[Pup]

  She had a hard teacher before. It was the only reason she had gotten the delicate jobs on the ship before this one.

  It was nothing like this.

  Her instincts screamed that the male was an intruder. That she couldn’t trust him. Screamed to chase him out. She ignored it all.

  ‘My instincts might be right, but I can gain a lot more before I listen to them.’

  The lessons themselves were easy enough. Listening and remembering weren’t all that strenuous compared to what she had experienced before. It was only the fight against her instincts to stay near the intruders that made everything difficult. Difficult enough to be noticed apparently.

  “The more you fight them the louder they will get. Our kind can’t ignore our inner voices like some others can. I don’t know what they are telling you, but the best way to keep them quiet is to acknowledge and circumvent them. If they tell you to grovel and you don’t want to, just bow instead. If they tell you to run and you can’t, just move your feet. Small actions that somewhat appease them are better than completely ignoring them.”

  She sniffed at the thought.

  “You go first then.”

  ‘If he wants small actions, then I will leave the ship last. That’s what a chase is, right?’

  Her ears had been pinned back the entire time she had been waiting on Moose and Kitty to make a decision. To have the male there, watching, made her entire body twitch. Made her want to growl at him and help Moose remove the presence completely. But she couldn’t.

  Moose hadn’t asked her to.

  ‘I wonder what the humans wanted, to ask Moose to stay here though. Moose didn’t even bother acknowledging it.’

  At least she didn’t think he did. Kitty didn’t mention it.

  “More frozen water things. Also, pages. Many pages. Moose want things.”

  She didn’t know what ice had to do with anything, but Kitty clearly meant the data pads when she said it, waving the one she held around. Paper would be difficult. It was supposed to be very expensive and hard to find, even around a planet like this. Especially in volume.

  The worst part was the last one.

  ‘What things did Moose want? Why couldn’t Kitty just tell me, instead of making me guess?’

  Maybe she was supposed to choose, like a test?

  She shook her head. If it was a test, she didn’t want to fail, but if she didn’t know what to work towards her chances didn’t look good.

  ‘What could Moose even need? Maybe I should look for magic things?’

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  “I can understand ice, though it will be expensive. I doubt we will find paper here though. What are the things that we are supposed to get?”

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the male in front of her. She felt the low growl start but pushed it down.

  “What do you mean ice? We offloaded several pallets of the stuff, why are we buying it back?”

  She looked at the Crova and shook her head.

  ‘Why don’t my instincts hate her as much?’

  “They want data pads, not ice. Unless there are special kinds of magic ice, I guess. I don’t know what the other things are though.”

  It almost hurt to admit that.

  Keeping it to herself wouldn’t get anything accomplished though. She wasn’t on the ship anymore. This wasn’t her place and she didn’t belong here. It made her fur lay down and pulled her tail in, knowing Moose didn’t control this place.

  She even missed Kitty’s chaotic presence.

  It was clear the two intruders noticed as well. Glancing at her a lot and whispering to themselves. Probably talking about how quiet she had gone. How different she acted.

  ‘It’s fine. I will be back with Moose sooner because they came beforehand.’

  The first stop had been security. They needed her to authorize the cargo and trade. After that, it was mostly just her following the other two as they asked about the various businesses. Trying to find paper and the mysterious ‘things’.

  The data pads were easy enough to acquire, pretty much sold at any port. The question about quantity was harder to answer. Kitty had just said more, not how many. They got three, one for each, and a box of replacement parts. Just in case.

  ‘Moose might break one. It would be good to have the parts.’

  They never did manage to find any paper. She had seen some interesting stuff at the antique and odd parts stores, but nothing that said ‘thing’ to her. It probably wasn’t the best place to be in hindsight though.

  They tended to be out of the way.

  “Eek!”

  “Don’t make any noise and don’t move, or the bird gets a new mouth hole.”

  The unexpected words and the growl from beside her had made her tail curl between her legs. She could feel her legs tremble and her ears pin back as she turned to see what had happened. That all changed when she saw the Crova held from behind with a naked blade to her throat.

  She didn’t care much for the Crova, but the assumptions made her angry.

  “Seems like you’re not completely stupid. Thought I would be dealing with a thug that had more balls than brains.”

  She could feel her tail uncurl and her fur start to bristle.

  ‘I got completely ignored! How dare he interrupt us and make Moose wait longer. That might get expensive!’

  Her anger might have uncurled her tail, but the threat and knife had kept her legs trembling. It made her even angrier that she couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t deal with this problem affecting Moose.

  “You weren’t very smart when you stole from someone with money though. Can’t say I’m surprised, you furry eared thugs always bite more than you can chew. But you can’t run forever, so now you get caught and now you’re going to hand it over.”

  She perked up. Her fur calming down.

  “Moose’s. Not yours.”

  She had no idea when Kitty had left the ship, but she wasn’t surprised she had found them. Kitty always seemed to have a magic all her own.

  ‘Oof, that looked painful.’

  Watching the idiot flail around in Kitty’s grip helped her legs. Watching him be tossed to the ground and stepped on dissipated the last of the anger.

  “Bad small thing. No small thing games. Not time.”

  ‘I guess Moose got impatient. I guess it makes sense, it costs so much just to stay docked. We were supposed to have everything done before we docked. That was the whole point.’

  She walked up to Kitty while the old intruders fussed over each other and the new intruder.

  “Kitty. There aren’t any pages, no one has them. If you show me what things Moose wants, we can be done faster.”

  She knew she wasn’t going to like the answer when Kitty narrowed her eyes at her.

  “Not Kitty problem. Things are things. Many things. Not many words. Small thing problem.”

  ‘Ah, I guess Moose wanted supplies. It’s the only ‘many things’ I can think of that I don’t think Kitty has learned the word for yet. I hope Moose isn’t mad about the paper.’