Neirdith felt safe as she stood pressed against the warm metal of her rescuer, not the kind of safe that just lets you sleep at night, the kind of safe that allows one to truly let go and lose focus of their surroundings.

After a few moments Neirdith relaxed her arms and stepped back a pace. Seeing her move Skorr moved their hand and she stepped back from them all the way letting one hand linger on the dark gray armour of Skorr’s armoured forearm. Relishing the feeling of calm strength for just a moment longer she removed her hand and sighed deeply. While the powerful feeling was gone she still felt lingering traces of resolute calm inside her very soul. Standing straight and squaring her shoulders she stepped back far enough to look at Skorr's eyes more easily.

"I know we have an understanding, but we need to do something about the fact that you don't speak common. Why is that anyways?" Thinking about the way they had been partially buried inside a heap of metal scrap she briefly toyed with the idea that they might in fact be older than the Union. But no, the SCU was almost eight hundred years old there was no way they would still be alive after who knows how much longer than that. 'Skorr is probably just from an unknown system, that's all.' she thought to herself.

Looking back at Skorr she noticed them staring at her. Skorr leaned forwards slightly and spoke in that alien language of theirs, she clearly heard her name in it more than once but was unable to divine any meaning from it.

"Still don't get it." She said cheerfully while waving Skorr to follow her she walked over to the now quiet form of the former Captain Medrigil. Squatting next to them she said in a sing-song way "Wakey wakey good captain."

The yeown’s only reaction was to scrunch up tighter.

'We can't have any of that' thought Neirdith with a frown, debating whether or not to kick them she settled on diplomacy. After all they were probably traumatized, she was a bit shaken herself and she wasn't even on the receiving end of the punishment. Luckily her people were built tougher than that. "Oh get up you big baby, if we were going to kill you I would have let Skorr do it already. Now stand up, or would you rather have the big guy carry you to your room?" She asked in a threatening whisper.

Unfolding jerkily and rolling onto hands and knees, Medrigil practically howled "No! Please, not that." Noticing Skorr leaning towards them with a look that seemed angry, well as angry as a face devoid of true expression could be, he lowered his voice though it still quavered with near panic. "Please no, I will go myself." Standing shakily they looked fearfully at first Skorr then Neirdith.

Making a shooing motion she instructed "Well then, get going. The 'brig' is that way." While pointing at the main corridor that Skorr had carried him from minutes earlier.

As Medrigil started to make their way around Skorr's makeshift barrier and to the passage Neirdith looked back to Skorr and motioned them to follow once again to which they immediately complied.

Following Medrigil down the passage she heard him ask over his shoulder "What is that thing? Do you even know where it came from? Why is it helping you?"

Giving an amused chuckle she stated simply "As to what Skorr is, I haven't the faintest idea, but my guess as to why they helped us is that they were grateful to us for freeing them, and for the kindness we showed." Not wanting to tell them about her special connection to Skorr she continued. "My guess is that after seeing what happened to the crew of the Slaaveth ship they didn't want that to happen to its new friends and reacted to stop you with maximum force. Or maybe they just don't like pirates." This elicited a grunt from the dejected pirate and they continued onwards in relative silence.

As they reached the crew area she exclaimed "Ok halt." Medrigil did as she said while turning around partially. Moving to the wall she waved open one of the doors to reveal a crew room, modestly sized with a multi species bed in the corner small bathroom with shower attached and a modest closet on the far wall. "Alrighty, in ya go, we will bring you food during meal times and there is a sink in the bathroom if you get thirsty."

"This is the brig? This looks like a hotel room." Medrigil stated with confusion.

"We don't have a brig, this is a cargo junker, not a Fed vessel. This will have to do until we get to more civilized space. Good thing I got something better than bars to keep you here." She smirked with a look over at Skorr who was standing patiently behind them.

"That demon will be watching me?" The yeown asked in a small voice.

"Yup." She replied somewhat cheerfully. "And I am willing to bet that Skorr would just love for you to try and escape." She said with an evil grin, showing her blunt teeth to the cowering pirate.

Medrigil shuffled to the far corner of the room saying "Oh, no. Have no fear of that, I intend to stay as far from that monstrosity as I possibly can."

