[A]She paid very close attention to the creatures now.

  Pup should know better than to bother Moose with whatever she was doing with the other creatures. Moose had told her to find a person to trade. Not to find a person and then bother Moose. The page that Moose had given to Pup should have been more than enough instruction. There were enough words there to do anything!

  ‘Moose knew how to use small words after all. They must be worth nothing to ignore them all this time.’

  “Look, I can make a contract with all of these, but I need amounts and purities. No one wants to buy an ‘unknown’ amount of something. Not to mention the fees and other costs associated with it. I need more information than what’s here.”

  She narrowed her eyes. The blue creature seemed to be after something. If it tried to bother Moose again, she would have to step in. Again.

  ‘Why are these small creatures so bothersome? Is this why Moose only kept water creatures before?’

  “It’s already unloaded, I think. The station should have all of that.”

  ‘At least Pup seems to have understood.’

  “I can’t access it from here. I don’t have a data pad or permissions or anything of that sort. I would need authorization to access this ship’s records. We at least need to go to the security office for that.”

  She didn’t know why Pup seemed to be at a disadvantage. The blue thing didn’t seem to be trying very hard. She might not understand what they were talking about, but it sounded like they needed to go back into the loud pce.

  She had been wary of the long magic tunnel. It seemed to be like the magic room that appeared in different pces. They might have found Pup the first time, but if the tunnel could appear anywhere, then it might appear near monsters. Fortunately, the tunnel was too small for any worrisome monsters. She had been happy enough to follow Pup like Moose had told her until they got to the end of the tunnel.

  The end hadn’t gone to a small pce like st time. This pce was big. Very big. She had been worried there would be dangerous monsters about, but there were small things scattered around. She had followed Pup, more to keep an eye out than anything, until they got to a loud pce where there were many small things. The creatures were again making so much noise she could barely hear and were grouped tightly together. A perfect meal for a rge monster.

  She wisely stayed away.

  Let the small creatures foolishly group up. She had flitted around the edges, sometimes jumping or climbing up the small boxes the creatures went in and out of. Following Pup more with her eyes than in body. She had watched as Pup walked up to the blue thing and had gotten close enough to hear. Not that it mattered. Pup and the blue thing didn’t talk about anything important. Silly small thing games.

  Pup had remembered to bring the blue thing back to the tunnel for trade eventually, though the other small thing that looked like Pup came as well. She wasn’t sure why.

  It did seem more active than Pup and the blue thing.

  ‘Maybe it was protecting the blue thing?’

  When the other creature had turned around to look at her it had acted funny. Grabbing and moving the blue thing, though not very far.

  “Um, if you just go how can we know you won’t cause a problem?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  ‘More silly small thing games.’

  “Follow blue thing. No problem. Silly Pup.”

  “Wha-. Kitty, we can’t just leave him here!”

  She followed Pups pointing to the squirmy creature.

  It had been strange watching it run slowly up to her. Though she didn’t know ‘run’ was the right word. It had used its hands and wasn’t moving at the speed Moose called a run. Since its body was already facing the floor and she didn’t have time to indulge the small thing games, she had just reached forward and pushed it down from the top. Simir to what Moose had done to her, though Moose had been better at it, probably using magic. It had made her not want to move.

  For her, she didn’t know that magic yet, so she just sat on the creature. It tried to move, but it didn’t try very hard.

  ‘Maybe I used a little bit of that magic?’

  She got up and lifted the small creature. She could drop it with Moose while Pup and the blue thing pyed their silly games. It was much nicer carrying the creature now. Before, as she brought it in for Moose to figure out, it had wiggled and squirmed. She very nearly dropped it a few times, the creature much heavier than Pup. She was gd that Moose had been close, she didn’t like moving the creature around.

  Even now, without the moving, it was still heavy.

  “There. No problem. No more silly.”

  Once she had dropped off the creature and returned to the bright room with Pup and the blue thing, she made sure they would focus. There had already been too much time spent on silly games.

  “I trust I will get him back unharmed when I am finished doing as you ask?”

  She cocked her head to the side.

  ‘What does that even mean?’

  “Um, I don’t know what she did with your friend. But I already told you that everything up to this point has been your fault. If he gets hurt, he did it to himself.”

  ‘Why do small things py games if they hurt themselves?'

  The blue thing wasn’t as easy to read as Pup was, but it seemed tired. When it stood up and moved to leave, she looked at Pup.

  ‘Strange, why does Pup seem tired too? Do small things really get tired that easily?’

  She followed the two back down the magic tunnel. She very much didn’t want to be in the loud pce any longer, but if Moose wanted her to follow Pup, there was a good reason.

  She just wished she could figure out what it was.

  [D]He started to stir, then froze.

  ‘I don’t recognize this bed.’

  Without opening his eyes, he did his best to even out his breath. Listening to everything he could and remaining still was his best chance.

  ‘The room is occupied; I can hear breathing. Low numbers. Smallish space. Fabric is not low quality. No restraints.’

