[?]She let the anger that had fred in her chest die down a little.

  ‘He’s been unconscious for a while and was incredibly paranoid before that. Take a breath.’

  She took a deep breath and focused back on her partner.

  Who had a strange expression on his face.

  “How long was I out for you to manage getting us a shuttle?

  “Wait is this the shuttle?”

  His expressions shifting like that almost made her want to tease him. He clearly still wanted to run, his body tensed like he didn’t think they were safe, but was calming down a little.

  ‘If he would actually stop and let me talk, he wouldn’t be so worried all the time.’

  “You were only out for a day or so. I don’t know the exact amount of time, but you were clearly tired. You didn’t even wake up when you were being hauled around like cargo.”

  That seemed to snap him back to her and the current conversation.

  “Before you ask, it’s not exactly our shuttle. Even that much money wasn’t enough to skip regutions like that. I had to register the shuttle to the ship, not to a person. It was a fairly nice one as well, rge enough for comfort and a smooth flight. Even had a pce to cook and sleep. It was probably a pleasure craft or system jumper, at least before it got impounded. The station was happy to hand it over, they didn’t want the expense or hassle. It still cost an eye watering amount, but I got a nice discount since it was a direct exchange.

  “You should be gd I managed to convince the girl that it was a good deal. Between that and the massive amount of supplies, I managed to get everything we need to disappear. For a while at least.”

  She could see the fight come back to him. He was clearly not happy about being near that female creature. She couldn’t really bme him, if she had been handled like that she would be unhappy too.

  Not that she would have gotten into that situation in the first pce.

  “Are we in that shuttle or not?”

  This was clearly bothering him a lot. He had never held her shoulders like that before. She would almost say he seemed terrified, but if she asked, he would deny any amount of fear.

  “Of course we aren’t in the shuttle. There is no point being in that shuttle if we are in that same empty system on the edge of nowhere. The only reason we even managed to get away with any of that is because no one even blinked at a deep space vessel taking on a station’s worth of supplies and a highly versatile shuttle.

  “I still haven’t learned the power dynamics on this ship, the ship being that deep space one I just talked about, but the only reason we can even have this discussion is because I can convince that girl to let me handle that ‘boring paperwork’.

  “If you are so hyper about leaving, then take a walk down to the shuttle bay and leave. I’m pretty sure we are in FTL, but you seem to think unching a shuttle is the safer option, so go have fun. I for one, am going to wait until the pns are not reliant on surfing a drive wake in a shuttle. Once you’ve gotten the suicide drop out of your system and feel like calming down and listening, you’ll know where to find me.”

  She knew she was being harsh.

  Even she didn’t really remember how long they had been on the run. A few years at least. It made sense to see enemies everywhere and to worry about unknown situations. She knew he had great difficulty with pns that didn’t involve gratuitous bloodshed and use of his combat skills. The problem of simple tools leading to simple solutions. But this wasn’t something he could fight his way out of. The female creature had already shown how useless that was.

  With the Canirean girl being so docile and accepting, it was clear this problem needed a diplomatic solution. Something he was utterly unfit to handle. Which he knew. He had asked her to join him for that very reason.

  Why he was having such trouble understanding it this time was a mystery.

  It seemed she had broken through something at least. He took a breath and let go of her.

  “You’re not understanding. We can’t stay here with that…. thing. We need to leave.”

  She cocked her head, trying to figure out why he hated the female so much.

  “The female creature? If you hadn’t been such a hot head, you would have been fine. She didn’t do anything to me. Other than be scary I guess.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not talking about the War-beast. That’s a danger all its own, just as dangerous as that data disk.”

  She felt her feathers close in.

  She had heard whispers. They were supposedly a highly cssified super weapon. Even the highest circles she had stepped in had only whispered rumors.

  Pnet ending rumors.

  ‘That was a War-beast? No wonder he was acting like that.’

  She was gd she hadn’t known before. She didn’t think she would have been able to remain coherent enough to negotiate. Being followed by a weapon wasn’t conducive to difficult negotiating.

  ‘Wait, did he just say ‘not’ the War-beast?’

  That had almost managed to slip by her. If only the stress could have as well.

  “I haven’t seen anyone else on this ship. I- I negotiated with the girl. Told her that the station couldn’t fully pay. We took on some non-contracted cargo that the station was trying to sell off. I made a contract to help her sell that cargo wherever we could, but we get room and board. Essentially a face and muscle in return for travel expenses.

  “I- I figured that we could let them worry about travel and slip away with the shuttle when we got to a good area of space. The girl doesn’t know who we are and the shuttle is registered to a deep space vessel. We would disappear. If we leave, we will breach that contract. It could cause an open man hunt before we are able to vanish.”

  She could see he wasn’t happy about what she just said. Had she known just what she had tied them to, she might have reconsidered. Or left the contract more open.

  ‘Maybe I was more affected by the female than I thought.’

  She really needed to sit him down and get the full story out of him.

  If they survived that long.

