[B]He wasn’t entirely sure what his pn was.

  His rummaging in the crates that had been brought onto the deck level had turned up what he could only describe as an over-built futuristic stapler. He had no idea what its actually purpose was, but he sure hoped it wasn’t what he used it for.

  It sucked at that.

  He had attempted to staple himself a kilt. Something nice and easy that would at least cover him up. He had realized in the recent disciplinary action that it was very difficult to act stern and authoritative when your junk is hanging out.

  It ruins the vibe.

  Using the stapler thing seemed like a good first start. His initial test wasn’t promising, but it held the fabric at least. Whatever metal or other material the staple was made out of was very rough on skin though. Especially skin at and around the sensitive bits. Not a great pce for irritation.

  He had employed some creative folding after that, doing his best to get the fabric to take the brunt of things. It worked pretty well… so long as he didn’t wear it. It turned out that the staples weren’t very good for the fabric either. It didn’t take more than a few steps for his new wardrobe to look like he fished it out of a dumpster full of moths. Holes everywhere. Not effective at the intended job.

  ‘It kinda just becomes lingerie at that point.’

  He tinkered a bit more but ultimately gave up on the project. He was clearly using the wrong tool for the job, no sense ruining more bed sheets. If he had to keep fiddling with a garment to keep it decent, he would just have to practice being stern while naked.

  ‘Our ancestors managed it, right? They didn’t have clothes from the start.’

  He had so many more important things to focus on. Dealing with the nudity would just have to take a back seat if he couldn’t solve it in his free time. Between finding and harvesting more asteroids and finishing his detailed exploration of the ship, poking around at fashion was the farthest down his list. The only reason he even bothered this time was curiosity and learning about the new tools.

  They might actually be important one day.

  ‘I wonder if that stapler can staple metal. It looks beefy enough.’

  He hoped he could find a mechanical room soon. Nothing ran fwlessly without some kind of maintenance. He didn’t know how long this ship had been going before he woke up, but chances were some of that maintenance was going to come due. For now, he was working from the automation area. There was a bench and a few tools that seemed made for the robots there.

  He had tinkered with one of the robots. It had been blinking and was staying at the area near the bench, so he could only assume that meant it needed to be looked at. While he might know his way around the insides of a computer, the robot eluded him. It was still in pieces on that bench, awaiting further tinkering.

  He would poke at it from time to time, when he needed a break elsewhere.

  ‘Maybe one of those newbies has some experience with robots.’

  Something to ask. If he ever got a chance to. Between Kitty’s determined campaign against his spare time and Pup’s sudden realization that she liked him more than her friends, his chances to talk to everyone while they were awake were minimal. Not to mention Kitty would have to be there regardless.

  It did baffle him that they slept so much. Kitty made sense. She only took cat naps. She would only have a full sleep if he was there and even then would get up and wander in the night. It had gotten to the point where he just joined her, sleeping twice a night for a shorter period while being awake in-between. The others were not that though. The two newcomers seemed to sleep the same as Pup, though with their room closed they could be up and fooling around all night for all he knew.

  Pup though, very much slept all through the night and even needed a nap during the day. It was short, no more than an hour, but she slept like the dead all night even with that. She even refused a bunk to herself near her buddies. He figured she would enjoy a room for herself where she wouldn’t be disturbed by them getting out of bed at odd hours and could have her friends over, but when he offered it, both her and Kitty had looked at him like he was insane.

  It had taken him some time to shake off that particur mental attack.

  He hoped they weren’t both teenagers. He didn’t think his psyche could handle such an assault.

  He was lucky the room had good climate control. With Kitty crawling all over him to get at whatever she was after and Pup deciding that curled up ‘nearby’ meant close enough to touch, sleeping got very warm.

  ‘I suppose the upside is that I don’t need to wash any top sheets. They are pretty redundant.’

  Watching the computer finish the jump calcutions always gave him plenty of time to ponder at least. It always took several tries to get the math to where he agreed with the computer, which he guessed was the point, so it almost always took several hours of sitting and doing calcutions or letting his brain wander to recover from doing calcutions.

  ‘Maybe I should just grab one of those tablet things. Maybe one has a map?’

  It would be nice to know what they would find before he spent all that time doing math. He did want to at least try and get the others situated with their contact before he went wandering off again. It would be the height of assholery to ignore them when he didn’t even know what he wanted for himself.

  ‘Well, that’s not true. I am perfectly happy exploring unknown systems and learning as I go. But that isn’t really a destination.’

  Once they got into warp again, he would finally have some time to go back and read more from the hidden b. He had been putting it off as he felt learning to fly the ship was more pressing. With his first docking and some money to his name it was time to dive back into learning about the rest of the ship.

  ‘I just have to figure out how to distract Kitty and Pup.’

  [C]It was hard.

  Very hard.

  Nothing in her life before could have trained her for it and nothing had made her work so much for so little.

