Men on the Moon

Ever since Wilhelmina had started working for the evil organization called Exit, she had never been in charge of anything – always a part of the science team, like a little cog inside some huge machine. Her colleagues, the other mad scientists, had tended to be at least twice as old as her which had made her think that she would have to wait until she was sixty for any potential promotion.  Yet to her surprise, the Boss had picked her to be sent to the moon as the director of the project. Perhaps, he had had enough of her snide remarks that she had used to make during every single meeting. Maybe he had simply preferred her as far away from himself as possible, whatever the reason, Mina had been delighted. She had been given the chance to become a leader. Juuust... Since she had never been in charge before, she didn't know how to deal with her new subordinates now.

The three bodyguards given to her by the Boss weren't helping her at all. Most of the time they bickered and fought, trying to figure out which one of them was the best of them all. Mina, or rather Worstcase – as she had told her co-workers to call her, didn't approve of the rivalry inside of her team. The tension between the insolent three reminded her of a ticking bomb, ready to explode and destroy everything around it. Even her direct orders didn't change much, and she could guess why – they didn't respect her. To gain their respect she would have to make them trust her, but to do so, she needed to get to know them first.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She started with Diego.

Diego was the type of guy who seemed to be always angry for no reason. He hated an awfully lot of things including: romantic movies, little kids, cute animals and know-it-all scientists. The only topics that really interested him were weapons and different methods of training. And when Worstcase came to check on him one day, she felt lucky she wasn't one of his minions. Diego had no mercy for his underlings, he made them train till they dropped – which many of them did. The scientist left the gym not wanting to disturb them, physical exercises weren't her thing after all.

The next time she decided to go and see Diego, she headed straight for his private quarters. It was evening time, the Moonbase felt almost peaceful. Worstcase walked slowly through the empty corridors and not a soul crossed her way.

The door to the gunman's room was open so she entered without knocking. Surprisingly enough, Diego wasn't there. She wanted to leave when all of a sudden she heard his hushed voice coming from the bedroom. The man whispered something in Italian, his tone as soft and melodic as if he was trying to seduce a woman. Worstcase didn't understand a word, aside from the one – she was sure that Diego just called someone “bella”.

Who could be in there with him, the scientist wondered as she tried to sneak away as quietly as possible. And when she reached the exit, she sighed in relief and then she heard a “click” of the gun's hammer being pulled back.

“Turn around,” the familiar voice demanded. Diego stood in the room, aiming his pistol at her.

“Put it down, soldier,” Worstcase ordered coldly as she turned to him. The man obeyed with some hesitation, the flame in his eyes told her that she would have to explain this. “I was looking for you,” she quickly added, “and since your door was open, I assumed you were in here.” She shrugged.

“The electronic lock is broken, I already sent for the mechanic to fix it. So what did you want from me, boss?”

“Just ask how your first week here was. I will come later if you're busy now...”

Diego cast her a suspicious glare.

“And what makes you think I am busy?”

“Well... I thought you were sleeping,” she blurted out, it was the first thing that came to her mind.

Now it was Diego's time to be surprised, he blinked twice and for a second Worstcase could swear he actually blushed.

“No, I was just... polishing my guns.”

In the awkward silence the scientist wondered if that was a metaphor or if he had really talked with his precious weapons?

That little event made socializing with Diego harder than before so Worstcase gave up on him for now and turned her attention to another bodyguard – Izzy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Izzy was a self-contained, secretive and sarcastic person, and so was Worst, that fact didn't help them to get along however. The two of them barely interacted and for a long time the scientist didn't know how to approach the assassin girl. Then she recalled something. Izzy's files which she had read on Earth had included information about her hobby.

Worstcase found Izzy in the communication room, the girl liked to spend her time there even after hours. She was sitting comfortable in the swivel chair and browsing the Net, even though the connection on the Moon didn't belong to the fastest.

“Have a minute?” The scientist started up, making the tone of her voice sound friendly.

Izzy was not in a good mood.

“Oh yes, I have, thanks to that awesome connection...”

“We have a conference room here, you know,” Worstcase ignored the sarcasm, “with a huge monitor and comfy seats. I thought we could use it to try out some games. You wrote your own game, didn't you Izzy?”

The pair of dark eyes set on the scientist. The assassin girl apparently found this offer suspicious.

“Why?” She inquired. “Are you interested in computer games?”

“Well, I just thought it could be fun.”

It couldn't have been less fun.