As Neirdith poked her head in he looked up at her with a hateful glare. "Oh don't be like that, maybe if you're a good little yeown I might give you that dance you were talking about." She said in a smoky voice. She laughed as his head whipped back to her face and his mouth opened in surprise. With another laugh she closed the door and walked the short distance to Skorr.

Motioning for them to move in front of the door she was pleased when they did so. Stepping back she looked up to them and gave a thumbs up, her eyes lit with mirth as Skorr made a clumsy attempt to replicate the gesture. She gave a quaint laugh as the behemoth gave a grumble of frustration before they made a triumphant noise giving her a somewhat goofy thumbs up in response.

Waving bye to Skorr she started towards the infirmary near the front of the ship, as she got closer she saw the remains of the airlock that Skorr had ripped from the wall, as well as two very dead pirates crumpled into a heap. Looking through the ruined doorway she groaned as she saw that both the doors had been destroyed on the Arctic Heart and the only thing stopping the ship from depressurising was the fact that the pirates ship was still attached. With this new information swirling in her mind she finally made her way to the infirmary and stepped inside.

Captain Filch was laid down on one of the medical cots with his uniform epaulets off and compression bandages wrapped around his furred chest. Seeing her enter he tried to sit up only to grimace and lay back down.

"Woah, no need to get up captain. Just stay here and rest, me and Seth can plot a course to New Dundas. You however need to stay still so your ribs can heal." Neirdith said with concern.

"800 years of cooperative medical research and there is still no quickheal for a broken bone." Seth said, shaking his head.

"I have some bad news though, before you get too carried away complaining about med-tech." Neirdith said cutting him off before he could really get going. Having spent a lot of time in hospitals as a youth he had a remarkable disdain for the state of medical technology in the Union.

"Is it about the airlock?" Asked the Captain.

Neirdith just nodded quietly.

"I feared as much, I got a brief glimpse at it as we walked by, I'm guessing we will have to take the pirate vessel with us when we jump. That's going to cut into our fuel quite a bit, and after our earlier detour I'm not sure we will have enough energy to make it to New Dundas." The captain said morbidly. Looking at him Neirdith thought hard.

"What if we were to turn off artificial gravity in all parts of the ship but the crew area, and cut life support to the minimum?" She mused out loud. "Surely that would be enough to get us there." She gave a hopeful look at Seth and the Captain.

Captain Filch looked from her earnest face to Seth's more worried one "Well I suppose it could work, but we would have to do it soon for it to make any difference.

Neirdith nodded and turned to Seth. “We should get right on it, the captain will be okay here.” she said.

Walking with her into the hall Seth waited till the medical room's door hissed closed. He then turned to her and said “Alright, I’ll go to the bridge and reset the navigation computer, I’m assuming you plan to reconfigure the drive and shut down nonessential functions?” She nodded in the affirmative without speaking. He looked at her more closely, “You are a brilliant engineer Neirdith, I trust you, the captain trusts you, and I know that Skorr trusts you.” He reached out and placed a strong hand on her shoulder giving her a gentle shake. “Hey, you got this.” And with that he turned and started walking towards the bridge.

Neirdith started to reach out to him but stopped, not knowing what she would say to him anyways. So she instead turned and made her way to the communications and engineering room that she had been in just that morning.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

It felt like she had not been there in lifetimes, so much had happened since she had woken up that morning. As she sat at her console she took a moment to gather herself before beginning to modify the drive settings. After that was completed she switched her attention towards non essential functions.

While she worked she thought about the strange circumstances that had led her here. First the fact that she had never gotten a service job, much to her brother's amusement. She didn't hate her brother, but they never really got along that well, while she was rather reclusive, he was more in keeping with most nerivith. Most nerivith were rather outspoken and fiery in demeanor, letting their passions guide their actions in most things. This made them generally unsuited for repetitive menial tasks but made them great entertainers and stewards, bartenders and fighters.

She had resented the notion that she could only do one thing and so had applied herself to learning the engineering trade. It was very unpleasant at first, but as she continued to study she began to see the beauty intrinsic to all machines. In a way, they were like the better versions of people, they wouldn't insult you if you made a mistake or were having a bad day. Sure a computer could be just as frustrating but there was always a solution to be found, a way to fix the problem. People were not the same, they did things that seemingly made no sense and then got angry when the results did not match their imagined expectations.

