Page 44 of Grulen

“Eew.”

The males looked up from flicking refuse off their bodies and the largest one walked toward them.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare.”Kara narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at him.His fangs poked out from the mess on his face when he smiled.

Looking like something from a horror movie, the others approached.Morgan’s breath stuttered in her chest and her hands reflexively clenched.Water shot from the pouches in her hands and hit the first two in their faces.Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in a huge O of surprise.She stared at the second one as debris slid down his face.Water droplets hung from his long eyelashes and a single one held on tenaciously to the tip of his nose.

“Oops.”She dropped the empty pouches and bent over with her hands on her knees while her shoulders shook.

“Are you alright?”Stalad shook his head, and the watery mess spattered the women.

“Stop that,” Abby giggled and her face turned pink.

Morgan couldn’t contain her laughter any more.

“I’m…” Wheeze.“sorry.”She desperately tried to inhale more air.“Oh my god.I can’t…” Her face reddened.“Your faces.”She gestured.“You look like…” Her hands pushed against her stomach when it began to ache.“swamp monsters.”

“What happened?”Kara held her hand out, palm open, to stop Crax from advancing.

Morgan’s laughter slowed.

“We took Stalad out to see how he handled the transport.He noted that it operated sluggishly on one side.The diagnostics all came back as normal, so we returned to physically check it out.”Yaz unsuccessfully tried to rub his face clean.He held up a dirty instrument.“Scans showed an unusual mass behind a wall panel.When we removed it, this mess exploded from the interior.”

Morgan imagined it and tried to suppress her laughter again.Tears streamed from her eyes.

“What is it?It stinks.”Abby’s entire face scrunched.

“We’ll have to investigate more, but I believe the recycler on the transport hasn’t been working properly for a long time.Diagnostics and alerts failed, a line broke when it became full, and the waste ended up in the wall.We don’t use this transport regularly, so it went unnoticed,” Crax grumbled.

“Swiss cheese theory.”Kara nodded.

“Swiss cheese?”Yaz said.

“It’s a cheese with holes in it on Earth.Swiss cheese theory is that while many layers of protection exist to prevent accidents, if flaws in each layer line up, that’s when incidents occur.If each layer is a slice of cheese with holes in it, the holes are the flaws,” Kara explained.

All three males nodded in understanding.

Kara squealed when Crax picked her up and held her against his chest.

“You bastard.Now that crap is on me and I smell, too.”Debris squelched when she slapped his shoulder.

“We should take a shower,” Crax growled.

“You should clean this shit up.”Kara’s feet flailed.She protested until he squeezed her ass, then her body went slack in his arms.“Take me to our quarters.”

“I’ll set up some cleaning bots to take care of the worst of this for now,” Yaz yelled after Crax.“I expect you to help with the interior wall and maintenance.”

“Allow me to assist,” Stalad’s brown eyes glinted with humor.

“You guys stay here.We’ll get the bots.We won’t track nearly as much mess as you two.”Abby grabbed Morgan’s hand.“Come on.”

Morgan’s breathing normalized as they walked to a storage compartment.

“That was hilarious.”

“I don’t know how Kara kept a straight face.”Abby pulled out a cleaning bot and hit the button for it to follow them.Morgan grabbed another.They ended up with six bots.

“I think she was more concerned with not getting dirty.Looks like that didn’t work out for her.”

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