The two of them were sitting in the conference room, playing one of Izzy's early games which contained an insane amount of violence and consisted of kicking the opponent avatar’s ass in brutal combat. And Izzy was good at this, she didn’t only know every secret move and could pull out any devastating combo, she also had a perfectly short reaction time that allowed her character to avoid almost all attacks.

Worstcase just lost her tenth match in a row and had enough of it already. Izzy looked quite bored as well, she didn't even suggest playing for money.

Suddenly a familiar voice broke the awkward silence.

“What's going on?”

It was Tem who appeared out of nowhere, making Worst's heart skip in surprise.

“The boss wanted to try out my game,” Izzy explained calmly, “but she's not much of an opponent. Maybe you should try?”

“Can I?” The ninja girl asked and the scientist just handed the controller to her.

Soon enough, Tem lost the game, even though she wasn't that bad.

“You're cheating Izzy!”

“It's not cheating. I just know how the game works.”

The two players were exchanging death glares.

“It's not how it would go in a real fight.”

“Oh, yeah?” Izzy gave her a nasty smirk. “Are you sure about that?”

Seeing that the game evening didn't go exactly as planned, Worstcase yawned theatrically and announced: “That would be enough for tonight.” With that she switched the monitor off.

Before she left to her room, she could swear she heard Tem whispering ominously: “I'm gonna get you tomorrow...”

Slightly discouraged by her failure at befriending two of her three bodyguards, the scientist wasn't too eager to try with the last one. Instead she spent her time alone, reading and eating snacks she used to bring to her room from the kitchen's cupboards.

Once, when she went for something hot to drink, she stumbled upon Meg who had already been there. The red-haired chief of logistics was eating coconut cookies. Seeing Worstcase entering the kitchen made the poor girl choke on one of them, then to toss the cookie jar away and salute respectfully.

“Good evening, ma'am!” The red-head greeted her, spitting cookie crumbs all around herself.

Worst didn't know why, but Meg was constantly afraid of her for some reason.

“Calm down, soldier. We're off duty. You don't have to be so official,” she told her but it didn't work at all.

What did work was asking Meg to share one of her cookies. Soon it turned out that both of them loved all kinds of sweets, desserts and snacks. They started to list their favorite goodies and recalled the best stuff they had tried so far. The conversation was very enjoyable, they even exchanged some secret recipes and when Worst finally went back to her room she had a good feelings about this acquaintanceship.

Ever since that, getting along with Meg became rather natural. The girl seemed funny, caring and nice – maybe even too nice for an employee of an evil organization.

One day the two of them were having vanilla flavored marshmallows and Meg suggested that they should roast them on a real fire. That was when Worstcase found out something new about her friend. The red-head was a pyromaniac! Roasting marshmallows ended up with setting the whole kitchen on fire.

After that dangerous incident, sorting out all the related chaos and adding two weeks of fire drills to the duty roster, the scientist decided that she was done with her crazy co-workers.

Unfortunately, they weren't done with her...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Worstcase was in her lab, minding her own business, when an unexpected guest came to visit her. At the door stood the ninja girl, looking around with her eyes wide open. As soon as the scientist saw her, she immediately thought that Tem might be up to something.
“How can I help you?” Worst asked dryly, hoping that whatever this was about, it could be done with fast.

“Hello, Boss!” The girl greeted her with a smile, the tone of her voice utterly innocent. “I just stumbled in too check what'cha doing. Can I stay and watch?”
Worstcase nodded not without hesitation. She had a very bad feeling about that sudden interest in her work.

The ninja walked in and continued to admire the place and equipment.

“Don't touch anything,” the scientist added and tried to get back to her new freeze-gun project. For some reason she couldn’t focus on it though. And that reason had light-brown hair, blue eyes and a purple scarf of course.

The girl didn't do anything suspicious yet, aside from coming here in the first place. No other co-worker had ever visited her like that without a particular reason, so the sheer fact of Tem's presence in the lab was enough for Worstcase to start worrying.

“I'll show you around,” She finally suggested, wondering whether after that the girl would just go away.

“Great! So, what is that?”

“That's just a coffee maker...”

“Ooh, and next to it?” Tem didn't get discouraged.

“It's a spinner.”

“What does it do?”

It quickly turned out that the little ninja had an awful lot of questions about every single device at the lab. She kept pointing at things with her finger, much like a child in a toy store and wanted to know about them, the more the better. The scientist at first found that annoying, not only because it looked like some sort of interrogation, but also because the guest reminded her of the wild marten that had lived on her parents' attic – and she hated how loud and curious that animal had been. After about half of an hour Worstcase got used to the never-ending questions though and Tem's company became a bit more enjoyable. Then the girl actually showed that she was learning fast and that she could be a real conversation partner.

