He pulled on her, turning them out of the way. Avoiding the one in pink grabbing his tail and pulling again.
Now,thathad hurt. More than that, it had taken everything in him not to sting her with it. The barb at the end of his tail wasn’t venomous or anything like that, but it was deceptively strong, and he could leave a good-sized hole in a person. Especially a person as small as her.
He’d hate to do that to such delicate little females.
The feisty one was thrashing against him again, so he let her go. She wasn’t ready and barely kept herself from falling as she stumbled away.
“Alred,” Tanin called without looking away.
“Not done yet.”
“What is taking sovektinglong?”
“You ever try to download and implement an entirely new language through seven communication relays? No? I didn’t think so. Give me another moment.”
The females were backing away from him. Glaring hotly. His feisty one was blocking the other, literally pushing her behind her with both hands, snarling at him. The pink one had turned and was smacking her little hands against the metal of the cargo door, still trying to find a way out. The sharp echo of it echoed loudly in the small room.
She was going to hurt herself doing that.
“Alred, unlock the door.”
“You sure, captain?”
“We can’t do anything until you install their language. They’re getting more anxious the longer they’re in here. Contact the others on comms, let them know to watch out for them, and don’t let them in anywhere they could hurt themselves. But let’s give them some freedom.”
“As you wish, captain.”
The door beeped before whooshing open – sliding up from the bottom. The girl in pink made a startled sound, but the feisty, brave one didn’t hesitate.
She grabbed the other girl by the wrist and ducked down, tugging her through before the door even finished opening. They both took off running.
Tanin imagined it was quite the fright to suddenly wake up in an unknown place.
Just a little bit of freedom. A little bit of trust. They couldn’t go anywhere. The Humility was a decently sized starship, but it wasn’t massive. And with Alred controlling the doors, there were only so many places the two of them could hide.
But maybe giving them that freedom to run, to get away, would buy just enough trust that they’d at least be able to have a conversation.
And they could figure out what to do next.
“What was that collar around their necks?” Tanin asked.
Alred’s head flickered as he turned. He was trying to be in too many places at once. He was a fantastic AI, but he was still a singular being with one consciousness. It wasn’t particularly easy for him to split his attention in so many different ways at the same time.
“I didn’t scan the collar. Apologies.”
“It’s fine. We can figure it out once we catch up to them. How’s the download?”
“Completed. I’m installing it now.”
“Can we imprint Standard in our med bay?”
“Probably? We spent a good amount of credz on that mediring, so it better be able to do something like that.”
“You haven’t gone inside to check?”
“The healing sciences were never really my area of expertise.” Alred’s faceless expression still somehow managed to be sarcastic. “Shockingly, just looking at the codes for various healing programs doesn’t actually give me any knowledge of healing.”
“Fine. Just make sure you can translate into their tongue so we can at least calm them down. Where are they n-”
