Ch 32[C]She had learned what she thought were names for her new….. roommates?

  She didn’t recognize the nguage they used at all. She had only ever learned gactic trade, as it was the most common nguage on stations and basically required on ships. Racial nguages only ever got used on very rge stations or on pnets. Stations rge enough to have small pockets of natives were normally around core or heavy trade systems and the natives from the worlds near that station tended to group together. She had heard that pnets were so rge that nguages could change simply by walking in one direction for long enough. That idea was insane, but now that she had seen rain, she wouldn’t dismiss it completely.

  If rain existed, who knew what other fiction stories were real.

  She didn’t think she would be expected to learn this new nguage, as Kitty, the female, seemed to know some gactic trade. Though her accent was terrible and she didn’t speak in complete sentences. Still, she might be difficult to understand, but the male, whose name sounded like a deep drawn-out moan, didn’t speak a word of gactic trade. Which was unfortunate, as he was the one that gave her a new name. It sounded like a deep grumbly ‘pop’, but it was distinct enough from their other words to get her attention, so she supposed it served its purpose. It was better than what she had before. She had always been a number before, so she doubted the male could even say it.

  With how much trouble Kitty seemed to have with the racial nguage, she didn’t know why they still used it. It should be much easier for him to learn Trade, than for her to try and make her voice that deep and scratchy sounding. She had asked, but Kitty had simply replied with ‘Magic’, so she left that conundrum alone. She had always found it best to not get involved with the crazy cult stuff some spacers practiced. Some of it was for good luck, but she had heard horror stories. Best not to encourage the giants.

  They were crazy enough as it stood.

  Her quest to discover the secret to head pats ran dangerously close though. It had been a fit of pique and curiosity when she had asked Kitty why she always seemed to want head pats and so much attention. She had expected….. she didn’t know what she had expected. She thought she would at least get a clue, but the answer had been a confusing mess that included the words magic and emptiness. It had been so confusing she had to go and do some undry just to calm down.

  Were head pats cult reted?

  Magic certainly couldn’t be a thing, right?

  Was she the one that was crazy for avoiding things like that?

  All she could do was follow the pair around as much as possible. She would learn the truth eventually.

  She had to. Her sanity might depend on it.

  The bridge was oddly quiet, considering that Kitty was there. Sitting on the male’s p, occasionally shooting looks her way.

  She wasn’t sure what she had done to gather Kitty’s attention, but it made her nervous.

  The male might terrify her in an existential way. Maybe even a primal way, considering it was the little voice in her head that had all the opinions on him. But that was all feeling, emotional. Logically and physically, the male was the best being she had ever worked around. Not that she was doing much of that work. He barely interacted with her, either focused on his own work or not interrupting her on the rare occasion he might have gotten in the way. Almost as if she was too small to notice most of the time. Unless it involved his work, he barely spared her any attention at all.

  That could certainly be because Kitty demanded most of his time, work or otherwise, but she appreciated the quiet acceptance of ‘work first’. She felt she could do whatever was required of her efficiently and without problems if she needed to work around him. If she had had a new master to give her that work in the first pce at least.

  Not having orders still made her uncomfortable, even if the undry helped a bit.

  Kitty was a very different kind of scary though. She was very real. Not that the male wasn’t real, but he felt like working near a very rge machine. If she didn’t pay attention or something went wrong she would die very quickly, but the machine wasn’t ‘out for blood’ or any targeted thing like that. Like all of the delicate things she had cleaned in her life, it would probably be her fault if she died to the male. For her, that kind of theoretical or existential dread wasn’t present enough to be of any real worry. Kitty on the other hand, she could very much see sticking her somewhere unpleasant and leaving.

  A very real and present threat.

  Since Kitty was just a person, a strange person but a person, she had to worry about all the people things that could happen when Kitty was around. Things like anger or jealousy could have real consequences when the person feeling them was almost twice her size. Kitty was also much more active and vocal about things in general, whereas their male partner was quiet much of the time. Little more than a deep rumble or a short few words when he needed to communicate.