“So all those huge machines were transported thanks to that anti-gravity trolley you told me about before? But imagine this,” Tem grinned presenting her front teeth, one of them was missing which made that grin look even more funny and child-like, “...you take the anti-grav transmitters out of them and put them inside your normal suitcase. And with just that you never pay a fee for over-weighted baggage on an airport again, no matter what you have stuffed up in there!”

Both of them laughed at that silly idea. Well, at least Tem laughed out loud while Worst did the inner laughing and only smiled on the outside. Evil scientists didn't do the laughing-happily-thing, they only did the maniacal laughter and Worstcase was not only evil and not only a scientist, Worstcase was also a very grumpy person.

“You should build a cool gadget for me one day,” the ninja girl said when she was leaving the lab that evening.

“We'll see about that,” the scientist replied with her voice sounding as if she couldn't care less, but in her mind she already started making plans for something that would impress Tem. “Come back tomorrow.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tem kept showing up at the lab every now and then and the scientist grew to like talking with her. Not only was the girl curious, she was also quite imaginative which meant that their conversations were never boring.

Spending time with the ninja girl made Worstcase feel less isolated, however it didn't improve the relationship between her and the rest of her bodyguards. On the contrary, Izzy and Diego didn't approve of that sudden “camaraderie”, they found it at least suspicious, if not to say annoying. The annoying part of it was definitely Tem acting as if she had become the best of them all by winning their boss's trust over. Of course officially that didn't change a thing but Izzy already suspected that the ninja girl wanted to gain some privileges in the future and the whole friendly pose was just a part of her plan.

Diego had his own thesis on it, he pointed out that Tem was simply jealous because the Boss had previously made an attempt to spend an evening with everyone but her. Being a terrible attention seeker as the ninja was, she didn't take that lack of interest in herself lightly.

“You're following her like a dog. And you call yourself the marten?” Diego joked, spotting Tem in the corridor, heading for the Lab once again. He barely dodged the ninja star thrown at him by the furious girl. “I have a better aim than you even when I'm drunk!” He laughed mockingly.

“Oh, yeah? Wanna bet?”

“Did someone say bet?” Izzy cut in, popping up from behind Diego. “I can bet with you two anytime, but only for money.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Soon enough the three of them found the chief of logistics and demand from her to provide them with whatever alcohol supply she had in storage. Meg decided to join them at some point, probably because she wanted to have a drink and some fun too, but the hitmen treated it very seriously – it wasn't a party, no, it was a competition!

The golden rule of drinking alcoholic beverages was to start with the weakest and slowly getting them stronger and stronger. They ignored it of course! Tem proudly announced that the true Slavic-born people only drank pure vodka and that wine and other beverages were good for silly Italians only. Diego sent her a death glare but agreed with that choice of drink and poured the transparent liquid into four, small shot-glasses. The three hitmen and Meg emptied them with a single gulp.

Since they picked the Moonbase’s shooting range as the best place to both drink and practice, the stationary targets with the shape of human bodies waited for them already. Diego used his favorite guns, Tem her ninja stars while Izzy had something in between a dart and a long needle – which normally was covered with poison for sure. None of them missed, Meg clapped her hands with glee and they were back to drinking.

At first they didn't talk much, they only exchanged snide remarks every now and then. The situation changed after the fourth shot. Diego's face became visibly blushed and Meg had an attack of hysterical laughter. All the insults and threats somehow turned into jokes and very soon everyone in the room was smiling or giggling.

During the next round of drinking Tem showed them the tradition of breaking the glass right after emptying it. They all tried that enthusiastically and then realized that they would need more glasses to continue their game. And so the four of them went to the kitchen. They decided that they could use some food too while at it anyway. To make it easier they took the whole fridge, dragged it to the shooting range and started to eat whatever they found inside.

The seventh round of drinking was when the girls began to sing. Diego didn't appreciate their voices so the competition had to be put on hold again and they went on yet another mission to look for something to play their music on. Forgetting that every one of them had their own laptop at their private quarters, they took a stroll through the base and ended up in the communication room, ordering the poor minions who worked there to get them a CD player and speakers at once. Finally, the tipsy four got what they wanted, loud music filled the shooting range and Tem presented her dancing skills shouting: “I was supposed to join the ballet.”

