They only waited an hour for a Tinsne patrol to make it to them. Before he could be transferred, the pirate’s leader asked for a moment alone with the human.

“Would you really have killed me to save him?”

“… only if I had to.”

“That’s a yes… looks like only one of us was lying then.”

“I don’t really know what you expected to be honest. Where I come from you don’t point a weapon at someone unless you’re willing to fire it.”

“… I don’t think I ever would have so many cycles ago. I guess I should have never tried to compete with you Terrans when it comes to this,” his wings buzzed, “this used to be a professional kind of affair. Not anymore.”

“What do you mean by that?”

The Tinsne peace officer slithered up, “Time to go.”

As the officer took the pirate by the shoulder, he didn’t say anything, but he held eye contact with Penelope. Even with an alien face there was a clear idea. A notion that concerned her.

---

The Tinsne patrol took the pirates as well as the dead from the derelict ship. They confirmed that the ship wasn’t acting under the Unity’s orders or the Galactic Federations authority. As such, The Blue Nebula technically had rights to it as salvage.

“The matter of Terran weapons onboard is concerning but… there isn’t really protocol for such a thing. We would confiscate weaponry normally, but we wouldn’t wish to offend our new neighbors by… erm, claiming what’s theirs.” One of the Tinsne officers hissed. They looked to Penelope as if hoping she would solve the problem by virtue of being a human.

“Uhh” Penelope returned a blank look.

“And…” their flat head turned to the patrol ship and the dead onboard, “its proven to be volatile.” Their many eyes flitted between Captain Deag and Penelope.

“You know, if I didn’t know better,” Deag looked at the officer, “Id say you were trying to drop this problem on us.”

“Of course not! The Unity would never…”

“Terran weapons found smuggled through your territory doesn’t smell good either. What’s the human phrase Peneolpe? It smells fishy?” Deag shot her a look that said play along.

“…That is indeed the saying.”

“I… well… The Unity had no part in this smuggling.” the officer seemed to slither in place anxiously.

“Precisely, and yet some might not understand that. So how’s this, for a small fee, you had an independent third party deliver the very volatile cargo, very quietly, back to its rightful owners. With our security officer here, we can use… back channels. Do things without too many eyes seeing it. This way you get some favor with your neighbors but without the worry of anyone thinking things were nefarious. They’ll never have been in your people’s possession.”

The officer and Deag both looked to Penelope. Deag looked with intention.

“Uhm… yea… of course. I will contact some people who can square this away quietly, back channels and all that. And ill be sure to let them know that the Tinsne were acting in no way nefariously.” Penelope hoped the translator would cover for her poor acting skills.

Apparently, it did.

“Excellent, we’ll take the pirate vessel now. Leave a buoy and we will recover the… civilian vessel in short order. And for your assistance in this matter, the sum of a few thousand galactic credits can be transferred to the holdings of…?” They hissed.

“The Blue Nebula and, given the dangerous nature of certain things, I’d say five thousand is a more adequate fe-uhm, reward.”

“That… is doable yes.”

“Excellent.” Deag clapped his paws together and escorted the officer to their patrol ship.

Penelope waited for his return.

“Back channels? What the hell are you talking about? I’m not active service anymore. Besides, they could have just returned the crates, there’s even a finder’s fee.”

“Exactly and now, we’ll be the ones to collect it,” The captain winked at her, “did I do that correctly? I was attempting to wink.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“I… yes, yes you did.” She said with disbelief.

“Oh, come on, I’m doing this for more than just the credit. This way someone who knows how to handle these things safely is doing it. It’s best if we don’t have a repeat of what happened over there.”

He wasn’t wrong. If it wasn’t the turret, it could be mishandling of one of the weapons crates. This pulled Penelope’s mind back to the last few hours. She couldn’t get the look of that pirate out of her mind.

“Captain, could I ask you something?”

“Of course.” He said, noting the more serious look on her face.

“Who was the security officer before me?”

“We didn’t have one. Didn’t need one.”

“I thought that would be your answer so let me ask another question I think I already know the answer to. Why hire me now? It’s only been a single day and we’ve already run into trouble.”

“This should be a very rare thing honestly but…”

“But it’s becoming more common.”

“Yes,” He looked at her grimly, “I mean there were always a few groups who were willing to threaten and such. Grab your cargo and let you go but they were few and far between. Recently, though, there have been a lot more stories of...”

“… why?”

“…” his eyes turned down and away from her gaze.

