[D]“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 st station? If something had been found out after they docked and wasn’t resolved they would have been fgged by the system.’
That was something he and Christy had been desperately avoiding. A fg 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 gaxy 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 fgged too many times in the gactic system, they would be beled 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 ck 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 dispy. 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 py small thing games. Small things py 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 expin to them that paying attention is required for not getting attacked?”
Christy had said she didn’t understand the dynamic or power chart for this ship. He understood why now. The girl was a sve 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 sve 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 sve girl was just going through the motions and the giants were either following their st programing to protect her or had some animalistic reason to humor the girl. Maybe both. It completely changed his pns 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 pce to have this conversation.’
He felt Christy gnce 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 pnet. We could probably disappear for a while down there.”
“Even if they seem big, pnets 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.’
[C]She hated the intruder even more.
His words had even managed to strip away the comfort of Moose’s warmth. The thoughts making her uncomfortable enough to not notice it.
‘I want to make Moose happy. According to Kitty, Moose doesn’t care about small things. Does that mean to make Moose happy I need to not care about small things, or does it mean I need to care about small things so Moose doesn’t have to?’
That question had sent her mind into a swirling circle she hadn’t managed to get out of.
What did Moose want?
That was all that really mattered. The problem was that she couldn't ask Moose. She needed to ask Kitty to ask Moose and then try and figure out what Moose said and what Kitty didn’t care to add. And what she did care to add that Moose didn’t say. All of that while trying to work around Kitty’s unique way of speaking.
It tormented her so much she even got off of Moose. She needed to do something. She needed to be useful. The thoughts forcing her to move so she could feel like she wasn’t just in an endless spiral.
She scrubbed determinedly at the imperceptible mess that likely bothered no one but her. The rain room was the only real pce that she had found needed cleaning. This ship didn’t seem to have dust and the robots did most everywhere else.
They cleaned here too, but she didn’t let that dissuade her.
‘I don’t like them either. I could clean so much more if they just stopped.’
Moose only really went to the kitchen and the rain room when he wasn’t in the bedroom or the bridge. Listening to the rare times Kitty rambled in trade, he seemed to go to more pces and be more active, but she had never witnessed it personally. The only time he seemed to live at more than a slow plod was when they sprinted down the long central corridor. Almost as if time slowed down around him, only to speed up to normal when the three of them were exhausting the energy that had built up from going slow. The practice was confusing at first, but she craved it now.
She slept so much better when she was too tired to dream.
‘Theres too little to clean here as well. Cleaning our bodies leaves the room itself pretty clean.’
Maybe she could do the undry next. They didn’t need more bed sheets yet, she had already cleaned several sets, but she was sure something had piled up. Anything that would get her thoughts to settle.
‘Maybe if I had learned how to read. Moose can read right? He always has that book.’
Did it matter even if she could ask Moose? How could she hope to understand what he wanted when he could do things that hurt her brain to even try. Even Kitty had dismissed everything Moose did as magic. It was too complicated for the woman to attempt trying to expin.
All she could hear in her head were the words ‘what does Moose want?’ repeating over and over. That intruder’s words breaking her from a pleasant dream and throwing her into a repeating nightmare.
She had hated every word.
“Alright. Why don’t you leave this to us. You brought us for contracts, right? Part of that is talking. The two of us will take the shuttle to the station and find the best deals. Get some contracts lined up. Once we have done all the leg work, you can dock the same way as you did st time and everything will be faster. No need to worry about messing anything up. How does that sound?”
His initial question about responsibility had broken her guard. Every word after that had pierced her chest. It was like she had been repced. That she wasn’t useful anymore. Even worse, she had found her own repcement. She had done her best. That best was finding a person good at what they do. Only now that person was better than her, so the best for Moose would be for her to disappear.
Because he had someone better.
She shook her head, her ears pined back.
‘That’s not true. I can still help Moose! I just need to know how.’
She couldn’t let the intruders she brought here take her home away.
It was hers.
She passed by the bedroom, noticing Kitty sprawled out on the bed.
‘Why doesn’t it bother her! She doesn’t do anything for Moose. Always sleeping or taking up his time. She seems capable of a lot. I bet if she really wanted, she could be better than the intruders. Better at everything.’
She had felt envy before. Most sves did. Who didn’t fantasize about being in charge? But the combination of emotions she felt about Kitty was hard to understand. Kitty didn’t have any shame, she got to sit on Moose’s p all she wanted, she could help Moose with anything if she tried, she even got Moose to rub her with his hands!
‘Why can’t I have some of that as well!?’
The desire for anything more than a painless day and a full night’s sleep was a foreign thing, but she embraced it. Coveted it.
‘Kitty is better at everything, so why did we need intruders in the first pce!?’
…
She stopped.
‘Is… Is that really the answer?’
It was such an outndish thought, she never would have had it if she hadn’t been jealous of Kitty.
Why did it matter what Moose wanted?
She wanted to please Moose. She didn’t need to know what he wanted, he had always found a way to make her aware. Trying to guess or find out had always been a dead end. She had spent all that effort trying to find out before now, how had she forgotten that lesson? No, the best way to please Moose wasn’t to find out what he wanted, it was to be able to do anything!
‘If I can do everything that Moose wants, then I don’t need to worry about what that is! Moose will just come to me because I am the best choice!’
It was brilliant!
She could even forget the circling thoughts because they didn’t matter. Who cares who is responsible, Moose would tell her what he wanted and she would do it. There would be no need for responsible because she would be the best! Maybe even better than Kitty!
That meant there was only one problem left.
‘Uh, how do I learn to be the best?’
She walked up to the door to the double bunk after the intruders had returned and pressed the button.
Gncing at the male and crouching, she scratched the fabric on her arm and flicked her ear. She always felt safer when she crouched.
“I don’t like you.”
“Whah—”
Her gnce shot to the female and quickly returned to her target, at least he was paying attention. The Crova and her words didn’t matter right now.
“Teach me to be better.”
He couldn’t make her the best, she would need to take that step herself…
… But he could get her a lot closer.