Aiming became really challenging by now 'cause all of them had trouble standing straight and keeping their balance. Somehow no one missed the target yet which meant that they still needed to drink more.

After taking another shot, Diego got angry all of a sudden. “I hate that song!” He yelled and threw a bottle at the music player, probably damaging it in the process.

His unexpected outburst really upset Izzy and made her show the impressive collection of insults that her vocabulary contained. For a moment it looked like they were about to start a nasty brawl but the gunman went silent and the girl continued to complain about all the men and their stupid ideas. Finally she told them about her horrible ex-boyfriend who had apparently cheated on her or something like that. Trying to comfort her, Tem offered that she could cut off his head and bring it to her on a silver platter. But then Izzy remembered that it wouldn't be necessary because she had already poisoned the guy herself.

The story of the unfaithful ex-boyfriend made them all forget about the unfinished competition. Tem and Izzy absorbed by their conversation went to the bathroom together, taking a bottle of wine with them. Diego wanted to fill up their shot-glasses while waiting but instead he spilled the alcohol on the table. Annoyed by that, he ignored the glass and started to drink alone straight from the bottle. Meg didn't join him because she was busy trying to collect all of Tem's ninja stars and throwing them around like toys.

“Look Diego, a shooting staaar!” She called out and sent one in his direction. It missed his nose only by mere inches. Diego slowly turned his head toward the red-haired girl and blinked. Meg simply giggled and began to hum something that sounded like “Twinkle, twinkle little star”.

Suddenly the door opened and Izzy stormed in, she returned alone and she seemed pretty much furious.

“Don't you pffhink I forgot 'bout the bet,” she spoke drunkenly as she staggered toward Diego. “I won't let you havff my money! And you know whaat?” An abrupt hiccup interrupted her there but after a moment of holding her breath she could continue. “I'm changing the rules. To win you musshtf shoot the bottle off of my head.”

With that said, she took one of still untouched vodka bottles, held it over her head and placed herself in front of the target.

“Go Diego, go!” Meg cheered as the gunman reached for his pistol.

BANG!

The bullet shot through the room but it didn't hit the bottle.

Izzy fell to the ground but it wasn't Diego's fault – before he could fire his gun, the drunken girl lost her balance and crashed to the floor.

“You missed,” she commented and the very next moment she was already asleep right where she had fallen.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Worstcase wondered why Tem didn't show up at the lab that day. It was already late and she gave up on waiting for the ninja girl, instead she headed for her private quarters to get some well-deserved rest.

She didn't get far as a very strange sight met her eyes.

In the middle of a corridor stood Diego – wearing only his military boots and green boxers, nothing more. And – what was even more disturbing – he looked like about to open a window!

“What in the world is going on here!?” The scientist growled and the half-naked man jumped up, surprised by her sudden appearance. When he turned toward her, Worst saw that his face was red and sweaty and the intoxication reflected in his bloodshot eyes.

"Good evening, Boss..." he mumbled hesitantly, the smell of alcohol coming from his body told Worstcase more than she needed to know. "It'sss sso hot in here..." he added. "Can we open a window?"

The scientist fought back the urge to snap at the idiot in front of her. Not only was he drunk as hell, he had also attempted to kill them all with his dangerous act of irresponsibility. She counted to ten, scolding him right now made basically no sense since he wouldn't remember any of it tomorrow.

“Come with me, Diego,” she commanded as calm as she could bring herself to be under these circumstances, “I'll show you where it's not that hot.”

“You will? You're the bessht, boss!” The man smiled broadly and put his arm around her shoulder in a friendly gesture. She noticed the old scar on it right away, most likely left by a bullet and another one that looked as if some huge animal had bitten him there.

Diego had probably even more scars but Worstcase did her best not to stare at him, he was her subordinate after all and she didn't want to be accused of anything inappropriate afterwards.

Without much ado, she helped him to get to his room. The door-lock had been fixed by now but her magnetic card could open any door on the base, including those of her co-workers’ private quarters. The two of them stepped inside and the scientist noticed no signs of a libation – no mess, no glasses or bottles, no taken off clothes. That was suspicious. As she set up the temperature so Diego wouldn't feel this hot, she decided to ask him about it: “So where did you lose your pants and your t-shirt?”