  In short…. He had no idea what was happening.

  A prison cell might see him without restraints and a single guard, but the bed would be of a worse quality. The War-beast might be the source of the breathing, in which case it didn’t matter where he had been put.

  Everywhere was a prison if you couldn’t hope to escape.

  But he didn’t see the War-beast being that obvious. He might have been out longer than he knew and his hearing had peaked, but it didn’t sound like whoever was here was attempting to be quiet. That didn’t even include the cost and impractical nature of using a massive War-beast as a prison guard.

  ‘No, it’s much more likely that I have a cell mate or a regur guard. The question is, where am I being guarded?’

  He took a big inhale in an attempt to gather a scent. Anything to give him a clue before he alerted everyone nearby that he was awake. What he managed to pick out was strangely nostalgic. Almost like he recognized it. It took a moment to click in his brain.

  ‘Of course they took her as well. She had already been in the ship when he had seen…. that.’

  He shuddered involuntarily at the memory. A shadowy nightmare looming from the darkness. The movement also unfortunately seemed to attract attention. Best to py it safe.

  “Christy, is that you? Are we alone? Cameras?”

  He tried to stay as quiet as possible but still be heard by the woman. He still wasn’t sure how far away she was. They might be in a small alcove in a rger room after all.

  “If you’re awake, stop pretending. It won’t change anything.”

  He cursed inwardly at not teaching her about plotting an escape. Giving away a valuable advantage like that was difficult to swallow. Still, since she had ruined his efforts to appear unconscious, he decided to get a visual map as well.

  Covertly looking around, they were indeed in a smaller room. It seemed to be a bunk room. A rather normal one at that, meant for two people. Likely for a junior officer or some other mid ranked personnel. No reason to let the fresh recruits have this much space for themselves and too small for the higher ups. He didn’t spot any cameras on his initial sweep, but that didn’t mean anything.

  There did seem to be an access panel near the door. Surprising, but if this room wasn’t meant to be used as a brig than normal use needed a panel. So they likely got stuffed somewhere that would keep them contained but wasn’t secure.

  He could work with that.

  So long as the War-beast wasn’t right outside at least.

  ‘Best to stay put and get as much information as possible. They have to feed us eventually, best chance to escape is after that.’

  “When they bring the rations, ask for something obscure so we have a chance to run. Don’t mention me. How long until they show up?”

  As he was watching the door, all he got from Christy's direction was a sigh.

  “Stop being a fool and get up. We aren’t at the station anymore.”

  That was a significant blow to his pn but wasn’t an outright deathblow. They would need to get to the navigation room and determine if a shuttle could make the journey to whatever was closest, which made things infinitely more complicated, but it was still possible.

  ‘So long as she doesn’t keep blowing our cover.’

  “I guarantee that whatever your thinking isn’t going to happen. I know you too well to think you gave up with just that.”

  He expelled the breath he had taken to admonish her, the rebuke unexpected. It seemed like she wasn’t going to get it with just that. He sat up in the hopes of teaching her the very important parts of escaping before she gave anything else away.

  “Just shut up and listen. Honestly, you’re the reason I have to expin all this anyways. You and your ‘fight everything’ mindset.”

  The words once again got stuck as he was assaulted from the unexpected angle.

  “First of all, we aren’t prisoners, so stop acting like a fool. If you screw up all my hard work because you won’t listen, I will be very cross with you.”

  That… was news? He didn’t even really know how to parse that revetion.

  “You’re lucky that female thought your little outbursts were silly kid’s games. If you had managed to cause any actual damage we might be in an actual prison, not whatever fantasy brig your mind had conjured up. I’m sure station security would have bent over backwards to get on their good side.”

  As he struggled to come to terms with the fact his best effort had been treated like a childish outburst, the rest of that statement started to sink in.

  “Well, they did bend over backwards, I guess. I just happened to manage to maneuver us to being on the good side, rather than being accused of something stupid.”

  That sharp look she shot at him didn’t help his stumbling thoughts.

  “That girl was rich. Didn’t lie either. She had a bunch of materials the station needed for construction and expansion, as well as several votiles like water ice. The station didn’t even have enough liquid credits to buy it all, they hadn’t expected a rge trade that didn’t already have a contract like that. I had to negotiate for a goods exchange in addition to the avaible credits.

  “The girl wanted a resupply, so the station gave up almost five years of rations and other non-food items, like cleaning and maintenance supplies. The docking fee was even waived in exchange for the taxes being paid upfront.”

  He shook his head. He always liked to listen to her talk, but she was acting like this was a normal ship. She didn’t understand the significance of the two nightmares on board.

  “Hush. I know you did a lot and I am proud of you for keeping calm, but we can’t stay. We need to escape. Did you see a shuttle bay or escape pod? Anything we can use to get back to a station?”

  He knew he made a mistake when he saw the fire fre up in her eyes.

  That and the punch to his shoulder.

  “If you had let me finish you big thug, you would already know I got us a shuttle!”