kibble scribble: about a half week late, sorry, life stuff came up and complicated things. next chapter will probably late as well for similar reason.

"UGGHHH"

"Still having Headaches?" Montmorency asked as she laid on her bed with Louise lying across the room on hers.

"Yes," Louise groaned a she laid on her front with her head in the pillow. "Daily. Still won't go away."

"Is it, getting worse?"

"Only in the morning,"

"Have you asked Jarskat about it?"

"The bug? He's alive?"

"oh, you haven't seen him?"

"Gadge is training me almost exclusively in that big hanger place. Brings food with him so we don't leave," Louise said as she shifted and rolled onto her back. "How is your teaching going?"

"Well, it's pretty similar to Halkeginian magic, but with a bit differing how you actually do it," Montmorency said as she sat up on her bed and held a hand out, forming a few small beads of water above her hand. "The biggest thing is casting without a wand."

"Same," Louise said with a groan as she very slowly sat up on the bed."Technology is weird, and being able to just, change it is so . . . . ugh, my head hurts just thinking about it. What happened to him?"

"Who?"

"Bug doctor."

"Oh. I saw him yesterday," Montmorency said as she stretched her arms above her head. "He was apparently knocked out by that guy that tried to kidnap us. He seemed very sorry about it too."

"How can you tell when he's a literal bug?"

"He, sounded sorry I guess?"

"Was he though?" Louise asked as she scratched her head with a grimace. "I cant tell when Gadge is trying to help me or mock me, and he's been teaching me for days now. How exactly are we supposed to know when aliens are mocking us or actually sorry?"

"I think we're supposed to learn, like how we are learning magic, or learning how things work out in these places," Montmorency said as she got up off her bed and look at Louise before holding out a hand. "Need help up?"

"I won't say no," Louise said as she took Montmoency's hand and was pulled up, only for both girls to lose their footingas a dull roar like noise shook the whole ship, making the lights flicker for a second.

"What, what was that?" Montmorency asked on confusion as she looked around as if the danger would show itself immediately.

"I don't know, but someone should," Louise said as she got up and stepped up to the door, tapping the console and making it show a live video feed of the hall just outside of the door. When she saw no one was there she opened it and looked out, finding a handful of the lightsin the halls to be out, making them feel longer and heavier than they normally were. More claustrophobic too. "Someone should know. Shall we find them?"

Montmorency nodded and then followed Louise as she led the way out of their room and down the halls that over the last few days had becoem a bit more familiar. Both girls could now recall how to get to a few specific places such as the canteen, hanger, engineering bay and observation deck, and the halls did not see so labyrinthine anymore.

At least when the halls were lit.

Moving down the hallways the two girls just about made it to the canteen when they saw the door to it open up and a figure step out, small and sleek. "Ah human girls yes?"

"Yes, you are?" Louise asked, unfamiliar with the crewmans voice.

"Ah yes you can call me Cam," the figure said as he bowed to the girls, making it clear he was barely as tall as they were. And as they got closer they could tell he was some kind of animal person, though what they could not tell. " come follow me, we need to head to the Bridge," He then said as he slipped between the two girls and began heading down the halls.

"Why? What is going on?" Montmorency asked as she and Louise followed Cam down the halls.

"No idea, but long range comms are out, and inter-ship comms are messed up too. Only a few things could case that so better safe than-" He topped as suddenly the few lights in the hallway turned red. "Fuck."

"EXCUSE YOU!?" Montmorency exclaimed in horror and shock.

"What? no that doesn't matter, speed up," Cam said as he sped up down the halls and then turned down a hallway. "Lights turned red, we need to get to the armory first."

"What why?"

"What do red lights mean?"

"Well, they were red when she ship was in combat coming to this place, right?" Louise answered.

"Yes, so?" Cam pressed.

"But the ship is landed so it cant be under at-" Montmorency stopped for a second. "Oh, are we, being boarded?"

"Yeah, outer doors are rigged so that if they are forced it sets off the analog alarms and lights, so we need to get some guns and get you both to safety."

"We have magic," Montmorency said on reflex as the trio turned another hallway and came up to a solid looking door that Cam began accessing via a panel on its right side.