“Those crazy bitchez took 'em,” he spluttered. “Girls can't hold their drink, you know...”
With that said, Diego collapsed on his bed and started snoring loudly, leaving Worstcase with a horrible sense of dread inside. If what he just told her was true, he hadn't been drinking alone – and if he hadn't been alone then where were the other drunken morons right now?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She found them at the shooting range and it was a real crime scene – broken glass, cartridges, darts and ninja stars on the floor, “I was here” written on the wall probably with a lipstick, snack bags and leftovers everywhere, not to even to mention the fridge standing in a corner and leaking water because no one had bothered to plug it in. The unpleasant smell of alcohol and sweat hung in the air and got mixed with something else – with smoke, something was burning!

Panicking, the scientist looked around and identified that “something” as Diego's military pants put in a bowl, drenched in vodka and set on fire like a strange flaming dessert of some sorts.

There was no music but Meg was performing a wild dance around the fire. She had Diego's t-shirt and waved it above her head like a flag. She didn't even notice that her boss had come in.

Next moment the smoke detector reacted and the alarm sound rang loudly, waking up most of the Moonbase but Izzy – who slept on the floor next to the wall curled up in a ball like a cat. Then the fire sprinkler system kicked in spraying cold water into the room. Worstcase took a step back to avoid getting soaked, Meg however got more excited.

“It's raining!” She shouted happily and tried to whistle a very off-key version of “Singing in the rain”.

A few minions appeared to check what caused the alarm, they were staring at the demolished shooting range and at the dancing chief of logistic with terror written all over their faces.
“This party is over!” Worst finally snapped and Meg stumbled and almost fell upon hearing the angry voice.

“Over?” The red-head uttered absentmindedly.

“Yes, over! Now march to your room, soldier!”

The scientist was furious by now, inviting a pyromaniac to a party with flammable substances like vodka and wasting their precious oxygen supply for some bloody fire – it was not only irresponsible, that was simply stupid! To make matters worse, no one even thought of inviting or even informing her! Not like she would have agreed to something like that but being ignored by her subordinates still hurt a bit.

When the minions extinguished the fire and turned off the alarm and sprinklers, Worst went in once more to check on Izzy. The girl seemed to be fine, just her clothes were wet and a thin string of saliva hung from her half-open mouth. The scientist took off her lab-coat and covered Izzy with it, then waved at two minions and ordered them to carry the sleeping assassin to the medbay just in case. The other two were supposed to walk Meg back to her private quarters and have an eye on her the whole night since she might try to set something else on fire. With that taken care of, Worstcase turned the lights off and left the shooting range as it was for now.

On her way down the corridor she couldn't help but wonder, where the hell Tem was by now. Worst had a very bad feeling about it, she hoped that maybe the ninja girl had simply gone to her room or that she had turned out to be smart enough not to drink with the other idiots. Something was telling Worstcase that Tem had not been that smart...

The ninja girl wasn't in her bed, neither in the kitchen nor at the patio. She had just disappeared leaving no trail – that was what ninjas usually did.

The scientist started to worry, she would probably have to check the records from the security cameras to find Tem. She just passed the shooting range entrance by for the third time this evening when she suddenly heard something – a gurgling sound coming from the girl's bathroom. She walked in and sighed.

Well, at least she found what she had been looking for, the sight however wasn't too appealing. The girl knelt over the toilet, her head almost inside and the sound left no doubts of what she was doing.

Worstcase patiently waited for Tem to finish and then she asked if the girl felt alright.

“I did NOT kiss anyone!” Was the awkward answer.

The scientist didn't even want to know.

She helped the drunken girl to get up and wash her face at the bathroom sink, then the two of them stepped outside. Almost stepped... Tem stumbled at the threshold and hit the floor before Worstcase could catch her.

Tem’s pathetic attempt to get back to her feet made the scientist grow impatient. She lifted the ninja girl by the scarf and quickly decided that it would be much easier to just carry her, especially since Tem was skinny and short. Worstcase only prayed that no one was watching as she gave a piggyback ride to her own bodyguard. The ninja girl didn't protest at all, actually it looked like she had fallen asleep.

After a few minutes the scientist entered Tem's bedroom and carefully laid her down on the mattress. She sat down next to her, breathing heavily. She needed some rest too, after all it was a very strange and tiresome evening. And when she finally wanted to get up and leave, she felt that something held her in place. She looked down at the bed and froze for a second, the ninja girl had wrapped her arms around Worst's waist not letting her go away.