  [B]The jump between stars was always rexing.

  Something he needed after the st couple weeks.

  He finally managed to find a station. It was probably the one Pup’s friends had gone to, seeing how she found them. Or some of them. He didn’t believe for a moment that a ship was managed long term by two people.

  Current circumstances aside.

  When they had gotten to the station, he had to pilot the ship concerningly close before something popped up to initiate the automatic docking. He had been very unhappy that it had taken that long to give them a docking solution. When Pup and Kitty had returned and said things were good to go, he had assumed that meant everything was ready. He had gotten very nervous when he thought he had to dock himself but had psyched himself up and got to work.

  The automated pop-up not only popped that courage, it told him that red tape was just as much of a pain in the future as he remembered it being.

  The cargo was easy enough to unload. Also some kind of automated pallet system from the look on the screen. Something both the ship and the station had, so likely a standardized thing. He still made himself stay on the bridge the whole time they were at the station though. It was a simple all nighter, nothing terrible.

  He wasn’t sure why Pup seemed to want to be on this ship though. He had sent her and Kitty into the station to find her friends and finalize the trade for the cargo he offloaded. He didn’t have any way to communicate what those were, so he wrote down the list the screen had and gave Pup the paper. She seemed more mature than Kitty, so she could probably use it as a reference to help.

  He pnned to have Kitty interact with the station so she could gain some experience with other people. And maybe find some clothing. He had wrapped her in a bedsheet so she didn’t look like a wild woman wandering around naked and sent her with Pup.

  He figured that Pup would meet up with her friends and Kitty would learn a thing or two. She could also finalize the trade, which he figured would just need a signature or something like that, interact with a rger world and learn some civility. It was why he elected to stay on the ship.

  He didn’t exactly need that kind of experience and didn’t want to deprive them.

  Someone needed to watch the ship, it didn’t exactly have a lock after all.

  What he didn’t expect was for Kitty to haul in someone who was probably still injured. The poor guy had been dropped on the floor and then passed out. Clearly not all there. Confirmed when Kitty said he had a problem, though she didn’t eborate.

  It wasn’t his circus though. He gently took the dog-eared guy to a meeting room near the bridge and set him against the wall. He had neither the expertise nor knowledge to treat someone like that. Comparing him to Pup, it was clear he was a male as well. Or at least opposite of whatever Pup was. His ck of Xeno-anatomy knowledge stopped him from having any certainty, but he had to pick something.

  He was slightly rger, with much darker fur, nearly bck, that was thick enough it looked like it had a lot of padding. His features were sharper as well, where Pup had more of a curve to her. Not that he would say she was ‘curvy’, she was too small for that. The difference was distinct with a direct comparison though. Poor thing had a notch in his ear and a crooked tail tip as well. He had clearly seen some shit.

  Whatever hit their ship must have been bad.

  Pup’s other friend was harder to pce. They looked like a humanoid bluejay. Blue and white feathers with bck stripes. Pokey beak and a tuft. Full on talons on the feet as well. Not much difference in size between the three of them. The bird person was also ‘curvy’ near their midsection. He wasn’t sure if that meant they were female and bird boobs weren’t a thing, or if all birds had thick thighs for some strange reason. With aliens he couldn’t say anything with confidence. It was very confusing for him.

  At least this one didn’t seem injured.

  He told Kitty to keep an eye on them as Pup and her friends caught up. She said the others thought it was dark, so he turned the lights up a little. At least that’s what he interpreted that as, since they had seemed a bit lost in the straight hallway. He would need to reprogram the lights to be automatic, just ‘turn on’ to a higher level and ‘turn off’ to the level he liked better. Only here on the main deck though.

  He didn’t want Pup and her buddies pying around on the ‘secret’ level.

  Which was more prophetic than he thought. He figured Pup would need a day or so to catch up and head off with her friends and Kitty could sign whatever needed signing with her help. They would then spit off and go their separate ways.

  That had been a mistake. Pup and her friends were more messed up than he thought. It was hard to get the full story, as it had to go through Kitty and she sometimes left things out, but it seemed Pup and her friends couldn’t pay the station and needed help to make up the difference. They wanted to use his ship as a cargo ship and do something with that cargo. That part just didn’t seem to be able to make it though the Kitty filter.

  He had told them that he was ok with it as long as they understood he wasn’t going to become an errand boy. If they could do what they were trying to do without making him go out of his way or causing problems, they were free to use the open cargo space.

  There were bunk rooms there on the main deck alongside a mess hall. So long as he locked the bridge and other important areas, they could come along. It wasn’t like he really had a destination in mind. They also brought on a lot of interesting bits and bobs he could look through. Maybe he could find something useful.

  Like pants, not that he figured he would get that lucky.

  They did bring on what he could only describe as gss tablets. Some kind of computer with a touch screen. Maybe he could convince them to teach Kitty and keep her company while they were on board. It would free up a lot of time he could use to figure the ship out.

  ‘I might actually get some peace and quiet for once!’