"Unless you are willing to kill with what you are still learning, guns are still superior," Cam said as the door opened and he walked in. The girls walked in just as the lights to the room turned on, and as they did they found a room absolutely full of metallic shelves along the walls and tables in the rooms center, each and every shelf, and table openings covered in various objects. Sword, maces, shields, and the like were immediately recognizable to the girls, and some of the other object looked similar in design to muskets and the like, leading them to the realization that this was the armory, and that every single object in the rom was likely a weapon, or some form of accessory to one. "And guns, are always SUPERIOR!"

"I, but I, I've never used a gun," Montmorency said in worry as she looked around, awed by how different they looked to a flintlock or musket, and how much variety of size and shape there was.

"I've only ever used a flintlock, once," Louise admitted as she walked further into the room and looked around, noting that some of the weapons were small and did, sort of, look like the flintlock her father had once had her try to use.

"Relax," Cam said as he turned back to the door and tapped its panel, causing it to close before he tapped it again and locked it. "As much as I love guns and adore explosions, I am not so crazy as to give you girls anything absurd, I just want you to be armed just in case." He said as he walked across to room, past many of the more outlandish looking weapons, and opened the top off of a case. A second later he took two object out and turned around placing them on the table. "To start, knives."

Montmorency and Louise came over to the table to see two sheathes made of a material unknown to them on the table. Louise picked up the sheathe first and drew the knife out with clear trepidation. The blade was only about as long as her hand, the metal having a slightly blue hue to it, while the handle felt cool in the hand, and strangely comfortable.

"A Simple Survival knife," Cam said with a nod of his mammalian head. " Nothing special about it, and it wont be puncturing armor anytime soon, but if you need it, it will still cut flesh."

"R-right," Montmorency said as she picked up the other knife and gingerly looked overits sheathe. "How are we supposed to carry it when these weird suits were having to wear have no pockets?"

"We'll get to that in a moment," Cam said as he plodded over to another shelf and looked it over for a moment. "Now, let me see, I know we had a couple some- aha!" He exclaimed as he took tow object off the shelf and put them on the table in front of the girls. "One for each of you."

"What is it?" Montmorency aske she looked at the odd angled object in some kind of case even as Louise gingerly picked it up, unsnapped a part of it, and slipped the object out.

"Is this, a small gun?"

"Yes, a simple handgun, or pistol if you prefer" Cam said as he pointed at it, and gently took Louise hand to orient it. "On this side is the safety, flick it down to turn it off and make it able to fire. This is the barrel, and the trigger, pull the trigger, and instantly the bullet will fly straight out of the barrel at whatever you are aiming at. Each of these guns has ten rounds, or shots, inside of it. I'll tell you how to reload them another time, as hopefully you wont even need to fire them," he then reached under the table and pulled out something that both girls finally recognized the instant thy saw it. Belts. "You know how to put these on right?"

"Of course we know how to put on a belt!" Montmorency exclaimed in a very insulted tone as she snatched one from his grip and then began threading the opening on the knife sheathe onto it.

"Just making sure, some cultures just don't have them if you'll believe it," Cam said as a strange sound came from something, and a second later he tapped an object on his wrist. " You're on speaker and I have the girls here."

"Good, girls, this is jarskat, as I am sure you are ware the ship is being boarded. Comms are down currently outside of the ship but we believe some pirates are the ones attempting to board our ship. Likely to capture it and leave the planet. You need to stay with cam where its safe and – " The sound of Jarskat's voice was suddenly cut off, replaced by a strange sound vaguely similar to static and running water before even that cut out.

"What, where did his voice go?" Montmorency asked in confusion.

"It cut out," Cam said with a shrug. "Could be a lot of reasons for it to do that."

"such as?"

Interference, signal blocking, his personal computer being blown apart," Cam said with a shrug." I doubt it's the latter. We just need to sit here with all these lovely guns and we'll be fine. Few pirates would be so idiotic as to try to break into the armory of a ship that knows its being boarded after all."

In the next second there was a heavy blunt thud sound that came from the door to the armory, making all three of them look toward it. Another thud rang out a second later, followed by another, and then another.

And then silence.

"I, they left, right?" Montmorency asked quietly after a moment of silence.

Then a strange hissing noise could be heard, and a bright lights started seeing to cut through the side of the door.

"Nope, seems they are cutting their way in," Cam said as he looked to the girls and took out a gun of his own. One that seemed to pen up and change shape into a very wide mouthed object that looked like a gaping maw with mist coming out of its mouth. "So, ready for your first firefight?"