It seemed that events of this night weren't over yet...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tem woke up with a horrible headache. It was very strange, she didn't remember how she had gotten back to her room last night. She had been with Diego and Izzy and Meg, they had been participating in some competition but memories of it felt so blurry today. Maybe it was all just a dream? Because right now she was lying in her bed as if nothing had happened. But if so, then why did she have that feeling of something being terribly wrong?

Suddenly it hit her – it was because someone was sleeping right next to her! Holding her breath as panic kicked in, she turned her head to take a short look.

What she saw was probably the worst possible news – the person being her boss, Worstcase. How had that happened? And what had even happened? Questions kept crossing Tem's mind and there was not a single answer.

She quickly decided that sneaking out of the bed would be the only reasonable option, but as she pulled herself up fighting back the dizziness, Worst made a displeased sound probably awoken by the sudden movement. A pair of brown eyes opened lazily and met those of Tem. The two girls stared at each other for a very long and incredibly awkward moment. It was the scientist who spoke first: “What time is it?” She asked hoarsely and the other girl only shook her head, having no idea and being too confused to utter anything at all.

Worstcase got up and checked the time on her wristwatch, Tem saw that she wasn't wearing her usual lab-coat, just her black pants and the t-shirt with a rib cage print. She didn't look particularly well-rested.

“Damnit, I must have fallen asleep,” the tall girl grumbled under her breath. “I'm late for the morning drill, thanks to you…”

“Wait,” Tem stopped her before she could turn away and leave, “what do you mean? I don't...”
“Remember?” The scientist finished for her and the ninja girl lowered her eyes. An odd grimace appeared on her boss’s face, something between a smirk and an expression of disgust. “Of course you don't remember, how would you? You were too drunk to even walk, and so were your colleagues. I had to carry you here and...” She paused all of a sudden.

“And what?” Tem inquired, her trembling voice but a whisper now.

Worstcase cleared her throat.

“Well...” She hesitated. “I put you to bed and was about to leave but you held me and... you said...”

“Oh no,” the blue-eyed girl thought, she knew exactly where this story was going and she feared to hear how it ended.

“What... did I... say?”

“You called me... mama.”

“Oh...”

That revelation was not what the ninja had expected. As a matter of facts, she wasn't even sure how to react to that. She stayed silent, giving her superior a blank stare.
Now, it was Worst's time to feel the need to explain things further: “You must have been talking in your sleep. You used me as a pillow and I didn't want to wake you so I stayed in your room. Hope, you don't mind? I thought I'll sneak out earlier but I overslept, that's all.”

“Oh,” Tem repeated herself, this time with a sort of relief. “Thank you, boss. That was very thoughtful. I'm sorry I caused you so much trouble.”

“You should be,” the scientist eyed her with disapprove. “All of you should. We will get back to that topic as soon as the whole drinking-team sobered up for good.” She moved toward the door but before she walked out of the bedroom she looked back over her shoulder and added grimly. “You didn't think such an insubordination as an unauthorized usage of our alcohol supply, demolishing the shooting range, causing a fire alert in the middle of the night – again – and being late for work would go unpunished, did you?” With that said, she left and Tem could only be guessing what kind of punishment Worstcase had in mind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Next morning Worst kept staring at the big silica glass window in her lab with undeniable satisfaction written all around her face. On the other side of it, out of the safe and comfortable base, four astronauts in their customized spacesuits were taking care of their mission. And the “mission” she had given them was nothing more but cleaning all the Moonbase’s windows and sweeping the moon dust out of the driveway. They needed to hurry though, especially if they wanted to stay alive because the air supply in their tanks would allow them to breath only for about an hour.

The scientist smirked to herself as she watched Diego frantically using a spray cleaner and trying to make the window surface shine. She pointed with her finger at yet another dirty spot and the gunman got to it with a not-so-happy expression.

Tem, Izzy and Meg were also busy right now and that wasn't even the first task she had ordered them on today. They had already cleaned up the devastated shooting range, two toilets and the kitchen. One might wonder how they had done all that in such a short time. The answer was very easy – Worst had given them a wake-up call from hell by playing orchestral music through all the speakers in the entire base at an ungodly hour. She had also set a time limit for cleaning every room and warned them that the air could be pumped out of there after that deadline. And so the three bodyguards and Meg had worked very hard and without much time to complain, they had even started to teamwork for once – their boss was almost pleased with the results.

“You know what they say,” she thought to herself, observing her subordinates struggling with the low gravity of the Moon while running out of time and oxygen, “if you can't make them like you, make them fear you at least. Either way, they will respect your decisions in the end.”