She had decided rather early on to take a job on a small ship, when the posting for engineer on the Arctic Heart came to her attention she grabbed it with both hands. The atraxses captain was surprised to have a nerivith answer his call but after a quick look at her credentials she had been accepted as part of the small 4 man crew. Not long after however, the fourth crewmember had needed to leave for personal reasons and was gone before she could really get to know them well.

As she worked on the small freighter she came to at first be annoyed by her other crewmate Seth, but as the time wound by she soon began to see that under his clown like demeanour there was a core of aching loss that seemed to define him. She knew he wasn't a machine but in her mind it did not matter, as a crewmate she had made the decision to try to patch the holes in his core with her friendship

She had friends in the past, not true friends but more of people that she knew and tolerated because they were a necessary part of life. But Seth was different, he was cool and collected but at the same time passionate about life and his work. Not only that he seemed to understand her, sure he had the tendency to flirt, but she knew he was just joking around with her. Always trying to rile her up. It was just the way he was, and she would not have changed anything for the galaxy. He always seemed to know when to quit and when she needed a kind encouraging word. If he was nerivith she might even have considered a soul binding ceremony with him.

As that last thought flicked through her brain, she sat up straight in surprise, the thought was new in her mind. She mulled it over and over trying to find a flaw in her logic but soon realized that her friendship with him had progressed further in her mind than she had realized. She shook herself in frustration and banished the betraying emotion from her mind. Seth was her friend, she would not ruin what they shared trying to push for something more. That would be unfair to both of them. She cleared her mind and focused back to the task at hand, but even while she worked a nagging feeling twinged the back of her mind like an itch she could not ease. She decided to ignore it.

Seth's voice crackled over the commlink and said "Well howdy there master engineer, we got the systems green for launch or are we still tied up?"

Taking a moment to collect herself she answered in a cool tone "That's a roger, we should be go for launch. Assuming you didn't mess up the trajectory calculations again."

"It was one time." Seth muttered quietly, just loud enough for his microphone to pick it up.

"And that's all it takes." She said with a giggle.

Grumbling, Seth stated "Whatever. Alrighty, let's do this, Lady Luck take the wheel." He said as if intoning a prayer.

Smirking slightly, Neirdith felt the familiar twisting lurch of a ship's drive field switching on, for a moment her soul seemingly stretched across infinity. She ignored the minor warpshock and started thinking about what they were going to do when they got to New Dundas. She asked Seth "Hey, do you think we will get in trouble for killing those pirates?"

"Ok first of all Skorr killed them, we didn't do anything, and second I seriously doubt it. In all likelihood the security forces there will be overjoyed that there is one less pirate they have to worry about. If I have learned anything about this galaxy, it's that the further you get from the homeworlds, the less the people in charge care about you performing frontier justice." Seth said in a serious tone, pausing briefly he continued "My Uncle Todd, well, he wasn't exactly a shining beacon of justice himself. But he sure did know how to keep the peace, with the business end of his .44 magnum. I still have it, you know. It's in a lockbox under my bunk. I haven't thought about it much since he gave it to me, but I have been thinking. After those pirates, I might start to wear it." He finished.

"I think you would look rather dashing with that old school revolver. Will you get a cowboy hat too?" She asked him in a cute voice.

"Bwahh? A cowboy hat? Why would I wear a cowboy hat, that's such a ridiculous idea." He sputtered in indignation.

"Aww, I really wanted to see you in high boots and a cowboy hat." Neirdith whined playfully.

"Oh, so you are into a bit of roleplay huh. I'll have to keep that in mind." He replied slyly.

"Wait! No, that's not what I meant…" Neirdith started before he cut her off.

"Hahahahaha" after a few moments his laughter subsided, and he wheezed out "Oh, I wish I could see your face right now, I'll bet it's purple as hell."

With a glance at her reflection in an empty console she saw her face was indeed a deep shade of lavender. "Oh I'll get you for that one'' she replied testilly.