  That made the current quiet odd and set her fur on end. Kitty was almost never this quiet outside of sleep.

  It was probably why the radio crackling to life scared her so badly she nearly made another mess. Because she spent much of her time on the floor, which they all did even if it was just a bit more voluntary for her, she was very aware of all messes and small stains on the floor. Aware and determined to remove them.

  Especially if she might be the cause.

  Her worry about wet floors made her miss whatever the radio had been on about, but she did manage to catch when Kitty spoke about words. She was very aware whenever Kitty spoke in Trade. It usually meant she was involved somehow. This time it sounded like the radio was the culprit for whatever Kitty didn’t think was good.

  “I think they want us to pick a better radio channel.”

  Listening and trying to parse what the broken words on the radio were talking about, she made the mistake of thinking out loud. A mistake that brought both Kitty and the male’s attention straight to her.

  ‘Oh no.’

  “Know, then you speak.”

  ‘What have I done!?!?’

  Staring at the radio console before her after Kitty had hauled her around like a doll, she had a very bad sinking feeling in her gut. One that only got worse and worse as she spoke with what she could only assume was the highest authority figure she had ever interacted with.

  “Acknowledged. We are sending a small vessel with the inspection team, as it seems the weaponry is under control. We will be locking with the SW docking cmp, please allow access as soon as possible and keep the channel open for any further developments.”

  The daze she had been in because of the bad feeling in her stomach abruptly shattered when she heard that.

  ‘When did weapons come into this and how are they under control!?! Wait, did they say docking?!’

  The sinking feeling turned into a very hard knot of pain. She scrambled to try and remember what she had said. The pain and the realization she would need to go meet them in person were making that basically impossible.

  The pats on her head and the deep rumble sending giddiness into her made a very strange mix in her stomach.

  ‘I don’t feel so well.’

  [*]She wasn’t even scared anymore.

  She was dreaming. She had to be. There was no way that reality was this absurd.

  ‘What other expnation could there be for a race to have two separate levels for weapon standby power?’

  It made no sense. Even the humans weren’t that insane. When her Communications officer had reyed that piece of information, she had nearly sent him to the brig for insubordination. Joking at a time like that? Unheard of. Which was true, since he was sincere. The ship really did have separate levels, she had looked at the information herself.

  So, clearly, this was a dream.

  When the young voice on the other side of the radio had asked for instructions, it had seemed like things were going to take a turn for the worse. When a quick query to the information that had been sent across and a confirmation from the voice on the radio sent them towards the absurd instead, she hadn’t really had a chance to sigh for relief.

  Worse had instruction manuals. Absurd was always unexpected.

  She now had to decide on who to possibly send to their deaths on a ship no sane being ever wanted to set foot on, while it was locked by a quarantine. The fact they weren’t going to stay on said ship and the quarantine was contained didn’t account for much. It was still a terrible thing for her crew’s mental health.

  “Acknowledged. We are sending a small vessel with the inspection team, as it seems the weaponry is under control. We will be locking with the SW docking cmp, please allow access as soon as possible and keep the channel open for any further developments.”

  She could at least inform the other ship. No sense in getting caught up in something that was already well known just for the possibility of catching them in a lie. Not with everything that was supposedly happening.

  “Um, I’ll try?”

  ‘Why did that sound like a question?’

  This was far too absurd to be a trap, right?

  It didn’t matter. The inspection needed to be done and that ship had enough firepower to take out both her small group and the station they were protecting. If, for whatever reason, they were trying to get hostages, then the only thing to do was go in armed. Some exo-armor wouldn’t be out of pce right? They were inspecting for a quarantine after all, closed suits were to be expected. If those closed suits could handle enough hits to get them clear, that was just a happy coincidence.

  “I need volunteers for that inspection.”

  Her heart sank as no one moved.

  ‘Of course they don’t want to go. How can I order them when even I don’t want to be there.’

