Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 by Michael Kotcher

of the hallway.  Tamara sighed.  Clearly, the guards were not around to make friends, or even speak to their subject.  She supposed she couldn’t blame them, she thought as they escorted her down the corridor.  When one was trained in security and guardwork, it wouldn’t do to get too comfortable and familiar with someone you might need to shoot on orders from your superiors.
                  They arrived at the mess hall, which was one of the biggest community rooms aboard the ship.  It was a place of gathering, though never did the entire crew gather here all at once.  Some of the crew had to remain on duty, so it was always in shifts that the crew come here to eat.  There were rows of tables, situated in lines away from the kitchen area.  The kitchen was operated by three cooks, one was working the griddle, another was taking fresh-baked bread out of one of the ovens, and the third was working the line, giving food to the crew.  They were a well-oiled machine, moving the crew through the line and on to floor to eat.  They were making a variety of eggs, serving fruit tarts and griddle cakes.  For the non-humans in the crew, of which it seemed there was about a third, there were more regional dishes with a reasonable degree of success, based on the looks Tamara could see around the room.  It seemed that, unlike many of the systems on the Grania Estelle , the mess hall was one that had been kept up. 
                  It only took a few minutes to get through the line, and grabbing some silverware, she headed to the nearest open seat.  The table was empty, and judging by the looks she was getting by the other crew members in the mess, it would probably work better to not try and make new friends right now.  They weren’t exactly hostile, but it was clear that she was an outsider and not a particularly welcome one either. 
                  That will change, she told herself as she dug into her breakfast with abandon.  The food was good, but that was to be expected.  She didn’t think that the captain would scrimp on grub for the crew, not if he wanted to keep them happy.  With a ship this size and cargo capacity and the level of maintenance on the ship, it was very likely that he could afford to spring for fresh food.  After all, if the crew got unhappy enough, they would leave.  The captain couldn’t threaten them all, and then he would be stuck with an empty ship.  So spending the credits to give them a little bit of happiness was well worth it.  He seems to be a good leader, she grudgingly admitted.  Though she was not happy with his threats toward her.
                  “Look at that!” one of the nearby crewmen, a young man with sandy hair and a wicked smile cried.  He was looking straight at her, as she was about to bring the last bite of griddle cake into her mouth.  Tamara set the fork down.  “Who’d have thought a tiny little thing like her could go through a plate like that?”
                  “Cookie!” he shouted, turning to the kitchen.  One of the men, a stocky man with a barrel chest and thick, muscled arms wearing a black apron whose color matched his moustache looked up from his tray of bread.
                  “What?” the man called back, the Elysian accent very heavy.
                  “What did you put in her food?” he asked, a huge grin on his face.
                  Cookie, one Chef Raoul Duchagne, frowned, wiping his hands on a rag.  “What the hell are you babbling about, Martinez?  Are you complaining about my food?”
                  The young man’s smile slipped a tiny fraction, but he rallied quickly.  “No, it’s good like always, Cookie.  I just want to know what you did to her food to make her chow it all down like that.”
                  Cookie looked over at Tamara, who was getting up from her seat at the table.  “You want to