[Baylor]

  “Shush. Small things loud. Quiet words.”

  His mind was reeling at everything he had just found out.

  ‘Did they even get proper clearance for the last station? If something had been found out after they docked and wasn’t resolved they would have been flagged by the system.’

  That was something he and Christy had been desperately avoiding. A flag meant they could be detained by normal authorities. That would lead them to a dark pit they would never come back from. The chances weren’t high, the galaxy was huge and he knew how hard it was to find an individual even if you knew what to look for. Minimizing chances was still prudent though. It was the whole reason they had worried over the contract Christy had made with these people.

  ‘Was that how the boarders found us?’

  So many possibilities flitted through his mind. He needed to sit down and parse everything. He didn’t have the time though. If they got flagged too many times in the galactic system, they would be labeled as exiles or pirates. Both would see them unable to get near a station again.

  The ship and the shuttle both.

  “Look, you can’t just do whatever you want and hope nothing happens. This is serious. If you mess up too many times you could have an entire navy group drop on you.”

  He had been rubbing his face, trying to internalize the situation, but he looked up at the lack of response. It seemed the female was the only one paying attention to him. The male was looking at the screens which seemed to be some kind of piloting display. The girl… seemed to have simply stopped paying attention.

  “I don’t do what I want. I do what Moose wants. Kitty can stop those navy things.”

  This seemed to catch the female’s attention. Apparently, the girl wasn’t as inattentive as she appeared to be either.

  “Kitty not play small thing games. Small things play own games. No bother not small things.”

  The string of words was nearly incomprehensible. He could tell it was some kind of dissent, but the rest was like solving a word puzzle he didn’t have any clues for. This whole thing was a massive disaster.

  “Mmm, Kitty says not to bother them with it. It’s not their problem.”

  He felt his jaw drop. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “I don’t care how big and strong they think they are, they still need a ship. Are you telling me you can understand what she says and didn’t explain to them that paying attention is required for not getting attacked?”

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  Christy had said she didn’t understand the dynamic or power chart for this ship. He understood why now. The girl was a slave and did whatever she was told. It was like he had feared, she didn’t have a will of her own. She was just unlucky enough to go from being broken to following a War-beast. An admittedly smart War-beast that could talk, but still mostly an animal.

  ‘Stars, the War-beast might not even be able to converse! They are certainly smart enough to mimic speech. It could just be stringing words together and the girl is interpreting things for her own benefit.’

  If the giant male was anything like a War-beast, the slave girl could be running the entire ship. She wouldn’t even realize it. She had either internalized how the ship worked and was interpreting the two giant’s commands to make things work out, or the ship was mostly automated. A ship this size was sure to have some automation, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say it had enough to make it to a few stations.

  The problem with automating a ship was that it couldn’t do everything. A trained pilot was better in most scenarios in system. A trained navigator was required to make jumps that didn’t have pre-mapped routes. He had just watched what happens when no one was trained for radio. He shuddered to even think about what was happening on the maintenance side.

  This was basically a ghost ship.

  The slave girl was just going through the motions and the giants were either following their last programing to protect her or had some animalistic reason to humor the girl. Maybe both. It completely changed his plans that relied on the giants being an uncontacted race. He would need to re-think everything he had in that direction.

  ‘Poor Christy. Trying to figure out the power structure when it’s just a circle. The giants follow the girl, the girl follows the giants. She would never have figured that out.’

  “They don’t need me to tell them the obvious. Besides, the security people didn’t bother us.”

  He needed to handle this very carefully.

  ‘Why didn’t I bring Christy along?’

  “Ok, let’s try it this way. If you are the one talking to the station, then you are the one responsible for what happens. If they get attacked because you weren’t doing things right, is that what they want?”

  That at least seemed to make the girl think for a bit. To stop brushing him off.

  “Small things stop strange talk. Talk to lights. Moose give you chance. Do trade.”

  He had ignored the rumbling, but the War-beast’s voice was harder to ignore.

  ‘Maybe this isn’t the best place to have this conversation.’

  He felt Christy glance around at the docking suite for the shuttle, a data pad clutched to her chest.

  “We just got here. The danger will be on the way back.”

  She looked at him and huffed, walking towards the air lock.

  “I’m shocked you didn’t just pilot us to that planet. We could probably disappear for a while down there.”

  “Even if they seem big, planets are too constrained. Always know where to find it. Best to be on the move.”

  She gave him a suspicious look.

  “I know. Look, I am still considering it. We would be far better off if we could just not exist in the system. This ship though… It might have some of those opportunities we had been keeping an eye out for. There is too much possibility to throw it away without a lot of thought. Best to just honor the contract while we do that thinking. It will be more productive than being locked up in our bunk.”

  She would be safer there as well. Not have to worry about a decent night’s rest.

  ‘So long as she stays away from the living weapons.’

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