"I look forward to it." He said. "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty hungry, want to meet me in the cafeteria? I'll cook you up some grilled mushrooms just the way we like them."

As if the words had brought her attention to it her stomach gurgled in anticipation and she stood saying "Sounds good, I will meet you there in a few minutes." She took off her headset and walked from the room.

With the life support on minimum the air was starting to get noticeably colder already, the captain with his thick fur would be ok but she and Seth probably would need additional coverings. As she walked to her room she thought once more about her connection to Seth. She now realized that she had feelings for him, was he feeling similar, or was he just being Human with his flirts. Humans were known to be incredibly charismatic, and many others had been rebuffed when they tried to act on the mixed signals that they received.

Neirdith decided to ignore it for now unless it came up again. As she rummaged around her small room for a sweater she found her old red sweatshirt with the missing drawstring and torn pocket. 'Good enough' she thought to herself slipping it over her loose fitting overalls.

As she neared the small cafeteria by the front of the ship, she began to smell the unmistakable odor of mushrooms frying in butter, one of her favorite combinations that Seth had introduced her to. Sure, nerivith were not designed to process lactose but it was ok to indulge a little bit, plus it just made the food taste so much more intense. There were few things that Seth ate that she could process with her fungivorous diet, but he had introduced her to a whole new range of flavors, some good, some bad, and some really good. On the top of that list for her was butter fried fungus, especially portabella mushrooms.

As a juvenile, she had eaten the same relatively plain food as most of her species, not to say that it was bland however. There existed a great biodiversity of flavors and options on her home planet, while there were not many types of photosynthetic plants on Neirvauhl, there were a great many types of fungus, both autotrophic and decomposers. There were many more flavors however in the wider galaxy, and as Seth introduced her to many of those from his own home planet she could not help but feel jealous that he could metabolize almost anything known, and some things that no other sapients could.

"Why hello there my tall fair lady" Seth called out. "Come to enjoy the fried fruit of my labors once more I see." He teased as she glided over to the kitchen.

She couldn't help but shiver a bit at the heavenly smell that came from the cast iron pan in front of him. "Oh, what ever did I do to deserve such pampering?" She asked, raising her arms as if in prayer to the heavens, her tail flicking in her excitement.

"What did you do?" He smiled "These are for Skorr, he’s the one who did all the hard stuff after all." He said with an even wider smile as she huffed in displeasure.

"Skorr cant eat, they don't even have a mouth." She said heatedly.

"Oh? And you know that for a fact do you?" He smirked, raising a single eyebrow while cocking his head to the side.

"Well, no, I guess I have no idea if they eat, I just assumed…" she trailed off staring at the browning mushrooms with longing.

"Oh. My. God. Your face is absolutely adorable right now. I guess we could make some more for Skorr later, for a smile I could be convinced to share these with you." Seth laughed. As Neirdith perked up and flashed a winning smile at him he relented "Oh alright, here, careful they are still very hot."

Grabbing for the large portion of mushroom that was slightly crispy, golden around the edge, and dripping with savory juices she shot a quick thanks to Seth before gobbling the meal down as fast as its still partially molten heat would allow. Breathing in and out with her mouth wide and tears in her eyes from a slightly scorched tongue she finally looked back at Seth who was watching her with amusement while eating his own portion at a much more sedate pace.

Her insides feeling very pleasant indeed she sighed "Mmmmmm, that really hit the spot. You don't have any more of those things do you?"

Giving her a pointed look, Seth scolded "Nuh uh, no more for now, we both know what happens if you overindulge on the butter. And I don't think you want that as much as you think you do."

With a chagrined look she agreed "Yeah I guess so. That was amazing as always. I think I'm going to grab a few Nurshtops to finish that off. It won't be as good but nothing ever is." she said huskily while standing and moving towards the large refrigerated holding area. Looking over her shoulder and stopping mid stride she caught him staring. As he blushed slightly she giggled and continued walking, exaggerating the sway of her hips and giving her tail a few extra flicks. She heard him start coughing and she smiled to herself as she entered the cool refrigerator to grab some more food. ‘Yup, that had definitely gotten him back for that roleplay comment earlier.’ she thought to herself with a wide grin.