Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

louder “Fine!” the door whooshed open to reveal a slender human female standing there with a laser pistol in her hand.

“You try to run, I shoot you. You piss on my floor, I shoot you. You show me claw or fang, I shoot you. You understand?”

Even with her mind running a light year a second, Bek’ah couldn’t keep control of her tongue. “I think so. If I piss you off, you’re going to give me a cookie?”

The human glowered, her dark eyes narrowing and the gun coming up. Bek’ah raised her hands, careful to keep a rein on her fear. Sometimes her claws popped when she was nervous, and she had no doubt this woman meant every word she said about shooting her.

Her guard motioned at her with the pistol, and Bek’ah moved forward. She gave the woman a good once-over as she passed. Tall, nearly two meters, and lean, with cords of muscle standing out along her forearms. She looked much more fit than the humans Bek’ah remembered from Tideb, but most of them had been beggars or petty criminals. Her hair hung in a long dark braid over one shoulder. She was pretty, for a being without any fur or other interesting features.

Behind the woman stood a human male of similar height and hair color, but thicker muscles. He looked like he could hold his own in a fight, armed or not, although Bek’ah noted the laser pistol on one hip and the long knife on the other.

The woman’s laser pistol hadn’t moved from where it was aimed right at her midsection, and by the scowl on the woman’s face, she really wanted an excuse to learn what singed fur smelled like.

“Move it, stowaway,” the woman said.

“Which way to the head?” she asked. The man pointed down the corridor, and Bek’ah turned in that direction.

Moments later she stepped back out into the hall and turned to go back to her cell, only to find the human female blocking her path.

“Not that way. You get to meet the boss.” Her male companion was gone, maybe to tell the “boss” they were coming? Bek’ah didn’t waste too much time thinking on it, just headed down the hall in the direction the woman pointed, making sure to keep her hands in plain sight.

She walked down the corridor, trying to take in as much of her surroundings as she could. The corridor she walked down now was pretty featureless, basic plasteel walls and titanium decking with low lighting that indicated more races in the crew than humans. Her eyes dilated no problem, but she could certainly imagine the woman behind her having some trouble seeing details in the current level of illumination. Bek’ah wondered idly if there were Leethogs aboard—she vaguely remembered something about them being light-sensitive.

“So what’s your crew like?” she asked, not turning around. “Are you traders? Salvagers? Bounty hunters?” She was pretty sure the last one wasn’t the case. Her cursory look over the ship before hiding inside showed a pair of laser cannons fore and aft, but nothing like the level of arms or missile tubes she’d expect from a hunter/killer. The big woman behind her let out of a huff of air that might have passed for a laugh.

“Ask the captain. It’s up to him what he wants to tell you. Or if he just sends you on a short spacewalk. Without a suit.”

Bek’ah shivered. She knew that was a risk when she stowed away. If the captain wanted to send her out an airlock, he could do it and no one would ever be the wiser. She was counting on most beings not being completely horrible, and most situations being better than working for that craptacular slug Corvan Dax. She didn’t mind the dancing. She didn’t even mind dancing in a cage suspended over the bar to entertain drunken beings losing their wages at his gaming tables. In fact, it was those very gaming tables that led to her downfall. A hot streak at Shunt, a popular card game at Dax’s, turned cold at the worst possible time, and she found herself in hock to her boss for more than she could dance off in a year. She thought she’d worked out a deal with the slimy bastard, but she overheard him talking to a Gritloth musclehead about shipping her off as a payment to a “business partner,” and she decided it was time for a change of scenery.

So when she left work the night before, with two lanky orange-skinned Gritloth trying to follow her inconspicuously through the deserted streets, she took a little detour to the nearby spaceport. This was the first ship she’d come to that didn’t have guards stationed by the entryway, so she found herself a nice place to curl up and hoped she could stay out of sight at least until they passed through the first Gate. Mission accomplished.

Admittedly, being stun-blasted into oblivion by the first crew member she came across wasn’t in the original plan, but dying in space would still probably be better than whatever the Gritloth had in mind for her.

She was shaken from her reverie by a poke in the back from her escort. “We’re here.” The woman reached past her and pressed a comm button by the door.

“Yeah?” a languorous voice came through the speaker.

“You asked to see the stowaway as soon as she came to. Here she is.”

“Thanks, Mare.” The door whooshed open, and Bek’ah stepped forward into what could generously be called an office. More like the living quarters of a particularly messy adolescent. There were three pairs of boots scattered around the floor, none anywhere near their mate. Jackets, shirts, and pants hung over every piece of furniture in view, and draped across a heavily padded armchair was what she could only presume was the captain.

He was a Yalteen. Humanoid in form, with skin of a rich blue and taller than any human she’d ever seen, a good two and a half meters