[Moose]


    He very much did not like the implications.


    It had been too easy.


    Flying up to the new ship that the map had picked up? Too easy.


    He barely had to do anything, the controls were essentially a point and click. He targeted what he assumed was an air lock and marked the area for docking. Or rather he pressed the docking button and targeted the area when the screen changed. There weren’t even speed controls or maneuvering changes he had to do. Something he had been practicing with the asteroids for this very reason. At least a reason similar to this. He figured that interacting with other ships and stations would be the hardest part of flying, but no, everything had been automated.


    He could get behind that he supposed. Automated vehicles had almost been a thing when he got frozen, how hard could a spaceship be?


    Interacting with aliens who didn’t speak his language? Too easy.


    He had no idea what all the noise had been about, but he had told Kitty to ask if they needed help. It was a pretty safe bet, seeing as how the ship seemed to be stranded and he could see red boxes on the scan. He had no idea what those boxes said, but red was usually bad right? He had figured that they could dock up and ask if there was any help they could provide. It had taken a bit for someone to get to the air lock and open it, but they seemed nice enough.


    Not that he really saw anything. The door had been so small he was afraid even Kitty wouldn’t really fit. The docking tunnel itself was almost too small for him to walk upright. According to Kitty, it seemed they had brought out someone that needed help, though she got the word for casualty wrong. Or victim, he guessed it depended on what had happened. When he had bent over to pick the alien up, he had seen the ones still on their feet. There must be multi-species crews since the standing ones seemed to be reptilian in nature, scales and no hair, while the one on the floor had fur on the arms and legs. A tail and dog ears as well.


    He had left Kitty to see if they needed more help while he took the first one to an examination room. Though he guessed Kitty hadn’t really understood that, as she came up behind him soon after. It didn’t matter though, once he had done first aid for the one in his arms they could return and make sure. The examination room itself seemed to be for dissections or hostile biopsies. It definitely wasn’t for cooperative patients, but he hadn’t found anything else yet and this one was close to the docking area. He could just not use the restraints and such built into the room. He hoped it wouldn’t scare the patient though.


    Though how much of a patient was hard to say. There was a wet spot he thought might be blood, but he couldn’t smell any iron or see any color in the jumpsuit. A quick check for a pulse and search for rips in the suit left him puzzled. He left Kitty to watch over the patient and went to get some water. They could either use it for treatment or just drink it, depending on what was wrong.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    The strange reaction the alien had when he returned to the room made him doubt he could give more than superficial first aid. He examined their back and stomach for any internal soft spots or oddities, though he was just guessing for the most part. When he got to the neck, he could see something, but the collar got in the way. As he went to move it around and check underneath it, he must have terribly underestimated the strength of whatever it was made of, as he squeezed a bit to hard and shattered the thing between his thumb and fingers.


    He felt terrible, he really did. The collar zapped him as well, so it was clearly electronic in some manner. It probably cost a lot. He handed it back to the poor owner with a short apology before resuming his work. It tugged at his heart strings when the poor thing started crying while looking at it. He hoped it wasn’t like a family heirloom or something. He would need to see about repairing it or getting another one. If he had cost them all their contacts he had no idea how he could undo that.


    Not that he had any money to begin with.


    His rough examination done with nothing to show for it, he scritched behind the dog ears as he worried about what was next. He really didn’t have any way to indicate that he was going to take their clothes off.


    Kitty hadn’t learned anything about clothing, seeing as how he hadn’t found anything that fit her and had just turned the temperature up a little rather than run around in bedsheets. Not that he would have allowed that. Flappy things like that around some of the machinery was a death sentence, better to just go without. They weren’t exactly working in a chemistry lab, and the sheets wouldn’t protect them from anything else around here. It was kind of awkward now though.


    Even if Kitty didn’t seem to care.


    When he got over his momentary introspection, he noticed that his patient had frozen.


    ‘No patting the dog aliens. Noted.’


    He hated saying the same thing over and over again, but nothing to it. He would just have to jump in headfirst. Still, once he had undone the back of the jumpsuit thing his patient was wearing and saw what he was working with, he basically stopped and went to find a disinfectant and some cloth. He made sure to tell Kitty to give help.


    They had clearly been in some shit over there.


    When he got back with a ripped-up pillowcase and what smelled and tasted like lab grade alcohol, it seemed Kitty had gotten the wrong idea.


    The girl, as it was clearly a girl now that she didn’t have a shapeless jumpsuit on, was hugging her tail and mostly curled up on the bed. He would need to teach his overeager companion about bedside manner, but that could wait until the first aid was finished. The poor girl must have been traumatized as well, considering the lack of response to his dabbing and wiping the bruises and scars. Some of them seemed to be old to his eyes, but he had no idea how aliens healed or how long the other ship had been in trouble.


    “Find. Blanket.”


    As he worked, he had Kitty go and fetch a blanket so the girl could rest. He didn’t know how long the other ship would need to get back on their feet, but he could just carry the girl if she fell asleep. When he finished and made sure the girl was tucked in and comfortable, or at least he thought that’s what they were doing, who knew what the poor girl thought, he returned to the docking tunnel.


    The one that had retracted.


    The one that didn’t have another ship on the other end.


    ‘Crap... I hope they didn’t try to message us. They must be worse off than I thought.’