  “Someone is joining me on that shuttle, so I suggest that you all figure out which of the rest of you are going!”

  That got them moving at least.

  She left them to it and made her way to the command armory to suit up. It had been a while since she had to wear her combat armor. It always felt bulky and over the top when she was trying to maneuver her four legs into it, but once it was on and functioning it was almost like a second skin. Not donning the hand units so that she could confirm everything was tight and working properly, she made sure to grab an extra air tank. The extra time might come in handy. Her gloves and the air tank could go on in the shuttle, as they were too bulky for simply walking down the corridor and maniputing the ships’ controls.

  ‘At least it’s a ship, I would hate to have to suit up in a mech armor. They always leave my body sore.’

  Not that she could get mech armor through the halls. It was meant for station or pnetary missions. Complete overkill for a ship. Even if the extra environmental features would be nice in this instance. Far better than a simple hazardous environment suit.

  After making her way to the shuttle bay and finding the unlucky souls that would be accompanying her, she was pleased to find out that there were enough for a proper mission. She would still have gone if all she had was a pilot, but having the two extra sets of hands helped to ease her mind.

  “At least one of you is going to need a closed environment suit. Your choice of what.”

  An uneasy gnce between the three and one of them hurried off. Returning a few minutes ter suited up with an extra tank like her.

  “Alright, everyone on the shuttle. Let’s get this over with.”

  ‘Of all the days to lead from the front. I knew I hated that training for a reason.’

  The shuttle ride over was both tense and quiet. After she finished equipping her gear and making sure everyone knew the pn, one followed her and two stayed with the shuttle, everyone had gone silent. There was a bit of fear when the ship scanned their shuttle, but when nothing else happened things went back to how they were.

  ‘Clearly, we aren’t a threat or that happens every time.’

  Once the pilot had attached to the docking cmp and everyone staying was safely enclosed, she nervously pressed the access request on the cmp. It took enough time that she began to worry, though her equipment assured her it wasn’t long enough to be hostile. Even if those few minutes felt like hours.

  When the door finally opened and the two of them made it inside, she had to stop and reconsider. This ship was massive. Far too rge to be used for anything practical. It rivaled some of the rger cargo haulers meant to jump start a colony. These hallways may be far too rge for sense, but they certainly were not meant to store cargo.

  ‘What are humans expecting to find out there?’

  She really needed to rethink her entire pn. How exactly was she supposed to verify this massive ship was free of whatever had triggered the quarantine? At best she could take some random samples.

  Concluding the best pce to start was the voice on the radio, she made her way ‘inwards’, if that even had any meaning in such a rge space. Away from the docking cmp was probably a better description. Whatever she called it, she was making her way along a hall when her equipment picked up movement and heat, which was good. The lights were a bit low for her comfort.

  ‘Likely our contact. I hope.’

  Coming face to face with a Canirean a little farther along, her mind skipped a bit.

  ‘I guess that expins some things.’

  “Um, Hello?”

  Hearing the voice from the radio coming from the girl in front of her, she shook herself back into her captain’s duties.

  “I am Security Officer Krikra. I assume you are the voice on the radio?”

  A nod and a short wait for a reply ter, she concluded that the girl wasn’t much for small talk. As the girl seemed to get more nervous the longer the silence stretched, she decided to do the talking.

  “We are here for the quarantine investigation. As the size of the ship prohibits a full sweep and won’t be necessary as you won’t be trading atmosphere with the station, we will simply be making a note for a full sweep in your record before such a thing can occur and doing simple spot checks, aimed towards trading.

  Please bring us to the brid—”

  Her heart thumped hard while her mind stuttered as a weightless feeling came over her and her body tensed. Her thoughts caught between screaming in panic, running as fast as she could and her duties as a soldier. Watching a shadow move then detach from the wall and come close enough to see, she could feel the blood draining from her face as she looked up.

  ‘Oh, no. Why is there a Wa—’

  Her st thought interrupted as the floor came up to meet her.