the commotion. Together they’d spent several decarrtiks to get the library back to order. The ship’s passengers on the last leg of their galactic tour had really done a number on the usually quiet haven of study. Actually, they’d done about the same to the entire ship - even a few corridors they weren’t supposed to have access to. Poor Human Zehireta had to scare a few nilta youth out of restricted access more than once during the sendoff celebration alone. They’d been little nightmares the whole trip, but tried to use the wild commotion of the party as cover for their shenanigans.
Thankfully, humans seem to be really good at knowing when others are up to no good. The troublemakers didn’t stand a chance. Not when humans themselves are masters of those kinds of tactics. No matter how sneaky the entitled nilta brats were, or thought they were, their antics were thwarted time and time again by Zehireta or the other human on the crew, Cherise.

The grating voice piped up again, “Min, report in or I’m going to write you up!”
Ugh. ‘No rest for the wary,’ or however the human phrase goes.
“Charutt, I’m still in the library. Zehireta and I were told to start here before the zilt sludge could do any serious damage to the consoles or server bays. We’ve been at it for most of the cycle.” That last part was mostly true. It had taken them several grueling decartiks to get the biohazards contained and removed, then still deal with the general mess and dishevelment on top of that. Once they had gotten the library to an acceptable level of cleanliness, they’d decided they had earned a break. Or, rather, they desperately needed one and all but collapsed onto a few newly-laundered cushions in a study nook. It’d been a nice rest, but not nearly long enough.
“You should have finished the library already. You need to get your tail to the lower deck, now!”
A growl started deep in Min’s chest, but he cut it off quickly when the still-sleeping Zehireta stirred again. With an uncharacteristically pitiful squeaking sound, she shifted and dropped from her precarious sitting position to lie on her side in what must have been a more comfortable spot. Min froze. The human’s head and shoulders were now solidly planted on his legs. She exhaled loudly as if telling him to either wrap it up or keep it down or both, and then her breathing steadied again.
“Charutt, I’ll get to it when I get to it.“ He growled in a hushed tone. "Have you ever cleaned up zilt sludge? When you’re around delicate circuitry, you can’t just hose it down with ferrox suds. It’s way more meticulous and extremely exhaustive.”
“Be that as it may, we are behind schedule and you need to put a little more hustle in your-”
“Half the crew quit the moment we made port on Junto,” Min tried to sound as forceful as he could while still managing to keep his voice low. “You’re lucky the rest of us had enough pity, didn’t have enough sense, or needed the money badly enough to stick around to make sure this ship got put back in order before the next passenger pickup.” Min had thought of leaving too, after the exasperating trip to Junto, he knew things would be bad but decided to stay aboard as crew. He’d second-guessed himself on that decision a few times once he finally understood the full extent of the disaster the previous passengers had left.
“We may be understaffed, but that just means I need everyone to pull their weight even mo-”
“If you don’t want me to quit once we get to Moyrs 2, you’ll rethink how you’re going to finish that sentence.”
After a tense pause, Min also added, “If I go, you know the other half of the crew will go too. Including the humans.” Min knew that would seal it. Humans were high in-demand hires for the cruise and cargo industry. Not only did the knowledge of their presence deter space pirates and marauders, but they also helped keep unruly passengers in line. As bad as the last group had been, it would have been a lot worse without Zehireta and Cherise. There’d been more humans before, but they’d been transferred to other ships or had found other employment. Still, two humans were far better than no humans, and it would be hard to try to hire more on Moyrs 2. Humans that traveled out that way were usually already on a job or had hundreds of competing offers to choose from.
“Just…” Charutt sighed, “just get to it as soon as you can.”
Knowing he had won, and wanting to bask in the victory for just a moment longer, Min looked down at the now snoring human head in his lap and hit the talk trigger one more time. “I’d love to, but I have a sleeping human on me, and you know how it is. Can’t move now.” He flicked his ears with a grin, “but I’ll get to the lower deck as soon as I can.”
It was a dumb joke, he knew. And under normal circumstances, he’d never pull a stunt like this, but it was too perfect. Charutt can’t afford to fire him right now. And he was genuinely exhausted. Plus, everyone knows you shouldn’t wake up a sleeping human. For one thing, it was not good to have a grumpy, tired human mad at you

for bothering them, and another thing, they just looked so peaceful when they slept. It nearly felt like a crime to disturb them.
Min quickly switched off his comm device. Again, he normally wouldn’t dare do so, but he was done with Charutt, and didn’t need to have him wake up Zehireta. The only other people with the authorization to make comm calls without needing call acceptance were the security manager and the ship’s captain. They’d be otherwise preoccupied at the moment, and not even Charutt would dare “waste their time” to try to tattle on him right now.
With a deep, satisfied sigh, Min rested his head against the wall of the nook. He knew he did, in fact, need to move on and get the lower deck cleaned. And he would. He took his job seriously, even if he was just a simple crew member of a mid-level galactic cruise ship.
But right now, he could take a few more moortiks. Besides, what he told Charutt was true, he had a human asleep on him. He would likely be stuck here for a bit.