“Humans…”

“Not intentionally. It’s just your people’s expansion. You’re pushing into the territories they used to frequent, and we knew to avoid. And doing it with some significant level of force. Look I don’t blame you or yours. It just means we pick someone up who can deter them. Respond to their bluster with a little bluster of our own and they won’t try anything.”

“Gareth blames us… and how do you know one of them won’t try something? Look at what just happened!”

“Gareth is… he just researches cultures a lot and his own people happen to hold certain opinions that… conflict with yours. He can gain an opinion of something and find it hard to let go. And on your second point I think you clearly demonstrated that no pirate is going to mess with us. I saw the look in his eyes. He was never going to fire.”

“…”

“Look we’re all fine. This was a unique situation and it’s not going to happen again. Next time well just be able to hail them, put you on screen, and they’ll…”

“Fuck off?” she offered.

“Ha! Precisely.”

“I’d prefer that. And on that whole weapons thing… I’ll take the cates aboard, but it would be a lot to get the turret system over here. Scuttle the ship and let the turret go with it. You’ll still get something for it with proof of destruction. I’ll be on Raxia most likely when you collect on the crates but I'll leave a message for the liaison, make sure you get a good price.” She winked at him.

He smiled and nodded before turning towards the bridge.

Penelope headed to her quarters. She could always think better when she exercised, and she needed to think. She hoped things were as Deag had said. And yet what the pirate had said and how he stared at her gave her pause.

Compete?

She hoped she was wrong about what that might mean.

---

They’d initiated the jump and would be a while in FTL so Gareth left the bridge intent on straightening things out with their new crew member. As he made his way to her door, he straightened his habsuit and cleaned his frills.

He tapped the console by the door and a chime let the human know she had a visitor. She didn’t answer her door, but it unlocked and her voice came from within.

“Yes?” she said with strain in her voice.

Gareth tapped the console once more and discovered why. As the door opened, he saw the human upside down along, but not leaning on, the left wall. She held her enormous weight with only her arms. Slowly, she pushed herself up until her arms were fully extended and then lowered herself until her short hair brushed the ground.

“Watch the gravity” she said looking over at the first mate, taking slow breaths as she repeated the controlled motion. Up and down, again and again.

“I… um… right.” He said as he moved into the room. The increase in gravity was significant and he quickly moved to a chair and sat.

“You handle it better than most.” she said as she continued the vertical pushups.

“Yes uh,” She wore simple clothes and he looked at her for the first time without a cloak or heavy clothing that obscured her form, “My people hail from a normal planet gravity-wise, but we were deep aquatic for a portion of our evolutionary history so… uh, we can withstand pressure to a degree. Physical exertion in that pressure however is a different matter.”

He expected a carapace of some kind. With the history of theirs that he’d learned it would make sense to have natural armor. But no. Instead, the human boasted a dense musculature made more apparent by the physical exercise. It was like steel chording underneath tan skin. He noticed droplets of liquid forming as well.

“It’s called sweat. Perspiration.” She apparently noted his attention, “Humans produce it as a means of staying cool.”

“I see.” He understood better now how just her grip could crack the shell on his arm.

“…did you need something?” She lowered herself again, but this time tucked her legs in, brought her feet to the ground, and stood. She truly did tower over him.

“Yes. I just came to say that I’m not… I don’t want it to be said that I’m ungrateful. Ton’et pointed out to me that my… exasperation, aboard the other ship was rude. I realize that you saved my life and I thank you for that.”

“Of course. Look, I recognize that you don’t like me that much. I can live with it; I’ve worked with plenty of people I didn’t see eye to eye with… I didn’t mean…” she faltered but Gareth held up a webbed hand.

“I understand.”

“Anyway. I’ll be out of your… frills, in just over a weeks’ time. Until then we can just stay out of each other’s way. Professional working relationship.”

“That sounds perfect.” His frills flitted at the satisfactory arrangement.

“Oh and uhh, sorry about the arm… is it okay?”

“It will heal in time. Ton’et is very talented, and we have suitable covering plates… thank you for asking.”

“Of course.” She said as she placed a number of heavy objects into her bag and slung it onto her back.

Gareth moved to the door as she lowered herself as if she were sitting in an invisible chair with her fists held to her hips. Her stomach and leg muscles tensed and she began to slowly take a breath in through her nose. Just as slowly she let it out through her mouth. It seemed as though she meant to hold this position as long as humanly possible.

Gareth guessed that that would be a fairly long time as the door cut off his view of the human.