Aiken had planned on returning home to Cythamine, and sleep.
Not end up... here.
He didn't normally spend much time in bars, or anywhere near a place where alcoholic beverages run rampant. But working repairs in the sun wasn't his ideal vacation, especially since the warlords weren't looking for new probes until next week. Yet somehow they had convinced him of his great deed. And, after hours of tweaking the same gears, moving the same scraps of metal... yeah, he wasn't in the state of mind that asks for permission at the moment. Nor was he ready to believe he was doing any form of a 'good deed'.
So he sat at one of the rickety old bar stools, glass of who knows what in hand, with a glazed look aimed toward one of the human men he knew to be a trouble maker. In his intoxicated state, he felt powerful enough to glare. Powerful enough to sneer in his general direction, because at the moment, he couldn't see very straight. And his center of attention, his focus, had turned to face him at just the wrong moment.
And, whether he was pissed or not wasn't Aiken's to say.
So the man walked up to him, casually, so innocent like so many humans pretended to be. He wasn't prejudiced. It's just something he's seen so often in their race, that false intelligence and occasional bouts of superiority.
He didn't hear what the human said, but the man only grumbled and left. Aiken was expecting physical violence. What had changed since the last time he'd been here? Without another thought, he turned around, man forgotten, and faced the rest of the patrons with his arms high above his head.
Maybe it was enough to catch attention, or maybe not. Either way he didn't care. He just wanted someone to rant to.