It was mid-afternoon in the underground city of Kurnugi the day after Dexter had explained his impractical escape plan, thought it was difficult to tell time in that lightless realm. In the main cavern where the food distribution center was, robed priests would bang an enormous gong signaling key points in the day: time to wake up, lunch time, time to stop working and go home, dinner time, time to go to sleep.... How the priests knew when to ring their gong was a jealously guarded secret, passed down from priestly generation to generation.
Ensign Alex Dalton sat on a bench in the Banshees' underground domicile with a thoroughly unhappy frown on her normally cheerful face. She had her uniform sleeves rolled up and was examining her arms with great distaste and shaking her head.
Dexter Gray wandered into the room and noticed Alex's funk. "What's wrong?"
At the sound of his voice, Alex looked up from her self-inspection. "Look at this!" she exclaimed while thrusting her bare arms out to Dex.
Dexter looked, but couldn't really see anything out of the ordinary. He shrugged in helpless confusion.
Alex put her arms down and pulled up her pants leg, revealing her shapely calf. "What about this?" she demanded.
"Umm... It's very nice?" suggested Dexter hopefully, but still not comprehending.
Alex frowned at the answer. "'Nice'?!?" Could Dexter be this dense? Yes -- he was a guy. If he wanted to be her boyfriend he was going to have to do a lot better than this! She decided to try one last time to get through to him. In one swift motion, she ran her thumb down the magnatomic seal on the front of her uniform and yanked the halves apart, exposing her bra and bare stomach down to her belly button. "Well? Take a look at this!" she cried.
Dexter's jaw dropped, and if he'd been a cartoon his eyes would have popped right out of his head with boingy noises and made Aoooga sounds like an old jalopy horn. He stared at Alex's perfect body, the perky breasts underneath the tiny brazier, the washboard abs, the slender waist. His mouth worked for a few seconds before anything came out of it, and even then it was mostly incoherent babbling: "Ah... I, uh... that is, um... what uh... you, ah, oh my... Alex, you, those..." and so on.
Alex endured Dexter's meltdown, all the while staring at him defiantly with squared jaw and tapping her foot impatiently, unaware of the effect she was having on the helpless young man, irritation and impatience becoming incrementally more pronounced on her face. "What the hell are you babbling about, you nimwit?!?" she finally exclaimed, unable to contain her vexation any longer. "Just look at this!"
"I am!" returned Dex, though somewhat less enthusiastically than before. He couldn't understand the reason for Alex's angry face. "I think you look great!"
"What do you mean 'great'? My skin is as white as a sheet! We spent so much time and effort back at the apartment on Serenity working up awesome suntans and now two weeks in this sunless hole has made me whiter than the left side of a Cheronian!"
Dexter smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Is that what this has been about?" he asked incredulously. "I don't think you look bad at all! Besides, in this dark, flickering torchlight who can tell?" Dexter instantly clamped his mouth shut because he knew he'd made a fatal mistake, but it was too late -- the words were out. He cringed and awaited Alex's wrath, but the Fates were in a good mood and intervened on his behalf, for just at that moment, the door to the inner room opened and out walked Max. She was carrying an empty pitcher, but when she saw Alex standing half-undressed in front of Dexter, she skidded to a halt, eyes wide.
"What in blazes is going on out here?!?" she exclaimed. "We leave you two alone for ten minutes and you start playing Show & Tell? At least go down into the city and find a cheap motel room or something, for crying out loud!"
"But Commander--!" began both Dexter and Alex, desperate to explain the truth, but Max would have none of it.
"Save it!" she barked. "Zip that up, Ensign!" she ordered Alex, who scrambled to reseal her uniform. Turning to Dexter, Max thrust the pitcher she carried into his arms. "Go fill that up down at the well, Ensign. You can go help him, Dalton."
"But--"
"No buts! Move out!"
"Yes, ma'am," the two Ensigns replied glumly, hanging their heads.
As soon as the two youngest members of Banshee Squadron were out the front door on their errand, a wicked smile appeared on Max's face and a few low chuckles escaped her lips.
Sam came into the room and notices Max's unaccustomed mirth. "What's so funny?" she asked the Banshee Squadron normally grim XO.
"Alex was complaining about her fading tan again, this time to Poindexter," replied Max between chuckles. "I was just giving them a hard time about it, that's all. It'll keep them out of trouble for a few days..."
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