  ‘How do I make Moose happy?’

  She had made a list. Every pat she had received went on that list. She wanted to know exactly what she had done to earn those pats. Out of all the pats, a pattern emerged. First, she needed to do something worthwhile. Something that contributed to her home. Second, that something needed to not be mundane. Doing the cleaning she did anyways had never earned her a pat. Third, Moose had to give an order and be made aware of the outcome. Last, and the hardest, Moose had to be happy with the task.

  All but that st she understood how to accomplish. Even if her pat got shortened by Kitty, making Moose aware was worth the distraction being present. As she got better at interpreting Kitty and guessing what Moose wanted, she had even managed to get a pat without Kitty present to cut her reward short. The first time she did had been her greatest accomplishment in life. It might just have been to bring Moose his little book, but the pat and rumble she received had sted so long she might have even fallen asleep.

  She wasn’t exactly sure about that part.

  But a task to make Moose happy? Even now it eluded her. She had yet to find any way to make Moose happy without Moose himself giving the order.

  She couldn’t carry his things, they were far too big for her to do so safely. A broken thing would be the opposite of happy, something to be avoided at all costs.

  She couldn’t clean up after him, he was far too clean and took care of himself. She couldn’t even wash him because of his size.

  ‘Lucky Kitty. Big enough but doesn’t even try to wash him back.’

  Maybe if she could work up enough courage again, she would try to get his other hand for herself. Kitty only needed one, right?

  She couldn’t even help him with whatever he did with his time. Most of the ship was far too complicated for her to understand. The radio alone was a nightmare to try and run. All of the reading he did seemed to be in another nguage or filled with words she simply couldn’t make sense of. When she had watched him do some of the math for their jump, her brain nearly melted out before she gave up altogether.

  ‘I never realized how much work there is on a bridge.’

  Her only experiences with them had been during off hours or when nothing important was happening. No one wanted an untrained sve wandering around a bridge when people needed to be working. That had been fine with her. She had preferred the quiet back then.

  ‘I suppose I like the quiet now too. But I much prefer Moose’s low rumble.’

  She had managed to avoid the other two for the most part at least. She had come to realize that the ship was far too rge to be a home. Her attempts to please Moose had led her to understand that, for the most part, he and Kitty lived on the darker floor. Almost everything they did was there. It was only when Moose was needed on the bridge or to pick up supplies that he chose to come down to the lower floor.

  Kitty simply stayed near Moose. Rather than have a need to be somewhere specific, she simply went where Moose was or stayed near the bedroom.

  That meant the lower floor was a public floor. It made a lot of sense as she looked back. While Moose had spent a lot of time there, almost all the time she saw him had been on the bridge. She never saw him wandering the halls like he did on the upper floor. It changed how she thought of the whole ship.

  Clearly, anywhere with a rge security door was home. The whole upper floor was home. Those were the pces where she could rex and be herself. Those pces were for her. For her people. They were not pces for the outsiders. But the rest? They were not hers. They might belong to Moose, but Moose didn’t openly cim them. If Moose didn’t, then she had no right to. Let the outsiders have the empty rooms and cold walls.

  ‘Why do these suits itch so much now.’

  The downside of that realization was that she had to go through public areas to get to the bridge. While her instincts concerning invaders had calmed down a lot, her shame had returned with force. It was like suddenly realizing you were walking through the middle of a busy station naked. The heat in her face hadn’t left for nearly a full day.

  Unfortunately for her, sometime between her st owner and now, she had found that clothing was incredibly itchy. It pulled and pinched her fur the wrong way. It never left her tail quite right. It held in a lot of heat she didn’t know she gave off before. And it itched.

  Itched like cleansers sometimes itched when they got onto bare skin.

  She didn’t know what had changed, but it was nearly bad enough to make her stay on the upper level.

  ‘I guess I could just take it off when I get to the bridge.’

  That was an enticing thought. The outsiders avoided the bridge, so it was basically the same as the other floor. If it was just Moose or Kitty she would be fine. The indignation of outsiders coming into her home kept the shame at bay in their areas, but only in their areas. If she got caught walking naked to the bridge, she imagined her embarrassment would be visible in the next system.

  ‘Why can’t I just not feel shame, like Kitty. It would be so much better.’

  As she walked onto the bridge, she could see that Moose was up and doing something at the map.

  ‘I hope he sits down soon. It’s hard to get close when he’s moving around.’

  There was a pleasant ping and Moose looked toward the console he always sat at. It seemed that whatever he was doing was finished.

  “Unidentified ship, this is sovereign territory. Present credentials or vacate the system immediately.”

  Her ears perked up and her tail started to sway. Her clothes forgotten entirely.

  ‘Soon… Soon…’

  She watched Moose with more intensity than she had ever put into looking at a person. As soon as he looked at her and rumbled, she would be at that station saying whatever she could.

  Her tail sped up as Moose began to turn.

  She might just get another pat sooner then she thought…